The day was almost completely overcast throughout the day except
for a little bit of blue around 2 PM. The wind was out of the north 9 - 12 mph.
It was a little over 60 degrees (Fahrenheit) . I didn't think that we would be
able to do anything. Then Mick Howard, my fellow mentor, suggested that we tow
everyone to 3,000' and have them go downwind to a absolutely huge landing field
at Pine Lake Road and highway 33. It would be a 3.6:1 glide. Why not? Some of
the students had never landed out.

The cloud base was so low that a couple of the students only got towed to
2,400', still plenty of altitude to make the designated LZ. It started to rain
just as Mike Duffy got ready to tow as the first one. But the rain was very
light. I had told students earlier that there was a 50% chance that it would
rain during their flights, having looked at the local radar. It continued to
lightly rain throughout their flights.

We had gone over the weather forecast and used SeeYou with the Satellite photos
option on to check out all the possible fields along the way. The goal LZ was an
existing waypoint so pilots entered a task.

We had a wide spread of glider types. April was on a Falcon, Mike was on a Sport
2, Attila was on a Litesport and and Kate was on a Sport 3. Everyone made it to
the goal field (Mike went a little past it) and there were no causalities. A
couple of pilots took pattern tows first to prepare themselves.

Tomorrow looks like a cross country day.

April after her second cross country flight.