The little flight.

The forecast for no cu's was pretty much right on. With nothing at all showing up in the sky (and we've had clouds every day for a month at least) I finally went out to launch at 1:30 PM. No one else was in a hurry to get going.

Tracy towed me up behind their 914 Dragonfly, the one that basically drags you straight up. I could feel that we went through a bit of lift so at 1,800' AGL I pinned off and went back to it and found 175 fpm to 4,900' MSL.

Now I was off on an adventure. There would be no visible signs of lift so I would have to stumble on it all by myself without any help. The ground was mostly soybean or corn green below, or covered in swamps or trees, but every now and then there was a brown field of cut wheat. I made sure that I visited those fields in case there happened to be any honey there.

The lift was weak, less than 200 fpm, but pretty consistent and smooth when I found it and wide enough for full circles. I basically just crept along staying in the thermals until I got as high as possible. I had to climb up from 1,000' AGL just south of Stockbridge as there was five miles of mostly swamp land to the south southwest, either that or trees, and I wanted to be able to get over the whole area.

The flying was pleasant and so what if the lift was weak. It was warm, but no too warm. All and all a great day to be in the air. I had a 7 mph tail wind out of the north northeast, and could drift along in the lift.

Twenty four miles out I'm going slow and it has taken me an hour and twenty minutes to get this far. The weak lift is not helping. But down to 1,800' and over a large brown area of ranchettes I start getting beat up by the air. I troll around in the area in an attempt to find a solid core and not just the edges of the bullets.

I left the unpleasant area and headed southwest over a residential air strip just north of a good sized lake, this being the last chance to get up. There was finally a reasonable thermal at the far end of the field and just before the lake at the tree line. I started circling up at 1,100'.

The lift was only 65 fpm, but I didn't have much choice. At least is wasn't rowdy. I was only able to climb to 2,300' AGL over the lake, and when the lift quit I headed out toward the town of Napoleon.

There was a wide open air strip just on the west side of town and I came in over it 2,000' AGL when I hit a nasty bump. At this altitude it is incumbent on the pilot to turn in lift even if it is nasty, but I had no desire to do so on this day. Of course, I was soon on the ground.

None of the nasty air was anything like what they were experiencing at the Hang On meet in Oregon last week. But it was a bit too much for me.

Discuss Cloud 9 at the Oz Report forum
   
 
 
del.icio.us