sat, 20 august - pg

[pink_albatross]

going out to fly - pulpit or daniel's, I don't know yet.
anyway, if any of you P2s want to come along, give me a call!

- ellis
p.s. almost 11:00 and I have been firmly stuck to the top of the fence. I'm in good company. Anybody care to tip me over one side or the other?

[mingram]

It was a hit or miss day at Daniels. SE and light most of the day, but some good cycles so it wasn't too hard to launch. Jono, Petr, Karan, and I all got 3 flights. Jim, Laszlo, Ellis took at least two. Jim had an awesome low save over the right tree line in the LZ that he took to cloud base and flew for about an hour. Ellis perfected her pre-thermal forward launch technique and it paid off. She waits for thermal activity to shake the trees at the very bottom of the slot and forward launches before the cycle arrives allowing her to make full use of the thermal to get up in the slot. Once up she was able to boat around for an hour which suckered us all back up to launch, but we don't have her skills and most got sledders. Getting up quickly is crucial on light days. Once you're below launch you pretty much just have to head out and hope to hit something. The house thermals were working and I was able to take a thermal back over launch, but not for long. It was just fun to get so many flights today.

Earlier in the day I met the PPG crowd in Warrenton. They launched at 7am and landed by 9am before it got "bumpy". I launched at 9am, flew 15k South to the ballooners, but they were all landing by the time I got to them so I flew back for a total of 30k and 1 hour. It was fun sharing the air with skydivers, balloons, and biplanes. I hope some of the PPGers got some close-ups of the balloons.

Matt