Pulpit St. Patrick's Day

[XCanytime]

Looks good for the Pulpit tomorrow. I'm off from work, and Ward is considering taking the day off. They may even have green beer at the biker bar . Anybody else interested in taking St. Patrick's Day off and joining us? Bacil

[Roger]

Ok Bacil, do you think it is worth the drive from NC? If yes, what's required for a non-member?

[XCanytime]

Roger I do not think it will be bulletproof tomorrow at the Pulpit. There should be a soarable window early before it switches to the SW in the early PM.

[Roger]

Thank you Bacil. I will stick with the BlueSky plan for Thursday/Friday/Saturday.

[Ward Odenwald]

My ETA is ~10.

Ward

[XCanytime]

Got to the Pulpit just before 10A to find Ward already there and giving the thumbs up. Winds were straight in 12 to 18 MPH, and cumies were sparingly popping around launch and the local area. While Ward set up, I observed a turkey vulture snap rolling and knife edging around the crowns of the trees as the vulture "slalomed" down the tree canopies (think moguls on a ski slope). The vulture would snap roll every quarter to half a second to a 90 degree bank. Awesome sight. I know the eagles and hawks do aerobatics, but that's the first time I'd seen vultures doing them. By the time Ward got to thinking about launching at 11:15A, the winds had died down to 5 to 10 MPH. Ward waited till 11:30A to launch and he had a nice one into a smooth straight in cycle as puffies started to fill in just south of launch. Ward got up nicely and stayed pretty high while I set up to self launch. I self launched into 5 to 10 MPH winds around 12:15P just as Ward reported being a bit lower than normal. I got a short soaring flight of 100' over and 10 minutes. Had a nice landing in the main LZ, stashed the equipment/gloves at the edge/inside of a tree line, and watched Ward climb out to around 2K' over and head OTB. Climbed the mountain and went to retrieve Ward from Lemar Road just beyond the Mountain View Elementary School. We then rode down together to retrieve the equipment. While driving by the garage next to the house at the south end of the LZ, the homeowner came over to the cab and asked if that was my glider stashed by the treeline. I said it was, and he jokingly said he and his wife walked up there but didn't take anything. Weird that he said that. When Ward and I went up to get the stuff, my gloves that I laid in the grass by my glider were missing (found inside the glider bag 3/19 ). The gloves had holes in and duct tape on them (they need to be replaced). Still, don't trust anybody around your equipment. At the bar we celebrated St. Patty's Day with some beer and food. Beautiful day to be outside.

Bacil

[Ward Odenwald]

Good training day at the Pulpit and a Great St. Patty's day!! Bacil, thanks again for helping me launch and bringing me back to the bar. There was little or no ridge lift with a light SW flow but it was enough to bring the thermals in. I had the impression that there were two lift lines crossing the ridge with one aligned over the primary LZ and the second aligned with the secondary LZ. I spent roughly 1 hr and 15 min going from one to the other until I was lucky enough to stay in a strong thermal (aligned with the secondary LZ) and ride it up to 4,000 MSL. I then went on glide searching for thermals over the back and found only smooth stable air. Here are some wing tip photos in the order that they were recorded.

Ward

[Ward Odenwald]

Second set of five.

[Ward Odenwald]

Last set

[RichH]

Kind of interesting you can see the inversion layer in a couple of your photos..isn't it nice to pick out those wide open landing fields!! Nice photos!! Thanks Rich