The forecast looked excellent with winds 3-5 miles per hour and sunny skies. We've had little to no rain in the last week so the ground was dry and the air pleasant on the ground. The club Tug pilot named Frank worked on Friday to get the Dragonfly ready for the first day of Aerotowing of the year and a bunch of pilots came out to take advantage. When I showed up at the field at 1:00pm there were 12 gliders set up and ready to fly and a few in the air. I set mine wing up to join them. They were running both the scooter for us H2's and the Aerotow for the others. I watched a few people launch and then stepped up to the scooter for my first tow.
It was a smooth ride to about 800 feet. Since there was little or no wind we didn't expect very high tows. When I released right over the top of the tow rig the beeping vario didn't stop so I immediately started circling in lift. I think I climbed up to 2100 or so and was ecstatic the whole time. What an excellent way to start off the day: immediately climbing higher than I had ever been.
The thermal wasn't strong and didn't seem very large (wide) but it persisted until around 2100 ft. At that point I decided to try gliding over to a bend in the river where I had seen pilots circling in lift in the past. Apparently there's a feature near the bend in the river that is a consistent trigger for the thermals. But I didn't end up gliding all the way there. I was in sink the whole time and suddenly thought it might have been a bad idea to venture away from what little lift I had. I turned around and glided down toward the end of the field where people were launching from. By the time I got there I was around 1000ft and was starting to wonder if I was going to have to set up and land.
As I was drifting down below 900ft above ground level I found some more light lift and tried working it. It got stronger as I climbed and by the time I was above 1200ft it was climbing nicely at around 350 ft/min. There was another pilot about double my height in close to the same area. I figured I might be able to find what he was in. It didn't end up taking very long before I was level with and climbing past him. I think he was in an adjacent thermal. By the time I was at 2200 I was climbing at 500ft/min or better and making fairly tight turns to stay in the strongest of the lift. I climbed that one all the way to the top at around 3900 ft. I think that was close to the same height everyone else was topping out at. I looked over toward the bend in the river and saw a group of 4 gliders working it. Those were the 4 that had been up since before I launched. Two of them had even been up since I drove in to the field in the afternoon. I was about level with the glider at the top of that stack.
I sunk twice more either because things got quite or because I just wandered away from lift but I climbed back up to 2800 or so each time. In the end I landed nicely after experiencing my first hour long flight. My legs were weak on the landing and I stumbled a little. I'll have to remember to stretch or move them some when I open the doors on final approach. I was feeling great and couldn't have been happier with my flight so I just hung around for the rest of the day and watched the other pilots soar and eventually land. I think at least one pilot had a 4 hour flight.
If Saturday was any indication, this spring and summer are going to be excellent. I'm looking forward to seeing some more soaring flights.
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