A lot of time looking at the ground
Greg Dinauer|Larry Bunner|PG
The forecast for Friday:
NWS:
Friday
Mostly sunny, with a high near 93. South wind 5 to 10 mph.
Hourly in the afternoon: South southwest surface wind 8 mph, 29% cloud cover.
HRRR 3:
South southwest surface wind at 1 PM: 8 mph, 2000' 11 mph, and 4000' 11 mph
TOL at 1 PM: 5,900'
Updraft Velocity at 1 pm: 580 fpm
CB at 1 PM: 4,900'
B/S at 1 PM: 8.5
At noon:
TOL: 4,100', 420 fpm, CB 4,270' (RAP), B/S 5.6 (so early launch may be possible if the cu's show up, which is likely)
Sea Breeze:
There is a forecasted sea breeze from the west. Surface wind turn more westerly around 4 PM around Brooksville and 5 PM at Groveland. Cu's mostly gone by 5 PM.
Cumulus cloud base will almost be 7,000' at 3 PM.
Task:
Quest 3 km
Kokee 3 km
Baron 3 km
Quest 400 m
82 km
Despite the forecasted 11 mph south southwest winds I figured that with us getting quite high we would be able to overcome them.
The early morning started off with a Zapata, Texas like overrunning with low clouds filling the sky and moving quickly to the north. After a while the clouds separated and there were dozens of cloud streets stretching from south to north as far as we could see to the east and west.
Bunches of pilots were ready to go as we watched the cloud streets disappear later in the morning and just a few cu's appear at noon. Finally a little after one we decided to just get going and hope that the cu's would appear later as they had the previous day.
Larry Bunner was not going first after not hitting any lift on Thursday and I took off after Greg Dinauer at 1:15 PM. Other pilots wanted to see how we did.
Kasey took me to a nearby cu west of Wilotree Park and I climbed to 3,300' but essentially stopped there when the lift went to zero. Heading south with Greg we found lift at 900' AGL at the south end of the field and worked our way back to 3,400' This recovery from 900' was to be a precursor for the day.
Six pilots got together over Groveland and got in each others way as we climbed to 3,600' and then headed west. Apparently pilots had forgotten how to gaggle fly without much practice lately.
There was a dark looking cu south of Mascotte and we all joined up again climbing at almost 240 fpm to 4,200'. This was the strongest lift so far. The cu's were very sparse and there weren't any others nearby that looked this good. I was almost an hour into the flight and had barely gone any where. The wind was cross at 7mph. We were not getting at all high.
We climbed in 144 fpm a few kilometers over the nursery back to 4,000' as the south wind pushed us to the north of highway 50. There were a few cu's off in the distance toward the sawmill.
Heading west we all spread out and separated losing track of each other as we got low by the mine just north of 50. Not finding any lift I was down to 1,400' on the east side of the mine while Larry was further south climbing slowly. None of the pilots I was near was finding anything.
I saw a cu back east toward highway 469 and dove for it. In search mode down to 700' AGL I found lift over a nice open field and a wind that appeared to be out of the southwest at 6 mph.
At this point I figured that my task had changed. My task was now to stay in the air and get up from low. Everything else could wait until later. I was watching the nearby fields very carefully to make sure that I had a safe landing area as it was not at all assured that I would get up.
I climbed to 3,000' and then when the lift gave out headed south southeast toward a huge field that I was familiar with and that had a nice cu over it. 13 fpm got me back to 2,000' and downwind further north and over my next good looking LZ where Mick and I had also previously landed this year (it was a bit down hill).
I flew north back to the next good looking LZ and again at 900' AGL I found lift, this time 240 fpm and climbed to 3,800'. To the north it was mostly swamps and fields that were only accessible by paths so I wanted to stay near my good looking LZ's.
I headed south southeast toward the best looking cu's that I had been watching for a while. It looked like they sort of lined up for a route back toward Wilotree Park. As I was doing all this low work the cu's had started to fill up the sky and they made it much more likely that I would in fact be able to get up, not just stay in the air and perhaps get high enough to make it back to Wilotree Park, my next task.
While I was watching LZ's and staying in the air, other pilots were having trouble landing back near the mine with one pilot suffering leg damage, two broken down tubes and a concussion and another with a sprained ankle. Only Larry, Tiago and I were still in the air, but that would not be for long as there was a fire pumping smoke toward the Kokee turnpoint and cutting off the lift just before the first turnpoint.
I climbed to 4,200' three kilometers north of the chicken coops and headed in the direction of the next cu's but they had moved further east and they were no longer lining up for a good run back to Wilotree Park. Quickly down to 3,100' and what looked like a south southeast head wind, fewer landing options and no cu's where I wanted to head for I turned west and went back to the previously visited huge field that had a nice black cloud on its eastern edge.
I figured that the wind was still southwest on that side of the cu and sure enough by heading north once again on the western edge of the cu I was able to climb at 250 fpm to 4,500'. Now the cu's lined up and I was able to easily follow them back to Wilotree Park. Everyone else was down and some were being rescued while I was all set for tomorrow.
All that took three hours. Sometimes your task is not the one that you started out with, but can be very interesting and challenging none the less. I had turned down the volume on my radio so I had no idea how others were doing as I needed to focus.
https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/2745314
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3 topics in this article: Greg Dinauer, Larry Bunner, PG
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