After fighting a tooth ache all morning it finally subsided and I decided to catch whatever I could at Highland. I rented the Discuss 160 because my U2 sail was shipped to Wills for repairs. Launched around 3:15 and landed around 17:35 for a 2:20 minute flight. I dressed in only a Tee shirt to insure I would get high and it work! Got to 5500' and never got below 3000' for almost 2 hours.
Got in a thermal over Jim Rooney in the Tandem catching maybe 400 up. I thought I would leave Jim in the dust but as I kept watching him that sucker was staying right with me, I wasn't gaining much lead on him at all! I think he finally ditch it as he was drifting too far from home. Amazing guy!
It was a nice opportunity to get to know the Discuss and do some comparison with my U2. I really love my U2 but the untuned Discuss performed well and the sink rate and energy retention seemed better than my U2. Even though it felt trucky and hard to coordinate turns in thermal conditions, it didn't seem to wear me out. Bar pressure is lighter than the U2 on tow. It's a close call, I would really like to try the tuned version some time.
A good crowd was on hand, Ric Niehous I think did an XC somewhere and back, Christian got a couple 1.5 hour flights on his Millenium. Tad E. got maybe 3 hours. Bob Buchanan I think had a good two hour flight early on. Steve K., Steve V., Joe G., Darrel ?, Barb and Bruce had the Extaccy up., Arial, the 13 year old (female) new solo pilot,
many tandems, a few other I can't remember.
The whole time at Highland my tooth never bothered me, on the drive home it was killing me. Overall a magical fall day at Highland!
Highland Saturday
Moderator: CHGPA BOD
Highland Saturday
Paul Adamez
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batmanh3
Susie and I arrive at Ridgely around 10:15 after navigating a horrible car crash right at the 50/404 intersection. They had traffic stopped both directions so we diverted using farm roads to get back to 404. Susie took her 4th tandem while I was setting up and ended up with a thermaling flight in the tandem glider. With her current scheduled flights, weather permitting, she should be quickly advancing to soloing. I launched around noon for my first flight and climbed up to 3800 under a big fatty. Once I left that thermal, I decided to cut the first flight short and go attempt to land (key word attempt) the Talon with my new Viper harness. Lets just say that the gracefulness of flight was not experienced in the first landing. I got just under 45 minutes in the first flight and it really tired me out. Thermals were strong and bulletlike so it took a lot of control input to maintain lift and control. I waited until around 3:00 and decided to take a late afternoon sled for my second flight. Windsor dropped me in an awesome thermal and I beamed up at around 6-800 FPM topping out just under cloudbase at 4800. I needed about 300 more to get into the wispy's but it was as if someone turned off the up switch. I was boating around in zero sink, but I couldn't get any higher. I tried to head towards Joe G, but both of us were sinking like rocks so I headed out slowly and ended up with a less than stellar landing in the new harness. Ended up with another 45 minute flight for a total of 1.5 for the day. Great conditions although I sore as hell today. I guess thats the cost of getting old and the flying muscles being out of shape. Lot of people went high and soaring conditions were to found pretty easily, although if you missed the lift off tow there were equal amounts of nasty sink. Susie is scheduled to fly on Friday for her 5th lesson and continues to excel. Another Helicopter transitional pilot on the way to moving to the dark side!
Chris
Chris