The winds were again light on Thursday at Quest Air and I was in the air at
12:45 having not held back as the cu's had been building for almost two hours.
Mitch Shipley had returned and he put up a 100 mile bow tie task similar to the
day before but a bit stretched out.
With the well formed cu's the lift was pleasant enough. I got off early and
climbed at a little over 100 fpm to 3,600'. Cloudbase seemed to be a little over
4,000'. Mitch was pulled up next and came in under me.
I headed south toward the turnpoint at the Fantasy of Flight forty kilometers
down highway 33. It wasn't long before I was at cloud base at 4,500'. Mitch
comes in under me again and I got to a video of us thermaling together:
Heading out in front again I shaded east to get under some clouds but Mitch
didn't follow and found a better line straight south. I searched around heading
south of highway 474 past the glider port but got down to 1,200' AGL. I didn't
notice that Mitch was also low but above me. His PTT was not working as he had
pulled it out of its socket.
I found some good lift as I maneuvered to get over a field that I could land in
by the highway and was back up to 3,700' before heading further south to good
looking cu's ahead. I had lost track of Mitch and he me. After that I had no
worries about getting low.
I had a chance to fly with some Black Vultures. I always like to see them and
use them to spot thermals:
With well formed cu's ahead I pushed on further south hoping to get a glimpse of
Mitch. Just short of the Fantasy of Flight turnpoint I climbed in a fine looked
cu and decided to head back to Quest not finding my flying buddy. He had gone a
bit further south to get around the blue hole between Fantasy of Flight and
Wallaby Ranch.
It was easy coming back to Quest finding plenty of lift along the way and seeing
the ATOSes heading south for their task which they took to be the southern half
of the bow tie (Fantasy, Wallaby and back).
I turned on the GoPro to catch the landing but apparently didn't press the Mode
button on the remote so I missed a great video of my best landing this year. I
decided that I wasn't getting rocked up early enough and this led to letting the
bar out too low as I transitioned from one hand on the base tube to both hands
on the down tubes. I often missed the downtube on the right side in the first
grab.
I wanted to come in fast, therefore my hand on the base tube, but I really
needed to get upright earlier and keep the glider flying straight. I still
wanted to have a lot of pitch authority, so my idea was to go back to my monkey
bar stance and get my bare feet on the base tube after I rocked up to pull it
in.
So that's what I did. I got it by rocking up and putting both hands on the down
tubes at maybe twenty five to forty feet. I then rocked my feet forward and got
them on the base tube and pulled in hard to dive the glider at the ground. That
worked great. I still had whatever roll control one has with the hands up on the
downtubes, but I had a lot more pitch control.
As I came down to less than five feet off the ground I let the base tube out a
little to slow the glider down and approach trim. I was still flying fast but
now leveling out. I could have kept my feet there on the base tube, but finally
let them drop down as I continued to control the pitch with my hands on the down
tubes. I waited until the glider came to trim and flared for a no stepper.
Mitch continued his flight getting around Wallaby and back to Quest Air. Then
heading northwest until he ran into the sea breeze coming in from the west which
is distinct in that it kills the cu's. He fooled around up north of Quest
hitting few turnpoints and getting above the cu's climbing on the sea breeze
side of them to 7,400'.
He came back to Quest flying in the buoyant air and landed after six hours.
