I had a little bit of everything this weekend at Ridgely. Saturday afternoon I decided to go for my h3 spot landings on my Discus. My first attempt wasn't very close, I nailed the second one, on the third I was passing the spot and tried to flare hard to save it, but there was just too much energy and I couldn't stop the control frame from hitting the ground. Took one more shot at it and again went a little long. Even though I didn't make it, doing patterns back to back going for the spot definitely helped me to get more dialed in to landing the glider. Laura flew 4 patterns in the afternoon as well and is looking great.
On Sunday, the winds were somewhat strong and the thermals were broken up. I wasn't in the mood for going XC, so it was difficult to work when you only had a few turns to find something good before you drifted too far down wind. I never got higher than 2500'. Landing was very interesting--from base to final I experienced anywhere from 600 down to 200 up, and just as I was about to flare the wind turned staight out from the left and I ended up doing a run-to-my-right as fast as I can thingie in which I was just fast enough to save my downtubes but not a whack. The crew blew off some fireworks, but it was my puppy's first 4th (err 3rd) of July so I stayed back with her and didn't get to see them. They sounded like fun though.
By Monday I was sore, tired, and exhaused and decided to just take my Falcon up. It was a no-wind day with light stuff, so it was a perfect day for it. I found maybe one or two decent cores, but the rest of the time I was boating around in 50-100 up to 3200'. After an hour I decided to try to chase some clouds to look for something better--being in my Falcon I couldn't get there very fast though and ended up getting stuck in sink and having to land. Ended up with a 1.5 hour, relatively easy, gentle flight which was exactly what I was looking for.
Ed Balow
Ridgely this weekend
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