The weather has been quite dry the past several weekends and while the soaring has been good, it's all been into the blue - no clouds to mark the thermals. That was the case for my flight this weekend as well but, as they say, you gotta believe! I launched rather poorly with a wing drop and despite full opposite aileron, got a wingtip bump followed by one cycle of pilot induced oscillation. I knew it happens easily in the Discus and tried mightily not to overcorrect as the glider jumped into the air a bit higher than it should but even so, I 'kissed' the pavement with the main gear for a total of two takeoffs. I'll keep after it, but I simply need more experience in the Discus to get used to it.
After that inauspicious start, I released in a thermal and started a nice 3 knot average climb to about 6,000 feet over the city of Elmira. I topped out and headed west, across Harris Hill and found some sink, then started looking for another thermal to get an idea of the working band of the lift.
There was none to be found, and in the blue, you don't really know where to look. I turned 90 degrees and flew upwind, out over some of the fields that are still dirt, hoping to find some lift but got little more than a few bobbles. Anytime I took a circle, it was obvious that I wasn't in organized lift. By now I was getting down to about 1200 feet above the airport, so I turned back towards the Hill and made sure I was close, searching up and down the front of the ridge for some of those lift bumps I'd felt previously.
Nothing. Meanwhile, I was watching two of our Juniors circling high above at 6,500 feet and my buddy calling to tell me he was at 7,200 and heading cross country. Good grief! I was going to have to land and get a relight! What's wrong with me? Then, a bump. I circled over the front of the ridge at 2,400 feet, some 700 feet above airport elevation. I was out over the valley with a good 1,400 feet underneath me but if this didn't work, I would enter the pattern and land at the airport, which was very close by.
I circled in +1 knot to 0 sink. Each time I completed a circle I checked altitude and position and made a mental note of whether I would land or not. After several minutes of simply holding altitude, I made it up 100 feet. I moved my circle a bit and found +1/2 knot to +1 knot lift all the way around. I was averaging perhaps .5 knots but I was climbing. In a little while I was up to 2,800 feet and decided to move over the airport runway to see if the lift was better there. It was, strengthening to 2kts then 3 knots and topping out at 4 knots average as I climbed away. In a few minutes I was up to 6,500 feet and fat, dumb, and happy again.
I decided I'd head west towards the town of Corning, staying over the high ground and rather than trying to make time, I'd stop and tank up as I went. I wanted to be able to glide back to the Hill because I didn't have a proper tow vehicle if I landed out and frankly, I wasn't planning on my first cross country to be in the blue.
I easily made Corning and flew out beyond it to the Painted Post airport. The thermals were quiet over the city, which was odd. I turned around and took a different route back to the Hill, keeping to the North. I was down to 4,200 feet about 5 miles out - no problem to get back but I stopped for a strong thermal and headed back up over 6,200 feet. I could see Watkins Glen racetrack to the North and decided I'd head up that way to see if I could make it. Staying high, slowing for lift, I arrived at Watkins Glen track at around 5,500 feet. Actually, I came up a bit short of the track as the thermal activity seemed to be quite a bit less as I neared it so I figured I could expect the same when I returned. I decided to turn back about 2 miles short of the track and 16 miles out from Harris Hill.
Doing the math in my head, I knew a good conservative number for return was 5 miles per 1,000 feet. I'd need 3,000 feet to get back, putting me at 2,500 feet, or about 800 feet above the field if I turned around right now. I'd probably do better than that, but that's the conservative figure to use. I arrived back over the field after finding a thermal over the Elmira airport in the valley which put me back at Harris Hill around 4,000 feet. I'd done it! I'd flown farther away from the field than I'd flown in the past, and although I didn't stray far enough to be out of gliding range, it's not really that important. I could have easily kept continuing and I would have if I'd had myself set up for a retrieve. More importantly, I'd done it all in the blue.
There were a couple of times when I hit a lot of sink and thought, if this doesn't abate, I wasn't going to come back. I did what I was supposed to - I sped up to minimize it, turned across the direction of the wind at altitude, and played the percentages. I kept a backup plan for where to land if it got worse and made sure I didn't stray into an area that closed off my options. I was thinking like a cross country pilot.
I returned to the Hill and played around with the Juniors who were trying to get their 5 hour flights (one did!) and climbed a couple of times, then left the thermal, went to another, and practiced abandoning them when they weakened. After 2 hours and 45 minutes I landed with much more precision than I'd taken off. I remembered to put the gear down and kept my approach speed at 50 knots. I touched down where I intended and rolled to a stop near the trailer with virtually no brake required.
A GREAT flight for me and a real confidence booster as I concentrate on stretching out my flight legs this summer. There are sure to be many adventures and challenges ahead but this weekend I really felt like an actual cross country pilot, even though I was essentially local. I didn't set a task, so I didn't record the distance, but it was probably a 40 mile flight between the points of Harris Hill, Painted Post and Watkins Glen track. Maybe less. I'm not sure. I just know it was fun.
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