Flying with others is what makes hang gliding a lot more fun
(which is why I like competition). Unfortunately, Joe had to go fly a big
airplane later today, so he didn't get to fly although he came by Quest Air
thinking that he would be flying a hang glider.

I took off at 12:05 with a few thin little cues around Quest Air. Paul Tjaden
hauled me over to one, I pinned off a little early, but then went over to it to
find 600-800 fpm,  to 4,700', and so smooth. The wind was 15 mph out of the
south southeast and I had been worrying about it being rough, but the tow out of
the field was super smooth and the thermal was even smoother. This was going to
be a day that I liked flying.

There were only two cu's around and after I got up I went on glide into the
blue. There would not be another cu to get under during the flight.

It was  15 km to the next thermal and I was down to 1000'. Unlike the first
thermal under the cu it was 150 fpm, but I figured this was the way it was going
to be on this blue day with a defined inversion. I was drifting down wind fast,
and that was the direction I was headed anyway, so I might as well just hang
with it. It was very pleasant air to be up in. I was paralleling the Turnpike.

As I approached the prison and then Coleman I had to be sure to get high even to
get over the forests ahead. I wasn't getting over 3,000' so I took my time
hanging in very light lift, well under 100 fpm. I figured that I could just stay
in the lift as I drifted over the forests if I had to.

I was high enough to jump over the Turnpike southwest of Wildwood and picked up
a thermal at 1,000' as I was just keeping an eye on what fields away from the
high tension lines I could land in if necessary. This thermal was almost 300 fpm
to almost 5,000'.

Freed from my pre-occupation with reasonable landing zones I zoomed with the
strong tail wind at 55 mph right up Interstate 75 toward Ocala. I was able to
pick up the next thermal at 200 fpm at 1,700', so this was beginning to set up a
pattern for me. From 4,600' I headed toward the southwest end of the runway at
Ocala airfield.

Down to 1,400' I joined a young eagle (the birds had been very helpful all day)
and climbed again to 4,600'. I was thinking that I should just keep this up,
glide fast until I got down to near 2,000', then search around for the next one.

I picked a weak one up at 2,200' but lost it at 2,600' and oops, I didn't find
another one as the territory below up highway 27 turned in to well fenced small
horse farms. I saw a big field near highway 27 with a large horse show going on.
I could land in the field well away from the horses, so I did. It was this show
here.

After I landed I looked up and there were in fact cu's forming over the field. I
had just barely missed them. Maybe they were there when I headed for the field,
but maybe they were there just after I landed. They were the first cu's I saw
after leaving Quest.

The flight:

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/flightinfo.html?flightId=1250584086

http://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/10.3.2010/17:04

http://xc.dhv.de/xc/modules/leonardo/index.php?name=leonardo&op=show_flight&flightID=128177

http://paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/304327

A nice little cross country flight before my cross country flight to the USHPA
BOD meeting.