Kris <grzybk> writes:

This year's spring/summer time is unlike to previous years here in the Midwest. Most days are cold, overcast and rainy. Farmers are late about two weeks with their planting schedule. The corn and bean fields still have exposed soil what is a perfect source for thermals during a sunny day.

We are very hungry for any flying days here because of the gloom so the BlipMap is the most popular site on our computers this year at this time. Last Wednesday's early morning forecast for Thursday (June 4th, 2009) was very promising for a good chance of flying. Unfortunately a couple of hours later my BlipMap subscription was expired. Paying did not help immediately, but I emailed Dr. Jack and my problem was resolved in 15 minutes.

Checking most maps it was obvious that much better cross country condition would be at the Whitewater WI flight park than at Enjoy Field IL. The Thermal Updraft showed 450-500 fpm, Thermal Height up to 6000ft was predicted just west of Whitewater with almost no wind (5-10mph from shifting directions). My decision was simple, FAI triangle.

I figure that if I fly with an average speed of twenty five mph I can fly 150 miles in 6 hours. This is realistic, if I can take off at noon or before noon because there are probably still thermal's around 6 PM here in June. So the final decision was made quick. My first turn point I declared west of Rockford and East of Freeport, exactly fifty miles SW from Whitewater. The second turn point I declared fifty miles straight North from the first turn point. I also added two restricted airspaces (Janesville and Madison) to the GPS to avoid some unexpected surprises.

On Thursday morning the weather forecast had not changed much from the day before. Now the adrenaline begins working. I made a quick call to Joel who is the tow pilot at the flight park. Another quick call to Greg Krzyszkowski (paraglider pilot) and Tom Klecha (hang glider pilot and driver) and after a forty minute meeting at work I was driving north to Wisconsin. Greg with Tom arrived there just five minutes after me. Greg was planning to static tow his paraglider on the NE runway. The first cu's showed up about 11:30 exactly where the BlipMap predicted.

Just ten minutes before noon I was in the air with my Litespeed RS. Joel left me in nice 400 fpm lift. After a couple more turns the lift increased to 600 and finally to 700 fpm. I knew that I was too late getting into the air. I had already lost at least half an hour of nice thermal conditions.

Flying in these conditions was easy and enjoyable. On the way to Janesville I already had one thermal of 800 fpm with top of the lift at 6500 AGL, just a couple of minutes after noon! What a day! Passing Janesville I lost GPS coverage many times, but the most important thing for me was holding the planned average speed. Everything was going smooth so far, average speed was twenty five mph or even a little better. Flying closer to the first turn point, on my way there was a thick but not wide cirrus cloud which was moving to the south. To reduce the risk to slowing down my flight I changed my plan to fly instead another 5-8 miles to SW, I begin flying more west to Freeport.

Again hitting cloud base around Freeport I begin flying almost straight north. My Flytec showed 5-10 mph headwind. It was better than I expected. Almost every other thermal was 800 to 900 fpm. Unbelievably strong conditions! It reminded me of an average day at Ovens Valley. I did not lose time working in 600 fpm lift. I was looking for stronger cores and I found them almost every time! What a day!

After twenty five miles into the second leg searching under two clouds in row I got low but finally I found a strong one over ground. Many times the clouds were working in different ways so there was no simple recipe this day to find fast best core but when you found it this was strong stuff. When I got to the second turn point I was late by twenty minutes. I noticed that along the way of my third leg, the Cu's were not close, just a big blue hole. I made a decision to fly a couple more miles to NW and wait to see what happened with this blue hole. After a short time hanging around the second turn point under a huge and weak cu I began forcing myself to fly into blue sky. The only way to make goal, is to just fly to goal. It was a good decision. After a couple miles flying SE (to avid Madison air space) I found a nice 600 fpm thermal.

The conditions begin getting weaker. Average lift was 400-500 fpm. When I passed I-94 with few signs of lift I thought that again I would be short. At just about 1300 ft AGL I found a very weak one. Patience, only patience could help me. I took any small spot with the smallest lift, every raising air molecule was valuable for me. I was about thirteen miles away from Whitewater. After using all possible lift on this last thermal I began my final glide in a southeast direction with southwest wind. I landed 0.4 miles from runway closing the FAI triangle by coming in under my outbound flight path with total length 159.5 miles after 6.5 hours of wonderful time. I believe this is the biggest triangle that has been flown flex or rigid wing in the US.

See track here: http://www3.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/flightinfo.html?dsId=883856

Greg Krzyszkowski using static tow (on the relatively short runway space), was able tow his paraglider up to 400 ft and fly eighteen miles cross country into the wind. Gary Solomon made a triangle (almost unavoidably) over twenty miles because it was his longest flight (about three hours).

There were about eight pilots playing hooky that day. Many flew without GPS, so I don't know their flight paths. Dale, John, John, John, Stan, Kevin, and Terry (in the superfloater) were all in the air 3-4 hours. All were very cold, and very happy they took the day off!