Ridgely on 6/14

[silverwings]

I arrived around 1:15 not finding many solo pilots. Conditions were fairly good though cloud base only 3500 - 3900 and pilots soaring. I had a nice 1:27 flight. Some who were there including Tom M, Ward, Charley F, Bertrem, and a couple of others. Traffic heading west over the bay bridge was pretty bad with a 13 mile backup adding some time going home.

[Samlak2]

Sunday was a great day at Highland! The forecast was predicting thunderstorms with the sea breeze rolling in during the late afternoon so most solo pilots were already up by 12:30pm. Bertrand took a morning flight with his trusty service dog, Hugo, and stayed up for 1:15 minutes! If I can figure out how to post photos to the blog directly I'll attach. In the meantime, you can see some on Highland's facebook page here (https://www.facebook.com/HighlandAerosports). I launched at 12:30pm and had an awesome flight for just under 2 hours. I didn't get below 3,000ft for the first hour and a half of the flight - there was lift everywhere! After a low save (for me) at 1,100ft I went straight back up to cloudbase at 3,900 when my vario proceeded to die. Quite an interesting exercise to fly without an instrument. I started getting tired so thought it best to land. I had to struggle to get down as there were bubbles everywhere including on my final approach. Some other pilots that went up were Travis, Tim Bowen and Bob (who flew solo after his tandems for the day). Overall, great day at Ridgely.

[Dunegoon]

I left Harrisburg promptly at 6:30AM in the rain. Not an encouraging way to start a hang driving trip. Had to resist the urge to turn around. Arrived at 9:00AM under good conditions. After the usual salutations, kibitzing and pontification about the WX, I was the first solo pilot ready to go.

Since I really didn't want to do my spot landings, I took a high tow and had an incredible 2 hour flight instead. Watched numerous pilots launch and zoom around. Tried to pursue Bertrand, Tom or Sammy. Shared a nice thermal with Tim and watched him fly gracefully around looking like pro. Played with the usual Bald Eagle until he got tired of me. Climbed in one ripper at 6-800fpm only to find Travis gently flying around at cloud base. That was ethereal. Finally decided to land after exhausting myself in some pretty rough air. Headed into some blue sky and made a long glide back to the airport. Landed within a few feet of my spot and decided to call it quits and head home.

Not a bad weekend. Two fun days of flying. I left early as planned and the traffic was horrible until the bridge and then it cleared up. Next time I'll try another route.

CF

[Ward Odenwald]

Sunday’s remarkable flying conditions were a great surprise, given the morning weather forecasts. It was one of those days that I'll file in the “you won’t know if you don’t go” folder. After watching the first minutes of Charley’s pre-noon flight, my original plan of waiting until 2pm was tossed. Wanted to post photos of the day but also having uploading issues. Anyway, I give Sunday's flying a “there’s no place like cloud base” rating!

Ward

[Ward Odenwald]

As of now, images captured by screen shots do not upload (at least from my computer) but my "old school" wingtip pics do. Don't know why - same dimensions and file size (below 450KB). Here's some views of the cloud base climbs. During the flight, all of the clouds that I flew under were feeding on useable lift.

Ward

BTW: the rear flying wire streamers are there to identify the least drag harness/pilot pitch position.

[Ward Odenwald]

Sorry for the staggered posting as I just solved the screen shot issue. This image, my best of the day, describes the day or at least my excitement about what happened mid-day last Sunday! Once close to clouds, one could fly from cloud to cloud.

Ward

[Dunegoon]

Very nice Ward! The last image says it all.

[thermalup]

That last photo sure would look great on the cover of a future issue of USHPA's magazine.
Sure looks like like a fun day ... thank you for sharing Ward.
..::Jim G.