Thursday, 7/22

Post by **hang_pilot** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 11:15 pm

Looks decent. I'm thinking Highland at this point, but would happily go to the mountains with company. Anyone else interested? ~Daniel

Post by **hang_pilot** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 9:16 am

Post by **XCanytime** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 10:46 am

Daniel,
WNW tomorrow and hot. Pulpit again? Bacil

stevek · Post by **stevek** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 4:28 pm

I'm thinking Ridgely but will look at it again in the am

Post by **XCanytime** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 5:26 pm

Daniel and I are going to the Pulpit. ETA 11A. Bacil

Post by **XCanytime** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 8:41 am

It was a great day at the Pulpit. Daniel got there just before I did, just after 11A. It was already soarable and the sky was thermonuclear. We set up to increasing conditions, and by the time we were ready to go it was strong and too gusty. We waited till after 1P and it settled down enough for me to assist Daniel in having a good launch. I self launched with ease as the conditions remained moderate. Daniel climbed out immediately to cloudbase, and I climbed up north of launch (just like last Sunday) to 4400' MSL, but didn't go over the back with the first thermal. There was a cirrus bank moving in and threatening to shut down the high lift. I lost down to 3400' MSL and vowed to take the next ticket OTB and try to outrun the cirrus. As luck would have it I found great lift again to the north by the houses and climbed to 5K' MSL and dove downwind towards nice looking clouds. Lingered over the fish ponds at Ft. Loudon, losing down to 3500' MSL and finding disorganized shots of lift that didn't last long. The clouds dried up as the cirrus overtook me. I found some lift by Rt. 416 and gained 400' to 2300' MSL before it quit. Saw the town of Williamson in the distance and glided towards it. Found some more weak lift that put me back to 1800' MSL (around 1100' AGL). Searching for fields now and noticing very hilly terrain all around. Spotted a nice field below and recognized it from one of Dan Tuckwiller's videos. It was the same field by Quarry Road that he landed in a month ago. It was honking on the ground so I just dove into the field and got turned to the right by some chop. Corrected and came down to round out, and got hit by some lift that popped me up 20'. Pulled in, descended to about 10', and flared hard enough to parachute nicely onto my feet. Parked the glider and broke down. Daniel was still soaring back at launch. A nice fellow that just happened to be driving by while I was hiding my basetube and harness in the cornfield ended up giving me a ride all the way back to launch. Funny thing is that he thought my basetube was a weedwhacker

. I showed Bob Brindle the ramps and pad we take off from, and we spotted Daniel about 700' over soaring above the launch. Bob was awestruck. Daniel went out to land after almost 3 hours of soaring as I fetched my stuff and parked at the bar. Drove down Daniel's car to fetch him and we had some good chow at the biker bar topped off with nice cold Rolling Rocks. Pics to follow.

Bacil