Pulpit Sunday June 28th

[XCanytime]

Looks west so far. I plan on being there. Bacil

[markc]

Have my eyes on it too, hopefully the forecasts in a day or two will be encouraging!

[Dunegoon]

Looking good. Hoping for a late afternoon flight.

[XCanytime]

Update has 40% chance of scattered t-storms from noon til 2P. Looks good after 3P. I'm banking on a late PM flight. Bacil

[markc]

Most recent update has the POP back down to 30% . Fingers crossed for tomorrow's forecasts!

[XCanytime]

Walt is in. Anthony is in. Charley is in. Rich Bloomfield has graciously offerred to serve as wire crew. Rich Hiegel is a possible. I'm in. Bacil

[RichH]

I think Im going to bow out of going to the Pulpit today..Hope the guys going get a good window to fly.. Next time ..Rich Hiegel

[markc]

I still plan to head up and check things out. Maybe the weather gods will smile on us today!

[XCanytime]

Too tired to write up the flight. Tomorrow. Bacil
https://ayvri.com/scene/z15y60z0jx/ckbz ... 69tvxa2z02

[XCanytime]

In no hurry, arrived at the Pulpit just before noon, and found PGer Jim Crocker launching from the pad, w/ Krista's driver Kevin observing the flight ops. PGers George and Krista were airborne and soaring w/ ease. The sky had plenty of clouds, some w/ moderate vertical development, and others just run of the mill raggedy annes. Jim had a wonderful low save and was golden after that. So I set up leisurely in anticipation of the 2P scheduled arrivals of Walt, Charley, Anthony, and Rich. Conditions slowly started to increase, but not getting out of hand. Mark Cavanaugh arrived shortly thereafter, and set up in anticipation of some afternoon soaring. By 2P the crew started trickling in, and I gave it a go in moderate conditions from the new ramp. Had a good launch and got up easy. But the sky had changed from the promising look of before, where we had nice cumies right over launch. There was a dearth of clouds between Cowans Gap Lake and The Corner. The clouds at The Corner looked a little nasty, but the clouds to the north looked great. So, of course, I played it conservative, and went north to the radio towers, south to 2/3 of the way to The Corner, and trolled in between, finding broken lift that got me to at times 1K' over. Finally, after an hour and a half of frustrating flying, I found a good climb down by Rt. 16, getting to 5100'+ MSL. At this point OTB looked dead, but there was a cloud street upwind. So I decided to try to cross the valley and fly up to Meadow Grounds Mountain. Tagged the base of MGM, after losing down to 3200' MSL. Turned around and coasted downwind to the golf course. Had a gentle belly landing on the driving range, after just cresting a knoll. Didn't like the idea of flaring downhill. Entertained the golfers closing out their rounds on 18. Lugged the equipment to just shy of the main LZ, where Rich fetched me from my weary task, and I ended up driving Anthony's vehicle with my glider on top to launch. At launch Walt was breaking down, not wanting to fly late (7:30P), and Anthony prepping to go. Charley, Mark, and John Middleton were airborne and soaring. I drove down to the LZ to give Rich a ride back after he drove Anthony's vehicle back down. All 4 pilots had good landings and were all smiles in the waning sunlight of the Pulpit primary. A fitting ending to a pretty good flying day. Bacil

[wmelo]

Bacil’s take off
https://www.facebook.com/10000190567081 ... 417149474/?

Antony’s take off
https://www.facebook.com/10000190567081 ... 16663/?d=n

[markc]

A good day at the Pulpit... Though frustrating at times!

In retrospect, we probably should have arrived around 10:00 am or so. But with the forecast of early-AM shower chances, followed by PM TStorm chances, the idea was to arrive mid-afternoon, provided that the radar wasn't showing a bunch of cells upwind. I was completely on-board with that!

But I'm also impatient, so I showed up around noon. And contrary to the usual Pulpit pattern (ramping up by 11-ish), conditions were actually damn good between about noon and 2pm. Solid two hours. Not crazy in the slot. Good direction. What-The? Really???

After the rest of the pack arrived, Bacil launched at around 2:20. But after that point, well..... Conditions ramped-up big time, and the rest of us waited things out for about 4 hours. The Holfuy station reported gusts well into the 20-25 range. And unfortunately, the baseline winds that were being reported were 'optimistic' : Under-20 cycles were rare and short, the slot was a swirling mess, and the lulls were just too darn short.

I started seeing some cycles of 20-30 seconds by about 5pm. Then a ramp-up period.... Then lulls starting to show again. So I gave it a go at around 6:00. Not my best launch, right wing a bit high. Many thanks to John, Rich, and Charlie for helping me into the air.

Conditions on the ridge were notably cross-N. Thermals weren't great, so I eventually gave up and started following lift-lines into the valley at various places. Flew around the towers to the north of launch, buzzed the Mountain House, played around out front. Topped out at about 1,000 over, pretty nice day!

My landing was into almost dead-calm conditions and my approach should have been better. I knew what was coming... But that said, a thump onto the basetube, no damage. Not complaining, it's been 3 months + 3 weeks since my last flight.

We broke down and then headed back up top to enjoy a brew and a really nice sunset. Awesome!

MarkC