On Monday Larry Bunner and I flew south to Fantasy of Flight and
back

https://airtribune.com/2017-quest-air-cross-country/blog__day_10

With a forecast of an 7 mph east wind, 300 - 600 fpm lift (subtract 200 fpm to
get the climb rate), top of the lift between 4,000' and 6,000', and sparse, if
any cu's, we decided to head south to Kermit's play house down highway 33 to
about I4 and back to Quest Air, a 90 km task.

Larry borrowed Patrick Halfhill's Wills Wing T2C 154, as his new glider hasn't
arrived yet and his previous one was sold and delivered on Sunday to the Florida
Ridge.

Unlike on Friday the lift was much better and I was quickly to 5,000' as I
waited for Larry who launched after me. There were indeed very scattered and
very thin cu's about and they were working. In fact they formed and disappeared
so quickly that you could be very sure that they were true signs of lift.

With the east cross wind I wanted to keep as upwind as possible staying at least
near highway 33. I found 300 to 400 fpm climb rates and got to cloud base at
5,500' twelve kilometers south of Quest. There were a number of sailplanes
nearby as we got near the Seminole Lake Sailplane Port. They were great thermal
markers and we climbed on them before they left.

I was down to 2,000' south of highway 474 in an area that is traditionally weak
but went to a familiar spot for lift and climbed back out again to 5,000'. As we
approached Dean Still Road we could see that there were no cu's ahead. We
climbed out to 5,200' and then went off into the blue to see if we could find
something. There would no no cu's for the rest of the flight except over a large
fire in the Green Swamp.

At 3,000' and 2 km from the Fantasy of Flight I found 200 fpm and it turned out
that the top of lift was a lot lower in this area. We were smacking the lid at
4,000' before turning and going south to make the turnpoint.

Coming back to the north Larry found 100 fpm from less than 2,000' and we hung
in it maybe longer than we needed to to get to 3,400'. Heading north we both
found 300 fpm  south of Dean Still that got us to 4,700'.

I took off to the north east after finding 100 fpm just south of Dean Still to
4,400' but didn't find anything until I was down to 1,200' and sure that I was
going to land. I then spent four minutes turning in lift that averaged minus 40
fpm. Then it turned on to 250 fpm and I climbed back out to 4,700'. Larry was to
my west over the Van Fleet trail over the forest working lift to stay out of the
forest.

There was a fire in the Green Swamp by the Van Fleet trail to our north. Larry
was heading for it to get in the lift. I stayed a couple of kilometers upwind of
it as I found light sink and headed north, west of the glider port. I figured I
had a chance to make it in from my altitude and if not I only had to find one
thermal over 25 kilometers.

Larry climbed behind me just to the south of the fire to 5,300'. Eight
kilometers out from Quest and down to 2,000' I found 300 fpm and immediately
radioed Larry my position and climb rate. He came in under me as I left for the
final glide to Quest.

All and all an extremely pleasant flying day in sometimes challenging
conditions. Getting low and drifting in less than zero was great fun.

Tomorrow looks like a Georgia day.