tonycondon
Gastons CRO (Chief Dinner Reservation Officer)
Saturday was a football game in Ames, which of course killed any hope of flying there. Soaring forecasts were indicating that it would be good though, and the decision was made early saturday morning that I would drive to Muscatine, IA to get a tow from the Blackhawk soaring club. It was looking to be a good downwind flight day with northwesterly flow and estimated thermal tops around 5500 MSL. My crew, Chris Uhl, met me at the airport as i tied up a few loose ends with the glider and got everything ready to go. We cruised across the state and had the glider ready to fly before noon. I waited out for a while waiting for a decent report of lift from anyone else up flying. no one seemed to be finding much but finally i decided to launch. tow was rough with really fast climb rates, after getting off tow at 2500 AGL it was still rough, i was unable to find any lift that I could work and back down i came for a short landing and then another tow. took this one up to a little over 3000 AGL. I managed to find just a little lift over the airport so called up chris and told him that i was heading southeast. I was really hoping to at least make it to peoria to visit Dr. Bruce but no such luck would be found as i couldnt connect with another thermal. I landed in a really beautiful alfalfa pasture 10.4 nautical miles from the muscatine airport. pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/cherokee373Y/NovemberFlying
this pretty much wraps up the glider flying for the year. winter needs to be spent doing some fairly serious work on the trailer and daydreaming about next year.
this pretty much wraps up the glider flying for the year. winter needs to be spent doing some fairly serious work on the trailer and daydreaming about next year.
