This was the last weekend of the Highland Challenge at Ridgely, MD......it has been a great experience and a big thanks to Charlie Allen for organizing this.....standby for a better write up of this event in a bit.
My plan was to leave work Saturday morning and head to Ridgely...car was already packed up and good to go. Unfortunately I found out at 0530 Saturday morning that I was being held over and wouldn't be getting off until 7pm that night now (one of the few ugly sides of the job). New plan was to get up early Sunday and head to Ridgely and at least get to fly the last day of the comp. Amy and I headed out early, only to run into stopped traffic on Rt 50, just before the Bay Bridge....all lanes shut down
The kind of stopped traffic where people are getting out of their cars and walking around. The kind that you have no idea when will open back up again......1 hour, two hours 4 hours..who knows. I was thinking, "you gotta be $%^^^& kidding me, I'm not going to make it out there today at any reasonable time." Finally traffic opened back up (three car accident about 3 miles ahead of us) and we were heading the right way again. I ended up having a very enjoyable flight drifting in lift to the SE, for a short XC flight. Unfortunately, the task for the day was to the north
....ohhhh well, fun is fun. thank you Amy for picking me up! Ended the day hanging out, having some cold ones and good conversation with the Highland crew and some other pilots. Good times!Amy and I decided to spend the night in Ridgely as Monday was shaping up to be a pretty good day. And it was. We arrived at the park and there were clouds already starting to pop in the distance. John Simon asked me if I was up for a triangle and I excitingly agreed. The route was going to be heading northeast to Goldsboro, then south to Denton and then back to Ridgely ( I think around 23 miles??).....not crazy long by many standards, but I have never flown a triangle before in my short XC career, so it was a pretty big task for me. The forecast was calling for pretty light winds out of the west- southwest with top of lift being around 5,000. The sky was looking amazing. We should have launched earlier. John launched first and got himself firmly established in some nice climbs. I came up right after him but was having trouble finding him (he was doing an great job of letting me know on the radio where he was, I just couldn't initially find him.) I quit focusing on flying and getting established and spent all my energy and focus on zig zagging every where trying to find him and then get to where he was.....didn't work out for me very well as I never got into any groove and was not focused on what I needed to be. Ended up landing back at the park for a re-light....a little discouraged to be honest.
My second tow was a generous one that I quickly wasted trying to get established again....."I was thinking "Are you F$#$$%% kidding me, here we go again!!! John was still patiently waiting for to get my crap together and get established so we could leave together......Huge thank you man!!! Team flying is something I just have to get better at.......even after doing the Team Challenges I still find it challenging. I gotta remember to not put the cart before the horse and I need to get established before I can worry about anything else.
So finally we were together in a nice climb and heading to cloud base. Once at cloud base (5500'-5600'msl) we started our trek north to Goldsboro. It was freaking sweet!! John was an awesome leader and kept me up to speed on the radio. We enjoyed some more nice climbs under some BEAUTIFUL clouds and had no trouble tagging Goldsboro. Then it was back south to Denton. This put us in a cross/headwind situation (winds seemed to be around 10mph and maybe a little lighter) We tanked up again early on under a nice cloud and then started a LONG glide south. I ended up getting to the south side of Greensboro with just under 3000'msl after leaving cloubase at 5500'msl. Found another climb there but the lift seemed lighter than it had before. Initially I was getting 400-600fpm and now I was in 100-200fpm with occasional 300fpm. After tanking up with this climb we headed south again towards our turnpoint at Denton. This was another long glide for me that got me to Denton around 2700msl. Just northeast of Denton there seemed to be some lift but we just couldn't initially find any solid cores. John finally did but I lost precious altitude searching for it. After talking with John about it later I should have been paying better attention to where he was above me and getting right underneath him. After getting down to about 2000'msl I was just on the outskirts of Denton and looking at an upwind glide across some intimidating terrain, including the river. I decided for worse or better to stay in the area and try to find some lift, rather than do the upwind glide across the unpleasant terrain. After losing the rest of my altitude looking for lift that just wasn't to be found, I ended up landing in a nice field just on the northeast outskirts of Denton. The land owner came out twice to check on me and see if i need anything....you couldn't ask for better. It was the end of a epic flight for me and I was super stoked!!! I would have loved to complete the triangle (John was able to complete the triangle.....way to go man!) but I couldn't seem to find anything to be disappointed about after having such a wonderful flight. Ended up flying 16 miles of the triangle, for an airtime of 1 hour 45 minutes. Just as I was getting done packing up, Amy showed up and a gave me a ride back to the aero-park for some celebratory cold ones!! Thank you Amy!.
I have to extend a Massive thank you to John Simon for offering to fly the triangle with me and being such a good leader along the way. He could have zipped through this triangle much quicker without me, and put on many more miles with out me..but instead he patiently waited for me and my Sport2 to catch up numerous times. It was an important flight for me and I am grateful for the experience and what I learned from it. Thank you man!!
Jon
