So no pictures, because I've been lazy/busy. Yesterday, Wednesday, windier than the previous day, and forecast to get stronger. So.... the task committee calls a big task - 87 miles or so, over to near Apollo Beach. I see by Bill's map that most of the same swamp will be below me for a chunk of the trip. I know we'll fly, even though it's pretty stiff by 11am, and I am already set up. A change in the location of the launch line put me in good position and I towed up behind Jeff James pretty early. I followed OB around the tow field from above him, thought I was toast and would have to relight a few times, but I was bolstered by the fact that he was still cruising around down there in much the same (well, worse) position as me. Finally I took what little climb I had out of range of the paddock. I saw another gaggle doing a bit better to the north but I didn't dare leave what I had. I think it was Jonny that came sniffing over and deemed my scrappy lift unworthy. But I stayed with it and we all sort of joined together on a search for something better. Jeff Shapiro and I tried to grab the same thing at the same time along with a rigid, and up until the first WP we were no doubt in each other's way. But after the WP, things got dicier, and I lost everyone but my rigid buddy. We were working less than great lift separately and then we parted ways completely and I was alone. I did get some decent climbs later and heard Mark and Ben were a few Ks behind me. They were catching up and I was going to let them so I'd have some help. But Mark passed me up without me knowing and then when I thought I was headed to land I saw his glider up high and raced downwind to get below him. I was rewarded with the best climb of the day so far and got up past 6K fast. He and Ben were long gone ahead of me (Ben pretty much stays high all the time it seems....) and then I came to a town and saw a glider really low. I had almost been sucked into a cloud a short time before and I was pretty high still. Ben called to Mark, who was in that low glider, and tried to talk him into a climb, but Mark found nothing until it was too late. I planted myself on top of him when he said he was landing but there was lift just behind him and over a forest, and again, I was rewarded with a screamer of a climb- more than 1000fpm average all the way to base. After that things got tougher, the climbs were few and far between but still pretty strong. But so was the sink. At 4 miles out I didn't think I'd make it and at 2 miles out I unzipped and picked a field. I still didn't have a visual on the goal field (where Ben had tried to describe it to me some time earlier) so I set up to land. Down to 300' I found a strong climb and got the hell out of there. I kept climbing until FINALLY I saw the airport(?) that was goal. Lots of gliders there, but what the hell? I never thought I'd get there so I was glad to have arrived. I know two of my teammates went down early but the rest of us three got in, giving the Blind Squirrels a lock on third place again for the day! Because, you know.... even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while... I told Shapiro that I didn't even have to ask him if he liked thermalling with me in shitty lift; I figure he'll probably avoid me in the future. Oh and I actually landed on my feet for a change (but I almost hit the fence again to remain true to form). Stats later.

cool video of Sunday.. from...http://artandaviation.blogspot.com/2009/04/dune-goons.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYdAce5TXuE
and here is a lot of water but with some dolphins thrown in.

Anyhow, so today we flew. The tow behind Rhett was uneventful except for the screaming thermal he pulled me through and then went back to get some more. I pinned off and just kept turning right away from the field. I got high and cold on my way to the one waypoint, but then on the second leg things got bad. I missed a climb that a gaggle was topping out- they seemed to have pulled up the ladder. I searched around a while and found myself stupid low over the swamp for a very long time. I could only get to 900m and then back down to 400m. I heard my sink alarm a lot, and there was no place to land AT ALL so I hung onto every scrap of lift until I got into the smoke from a brush fire and finally got good numbers to goal. Not trusting my instrument, I kept climbing until I saw the airport. Finally I headed over and of course got lift all the way and had to burn off more than 3000 feet to land. I almost came down on the fence, lost all my airspeed, and bellied in, right in front of just about everyone who had probably left the start circle later than me but got there a lot faster! So it was a windy day, but less so than yesterday, and I didn't have too many reservations about flying, just usual first day of comp butterflies. I think pretty much everyone made goal.....and I was pretty close to the slowest in. Oh well. Tomorrow's another day!

Okay, so Sunday was hotel trolling at the beach. Monday was blown out and a day trip to Scot Trublood's operation for just a cruise around with some friends on a boat. Saw TONS of dolphins, an osprey guarding her nest (and then the dad came with a fish for the baby but I missed that with the camera.) And all the birds had numbers, and they all sat on their assigned posts on the way out of the channel... Saw a bunch of f*cking horseshoe crabs, Lauren's large breasts, hermit crabs, sea cucumbers trying to die, and smoke. Someone has set the everglades on fire.

Way fun day, even if it don't involve flying.....

Blown out- day 2. But just marginally. We headed to the beach to try to soar the abandoned Holiday Inn near Turtle Beach. On my first go, I pinned off too early and landed down the beach too soon. The second tow, I reached down to release and didn't realize that the weak link (why did they have a weak link???) broke on the 'man tow' end simultaneously. Tom was soaring already and thinking I was off tow, I began my upwind run to the south. I heard some screaming.... "the rope! the rope!" and lo and behold, I had the whole rope dragging underneath and behind me, and Tom says, scraping all along the building's textured surface..... oh F*CK!!!!
I reached down with two hands and yanked again on the release. The rope gone now, I made a few passes and landed with my heart in my throat.....

Meesha has become a beach dog, and no seagulls, pelicans, or chickens died in the making of this blog....

Florida Ridge Task 1 Saturday
Oggi e' una bella giornata... .ma troppo vento.... no task.

April 11th 2009

The 2009 Rochester Area Flyer's "Check it Out" program was a huge success this year. Regretfully, I have never before attended one of these events, only because it coincides with the beginning of competition season in Florida or Arizona. Well, the Florida comps are ON this year, but later in the month, so I donned some warm weather clothes and headed to our beautiful 120' training hill in Farmington, NY.

The forecast was for really high wind but sunny skies- not a day we would fly or even hold our regular training, but for our purposes this day, the weather was PERFECT. We set up a few gliders in the wind-shadow of the Quonset hut and Moritz Wagner gave 21 prospective students a bunch of relevant info before we strapped them in.

Eager (and cold) faces....

It was my 45th birthday so I get to have a picture of me doing demo.

Rick Brown showing how easy it is to get it up!

For $50, each student can run around with the glider, get their feet off the ground (on a day like today!), and decide whether or not they want to commit to the club's full training program which begins at the end of April. We've found this one day deal cuts down on the number of people who begin the full program and quit a few days later when they realize that hang gliding is not for them.

The hill in the background faces N, WNW, W and we can use the back for E wind

We all got some exercise....

Our instructors and assistants are volunteers. One of each will be assigned to one day a week where they will make the call as to whether (or weather!) or not they will hold training that day. They leave a message on a remote answering machine and the students know by 4pm (7:30am on weekends) if they will have a lesson. During the 60 days of our program, students usually enjoy 30 or so days of training for $595 (less $50 if they paid for the Check it Out session). The fees include USHPA and RAF membership for one year, and of course use of our Condor, Falcon, and 4 Eaglets. Lessons end late June when the crops are too high, and by then, most of the students have their own equipment and some are ready for their first high flights. Others finish training later in the Fall, when the crops (usually corn) are harvested from the field. If the student re-joins the club the following year, he or she can have use of the training hill whenever it's not 'crop-prohibitive'.

Last season's goofy-looking batch of students (aka The Mod Squad):

So, here is a link in case I misremembered anything:

http://www.rochesterareaflyers.com/raf.php?content=events

I am officially TRAILER TRASH!!!!

Home away from home... I said DOWNSIZING.... didn't I?
Instead of getting pet-friendly hotels through Florida and Georgia. Ron Letzin fixed up the crank so no more 2x6' holding up the roof!!!!

Weekend Update-

Ah back in Florida, to stay at Quest this time. Cheaper, no hassles, tow when you want. Not quite the same ambiance as further south, but a great place to hang out and fly. The pond at Quest brings back many memories, but tales of an alligator kept me from swimming laps. I only managed to swim to the dock a few times- really really fast. For years I've been hearing that an alligator lives in there, and each year the story of him grows, as does his supposed length... I guess if he existed for real, he'd grow... and I think now I'm convinced there really is one. There is also a lot of other wildlife around... maybe because it's so quiet much of the time...

Saturday, April 4th was the first flyable day since I arrived. There were lots of folks hanging at Wallaby that I really wanted to see and Jamie and I were planning to do an XC over to the party there. We were going to call ourselves team 'Pair of Questicles'... funnier because we are girls.... ha ha... Last year at Demo Days, I took my student, Mario Luppa, on an XC flight from Wallaby to Quest, (thanks to the use of Lauren's little Pulse), and this year, my little Litespeed was hopefully going to take me the opposite way. But when Dustin launched and almost sank out, and OB launched and DID sink out, my hopes of a screaming XC flight ending at the party were fading. Jamie saw the change in the forecast and bagged it, but I got a great tow behind Paul Tjaden and milked some light lift for a while deciding what to do. Timothy was set up to retrieve me, or bring my stuff to Wallaby so I could shower if I made it, so I got brave and left Quest pretty low. Jeff and Dusty were already gone, Bellerby was farting around over the airpark with another Steve.

My first climb was in desperation mode... I was really low a few miles south, so I decided to stick to Rte 33 due to the fact that the mines are impossible to get out of on the weekends. I flew from field to field for a while, never getting more than 700 meters. Once I passed the sailport, however, things got better. The sailplanes were not afraid to get up right close with me and share the air. The lift was frequent if not booming, and they were spaced so close together. I just started leaving when they got a little frustrating, and another one was put right in my path. No clouds to speak of, except way south, so I just followed along Rte 33.

I heard Paul on the radio after a bit, and realized I didn't know where I was going. I told Paul (using my radio LEGALLY for the first time) I was lost. He said he couldn't help me with THAT. So I said, WALLABY was lost, I can't find it, where is it? He said some stuff I didn't get and I was turning and scanning the terrain way to my east. Nothing looked familiar at all, until I saw I was coming up on Rte 4- and still way west by Rte 33. Paul confirmed Wallaby was a mile or two north or Rte 4 and I headed east over some unlandable territory to see if the one field I had in mind WAS Wallaby. I was really high, like 4500' so I had lots of time to look for other gliders and be sure I was headed in the right direction. But even though the field had the right shape to be Wallaby, there was nothing flying that I could see. As I got closer I saw that there were indeed many gliders parked along the tree lines and on the cables. I looked everywhere for someone flying but saw no one except one kingpost low and setting up to land. I arrived with over 3000' and seriously thinking there had been an accident or something (why else would no one be flying during the meat of the day- 3:30-on the first really soarable day of Demo Days???) so I burned off my altitude quickly and tried to land. I kept hitting all kinds of lift (isnt that the way it always is when you want to come down) and the shifting sock had me s-turning until it straightened out again. I made a huge effort to get my hands up higher than usual since my last really weak flare, and had a shitty landing anyhow. At least I stayed on my feet and didn't whack. But I really need to fix those landings.

I was told by a bunch of pilots that the seabreeze had kicked in and flushed a large group just before the bell rang. The dreaded bell... And there were a few pilots that got pushed way east and were trying to get back. Mostly everyone was hanging out, socializing and eating. Timothy had my stuff and as I packed up, I started seeing lots of people I knew. Bellerby had landed short with the other Steve, and Nicole was out trying to get him from way behind a locked gate. Paul made a flight to Wallaby and then the party REALLY started...

A few random pics...

Bellerby after his long carry-out (had to rub that in...)

Lauren's about to do something rude to that ear of corn...

Wills Wing- in conjunction with Wallaby Ranch- really knows how to throw a party. Great food (although not for vegetarians) great beverages, great slide shows, great people, great location. Thanks so much to Timothy for getting my stuff to me and Belinda for the ride back and Bellerby for the ride to the airport... Awesome time...

My flight-

Duration- 2:45

Alt over launch- 1430 meters

XC miles- 22 ( I think)