Krzysztof Grzyb <<doitkg>>
writes:

We knew for a couple of days that Saturday would be good cross
country day for south of Chicago. So we went with John Enretti to very good
known and available flying place - Cullom. After short tow (12.30 pm SW wind) I
hit a nice strong thermal (up to 800fpm). Reaching inversion level, I began a
long glide (Litespeed RX3.5) straight east, but when I got down to 500-600 ft
above ground I made decision for more conservative flying style that day.

When I flew over Enjoy hang gliding flight park field, I was shocked. All along
the west and north side of Enjoy meadow there were huge and ugly wind turbines.
It looked very dangerous.

It was a completely blue thermal day. Max lift was 800 fpm ( in just two
thermals) and a lot of turbulent and sink between lift. This was not pleasant
and it made the flight much slower.

For the first time in my flying experience I vomited during the flight, about
hour before end of flight. It was nasty. But it helped a lot, my stomach was
happier.

Jaro told me that couple paraglider pilots went also for cross country but the
bigand turbulent sink between thermals put them quickly on the ground. They were
not able to fly more than 10-15 miles.

I landed at Warsaw Airport, just by the windsock. It took about 5.5 hours to go
around 210km. I was very warmly invited by John Fussle (loco pilot/instructor).
Not more than one minute after touching ground John Enretti showed up ready to
pick me up,  is it not amazing? His chasing system is the best. He offers
help to us this season any day we want! Thank you John.

http://www.victorb.fr/visugps/visugps.html?track=http://tracks.xccomp.org/2015/igc/4/f4b32du1.igc

http://www.xccomp.org/module.php?id=21&l=pl&contest=PL&date=20150411&reference=2eb10a460036cf94

Larry Bunner writes:

It was almost an epic day at Whitewater on Friday. Cu's were
forming at 10:30AM and looked super high. I set up and downloaded a route for
Krys. We picked 161.4 km triangle south east to Bong then west south west to
Capron, IL and back to Twin Oaks.

I towed after Bill and quickly climbed out to 6,500'msl at 500fpm. The clouds
were set up nicely and I flew the street to Bong topping out above 7000' at base
four times. Turning the corner, the winds were westerly at 10 mph which slowed
me down. I based it again and flew across a blue hole only to hear that Krys was
down near Bong. Apparently it became overcast and he flew from base to the deck.

I connected with a good thermal and rode it to 6,700' before heading on to good
looking clouds. Every cloud was working for me and I based it three more times
before heading to Harvard, IL. The conditions were changing rapidly as I flew
west into almost completely overcast. Under 3000' for the first time, I hit a
light thermal in the shade and took it to 5300'.

I was ten km from the second turnpoint but it looked desperate under the shade
so I chose to abandon the task and the second turnpoint and headed back toward
Whitewater.

Northeast of Chemung, IL I found 250 fpm and slowly rode it back up to 7000'.
All around it was overcast except for patches of sunlight hitting the ground to
the northwest. I pushed north to a cloud and thermaled up over Lake Delavan to
5600'. I should have searched longer but was getting impatient as I was sore and
fatigued.

I lost the bite valve on my Camelbak so couldn't drink for the last 3 hours. I
did eat my Espresso gel pack but it didn't help. Just north of Delavan I hit
another 250fpm and topped out again at 5500'. I flew northwest to the edge of a
huge dark cumulus cloud but it didn't work (or I wasn't searching enough).
Slowly I descended over sunlit ground and ended up landing ten miles south of
Whitewater at the Duck Inn on Rte 89 and Hwy A. All in all a good flight for
this time of year. 146km and 5hrs 16 min.

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/flightinfo.html?dsId=4240143