The task for today:

111 kilometers to the south. A turnpoint at highway 192 and 27 to keep us out of
the Bronson property and get us over highway 27, the Florida ridge. Then goal at
Avon Park air field.

The forecast was for very high top of lift at 6,000' or maybe even 8,000' and no
cu's. Winds out of the north at 8 mph or so. And 700 to 800 fpm lift. Actually
the top of lift was much lower earlier and the lift was quite poor at first as
we started too early (1 PM). Things improved greatly as the day progressed.

Most of the first team off had to take relights. Apparently there were plenty
more relights later. Tom, the team leader was able to hang on.

We almost suspended the launch with Niki at the front as so many were low. But
the word was the other pilots were finding strong lift so we kept it open and
that turned out to be perfect for the next few pilots.

I was the mentor for the last team and we got off with at about 1:40 PM. I found
lift downwind under one of the topless gliders but I could not get up to him and
the other three gliders that came in over me and launch just before us. The lift
was about 200 fpm and got me to 4,200'. The other pilots were over 5,000'. Very
frustrating.

While other pilots were going back to relights I was struggling while I watched
the other four topless glider pilots (Arcos, Larry, Greg)

head off or stay high above me.  Finally after searching every where and
twice going over a circling sail plane I got too low and had to land.

The high pilots found strong lift to the east and got to the turnpoint and down
the course line.

Check out the Live Tracking for a replay at
https://airtribune.com/gssk2016/blog__day_3 to see how they did. Looks like
Niki got first place again in the kingposted group. Kelly was apparently second
in. Andre landed a kilometer short. All the topless guys made it in.