Straight Out

Last Sunday was my chance to fly last weekend and Leah had offered to chase if I decided to fly straight out.  She was partially motivated by the strong A/C in the pickup and the 103 degree forecast high temp.  The forecast looked iffy but better to the west so I decided to take off and head west, hoping to connect with the good weather. My first launch, along with most of the other single seaters in the club, was at 2 PM and we all fell out.  I tried again at 3 and got a decent climb to 5000 so headed out.  After the first (long!) glide I nearly had to land west of Hutchinson but found a thermal and hung on for dear life. It got better and I tip toed to the Northwest.  It never got really good although the lift did get a little stronger as I went along and higher. I managed to get a good save over the town of Lyons and back up to around 5000 and then near Claflin caught a good one to 6900, my high point for the day. I was hopeful that that was a good sign of things to come, but it turned out that, for me at least, that was the end of the day. I found a few more weak climbs for a few hundred feet each but never any major gain, and ended up landing in a nice cut wheat field North of Susank, KS.  Total distance was 74 miles in about 2 hrs 20 minutes.  Leah was right behind me and we were back on the road for ice cream in Hoisington and home in Wichita around 10 PM.  Not a bad days work.

I've got some trailer work and glider work to do in preparation for the 13.5 meter contest down in Midlothian, Texas which starts on July 9.  My rental PowerFLARM unit for the contest came early so I've built another shelf like I had last year to hold that. Matt has been working nightly on the Standard Austria and we're making good progress on that.