Highland Saturday

[Matthew]

Quite a pleasant day on the Eastern Shore. The thermals were working and there was much soaring. I got to 4700' and a sconch over 90 minutes. A bunch of us were working it together to the NW of the runway-- everyone was turning left. I HATE TURNING LEFT! Daniel B., celebrating his birthday, got annoyingly higher than me a great deal of the time and John Middleton climbed up to 5500'. Others included Hugh, Joe Gregor, Steve K., Knut, Ward, Karen, Walt... and Greg Sessa, who I somehow never saw when there. After a big flush cycle of flying through tons of sink back to the LZ, I caught a small one at 700' and slowly climbed back up to 1600'. I thought I was golden for the 4 o'clock magic. However, the winds from the south had picked up and the drift was pushing me out of range from getting back to the field. So I joined everyone else on the ground. Smiles all around.

Fun, fun day!!!

Matthew

[krryerson]

Matthew summed it up! A great day at Highland today.

I had 2 tows and my first at 1:30PM, with a flight lasting 17 min. My second flight at 2:30PM was a pleasant 84 minutes soaring flight. Topped out at 4500'. Yes, A Fun day!

After a long day, I joined Walt and family at the Harris Crab House. I absolutely love this place. Great Crabs and I don't think I have burst out laughing so much in a long time.

At last, many pilots asked me about my windsock and this windsock cost me only $20 and can be bought from e-bay.
Felix gave this info and here it is: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-5-meter-orang ... 2ec9b91e46

Knut

[g.sessa]

It turned out to be a great day at Highland Aerosports! As Matthew stated, there were many pilots in attendance and good lift as well. I managed 2 flights. The first was a short flight earlier in the day. The second turned out to be much better. It started well after being dropped off in lift north east of the runway. I continued to work this area and found myself topping out at 5,000 ft agl after about 30 minutes. I stayed in this area for most of the flight working between 3,000 and 5,000 ft agl. After 90 minutes, I was getting cold and decided I would leave the area and head back to the airport to land. While slowly making my way back to the airport, however, I noticed a group of birds circling south of the runway. I decided to fly over and found good lift again. I had warmed up slightly as I was below 2,000 ft, and I decided to climb once more to over 4,000 ft agl. At 2 hours in flight, I was cold and tired and decided to land even though I noticed several pilots in what appeared to be good lift north west of the runway. I had a good landing and overall great flight!

[Blaine]

No soaring for me....but I did get my H2 rating. I'm looking forward to learning to thermal and extending my flight time. Unfortunately I had to leave early and couldn't hang out to meet more people....maybe next time.

[Dan T]

Congratulations Blaine, that's a big step. You are now a pilot!