https://airtribune.com/questxc/blog__day_6

The winds were east south east at Quest Air and pretty strong, but Larry wanted
to go to the northwest to Cross City airport, a place that we hadn't flown to
before. Usually we head up 301 to the north or up Interstate 75 north northwest
into Georgia as the winds turn south or a little west of south as they rotate
around the high pressure centered off the Florida east coast. But in this case
the forecast for the winds showed them going from east south east to southeast
further north.

Another reason to avoid this direction is after Cross City it's all trees for a
long ways. Better to keep to the east and stay over open lands north northwest
of Williston. Fortunately most of the time the winds help us do just that.

We launched a little before 1 PM from the northwest corner of the north/south
runway at Quest with a strong cross wind. Despite the wind the tow was smooth
with no bumps as we crossed the tree line. Ken Kinzie was off first but he
had not recharged his radio as he had run it down with continual broadcasting on
the previous flight and no one had told him that he had caused a radio problem.
He was going to be on his own without any communication.

I was off next and found good lift to cloud base as I waited for John Simon and
Larry Bunner to join me. Escaping cloud suck we all headed north with Larry just
a little bit behind.

John and I got low while Larry veered off to the west to find better lift. John
headed west to search while I headed east and down to 1,700' worked weak lift
while John found better and Larry stayed high finding much better lift than
either of us. With 12 mph east (87 degrees) winds we were drifting in the wrong
direction.

Looking ahead we had to be very strategic, staying as much to the east as
possible to avoid forested areas, first one south of the prisons, then the large
one east of Lake Panasoffkee. Then even larger ones further north northwest.

With John and Larry ahead I finally found good lift under a nice dark bottomed
cumulus cloud over the forested area south of the prisons, but getting high gave
me options. It wasn't long before I was able to catch John and Larry at the
I75/Florida Turnpike intersection just east of Lake Panasoffkee. We then headed
out together to the north to open fields and good looking cu's.

After getting up John headed under a line of cu's to the northwest while Larry
and I, more familiar with this territory, headed north on the east side of
Marion Oaks toward more cu's and from then on flew together. John was now too
far to the west.

Staying east of all the forested areas we jumped from cu to cu working well
together and getting higher in each thermal. There was a twenty kilometer
cylinder around Williston to our northwest to allow us plenty of options
depending on the clouds and the terrain. The winds were 15 mph out of the east
south east.

As we passed Williston the winds began to decrease after 3 PM to 7 mph. The
thermals smoothed out and we found some strong ones getting up to 700 fpm and we
climbed to over 6,000'.

After 4 PM we approached the Suwanee River near Fanning Springs. Rivers here are
surrounded by large tracks of trees. We would have to go over them to get to
goal.

The lift turned weak and we were low. We searched around and finally went to a
small fire clearing some land. The lift was a little over 100 fpm and we climbed
high enough to 3,400' which got us over the river and to open fields on the
other side.

It looked poor on the west side of the river and I worked 35 fpm and then headed
northwest with Larry. He found 200 fpm over a forest plantation and I joined him
a few hundred feet below. With an 8 mph east southeast wind we drifted toward
the airport and it was then quite easy with plenty of lift to get to goal. John
arrived not much later having flown to our west often over forested areas.

The airport closed at 6 PM so we hurried up and got all our gear out and on our
way home..

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/flightinfo.html?flightId=1461668859

http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/1341945

http://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/7.3.2016/17:52