Dickey's - July 8

[krista]

It was a great day at Dickey's. Just the way I'd prefer to spend my Furlough day - FLYING!

Despite a significant amount of overdevelopment on the drive out on 66, about 10 miles from Front Royal there were blue skies. Save for a couple big clouds, which passed nicely. I launched first at 2pm and found pretty wide bands of lift (ridge and thermal), which I played with until Peter launched. We tried thermaling/soaring together but it didn't work out so well. There was pretty good lift, but the thermals were taking us both too far over the back. I had one that took me up to approximately 1125m, but pushed me well beyond the ridge. After a good bit of speed bar (with no great success), I realized that I was going to have to go over the back if I wanted to land in grass. Only regret is that I didn't push for it earlier, as I left around 1000m and found nothing in the valley until the very end. I'm not sure what was the trigger---a field, shed, trees, power line, or parking lot (I guess parking lot), but it was a rip-roaring, hold onto your harness thermal for the first couple hundred meters. It was a bit punchy (4 m/s), but NARROW and with quite a bit of drift. I left again, seeing that there were hardly any good landing options without another 1000m of altitude at least, which I wasn't getting.

So I headed north to the fields hoping for some thermals. Soared around a bit with a touch of luck, but not enough to push on further. I landed in a field on 522 and was passed up by 40+ cars despite my best efforts with my sign, neon green shirt and smile. Livetrack here:

http://www.livetrack24.com/track/249271/3d

Peter came to the rescue and was kind enough to take me back up to launch (with some car reshuffling). After a couple aborted attempts in the cross/light wind I was able to launch again in what were glass off-like conditions. Managed to stay up for about 40 minutes, but landed having hit some sink down by the knob to the left. Got to do little mini wingovers to kill altitude and nailed my spot landing, so I was pleased. Until I found out that Peter missed his meeting as a result of sticking around to coach me flying and retrieve me from the LZ. Several big thanks to Peter for helping me with the wing set up, retrieve, and road side coaching.

And, thanks to Yelp and a closed soul food restaurant (primary option), we found the Lucky Star Lounge on E Main Street in Front Royal. Good food and great beer selection. Highly recommended for post-Dickies and Woodstock refreshments.