Saturday?

[Batman]

Forecast is looking SE -> SSE. Any thoughts? Jacks again or Ridgely? I have the day free so would like to get airborne

[XCanytime]

Jacks. Looking soarable from 1P on. Bacil

[DanTuck]

As of now, I'll be there. Not sure what time yet.

[Batman]

I think I'm in for Jacks tomorrow as well. Be nice to run the ridge again

[Dan T]

Or you could come out to Ediths Gap and help the paraglider pilots reopen the site. It faces SE and is only a few miles from Woodstock through the Edinburg Gap.

Dan T

[XCanytime]

That place has to be so overgrown that it will take many days to clear it. The last time it was flown had to be maybe 1998 or so. Bacil

[CraginS]

I'm planning on Blue Sky - with a morning stop at NRA en route.

[carweill]

The inversion layer looks low (2000-1500ft) everywhere.

Hope it looks better tomorrow

Carlos

[Batman]

Will check in the morning to see where the gaggle is headed. Off to bed to dream of large breasted thermals ...

[XCanytime]

Headed to Jacks with Dan and a few locals. Going to be worth the drive. Bacil

[carweill]

OK
Going to Jacks (I haven't flown there in ages)

See what happens

Carlos

[Batman]

Jacks it is. Will get on the road in an hour or so. We slept in this morning.

[Batman]

Hitting the road - 0840. Will have my cell/bb if anyone needs to reach me. (703) 889-0894 / batmansbbATgmail.com

[Batman]

Finally got back into the air after my 16 month scholastic flying break. Dan, Carlos, Bacil and I showed up at Jack's along with 6 of the Pennsylvania crew. Winds were straight in and soarable. Good launch and got about a 45 minute ridge flight along with the other 9 gliders. We gave the wuffos a good showing. Winds ramped up a bit and became much more "textured" with a lot of gnarly air as you flew out to the LZ. I think everyone was getting tired so one by one we all started heading to the LZ. Pattern's were a bit unplanned as the winds were switching 180 and the field was full of major sink. Everyone, including myself, pulled off good landings then drug ourselves outta the alfalfa and broke down. I got home around 8:45 ... long day!

[XCanytime]

Got to Jacks around 10:30A to 5 to 10 MPH winds right up the slot. Put in streamers in the carcass laden stinky slot and waited for others to show. Dan Tuckwiller, Shawn MacDuff, John Bilsky, Dave Black, and Spoons all showed up in the next half hour. Set up quickly since I had to leave early to get back. It would back down to light conditions here and there and then get a little stronger at times. Decided to give it a go to challenge myself to get up in light conditions. Had a good launch at 12 noon and turned left. Found some shots of lift but didn't turn agressively enough to stay in the small shots. Ended up extendoing to a slight downhill landing in the main field in the alfalfa, landing to the SW in zero wind. Pretty good jolt to the legs, coming down from a good height. Landing uphill is better . Carried the glider over to the edge of the alfalfa and folded it up, keeping it on the control frame. Did not put it in the gravel road to block what I thought would be a farm vehicle's access to the upper field. Climbed the mountain for some exercise. Took about 50 minutes. Just before I got to the top I saw Spoons soaring. At the top some more pilots had shown up. Krzysztof, Carlos, Chris, John Wiseman, and Dennis Pagen were the new arrivals. Conditions were soarable. I looked for my glider and it had been moved. I was informed that you DON'T BREAK DOWN IN THE ALFALFA. A big no-no. So for all future flyers of Jacks, don't do what I did. The LZ got shut down years ago for that very reason. You can break down in the gravel road, or by the thin grass strips at the edge of the main road, which I should have noticed but didn't. I don't fly Jacks very often, and when I do, I usually go XC. The last time I landed in the main field there was 1999. Still, I should have known better. Went down and retrieved the glider, seeing that it had turned on with Dan and a few other pilots launching and soaring. Back at launch I helped Krzystof, John Wiseman, John Bilsky, Chris, and Dennis off. They all got up easily in the nice conditions on launch. Should have stuck around for another flight. West Virginia stunk against Duke .

Bacil

[DanTuck]

Fun day. I got there and set up and was ready to go by 12:00. The iffy conditions had just handed Bacil an extendo so I waited awhile. At 1:30, Dave and Shawn launched and found lift so by 2:00 I was off. It was coming in much more consistently by then so I was able to ridge soar until I found a thermal. Got up and most everything I was finding only went to 800' over, then it would peter out. Eventually I found a few that got me 1,250' over and one that got me to 1,300'. After an hour and a half I followed Chris out to land. Didn't really lose anything heading out, then went through a really nasty layer over the field and finally into massive sink on approach. I checked the flag which was showing SSW, almost right up the valley, so I set up a SSW approach. I got drilled, turned on final way down at the other end of the field and when I got into ground effect I realized the wind over there was pretty much nil, possibly a slight quartering tail. I got ready to run and landed without incident. Kinda bummed becasue I flew the whole time with one of the cameras zoomed in and missed and whole bunch of great shots! Oh well, at least the keel camera worked. Thanks for the ride up Krzysztof. Welcome back, Chris!

[Batman]

Great vid Dan, thanks for the freeze frame! Proof I actually flew!