Thursday we flew and Friday we flew again. No cu's, west winds,
light Thursday and stronger Friday. No one has been able to complete the class 1
(open) tasks.

https://airtribune.com/2018-quest-air-cross-country/blog__day_27

https://airtribune.com/2018-quest-air-cross-country/blog__day_28

On Thursday Larry and I got past the first turnpoint and half way toward the
second. Today John Simon was able to get the first two turnpoints but then
landed back at Quest with a malfunctioning VG line.

On Friday the sky was full of sailplanes struggling to complete the last day of
the Senior Nationals. They were very near Quest Air so we joined them in various
thermals. They were obviously having a tough go of it as they were gaggling up
and staying in the gaggles for much longer than you would expect.

I launched with Larry just behind me at around 1:30 PM and the lift was
terrible. We had to stay in zero sink for extended periods and then finally got
up to 3,000' but lost all of it at 500 to 600 fpm down when leaving the thermal.
We landed back at Quest Air. We kept being blown back to the east by the 13 mph
headwind.

Launched again as we heard John was getting up from 1,400' to the west of Quest.
Again the lift was poor, less tan 200 fpm as we got blown back again. After an
hour Larry got tired on the constant struggle just to stay up as we heard from
John doing well further west near the first turnpoint. Larry decided to land
just as I found 400 fpm to 3,800'. But I was still next to Quest after an hour
and ten minutes. I decided to go land with him.

John did well getting routinely to 4,500' and making the first and the second
turnpoint. On the way back toward Quest after 4 PM he was able to get to 5,600'.
The inversion was much higher in the late afternoon. The lift greatly improved,
got much wider and smoother. So this is a pretty good indication that on these
high pressure days we need to consider about going late in the day.