Just to prove that Florida is beyond great, the overrunning showed
up this morning at 7:30 AM. I've never seen it here in Florida, only in Zapata,
but there it was in all its full blown glory. The overrunning occurs when thin
low cumulus clouds appear in the morning (often before dawn in Zapata) racing
along maybe 500' to 1,000' AGL. Soon the whole sky turns black from complete
coverage of thin cumulus clouds. Then the cu's separate and cloud streets form
with thicker clouds. This is exactly what happened this morning.

By 8:30 AM there were multiple solid cloud streets running as far as we could
see to the north northwest. At 9:30 I checked with Mitch who was flying the
Dragonfly tug and he said that the cloud base was 1,500' and he hadn't found any
organized lift, so I waited. Jochen and I were getting ready to go up highway
301 as that showed the best lift forecast, the best wind forecast but a good
chance of overdevelopment.

I waited until 10:40 AM and got pulled to 2,100' under the cloud street to the
southeast. I didn't find the lift immediately and had to search around until I
was down to 1,500' just on the east side of the cloud and got in 88 fpm to cloud
base at 2,400'. Jochen was just below me having been pulled up right after me.
We were the only ones willing to leave this early.

Jochen lost the lift and said let's go north. We didn't find anything by highway
50 and then Jochen said lets go west to a nice looking cloud west of Groveland
north of highway 50. The lift was 58 fpm, typical for the early morning flights.
I started at 1,800' so I was going to hold onto it.

Jochen lost the lift and headed west. I held on then headed to a favorite spot
that had a nice cloud under it to the north. I found 265 fpm and climbed to
cloud base at 2,600'. I had to leave the cu as I was in the mist. I was finally
able to pick out Jochen. He was at 600' circling over sandy lands to the west.
It looked like he was getting ready to land but I had seen him this low before
and get up.

I wasn't doing so well myself after I left the thermal. The next "lift" averaged
-50 fpm. I had to run to the west to get over a sunny field and under a nice
cloud. This thermal was more pleasant at 167 fpm. I could see Jochen a couple of
kilometers behind due south working his way up from the deck. I was able to
climb to 2,900' as Jochen came in under me low.

Heading north up highway 33 the lift was weak in the next thermal and I decided
that I needed to head a bit to the west to get lined up for a run up north up
highway 301. At this point I realized that I wasn't transmitting. My PTT button
wasn't working but I could hear Jochen and Belinda. The rubber band I put on the
plug had broken in the morning and I, thinking that it didn't matter that much,
hadn't replaced it. The plug had pulled out enough to cut off the PTT, but I
wouldn't figure that out until after the flight.

As I headed northwest I saw Jochen behind me get to cloud base in the last good
thermal we were in together but he headed north not northwest and lost track of
me. I needed to stay with him if I was going to have Belinda know where I was.

The thermals continued to be weak as I approached the turnpike. Just southeast
of the Okahumpka service plaza I found 200 fpm which put me back at 3,200'. I
had to cross some forest area and high tension lines to get to reasonable
fields. I went for the cu's but didn't find much and headed for the south end of
the Villages, scrapped off land getting ready for development.

At this point I was just looking for a safe place to land as I wasn't finding
any lift. I wanted to be away from the construction but near a road that allowed
for easy retrieval. Down to 700' I felt a bit of turbulent lift off the vast
expanse of sand with earth movers below. There was the shadow of a small cu over
head but so far away that I couldn't see it above me.

I didn't like the lift that much, but I liked the idea of landing in this area
with this kind of lift around even less. I held on and just let it kick me
around. It wasn't going to hurt anyone. It averaged 136 fpm. When was I going to
find real lift?

I heard over the radio that Jochen was just to the west of me, but he couldn't
see me. I was drifting over the developed area of the Villages and checking out
the wide open gold courses. They look a lot wider than most. They must make big
fat fairways for these senior citizens. I was happy about it.

I wanted to at least get to the north side of the Villages where there were open
fields. Belinda had started driving our way. Jochen was concerned about the
possibility of OD to the north as he looked at some of the clouds. He was also
aware that we weren't going all that fast. He was looking for a record and not
totally happy with our progress.

After a few thermals I finally found 180 fpm to 2,800'. Cloudbase was still low
at a little over 3,000' and it was 12:20 PM. The sky was full of cu's and they
were streeted up, but the lift still wasn't so great.

I headed west to get near highway 301 north of Wildwood and down to 1,100' I
found 155 fpm in rough air off a white roofed building but over green fields.
Back to 1,700' I decided that I wasn't enjoying the flight without radio
contact. I found a nice empty field to the west and landed there. I called
Jochen on the radio and he decided to land at Leeward airfield just to the
north.

The OD didn't develop. We spoke with Larry Bunner and Charles Allen in the air.
They started much later but were over Leeward as we got back to Quest Air around
2:30 PM. Don't know how far they went.