Ok, I'm kicking this off cuz I wana hear the story.
Larry, Rick and others made a go for Ridgely to Campbell field, coming up just 9ish miles short.
What I've heard so far is Rick did 87 miles and Larry flew 95 miles.
The keg will have to wait.
(oh, if we do the flight first, Campbell buys us a keg... if they get here from there first, we buy them a keg)
It was a "struggle to get out away from the airport day" from what I've heard as well, but then got better?
Conditions all week looked good with the winds out of the NNE. I talked with Dave Proctor who had off starting Friday and we thought it would be good enough to take a shot at John Simon's record and the kegger bet for the first one to fly to Campbell Airfield down on the southern part of the peninsula in Weirwood, Va. We considered going to the Sac however cloudbase wasn't going to be high enough for us to get out of the mountains. Friday morning showed that the Delmarva was going to be shaded out for the day so we called this day off. I checked the weather early on Saturday and the conditions looked much better with plenty of sunshine, NNE winds at 10 mph, climb rates at 400 fpm and cloudbase over 5000'. I called Dave and said I'd meet him out there at 10:30. The holiday rush tangled me up at the bridge and I didn't get there until 11:00. Dave and Ward Odenwald were setting up so I joined them. Soon Ric Niehaus, Steve Kinsley, Carlos Weil, Joel Gregor and Tom McGowan were there as well. Dave, Ric and I connected and planned to fly south as a team to Campbell. There were no clouds in the sky yet but by the time we finished setting up, entered waypoints and adjusted radios I could see the first cu's off to the south and west. Game on! I towed first just before 1:00 and began an agonizingly slow climb that Dave and then Ric joined me in. Finally 40 minutes after launch we topped out over 4000' and headed south to Denton where a few wispies were forming. They got us back up around 4000' and we headed SSW on a 5 mile glide toward a nice looking cu over Harmony. We were down to 1000' and scrambling, Ric eventually headed further south and connected with a good climb under the cloud, unfortunately his radio wasn't working and before I spotted him Dave chose to fly back north to work a tree line to no avail and landed. I was groveling between them when I finally saw Ric and headed to him. By the time I connected with the thermal, he was 1000' above me so the team flying plan went to pot. After this low save, I decided to put the brakes on and fly conservatively. It just didn't feel like a race day to me. In contrast Ric took a different tactic and put the hammer down (a little bit) reasoning that we would run out of daylight if we didn't fly faster and perhaps run out of lift on the skinny sliver of peninsula running to the SW from Pocomoke City. The peninsula necks down to about 10 miles across just south of there and any appreciable wind from the bay or ocean might kill the lift. But hey I'm getting ahead of myself here. The clouds were filling in the sky nicely with good spacing and each of them seemed to be working so it was relatively easy to connect the dots going from cloud to cloud. After the next climb I noted that I was east of course line and went on glide to the SW to stay on track (or so I thought). I knew the straight line track from Ridgely to Weirwood would take me over the Chesapeake but thought there was plenty of ground ahead to get around that portion of the bay. Several climbs later I hit 450 fpm over Hurlock and rode it to cloudbase at 5300' (my high for the flight). Dave meanwhile was picked up by Steve K and volunteered to chase us. Woohooo, one distraction removed! The climbs were mostly in the 200-300 fpm range and I was consistently getting to 4500' each climb. The lift would die off before I could get to cloudbase but would take me high enough to get to the next good looking cloud. West of Princess Anne I hit another strong climb at 450 fpm and topped out over 5000' before losing it. Cloudbase appeared much higher at this point but I just couldn't seem to get there. It was now 3:30 and I was 50+ miles out, half way there. One more climb to the SSE of Princess Anne took me to 4000'. I could see I was on track to make it around the tip of the Pocomoke Bay however a closer cloud just to the south of me lured me in that direction. This was almost fatal as the cloud dried up and I found myself down under 2000'. I spotted a grass strip that was landable with light winds out of the NE and used that as a reference point while I searched for lift. There wasn't much landable terrain as the dry fields were in corn and the rest were swamp. I had pinched myself by going south and now any thermal was going to take me over no man's land and the Pocomoke Bay. I was down to 1700' before I hit some broken stuff (at this point Ric was probably 5 or so miles to the east of me). I flew a zig zag pattern (not on purpose) feeling that a thermal was in the vicinity when I spotted a cloud forming overhead. I finally connected with lift all the way around and focused on staying with it. Forty minutes later I was right at the edge of the bay at 4900'. I now had a decision to make, should I fly directly crosswind and stay over landable terrain or cut the corner and go SE over the bay. I scanned ahead and saw a field that was landable on the north side of the bay and another on the SE edge. It looked like about 2 miles across so I headed out over the water. On the far side I hit the smoothest 200 fpm thermal; the glider was locked in and there was no turbulence (I was in the convergence but didn't realize it). This took me right over the skinny part of the peninsula and back on track. I left at 4300' for a good looking cloud to the SE and topped out under it at 4600'. I could now see good looking clouds running down the peninsula to the SSW. My gut was telling me that there was better lift on the NW edge of the bay however my mind was telling me to stay more toward the middle ground. In hindsight, I was now on the SE edge of the convergence. Ric had passed through the same area over 30 minutes earlier and flew from 5700' to the convergence line of clouds which were on the SE edge. He ended up never hitting any lift and landed at around 90 miles. I spotted a couple fires on course and headed for them. When I got to the first fire, the smoke was laying over from the east and although I could smell the smoke there was no lift. I continued on and slowly sank out to 1000' before I hit a good thermal over the second fire. People were using a propane torch to burn off the crops working there way up and down the rows. It was like I was in a hot air balloon, I could feel the heat rising and climbed out at 500 fpm to almost 4000' where I lost it and instead of going back to find the lift I got impatient and headed to another cloud downwind. Foolishly I left the strongest thermal of the day and went on glide. Ric later said that cloudbase was well over 5700' at this point. The clouds dried up and I was now on final glide. I ended up landing southwest of Painter, Va. What an exciting flight. To see both bodies of water for such a long distance was a totally new experience. Ric and I both new that the convergence was the ticket for us and we learned how not to fly in it. If Ric had connected up he surely would have set the new site record as the clouds went the entire length of the peninsula. I ended up with 97.8 miles (straight line, 101 miles dog leg) and 4:47 in the air. I have a couple files that you may find interesting (igc for SeeYou and kml for Google Earth) but can't seem to attach them (Mark C can you help).
Ciao
Wow,
Awesome flights! I am jealous. Hitting that convergence down on the skinny part with water on both sides? Cool. I got to the airport much too late to join you guys. Maybe next time. Congrats again Ric and Larry.
