Pulpit Thursday Apr 25th

[sailin]

Thinking about the Pulpit tomorrow. Bacil is in....anybody else?

Jon

[POLISH EAGLE]

What time are you going to be there. I may come around 2:00PM. How about Friday? I have a day off from work and if conditions are good, would like to fly that day. Call me.

[sailin]

Hoping to get there around noon...leaving from work in the morning. Friday does look nice but unfortunately I have to be back at work.

Jon

[jyoder111]

How'd it go today?

Jesse

[sailin]

Turned out to be a pretty good day but tricky. When I got there at noon it was blowing mostly straight in at 8-12mph. All the clouds I had seen on the drive up were gone (dried up) and it was a blue sky. Bacil graciously showed up sans glider with the only intention of helping with launch and driving for people. Big Thanks man!!!! Jon MaCallister and Krzysztof were also in attendance. I was first off the mountain at about 1:45pm . There was no ridge lift and the cross was back and forth between the NNW and the SW. I struggled right off launch finding nothing on the ridge but disturbed turbulent air. I got about 100' below launch and moved out away from the ridge to find out what was happening out front. Found a nice thermal (seemed to be the only show in town at the time) and clung to it for dear life. Climbed out in it all the way to about 5360'msl. Considered going over the back at that point but I was thinking I may have a better shot over there later in the day after more heating occcured. I bobbled around a bit out front but couldn't seem to break the 5300+ msl mark again. Ending up deciding to head over the back at about 5000'msl. I found a near zero sink line on the way over. My plan was to head to the two prominent knobs over the back (Katatney and Broad/Parnell???) as I figured I would have better luck finding lift there. I hunted around for a while until I found something in betwen the two . Seemed like I was tracking into the box canyon and moved myself closer back to the edge of the valley/canyon. In retrospect i think this is where I screwed up a bit. I should have probably used all my available altitude to really hunt out the areas around these knobs and just settle for a landing right at the base if there was nothing found, instead of thinking I could find something downwind in the valley. With no clouds or visable birds it proved to be a daunting and ultimately futile task heading out into the valley. After finding a small climb by the knobs and getting back up a bit, I went on glide into the valley headed for Chambersburg. Turned into decking it pretty quickly in the town of St Thomas. I had a good landing in a farm field and was quickly met by a friendly and inquisative farmer in a pickup truck. Overall a very fun flight, on a beautiful blue day, in what seemed to be fairly tricky conditions. I think I learned some good lessons about not leaving terrain features unless there is some good indication that there maybe something out ahead. Big Thanks to Bacil for coming to get me!!! Thank you!!! It was great to see you Jon and Krzysztof.
We finished the day off with some good food at Tony's in Greencastle. Hope you guys have great flights today!
Jon