Looking around this morning, it seemed wrong to go into work on such a nice day in August.? Instead, I went to Highland and had a great flight.??Cloudbase at 5200' nice clouds, lift?from 200 to?a best of 500 up on the 30 sec averager, and not much wind to speak of.? Lots of soybean devils to help spot thermals.? I had around 3 hours.? Steve Kinsley,?Paul A., Christy Huddle?were also out enjoying the day.
?
Tom McGowan?
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Thursday at Highland
Moderator: CHGPA BOD
For all the Highland XC folks I regret that I have to say you missed a day of epic proportions. Some of you with the better equipment and experience levels would, I believe, have been able to go anywhere you wanted on the pennisula. Myself, the only thing that brought me down was my own fatique.
I broke two personnal bests for distance and time. 3.5 hours and a dogleg of about 45 miles. I launched a little after 1:00 PM, got off tow at 2000' in 2-300' up, which took me to cloud base at 5000'.
I then spent alot of time sitting on the fence deciding whether or not to try an XC downwind to the SSW. After 30 minutes and having drifted near Rt. 404 I was too far away to make it back to Highland, so I went for it. I refueled in a nearby cloud just downwind then went on a long glide to a cloud hanging over some chicken houses near the confluence of the Tuckahoe and Choptank rivers. I lost 3000' getting to this cloud at 2000' but as soon as I hit those chicken house BOOM! I got a consistant 3-400' up back to around 5400'.
I was a bit West of the Choptank and realized if I didn't start making my way SE I would be boxed in by the Bay and Choptank near Cambridge. I also knew I had to stay clear of the MOA to the West of Hurlock. So I started a crosswind course to the SE heading for Hurlock hopping from cloud to cloud. It all became so routine, climb to 5000', fly to cloud, loose 2000' climb back to 5000' on and on. There was no drift to speak of so any distance was made by inter-cloud flying. All the clouds were working good so if you made it to a cloud you were good to go. The odd thing was that the even though the clouds looked flat as pancakes they had great lift under them, even the little wisps were working good.
I got to Hurlock and then set my sites on the town of Vienna 10 miles South where Rt. 50 crosses the Nanticoke river. I arrived at Vienna with 2000' in the tank. I didn't want to attempt to cross the river that low but I was able to make it to a nearby cloud which got me back to around 4700'. I crossed the river and was now 12 miles due West of Salisbury. The airport was in plain site as well as the congested city. Directly south was a sea of trees and most fields were in crop, and after 3.5 hours I was too exhausted to work out the logistics, so I decided to call it a day.
I flew upwind back to RT. 50 to make my retrieval easier. I picked this large recently plowed field. I boxed the field several times checking my GPS ground speed and track to gauge my proper landing direction which was to the NE. I was in light sink the whole time I circled this field. I came in on final at about 100' and then got blasted by this thermal which made me stuff the bar to get through it. When I leveled out in ground effect I was really travelling fast. I eased the bar out and the glider lifted up just a little which told me that my glider didn't have that much energy left and that I must be in a tail wind component because I was still moving fast. When the glider started to settle I push out with all I had. If I had been in a flat field I could have run the landing out but as soon as my foot hit the ground it sank in about 6 inches of soft dirt so I came to an abrupt stop and nosed in, my body going through the control bar into the soft mushy dirt. No damage or hurt done to me or glider, but damn I hate coming into thermally fields! Glad I chose that soft dirt one though!
Now, you won't believe this but Steve K. is my witness. I'll try to condense this considerably. As I walked the glider out of the field I had an attractive 40ish lady with a 9 year old girl waiting for me as I approached the edge of the field. She asked me all the standard question that people ask us and then offered for me to come back to her house for food and drinks while I waited for my ride. After I had broken down and hid the glider she came back to pick me up and drove me down to her house at the end of the field I had landed in. We walked to the back of the house where a calm lazy creek flowed by and a barbecue was in progress. We walked up onto the deck and she commenced to introduce me to two other attractive lady friends of hers! Their names were Shelly, Robin and Sherry.
Beers were offerred and conversation and jovality flowed. All these ladies were married and their husbands were out on the bay fishing. Thier job was to prepare the barbecue for when they returned. These girls were cats and I became thier catnip! During our bantering, I call it that, the barbecue became unsupervised and wound up destroying itself in a conflagration of flames. The ladies took it in stride and decided they would blame me for the distraction causing them to forget about the food on the grill.
I was really enjoying myself and all the attention untill my cell phone rang and it was my wife Barb. "Hi honey, what are you doing?", she said. I told her. She could hear all the women in the back ground laughing and cackling and was not a happy person. Well I learned sometimes honesty isn't always the best policy. But after several long minutes on the phone I had her to the point where I think I could safely come home.
Steve arrived and was introduced to my hosts, I'll say he had a most surprised look on his face, and even though he initially turned down their offer, he was quickly subdued and forced to consume a cold one!
The men folk arrived from thier fish outing and we all introduced ourselves. All very nice, personable, friendly and hospitable people.
Due to a miscommunication Steve brought my truck without racks so I had to leave my equipment there, which my hosts graciously offerred for me to do. I will be going back on Saturday to retrieve it, WITH BARBARA.
She will meet our newly found friends.
I broke two personnal bests for distance and time. 3.5 hours and a dogleg of about 45 miles. I launched a little after 1:00 PM, got off tow at 2000' in 2-300' up, which took me to cloud base at 5000'.
I then spent alot of time sitting on the fence deciding whether or not to try an XC downwind to the SSW. After 30 minutes and having drifted near Rt. 404 I was too far away to make it back to Highland, so I went for it. I refueled in a nearby cloud just downwind then went on a long glide to a cloud hanging over some chicken houses near the confluence of the Tuckahoe and Choptank rivers. I lost 3000' getting to this cloud at 2000' but as soon as I hit those chicken house BOOM! I got a consistant 3-400' up back to around 5400'.
I was a bit West of the Choptank and realized if I didn't start making my way SE I would be boxed in by the Bay and Choptank near Cambridge. I also knew I had to stay clear of the MOA to the West of Hurlock. So I started a crosswind course to the SE heading for Hurlock hopping from cloud to cloud. It all became so routine, climb to 5000', fly to cloud, loose 2000' climb back to 5000' on and on. There was no drift to speak of so any distance was made by inter-cloud flying. All the clouds were working good so if you made it to a cloud you were good to go. The odd thing was that the even though the clouds looked flat as pancakes they had great lift under them, even the little wisps were working good.
I got to Hurlock and then set my sites on the town of Vienna 10 miles South where Rt. 50 crosses the Nanticoke river. I arrived at Vienna with 2000' in the tank. I didn't want to attempt to cross the river that low but I was able to make it to a nearby cloud which got me back to around 4700'. I crossed the river and was now 12 miles due West of Salisbury. The airport was in plain site as well as the congested city. Directly south was a sea of trees and most fields were in crop, and after 3.5 hours I was too exhausted to work out the logistics, so I decided to call it a day.
I flew upwind back to RT. 50 to make my retrieval easier. I picked this large recently plowed field. I boxed the field several times checking my GPS ground speed and track to gauge my proper landing direction which was to the NE. I was in light sink the whole time I circled this field. I came in on final at about 100' and then got blasted by this thermal which made me stuff the bar to get through it. When I leveled out in ground effect I was really travelling fast. I eased the bar out and the glider lifted up just a little which told me that my glider didn't have that much energy left and that I must be in a tail wind component because I was still moving fast. When the glider started to settle I push out with all I had. If I had been in a flat field I could have run the landing out but as soon as my foot hit the ground it sank in about 6 inches of soft dirt so I came to an abrupt stop and nosed in, my body going through the control bar into the soft mushy dirt. No damage or hurt done to me or glider, but damn I hate coming into thermally fields! Glad I chose that soft dirt one though!
Now, you won't believe this but Steve K. is my witness. I'll try to condense this considerably. As I walked the glider out of the field I had an attractive 40ish lady with a 9 year old girl waiting for me as I approached the edge of the field. She asked me all the standard question that people ask us and then offered for me to come back to her house for food and drinks while I waited for my ride. After I had broken down and hid the glider she came back to pick me up and drove me down to her house at the end of the field I had landed in. We walked to the back of the house where a calm lazy creek flowed by and a barbecue was in progress. We walked up onto the deck and she commenced to introduce me to two other attractive lady friends of hers! Their names were Shelly, Robin and Sherry.
Beers were offerred and conversation and jovality flowed. All these ladies were married and their husbands were out on the bay fishing. Thier job was to prepare the barbecue for when they returned. These girls were cats and I became thier catnip! During our bantering, I call it that, the barbecue became unsupervised and wound up destroying itself in a conflagration of flames. The ladies took it in stride and decided they would blame me for the distraction causing them to forget about the food on the grill.
I was really enjoying myself and all the attention untill my cell phone rang and it was my wife Barb. "Hi honey, what are you doing?", she said. I told her. She could hear all the women in the back ground laughing and cackling and was not a happy person. Well I learned sometimes honesty isn't always the best policy. But after several long minutes on the phone I had her to the point where I think I could safely come home.
Steve arrived and was introduced to my hosts, I'll say he had a most surprised look on his face, and even though he initially turned down their offer, he was quickly subdued and forced to consume a cold one!
The men folk arrived from thier fish outing and we all introduced ourselves. All very nice, personable, friendly and hospitable people.
Due to a miscommunication Steve brought my truck without racks so I had to leave my equipment there, which my hosts graciously offerred for me to do. I will be going back on Saturday to retrieve it, WITH BARBARA.
She will meet our newly found friends.
Paul Adamez
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Paul Tjaden
- Posts: 398
- Joined: Tue Feb 08, 2005 10:28 pm
Thursday at Highland
Congratulations on your great flight and it's very special ending. I thought that Ric Niehaus was the only one who always seemed to know where to land.
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Almost hate to mention this but if you were flying and landed ten miles west of Salisbury, weren't you pretty much right in the middle of the?restricted air space that Patuxent River uses?
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Paul T.
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Almost hate to mention this but if you were flying and landed ten miles west of Salisbury, weren't you pretty much right in the middle of the?restricted air space that Patuxent River uses?
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Paul T.
"Almost hate to mention this but if you were flying and landed ten miles west of Salisbury, weren't you pretty much right in the middle of the restricted air space that Patuxent River uses? "
That is correct Paul, I'm surprised no one had picked up on this earlier and said something. My error was due to relying on my faulty memory, I wrongly believed, from my last look at the charts, that the tip of the airspace was on Hurlock and extending South instead of it actually being Federalsburg and extending SSE. No excuse though considering all that we just went through on this matter. I would be lying if I said I never ventured above 3500'. Given my equipment and experience level I am not sure of being able to pursue future flights into or past this region without fear of an airspace incursion of some sort. So I may have to be content on limiting any future flights to just North of this area. It's a tough area to navigate passed that's for sure. Lesson learned...
That is correct Paul, I'm surprised no one had picked up on this earlier and said something. My error was due to relying on my faulty memory, I wrongly believed, from my last look at the charts, that the tip of the airspace was on Hurlock and extending South instead of it actually being Federalsburg and extending SSE. No excuse though considering all that we just went through on this matter. I would be lying if I said I never ventured above 3500'. Given my equipment and experience level I am not sure of being able to pursue future flights into or past this region without fear of an airspace incursion of some sort. So I may have to be content on limiting any future flights to just North of this area. It's a tough area to navigate passed that's for sure. Lesson learned...
Paul Adamez
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Paul Tjaden
- Posts: 398
- Joined: Tue Feb 08, 2005 10:28 pm
Thursday at Highland
In a message dated 8/30/2005 8:15:21 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, padamez@comcast.net writes:
No reason to give up flying XC when the winds are northerly. Any NW wind will take you towards the beach and far from any restricted air space. Not sure what your instruments are but a simple mapping GPS like a Garmin E-map will keep you out of trouble. But you DO have to remember where the bad stuff is. Get yourself a current Sectional Chart and take a quick look before you fly on days that might be XCable.
?
Unfortunately, though, you're not going to be able to go visit your new lady friends again.
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Paul
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P.S. Remember, you also can call Patuxent tower and see if the restricted area is HOT that day. Most weekends it's not in use.
Given my equipment and experience level I am not sure of being able to pursue future flights into or past this region without fear of an airspace incursion of some sort. So I may have to be content on limiting any future flights to just North of this area. It's a tough area to navigate passed that's for sure. Lesson learned...Paul Adamez
No reason to give up flying XC when the winds are northerly. Any NW wind will take you towards the beach and far from any restricted air space. Not sure what your instruments are but a simple mapping GPS like a Garmin E-map will keep you out of trouble. But you DO have to remember where the bad stuff is. Get yourself a current Sectional Chart and take a quick look before you fly on days that might be XCable.
?
Unfortunately, though, you're not going to be able to go visit your new lady friends again.
?
Paul
?
P.S. Remember, you also can call Patuxent tower and see if the restricted area is HOT that day. Most weekends it's not in use.
Dawning my thick black glasses, calculator and pocket protector....
R-4006 isn't technically an MOA. If it were, you could legally plow right though it (though it wouldn't be advisable to do so).
It is however Restricted Airspace, and as we all know (and love), it's not legal to bust it (without permission). It is ok to land there though since it has a 3500ft floor to it.
Salisbury airspace as we know is Class D to 2500ft.
So if Paul started his final glide over Salisbury (or anywhere else outside the R-4006) and was under 3500ft when he crossed it, then he'd be perfectly ok.
Wether that happened or not... well, I'm not asking.
What I see is that it has provided an opportunity to discuss the propper way to fly there.
Removing glasses,
Jim
R-4006 isn't technically an MOA. If it were, you could legally plow right though it (though it wouldn't be advisable to do so).
It is however Restricted Airspace, and as we all know (and love), it's not legal to bust it (without permission). It is ok to land there though since it has a 3500ft floor to it.
Salisbury airspace as we know is Class D to 2500ft.
So if Paul started his final glide over Salisbury (or anywhere else outside the R-4006) and was under 3500ft when he crossed it, then he'd be perfectly ok.
Wether that happened or not... well, I'm not asking.
What I see is that it has provided an opportunity to discuss the propper way to fly there.
Removing glasses,
Jim
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Flying Lobster
- Posts: 1042
- Joined: Fri Feb 25, 2005 4:17 pm
