tonycondon
Gastons CRO (Chief Dinner Reservation Officer)
forecasts for today were looking soarable, although perhaps a little marginal due to winds out of the southeast. I launched about 1 PM after the CAP glider had gone up and reported a little lift. My tow went fairly quickly, there was definitely a lot of lift up there. I managed to core a decent 300ish fpm thermal and got up to around 3000 AGL. I figured if i could find a thermal there i could there must be others so i set out downwind, to the northwest. i worked cloud to cloud over town and lost very little altitude. in fact over 7 or 8 miles i barely lost 500 feet. I knew from previous experience that on a day like this its very foolish to get low, plus i wasnt seeing a lot of open fields out in front of me so i worked on finding lift around my area. i found a few scraps here and there but kept creeping lower and lower. I had a cow pasture and a couple of baled hay fields under me.
I kept creeping down, and of course had a smaller and smaller radius of action to work in in order to keep my fields as options. I entered downwind to land and of course found a thermal and managed to start climbing! hoo rah i thought, I may be able to save this. I climbed a whopping 500 feet before losing the thermal. Wind was really breaking things up making it very difficult to work. I scratched around the area a little more but finally had to give it up and land. The pasture looked pretty nice from the air, a bit of a slope from left to right and a few hay bales. trees on the approach and departure ends. looked like enough room to get down and stopped though, particularly with the headwind on final.
coming in over the trees was a little nerve wracking as i just kept waiting for the hand of god to come down and smack me into them. cleared them by a fair margin and then did a full slip with airbrakes out to get touched down as early as possible. once down it was obvious i would easily stop so i let it roll as long as possible. turns out the pasture was right next to a friends farm and they were out working, so got to say hi. always nice to see a friendly face on a landout. my favorite picture so far is attached, Matt got some great pictures of me on the hay bale that i cant wait to see.
I kept creeping down, and of course had a smaller and smaller radius of action to work in in order to keep my fields as options. I entered downwind to land and of course found a thermal and managed to start climbing! hoo rah i thought, I may be able to save this. I climbed a whopping 500 feet before losing the thermal. Wind was really breaking things up making it very difficult to work. I scratched around the area a little more but finally had to give it up and land. The pasture looked pretty nice from the air, a bit of a slope from left to right and a few hay bales. trees on the approach and departure ends. looked like enough room to get down and stopped though, particularly with the headwind on final.
coming in over the trees was a little nerve wracking as i just kept waiting for the hand of god to come down and smack me into them. cleared them by a fair margin and then did a full slip with airbrakes out to get touched down as early as possible. once down it was obvious i would easily stop so i let it roll as long as possible. turns out the pasture was right next to a friends farm and they were out working, so got to say hi. always nice to see a friendly face on a landout. my favorite picture so far is attached, Matt got some great pictures of me on the hay bale that i cant wait to see.
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