Highland Sat June 17

[markc]

Wow! What a rewarding day at Highland today! I flew to Milford and then turned south, for a land-in-the-sand flight, putting it down at the Cape May ferry dock at Lewes Beach. Sch-friggin-schweet!

Had a hunch that it would be good, but the deciding factor was that DaveP had found a driver (MarkG) for the day. So he and Tom McG and I gave it a shot.

Conditions were challenging. I didn't stick for my first flight, and needed a re-light. After perhaps the worst ever landing approach I've ever had : too focused on getting up, and started the approach way too low, and then didn't have the sense to change things up when it went to hell. No vehicles or gliders were hurt, but to quote Adam: That was interesting.

Sigh. When am I going to have a year when I don't F something up?

After that piss-poor landing, I figured that I better damn well do better on my second flight, and it seemed like I made some good decisions for a change. Lots of thermalling in zero after the Chop tank, lots of broken thermals, but persistence paid off. The highlight was cruising for miles down the beach prior to landing, and working lift over the water. Awesome, awesome day.

MarkG was there within minutes of my breakdown, and then once we were all on board we hit The Big Fish Grill in Rehobeth for an excellent dinner.

What a frickin' day! Nothing beats flying!

MarkC

[mingram]

Wow! Congrats! How far was your flight?

[mcgowantk]

It was a great day. As Mark said, he had a great flight and Dave made it past Georgetown De. I heard that at least of couple of pilots completed the task in the Highland Challenge to (90 ks). Mark and I flew together for the first 20 miles or so but I got low near the first turn point and got pushed too far downwind to finish the task. Instead, I decided to attempt the beach. I wend farther south than Mark, and then got down to 800 feet about 5 miles from the Indian River Inlet. As I was getting ready to land, I hit a small patch of lift and noticed birds flying toward me from every direction. interpreting that it a good sign, I decided to stay zipped up and keep turning. I ended up climbing to about 6000' (cloud base ) about a mile from the beach. I hit the beach at the Indian River Inlet and then flew north up the beach a couple of miles enjoying the view. I had a nice landing in a strong SE wind to finish the flight. In all, just a fun day.

Tom McGowan

[Dave Proctor]

Yes, it was an awesome day. Weak and broken lift but it did get better to the East. I towed up after Tom and we searched for something good NW of the airport, in vain. I just followed the lift line to the ESE and got down to around 1400 ft, where I found some weak broken stuff. Climbed to 1700 and elected to leave with that. Eventually got up over 3K but it took a long time. I finally hit a good climb, I think at Harrington and got to 5200. Went back upwind to tag the turnpoint. Headed south, landing about 5 miles south of Georgetown. Great day.

DaveP

[lbunner]

On Thursday Climbs to 6500' led me south from Whitewater deep into IL. Every cloud was working and soon I was over 200 miles south of Bloomington, IL at 7000'. Then my alarm went off and I woke up. Miss you guys:-)

[XCanytime]

The highlight was cruising for miles down the beach prior to landing, and working lift over the water. Awesome, awesome day.
MarkC

Any pics or video taken? If so, please post. Thanks, Bacil