3/28/2023 0 Comments Hang glider harness![]() Just beyond the highway over a mine a pilot was thermaling up, apparently a pilot who started before the first start clock. With the nine mph southerly wind and light sink it was an eighteen to one glide to the highway. We didn't gain much after taking the start clock so we headed off north northwest toward highway 27, which at least gave us a chance of an easy retrieve. Also we can start early with little penalty. I couldn't see how we would make it back to the Ridge against the southerly wind in very weak conditions with thunderstorms a long ways away but coming our way later. I waited a bit before taking it as I wondered what the point was. Just before the first start clock we went back and got the first start time. We were flying in each others' faces as the gaggle flattened out. It was hard to understand why we stayed up at all, and even harder to imagine how we were going to get any where. ![]() We were over the do not land here territory. We were all just hanging on waiting for the start clock for the first start time. We (and I'm counting about twenty pilots) moved just outside the start cylinder and starting climbing at 79 fpm. It was less then four minutes before the launch opened. I pushed up wind to get with Shapiro and we climbed at 50 fpm to 3,500'. There were maybe a dozen of us at this point drifting north northwest. Given how dark it was we were happy to be staying aloft. The ground was now completely shaded from the high clouds coming off a cu-nimb well to the north and cumulus clouds filling in underneath. We moved a little further north, found 100 fpm and twirled in that until we reached 3,400'. There were black cu's over head and it was shaded to the north of the river as we drifted north. This thermal was good enough to attract others and I was flying next to Julia. I hung on in 140 fpm lift to 2,700' in an eleven mph south southeast wind. There was plenty of sunshine around and nice looking cu's. The lift was very light, but seeing how I hadn't seen any lift as I searched around losing 900' I figured that I had better stay with it. I was about the tenth pilot to tow up and I didn't catch any lift until I was down to 1,600'. The CAPE forecast had worsened with the cu-nimbs predicted to be closer than the earlier forecast. The wind forecast had changed dramatically from light winds to wind ten to fourteen mph out of the south at two o'clock. I checked Dr. Jack's RUC wind and CAPE forecast again just before the pilot briefing at 11 AM. ![]() We wanted to get going early to avoid the over development so set the launch time at noon and the first start time at one o'clock. The task committee called ninety five kilometer triangle to the north (toward the area where there would be a cu-nimb later in the day) given the forecast for light winds. ![]() Dr. Jack's RUC forecast which gets updated very frequently (more than XCSkies apparently) was indicating cu-nims to the northwest over Tampa at two o'clock moving toward us later in the afternoon at twenty five mph. The forecast was for a 50% chance of precipitation and thunderstorms. It was a fantastic final day at the Rob Kells meet at the Florida Ridge. John "Jack" Glendening|Dustin Martin|Jamie Shelden|Jeff Shapiro|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|Julia Kucherenko|Paris Williams|PG|Rob Kells|Rob Kells Meet 2011|Tullio Gervasoni|video|Wills Wing T2C|Zac Majors ![]()
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