WS Fri, Blue Sky Sat & Sun

[CraginS]

Started the weekend by leaving work Friday noon for Woodstock. Arrived too late for a set up spot. So left teh glider on the trail. By the time Kevin C demonstrated amazing bug fart skill and Bruce E launched,leaving an ATOS worth of space, I was among the pessimistic crowd, and decided not to set up. Tons of folks there, including a new HG nomad Heather with significant other, en route to her parents' in PA. She'll be near Scranton, so may hop over to Hyner after advice from several of us.

Saturday morning I delayed departure for RIchmond, leaving home at noon. Bad timing - both I-95 and US 1 were parking lots; what is normally not even a two hour drive took over four hours. Found a large number of folks at Blue Sky, with much truck towing but no AT happening all afternoon. I spent the next couple of hours learning the intricacies of sprogs and tip wands, finally ready to try my new U2 for the first time after 7:15. This gave me a huge audience of pilots, all aware of the newness situation. Fortunately I pulled offa U2 worthy landing right on the end of the runway.

There was a bountiful memorial weekend cookout Saturday night, courtesy of Nick and Sandy, plus others. Following plenty of burgers, etc., Steve hosted a memorial service in the clubhouse for Jim Carrigan. Steve and others spoke of their own memories of Jim, one of the kindest most well liked of the Blue Sky denizens. Almost no one had known of his illness, which, when told he had about 5 years to live, he fought off for fifteen. We saw two digital compilations of photos with Jim's own music. Good man, good memories; tough gathering to sit in. Too damn many funerals, folks.

Campfire was good, and even a bit of fireflinging entertainment by Daniel. (Much more professional than you might have seen from Fwed.)YouTube snippet available - see below.

Sunday morning, after an early run to Waffle House, I joined Davis Straub for a scooter tow class with Steve. Rich Cz tried to join in, but only proved that the 50cc scooter cannot pull a Combat-laden cart across the grass fast enough to fly. Davis and I worked on launch and landing for a couple of hours. Neat way to train. He'll post oni OzReport about it today (Monday) with short video.

Mid morning, Kevin C, who had flown down in a Cessna, started getting familiar with the Dragonfly for towing solo pilots. Previously he had done only a few tandem pulls down in Florida. Hand=picked pilots, based on a combination of AT experience and glider /pilot size, got to AT. Peter K. lead off, and was supposed ot come down to do it again. Nope... well over 3 hours and cloudbase at 6200. Others in this select AT crowd did almost as well. Mike was up over two hours, with one return to 5K from only 1200 over the park. (And Mike was COLD, flying in t-shirt and shorts, no shoes, in an open harness instead of pod. AT-soaring was awesome.

All the rest of us truck launched, I got in four flights, for total 5 on the new glider. The only soaring form truck was Billy on the SuperFloater, who circled up from 600 feet. That was not supposed to be a "real" tow - only a way to get the itty bitty sailplane a half mile down the runway to the AT start point. Joe S almost caught good stuff on the Falcon late in the day, but that was the closest any flex wing got off truck. The previous day, however, he was all over the sky all afternoon.

Familiar faces: Joe & Zelda, Nic, Sandy, Tex, Billy, Mike, Andrew, Rich Cz, Davis & Belinda, Mike & Meaghan, Peter K, Ray M, Steve P., Tom, and LOTS of others.

Pics of the new glider, plus YouTube of Daniel's FireFlinging and Davis scooter towing are on my (b)Log.
http://tinyurl.com/5uo2k7

Davis posted several Blue Sky reports on the OzReport, http://ozreport.com/1211805247
http://ozreport.com/1211805192
http://ozreport.com/1211805085
http://ozreport.com/12.104#0