The task was an out and return straight south to Fantasy of Flight
and back. The forecast and reality showed a strong west wind. There were plenty
of east/west cloud streets. Rob Clarkson abandoned the task about eight miles to
the south of Quest Air and made it back to Quest. Larry Landed just south of the
Seminole Sailplane port. Greg and I decided not to fly.

Ken Kinzie <<ken>> writes:

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:kenkinzie/16.02.2018/18:43

After going down on the last leg around the Green Swamp task yesterday I
prepared for today's Quest Air Cross Country League crosswind task, Fantasy out
and return.

The wind was west 10-12 mph so we headed over to the east end of the field.
Great service here at Quest with Davis transporting harnesses, Evgeniya and Don
shuttling gliders to the launch area. I launched last following Larry and Rob.
Davis was not flying.

We entered a thermal crossing over highway 33 at the west end of the field. Just
as I pushed out to climb up level behind April on the 914 my release disengaged
prematurely at 430'. My first thought was to pull a 180 and set up for landing,
but there was sufficient altitude to attempt to work the lift and drift back
downwind over the field. Better to land after the thermal drifts through anyway.

Down to 260' over the field I saw April land and taxi back to the clubhouse area
and park the tug. I took that as a vote of confidence, but I was not at all
optimistic. However, eventually I blundered into increasingly stronger lift that
allowed me to climb out for a personal best low save. Thanks April.

It wasn't a vote of confidence. No one thought that anyone could
get up over the pond at that low an altitude but we admired the attempt.

Setting out on course, hoping better late than never, the lift was
nice and smooth topping out at 4000', but after the first few clouds I was
getting low and with shade and no good clouds in reach on course I turned around
to get back in the sun. After eventually getting some altitude and going back on
course, ended up with the same challenge again. Another u turn back to sun but
lower than ever I finally got a slow climb from the transformer station a
few miles south of Quest and drifted way to the east in the process.

That is when I decided to abandon the task and try to make it to the place that
we rent to the south east instead. I encountered stronger sink than lift and low
again I got a slow climb just when needed but I was fast approaching hwy 27.
That is the eastern boundary of Orlando class B airspace so I made sure not to
cross over and turned cross wind to my destination to the south. I bailed out of
a potential climb as it drifted to 27 and with surprisingly little sink along
the way made it to the baseball diamonds next to our resort with 1000' for an
easy landing approach.

Only 30 kilometers straight line but it was one of the most challenging and
rewarding flights that I've had in a long time.

The Orlando airspace starts at 6,000' MSL over highway 27 and goes
up to 10,000'.