The beautiful conditions continued here at Quest Air. Super light
winds. Cu's every where, sometimes pretty thick. It was heaven and it looks like
it will continue to be super nice here in central Florida.
Jamie Shelden and I agreed on a triangle task south to Dean Still and highway 33
intersection, over to Wallaby Ranch and back to Quest Air, 80 kilometers.
Perfect for a light wind day. Olaf knows our task but chose to do his own
instead going to Wallaby and back.
Olaf was pulled up just before me and Jamie followed after I pinned off at
1,400' in light lift. We climbed up with Jamie high over me at 3,800' when she
headed out and me leaving then to at 3,000'. There was much better lift a few
kilometers to the south and I climbed to 4,300' as Jamie glided in light sink to
a few kilometers north of the Seminole airfield.
I glided to her turning low and we climbed out before heading south together
past the airfield. We found some weak lift below 2,000' and after a few turns I
noticed that there was Black Vulture turning low over the trees to the west. I
elongated my turn to head in the direction and soon both of us were in super
smooth 600 fpm lift. This is why we come to Florida, to fly in air like this. We
were both thinking that at the time.
From cloud base we both headed south toward the turnpoint. Jamie came in lower
and slower and from there on wasn't able to get up as high as cloud base. She
needed to wait and climb until she got to cloudbase and not follow me from
below. I was waiting for her by only going ahead when I got to cloudbase.
I knew from previous experience that I had to go south of the turnpoint to find
lift. I could see that there were no cu's at the turnpoint but there were two
kilometers south. Down to 1,600' I found the lift and climbed up 4,400' as Jamie
came over the turnpoint and soon landed. Given that she had landed I decided to
head back to had back to Quest Air as the cu's looked the best in that
direction.
I was careful going back and it was therefore easy to find reasonable lift and
make it back with plenty of altitude. Fay from the Ranch picked up Jamie on the
way to Quest Air to pick up Mike Barber who flew a glider here to deliver the
new sail. Olaf made it back about an hour later from Wallaby.
