Highland 8-12-06

[lbunner]

Highland Aerosports 8/12/06

When you can’t fly, the second best activity is to read about others flying exploits. While all my friends were down in Big Spring I was here in Pa living vicariously through the Oz Report, and a number of blogs (“Skyout” and “Life, Work and Hang Gliding” being two of my favorites). It is somewhat painful to only hear about the flying though.
The weekend of August 12th was looking favorable for the eastern shore. A weak cold front had moved through to remove the moisture from the air on Friday and the forecast looked good for both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday morning weather reports showed a low in the mid 50’s (good sign) and a high in the mid 80’s in the afternoon. After a quick scan of the blipmaps, I threw the VR on the roof (gently), kissed my wife goodbye and headed down the road toward Highland Aerosports on the Delmarva peninsula east of the Chesapeake Bay. My experience at this site is limited however the couple of times I have flown there were very good. The area reminds me of Illinois and Wisconsin, flat and wide open with few obstacles in the way short of the Atlantic and the Chesapeake. Dr. Jack was forecasting light northerly winds and 6000’ top of lift with few clouds. I sensed we would have lightly scattered clouds and possible convergence along the shore. The drive is quite long (2 ½ hours) so I had plenty of time to visualize the task for the day. The 98 mile triangle flown in Big Spring earlier in the week motivated me to try for a long one here. The conditions appeared right, the only detriments were that I didn’t have any waypoints downloaded in my 5030 and my knowledge of the roads and towns is limited and oh yeah I didn’t have a driver; just a few minor distractions.
Pulling into the airport around 1130, a few cu’s were popping off in the distance toward the east coast. Several gliders were set up and the tandem operation was in full swing with a group of girls getting first rides. They really enjoyed the flights as their yahooing could be heard from 1000’ below. Bruce drove by and questioned where I was headed today, someone else asked if I was going for a 100 mile triangle. I mentioned to Sonny that it looked like convergence to the east, he stated that there weren’t any lines visible from the air just a few cu’s. It looked like the eastern part of the state would be good. I linked up with Dave Proctor as I set up and we agreed to head north to perhaps do an out and return.
I launched around 1230 and slowly climbed out west of the runway. While looking for some better lift, a pilot on a Falcon climbed right through me. I sure made his day! Eventually I found the core and rode it on up to cloud base at around 5000’. Dave got off tow in a good thermal and soon we were headed upwind to the north. The climbs were between 400 and 600 fpm to about 5200’. We stayed together for the first 4 thermals and then got separated at about the 10 mile mark when I pushed on through some lesser climbs looking for the good stuff. Ric (Niehaus?) radioed from the Massey airport stating that he was flying a Tempest (mini sailplane?). I never saw or heard from him again. Bubbling along above 3000’, I spotted a hawk climbing fast and soon cored 800 fpm back over 5000’. This was the strongest climb of the day. Dave decided to turn around at ~13 mile mark as the clouds were thinning out. I was 17 miles out and ready to do the same however a good line of clouds appeared to the NNE and I still had a vision of scooting to the east to get to the convergence line. Twenty eight miles out just south of Middletown, the cloud line stopped so I turned back to retrace my steps. To this point, the going was easy connecting one cloud to the next. Out over the Blackbird State Forest another cloud was forming that started a line toward the SSE for many miles. At 2700’ I hit a solid climb and topped out at 5300’. This put me within reach of the line and for the next hour I spent most of the time cruising at 5500’ heading down a good street. Thirty miles later I went on a long glide from just south of Dover down Highway 13 to Harrington failing to hit any decent lift under good looking clouds. My pace slowed considerably as I had to take a slow climb from down low. Finally I decided it was getting late and I needed to head back. I really didn’t want to land out and figured the conditions were deteriorating so I left Greenwood (along highway 13) and worked a line of dissipating clouds toward Highland. I got stuck for a period of time and had to dig out again and eventually hit a smooth 500 fpm baby’s butt smooth column of hot air that took me to 6100’(highest all day). I left one last climb in duplicate conditions and glided over the airport with plenty of altitude. It took over 30 minutes to get down as the whole area was lifting off. I ended up with a solid landing in no wind in my flip flops (forgot my shoes in my hurry to get on the road) for a 5 hour 15 minute flight. Total distance for the triangle was 90.5 miles. The flying was a blast but I do need to get better prepared for the next one. Thanks to everyone at Highland Aerosports for providing the means to get into the air. It sure has made my transition from the flying in the Midwest to the East an easy one.

Bun