Templeton to the Pulpit: 103 miles

[lplehmann]

MAY 23 TEMPLETON to the PULPIT

The following is an account of my 103 mile flight from Templeton, PA, northeast of Pittsburgh, to the Pulpit launch in McConnellsburg, PA.
Pete Lehmann

Is there every an easy day at a small hill? The previous day was howling strong and turbulent, while this time the sky was beautiful but the winds were at first really light, and then seriously crossed. Impatiently, as usual, I started the day with a three minute hop followed by a top landing. I then went back to launch and tried again just as a high cirrus band shaded the area and seemed to bring in a new, cooler airmass. Whatever the explanation the winds picked up a bit, and I soon found a departure thermal after gliding in zero sink far to the right of launch. I had been sure I was doomed to a trip to the lz 480ft below.

The climb out was fairly solid, but it was beneath the cirrus and the cumulus cloud I was climbing towards was extremely ragged. The thermal soon weakened and petered-out at 1,800agl/3,100msl, and I went on glide, getting down to 1,400agl before finding a decent thermal that went to 5,700msl/4,400agl. After that things improved fairly steadily as the cirrus pushed through to the south and the sun again warmed the ground. Nonetheless it took about twenty five miles for climbs to become coherent and stronger, somewhere east of Marion Center.

Things were then easy for twenty miles until I got down to 1,400agl at Carrollton. There a gnarly thermal got me up to a cloud that allowed me to push further south. That was necessary as I was approaching Allegheny Mountain and desired to glide under a cloud street that ran straight to, and then over the broad, tree-covered mountain just west of Altoona.

After crossing the mountain I began pushing further south with an initial intention of reaching Breezewood. I soon revised that goal in part because Pat Halfhill, who was now chasing, kept telling me to go further. I therefore decided to try and fly to the Pulpit launch at McConnellsburg, something I have wanted to do for twenty years. This involved gliding crosswind over Roaring Spring and eventually onto Tussey Mountain where the by now largely blue sky contained a number of small late-day cumies. At the southern end of the valley I then made a nearly crucial mistake. Rather than pushing still further south along Tussey Mountain as I should have, I became greedy and glided over the back toward a remarkably attractive cloud located above the wooded plateau north of the Fisher Road launch site. But the cloud deteriorated in an astonishingly rapid fashion such that I was in peril of having to land at one of the remote strip mines in there, and facing a nightmarish retrieve. Fortunately, the deteriorating cloud still had enough zero-sink beneath it to extend the glide and get me into the valley behind Fisher Road that contains Route 915. Finding no lift there I kept gliding into the valley to the west of Bills Hill where I finally found an initially nasty (rotored?) thermal that went to 5,400msl. That was high enough to get across Sideling Hill and glide toward some increasingly good looking, high, late afternoon (it was about 5:45) clouds above US 30. The cloud I reached had fat 400-500fpm lift beneath it that effortlessly brought me to base at 7,900ft. From there I could spit on the Pulpit launch so I pulled out my camera and went driving around the area taking pictures and sightseeing for forty five minutes. I landed at 6:40 after having flown out from launch to the intersection of US30 and US522 where Pat showed up before I was half torn down. Thank you very much, Pat.

The distance to the Pulpit launch was 103 miles, and the total flight time 4:14.