Massey Aerodrome Hanggliding Sunday, August 3rd

[krryerson]

Finally on Sunday Aug 3, we had a weather forecast that was condusive for soaring and with temperatures that were tolerable on the ground and in the air all day at Massey Aerodrome. Three members of the Dragonfly LLC club (based at Massey) Bob Dieckert, Jim Messina, and Knut Ryerson, came out to enjoy some airtime. We almost always set XC task of some sort, Sunday we set a skinny triangle, 15 miles due south to Myles Landing Airport (27MD) in Church Hill, MD then straight back north over Massey to Crooked Hammock brewery in Middletown Delaware, then due south back to Massey (roughly 70km distance).
Our 1pm launch was delayed due to a battery issue on the Dragonfly tow plane, with some ingenuity and persistence we jumped started the plane and were back in business. Jim towed 1st and was taken to a beautiful thermal under a cloud (thanks Bob), released from the plane at 2300' agl and climbed in the thermal to cloud base at 5000' agl. Knut was next to tow, Bob towed him to the area below the cloud that Jim was under. Soon both pilots were together at cloud base (5000'agl) discussing (via 2 meter ham radio w/headsets in helmet) which route to take to the 1st turn point. They flew from cloud to cloud, climbing in the thermals under the abundant cumulus clouds and eventually making the first turn point. The return trip to the North was tricky, there was a 8 mph quartering head wind and the abundant clouds were NOT as abundant, so the glides between clouds were longer which meant we were at a lot lower altitude when reaching the desired area to search for thermals. Knut's battle with gravity ended just west of Roseland Airport (32MD) near Sudlersville, MD. Jim was able to find a weak thermal at 2000' agl and slowly climb up to 4000’ agl whilst drifting further away from the next turn point. Impatience got the best of Jim and he went on a glide to the next cloud on the course line. Unable to find the thermal but very close to being able to glide back to the southern end of Massey's runway, he realized that it was 8' tall corn on his final glide to the runway. Rather than risking a bad landing short of Massey, he diverted to a field with very low soy beans and landed safely there, just north west of Millington MD. Many thanks to Bob Dierker, not only for coming out to fly the Dragonfly tow plane, but then jump in the retrieve vehicle and come out and pick Knut and Jim up and take them back to Massey, what a total Rock Star!!


https://flic.kr/p/2rkUCa5

[krryerson]

I made a video from Massey at https://youtu.be/ernAOfqOiOM