More flying to report this past weekend, August 16th first: Saturday was an early day at Hammondsport due to other obligations but everyone that was there made the most of it for sure. Katrin, Karl and Rick were doing site work but I insisted it was flyable since Ryan was soaring his PG. We all set up and Mark went first and got up pretty easily. I took a long time to launch because Ryan and Mark were sinking out while I was in the slot. Finally I decided that if they could hang onto the ridge, well, I could too... so MOVE OVER... I had an easy launch and got right up then hooked a decent thermal a short time later. It was pretty windy and a little ratty, but once I got up high, it was just easy. I spent the next 90 minutes just racing around from cloud to cloud. Katrin and Rick and Marlin launched and I don't know who else was there for sure. I heard that Doug and Dan and Moritz and Marc were there, but since I landed at the airport and left straight from there, I'm not certain. Marlin was kicking some ass while I was flying around and I went back across the valley to the ridge just to go check him out. He said later the big cloud that was sucking us up scared him so he bailed. But he was thermalling like he'd been doing it forever, not just this once and it was pretty cool to watch. A few times I headed out to land but with switchy winds on the ground, I would chicken out and find a climb and get back up high and cold. Then finally I was just a bit bored. With no way to really go XC and get around Elmira airport, with a west crossing wind, and other obligations, I finished exploring the whole valley and went to land at the airport. A fairly good whack ended the flight (as usual lately) and I was home before dinner.
Airtime: 1:40
Alt2: 940meters
distance: zero