Jacks Sunday 3/10

[XCanytime]

Heading to Jacks tomorrow with Charley Fager. South at 10 MPH in the PM hours and low 50's. Should be good. Bacil

[Danny Brotto]

Is the LZ now open?

Danny Brotto

[markc]

I'd be up for that if the LZ is definitely available... Or an alternate.

MarkC

[XCanytime]

LZ should be fine. No crops.

[Danny Brotto]

Thought the farmer asked for suspension of landing in his field due to some incident last year. Has that been resolved?

Danny Brotto

[markc]

This topic implies that the LZ issue might not be a problem at this time of year:
http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5439

[XCanytime]

We can land again in the main field but DO NOT BREAK DOWN IN CROPS. Bacil

[markc]

I'll be checking things out tomorrow morning, trying to decide between Daniels and Jack's. Will probably go where the prospects for sun are best. At the moment the forecasts seem conflicting, so I guess we'll see...

[Dunegoon]

Headed to Jacks, ETA 12:30

Charley F.

[XCanytime]

Mark,
29 inches of snow fell in Elkton, right behind Daniels. You think that you can get up the mountain in over a foot of snow? Little to no snow at Jacks, according to Shawn MacDuff. Bacil

[markc]

Tracked down some snow coverage maps, and it looks like around 4 inches still on the ground in the areas near Charlottesville. So yeah, could be two or three times that on the mtn I imagine. Big blob of clouds in central PA, though supposed to become partly cloudy.... Weighing the drive, hmmm....

MarkC

[markc]

The clouds seem to be moving at a good clip, with some breaks to the west, so I think I'll start heading Jacks way....

[Dunegoon]

At Jacks now. Straight in and 10-14. Sunny and very high clouds. Might be big air!

[XCanytime]

Got to Jacks just before 1P to soarable air and Charley, Mark Dunn, Steve Krichten, and Spoons setting up. Mark Cavanaugh arrived maybe 15 minutes later. I led the charge at 2:30P into very cross and turbulent air from the SSW. Ended up running the ridge fast up to near the 322 Gap before having to make a command decision. It was either land out front or get high enough to jump over the back. No heading back to launch since the headwind was too strong going back SW. I couldn't get above 700' over so I went for a field out front that was closest to the mountain, using the SSW cross to my advantage by committing the glide out way upwind of the target field. Made the field(s) with plenty of altitude. Ended up having a nice landing to the SSW on the property of Todd Vogt, who greeted me by driving his truck out into the cornfield alongside me as I carried out towards Ferguson Valley Road. Todd is a corporate pilot, flying a Hawker Siddeley jet, and has a Cessna 340 to fly in his spare time. He left the gate open for Charley to retrieve me off of Ellen Chapel Road. Thanks a bunch again Charley! Back at the LZ Spoons had landed after climbing to 2K' over a few times. Mark C. landed while we were there, getting to 1.9K' over. Steve and Mark D. were soaring at 500' to 1K' over. Back at launch Joe and Karen Gorrie had decided to bag it. Charley ended up doing the same. It was still strong, gusty, and cross at 6P. Bacil

[markc]

Flying at Jacks was pretty good today! Not knowing if/whether there would be lots of snow at Daniels, and given the light winds that were forecast, I gambled on LOONNG drive.... And it paid off! Conditions were strong and fairly cross from the S/SW, at times. I happened to luck into a nice launch cycle, after watching one of Spoon's test balloons go up with only a 45-cross track. Very cool idea!

Conditions were strong and cross, with some wicked strong thermals ripping through. Managed to break my GoPro mount (up near the CF apex) in the monster that took me to 1900' over.

Huge numbers of redtails, black vultures, and grey vultures, very cool to see so many in the air. I only wandered a few miles either side of launch, but there was company all along the ridge.

Many thanks to Joe and Karen and Mark for he launch assist. Flying there today reminded me just how awesome Jacks really is..... Front side and leeside thermals, and LZs on both sides of the ridge, you can elongate and follow thermals with a much wider envelope than so many sites!

Tired and sore after about 2 hours in the air, but it was worth it!

MarkC