The flight.



The air has been so clear here of late. Usually there is plenty of moisture in
the air that cuts down how far you can see, but it seems to be missing. The wind
is again out of the east northeast at about 9 mph.



The cu's start early around 10 AM, and they get puffy right away. Paris Williams
is here warming up after a two year lay off, flying Oleg's Aeros Combat 13 L and
get gets off at 11:30 AM. He'll be flying at the US Nationals at the Florida
Ridge, and the Flytec meets.



I take off and find a nice thermal right away. As I climb up Paris comes over
and we enter a spiral climb at the same altitude, 180 degrees apart. We climb
about 1,500' up banked high, spiraling fast, right across from each other. I
love this. I remember the time I did this with Larry Tudor at Lakeview off
Sugar.



Paris is flying the Aeros Combat 13 L and weighs 155 pounds. I'm flying the
Wills Wing T2 - 144 and weigh 176 pounds.



After we get up to almost cloud base I head off to the east as Paris goes north.
I work my way to almost highway 27 under wispy cu's as the sky gets bluer. The
air is a bit rougher than has previously been the case (we've had so much of
that sweet Florida air this year).



With Paul and Lauren going back and landing, I headed back toward Quest and then
the flight got interesting. I'd pushed too far east too low and now I was not
going to make it back. There was plenty of sink. I worked broken and choppy lift
at 1,400' four and a half miles out but only get back to 1,800' as I drifted
west.



I lost this poor lift and headed northwest toward Quest, but I was not going to
make it back, given all the sink. There weren't many open field right next to
Quest, so I headed further west to larger fields when it looked like I would
have to pick one to land in.



Down to less than 300' ASL as I come in over the last field two and a half miles
south of Quest Air and turn to come in for a landing at the end of the field.
Hey, there is a bit of lift there. Might as well turn.



The lift is good and I work it to 800' ASL, before I stupidly lose the lift in
the wind. You'd think I'd pay better attention when everything is on the line.



I head back up over the landing field along a lifting line. I get lucky as the
wispy cu's fly by overhead and find another thermal at 500'. I make sure to pay
attention this time and get up to 2,500' which is plenty to get me back to Quest
even though there is lots of sink going cross wind to the north.



Pilots fly all day at Quest. We had taken off early (12:30) and only flown for
an hour. The cu's reformed again and there were plenty of pilots in the air.
Paris says he wants to go for big tasks over the next week. Finally someone here
who really wants to go for it.



I think I mentioned how shocked I was when I first towed the T2 - 144 when I got
back to Quest a month ago. It was so easy. It was almost as nice as a rigid
wing.



I shouldn't have been shocked as I reported earlier when the U2 and the Talon
came out that they towed really easily:
http://ozreport.com/7.84#2, 
http://ozreport.com/7.85#4,
and http://ozreport.com/7.86#4.



But after aerotowing in Australia I came back to a totally different experience
towing the Wills Wing T2 - 144. It was rock steady and no problem to keeping it
pulled in. Maybe I didn't put enough VG on on the Litespeed RS 4. You tow the T2
- 144 with half VG.



Kevin Carter claims that if you go ahead and tow fast, you won't have any
worries about yawing. I don't worry about yawing anyway, but he says just keep
it pulled in and you won;t yaw.