Dr. Jacks soaring forecast didn't look all that great and high clouds threatened to shut it all down but a few of us got lucky yesterday and had nice flights from Ridgey.
Larry and Brenda Huffman were down from Pittsburg staying with Ric and Karen Niehaus so Ric and Larry came to play. Christie Huddle was camping out and after some waffling, Dave Proctor decided to grace us with his presence. Lauren is still a little sore from her rough landing a couple weeks back so she was unable to fly.
So we all sat around till about 1:30 not particularly excited about launching. Winds were on the strong side but safe enough coming pretty much down the runway but the sky was blue and the birds were NOT getting high. We finally decided to give it a try when a few scraggly cumulous clouds started to form. Dave launched first and drifted slowly away from the field thinking it would be a one thermal and deck it flight. He had a new helmet without a radio harness so was incommunicado. Larry went next and decided to try to catch up with Dave.
Ric went next and I followed last. Not sure when Christie launched or what kind of luck she had.
I found light, broken lift about a mile south of the field and started to drift downwind but Ric was in trouble and headed back for a re-light. On the way there, though, he found good lift at about 600 feet and started back up. Not anxious to tackle the mostly blue sky without help I flew back upwind to Ric and joined him. By this time Larry was getting low and things were not looking good for our day. Of course we had no way of knowing that Dave was scoring good lift and was happily on his way to the beach. Ric and I dribbled along in less than brilliant conditions for about 15 miles but never got really low. I felt like Mr. Pimp for a while as Ric scored the first two thermals but then I went out in the lead and found a boomer for us when Ric was in need. Larry had not found salvation and was now on the ground, unfortunately continuing his run of bad luck by not getting to the beach.
The clouds were better and lift stronger as we got closer to the Atlantic. On our last climb before going on glide to Cape Henlopen, I topped out at 5700 agl and we reached the shore with about 4000 feet of altitude. The winds were still out of the NW, even on the ground, and thermals were still kicking through even off the coast. Dave later said (and I agreed) that it was weird climbing up as we drifted out over the ocean. Very beautiful but also kind of frightening like you were going to be blown out to sea never to be seen again. We could have probably continued on down the beach as far as we wanted but Ric's wife, Karen, needed to stop at a local hotel in Lewes to retrieve something she had left there a week or two back so we liesurely cruised around and bled off our altitude before landing about a half mile south of the mouth of the Delaware Bay. This, by the way, worked really well because we were able to drive Ric's car right on to the beach and retrieve our gliders with no carry out.
Just before I landed, Dave radioed to tell me he had landed just south of us and we were able to pick him up later after spending some time playing in the surf with Ric and Karen and their four year old, Jaben. I had been confident enough to even bring a swimming suit in my harness so I didn't have to swim in my "fruit of the looms".
After finding Dave north of Rehobeth Beach, we had a great dinner at the Crab Shack on Rt. 1 and finally got back to Ridgely around 11:30.
Many thanks to Karen for chasing after us and bringing us home.
Paul T.
Monday Fun at Highland
Moderator: CHGPA BOD
Monday Fun at Highland
Paul,?
?
Daniel and I have been talking about the reg 9 community getting more jazzed about XC.? You guys are doing a great job putting together group XC efforts like this one.? How about submitting flights to the Online Contest??? The Euro pilots eat this stuff up since it is logistically difficult for them to fly together.? On a given weekend there are pilots flying from dozens of different sites in nearby and overlapping regions of the alps and submitting their flights.? On Monday all of the water cooler talk is about the weekends scores.? It is really cool and I have to admit I have caught the bug and the medications don’t seem to be helping.
?
If anyone is interested (I hope) Davis has some helpful tutorials on his site and I can help out as well.
?
Flytec is sponsoring the US scoring this year with a cash award to the best Flex and Rigid.? 500$ and 250% I think.
?
Kev C
From: Paul Tjaden [mailto:tjadenhors@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 6:20 PM
To: hg_forum@chgpa.org
Subject: Monday Fun at Highland
?
Dr. Jacks soaring forecast didn't look all that great and high clouds threatened to shut it all down but a few of us got lucky yesterday and had nice flights from Ridgey.
Larry and Brenda Huffman were down from Pittsburg staying with Ric and Karen Niehaus so Ric and Larry came to play. Christie Huddle was camping out and after some waffling, Dave Proctor decided to grace us with his presence. Lauren is still a little sore from her rough landing a couple weeks back so she was unable to fly.
So we all sat around till about 1:30 not particularly excited about launching. Winds were on the strong side but safe enough coming pretty much down the runway but the sky was blue and the birds were NOT getting high. We finally decided to give it a try when a few scraggly cumulous clouds started to form. Dave launched first and drifted slowly away from the field thinking it would be a one thermal and deck it flight. He had a new helmet without a radio harness so was incommunicado. Larry went next and decided to try to catch up with Dave.
Ric went next and I followed last. Not sure when Christie launched or what kind of luck she had.
I found light, broken lift about a mile south of the field and started to drift downwind but Ric was in trouble and headed back for a re-light. On the way there, though, he found good lift at about 600 feet and started back up. Not anxious to tackle the mostly blue sky without help I flew back upwind to Ric and joined him. By this time Larry was getting low and things were not looking good for our day. Of course we had no way of knowing that Dave was scoring good lift and was happily on his way to the beach. Ric and I dribbled along in less than brilliant conditions for about 15 miles but never got really low. I felt like Mr. Pimp for a while as Ric scored the first two thermals but then I went out in the lead and found a boomer for us when Ric was in need. Larry had not found salvation and was now on the ground, unfortunately continuing his run of bad luck by not getting to the beach.
The clouds were better and lift stronger as we got closer to the Atlantic. On our last climb before going on glide to Cape Henlopen, I topped out at 5700 agl and we reached the shore with about 4000 feet of altitude. The winds were still out of the NW, even on the ground, and thermals were still kicking through even off the coast. Dave later said (and I agreed) that it was weird climbing up as we drifted out over the ocean. Very beautiful but also kind of frightening like you were going to be blown out to sea never to be seen again. We could have probably continued on down the beach as far as we wanted but Ric's wife, Karen, needed to stop at a local hotel in Lewes to retrieve something she had left there a week or two back so we liesurely cruised around and bled off our altitude before landing about a half mile south of the mouth of the Delaware Bay. This, by the way, worked really well because we were able to drive Ric's car right on to the beach and retrieve our gliders with no carry out.
Just before I landed, Dave radioed to tell me he had landed just south of us and we were able to pick him up later after spending some time playing in the surf with Ric and Karen and their four year old, Jaben. I had been confident enough to even bring a swimming suit in my harness so I didn't have to swim in my "fruit of the looms".
After finding Dave north of Rehobeth Beach, we had a great dinner at the Crab Shack on Rt. 1 and finally got back to Ridgely around 11:30.
Many thanks to Karen for chasing after us and bringing us home.
Paul T.
?
Daniel and I have been talking about the reg 9 community getting more jazzed about XC.? You guys are doing a great job putting together group XC efforts like this one.? How about submitting flights to the Online Contest??? The Euro pilots eat this stuff up since it is logistically difficult for them to fly together.? On a given weekend there are pilots flying from dozens of different sites in nearby and overlapping regions of the alps and submitting their flights.? On Monday all of the water cooler talk is about the weekends scores.? It is really cool and I have to admit I have caught the bug and the medications don’t seem to be helping.
?
If anyone is interested (I hope) Davis has some helpful tutorials on his site and I can help out as well.
?
Flytec is sponsoring the US scoring this year with a cash award to the best Flex and Rigid.? 500$ and 250% I think.
?
Kev C
From: Paul Tjaden [mailto:tjadenhors@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 6:20 PM
To: hg_forum@chgpa.org
Subject: Monday Fun at Highland
?
Dr. Jacks soaring forecast didn't look all that great and high clouds threatened to shut it all down but a few of us got lucky yesterday and had nice flights from Ridgey.
Larry and Brenda Huffman were down from Pittsburg staying with Ric and Karen Niehaus so Ric and Larry came to play. Christie Huddle was camping out and after some waffling, Dave Proctor decided to grace us with his presence. Lauren is still a little sore from her rough landing a couple weeks back so she was unable to fly.
So we all sat around till about 1:30 not particularly excited about launching. Winds were on the strong side but safe enough coming pretty much down the runway but the sky was blue and the birds were NOT getting high. We finally decided to give it a try when a few scraggly cumulous clouds started to form. Dave launched first and drifted slowly away from the field thinking it would be a one thermal and deck it flight. He had a new helmet without a radio harness so was incommunicado. Larry went next and decided to try to catch up with Dave.
Ric went next and I followed last. Not sure when Christie launched or what kind of luck she had.
I found light, broken lift about a mile south of the field and started to drift downwind but Ric was in trouble and headed back for a re-light. On the way there, though, he found good lift at about 600 feet and started back up. Not anxious to tackle the mostly blue sky without help I flew back upwind to Ric and joined him. By this time Larry was getting low and things were not looking good for our day. Of course we had no way of knowing that Dave was scoring good lift and was happily on his way to the beach. Ric and I dribbled along in less than brilliant conditions for about 15 miles but never got really low. I felt like Mr. Pimp for a while as Ric scored the first two thermals but then I went out in the lead and found a boomer for us when Ric was in need. Larry had not found salvation and was now on the ground, unfortunately continuing his run of bad luck by not getting to the beach.
The clouds were better and lift stronger as we got closer to the Atlantic. On our last climb before going on glide to Cape Henlopen, I topped out at 5700 agl and we reached the shore with about 4000 feet of altitude. The winds were still out of the NW, even on the ground, and thermals were still kicking through even off the coast. Dave later said (and I agreed) that it was weird climbing up as we drifted out over the ocean. Very beautiful but also kind of frightening like you were going to be blown out to sea never to be seen again. We could have probably continued on down the beach as far as we wanted but Ric's wife, Karen, needed to stop at a local hotel in Lewes to retrieve something she had left there a week or two back so we liesurely cruised around and bled off our altitude before landing about a half mile south of the mouth of the Delaware Bay. This, by the way, worked really well because we were able to drive Ric's car right on to the beach and retrieve our gliders with no carry out.
Just before I landed, Dave radioed to tell me he had landed just south of us and we were able to pick him up later after spending some time playing in the surf with Ric and Karen and their four year old, Jaben. I had been confident enough to even bring a swimming suit in my harness so I didn't have to swim in my "fruit of the looms".
After finding Dave north of Rehobeth Beach, we had a great dinner at the Crab Shack on Rt. 1 and finally got back to Ridgely around 11:30.
Many thanks to Karen for chasing after us and bringing us home.
Paul T.
-
Paul Tjaden
- Posts: 398
- Joined: Tue Feb 08, 2005 10:28 pm
On line contest
Great idea , Kevin.
FYI, I am registered in the OLC and have really enjoyed seeing the results of my flights compared to my peers, both here in the US and world wide (Man, those Europeans are tough). I should also admit that I am guilty of not posting flights that are going to score lower than my top six flights which are used to calculate my world wide placing.
I was doing really well here in the States and was even leading in the Flytec Challenge but recent flights by Davis and a couple of other guys have put me out of contention. Guess I'll have to dig in and try harder.
The rest of you guys should heed Kevin's advice and get involved.
Paul
FYI, I am registered in the OLC and have really enjoyed seeing the results of my flights compared to my peers, both here in the US and world wide (Man, those Europeans are tough). I should also admit that I am guilty of not posting flights that are going to score lower than my top six flights which are used to calculate my world wide placing.
I was doing really well here in the States and was even leading in the Flytec Challenge but recent flights by Davis and a couple of other guys have put me out of contention. Guess I'll have to dig in and try harder.
The rest of you guys should heed Kevin's advice and get involved.
Paul