Multiple events conspired starting the night before (with a 120 gallons of water spewing into the basement as a result of my RO filter). Good sign that I would have missed another good day, so I persevered.
As the kids would say, I"t was 'sTooPid'".
Looked pretty nice when I finally made it to the launch area with the glider. Middleton was skied out, so I should have a decent shot at staying up at least. Right up to base and now I'm leaving the cloud to stay VFR. High cirrus moved in, and it inexplicably stayed good. Then the sun came back, and it fell apart. Clearly, I don't understand how this is supposed to work.
A low save from 1000ft over the parking lot lead to an extended and tiresome grovel below 2k, but I was staying up at least. It (ever so slowly) comes together and I'm back in the happy zone above 3500, where it really turns on. I had decided to try and stay up for at least 2hrs, which turned into 2.5, then 3. And now, gee, I'm getting tired and little bored but it looks like a 5 O'Clock soaring club kinda day.
It was.
5k at 5pm, and now every cloud in the sky is working. I start cruising around with my arms draped over the bar so I can raise my arms when the time comes to land the bloody thing. It's going up pretty much everywhere you would think it should, and most places you wouldn't. Had to find sink - something I normally excel at - and mind you, it wasn't all that hard, but I did have to seek it out and make an effort to stay in it - at 5:30 pm! These were puffy cumies all basing at the same level. Didn't look like convergence, but what do I know.
On the ground the winds are light and 180 degrees off from the from the forecast and I spend a lot of time during the amazingly slow descent (vario still beeping occasionally if I'm not careful to avoid the lift, even down at pattern altitude) so I land out in the middle of the tower field next to a streamer in the wind decides to pull a fast one at the last second. Even pulled off a descent landing.
Had to wait two days before I could raise my arms to type. Considering an upgrade to something with power steering.
Ridgely Friday
Moderator: CHGPA BOD
Re: Ridgely Friday
P.S. Not sure what happened to John. Last I saw him in the air he was leaving base heading for a particularly nice line of cumies to the west. The clouds looked like they were still producing at 7:00. He might have flown all the way back home to VA.
Joe G.
Joe G.
Joe G.