Clear Skies Provide Nice Flights

There was a big high pressure that provided a beautiful, clear day, with very light NE winds. Seven local pilots came out to fly and experienced both smooth and ratty thermals, with big sink in between. It is harvest season in the Hearne area so there were pieces of cotton seen at altitude (and it was nice to be able to "see" again after the smoky haze conditions last week). RR Rodriguez flew his Sensor again this weekend getting just over an hour, reaching 5685 agl. Kenneth Cobb totaled about an hour from 2 flights, and Ramesh Sivaraman got back in the air after 2 years of no flying. Chris Zimmerman, Dan Bereczki, and Mike Degtoff had talked about trying a triangle - Calvert, Franklin, Hearne. Dan launched first and was successful finding some lift to keep him at altitude. CZ launched next, pinning off at 1500'...only to have to relaunch. He was trying to remember how to thermal and we told him to watch Dan. Degtoff launched and quickly found a thermal just west of the airport. CZ launched a second time and was able to stay aloft this time. The three worked some lift around the airport for awhile, trying to decide if it was worth heading out. Finally CZ took off towards Calvert and Dan followed. After watching Chris struggle quite low Dan decided to head back to home base. Not able to find any workable lift he landed about 2 miles short of the airport, 1.5 hrs. later. Steve had just towed RR up and saw Dan down in a cow field. He decided to land and offer a lift back to the airport since Barb wasn't with Dan today for retrieve. So Dan was airlifted back to the airport and then retrieved himself! Chris landed out close to Calvert as he was heading towards to Franklin...we're sure it's that smaller demo Talon that CZ is having to fly right now and not the pilot. Degtoff pretty much just flew all over the place in his Stalker. He flew out towards Calvert, then came back to Hearne where he "frolicked" with RR in a couple of thermals before he headed off towards Franklin then returned, then flew out west a ways before finally coming back to land, logging 2 hrs. and topping out close to 6000'. By the way, RR said that Degtoff is quite pleasant to thermal with, contrary to popular belief (or unpopular belief). We ended the day with several "discovery" tandems provided by CZ, with Burnzie as the tow pilot. Eric Russell, Chris Weidenbach, and Jason Wade all enjoyed their first experience with hang gliding.

Robin Hamilton Pulls Off Another World Record Flight

Robin was also out today and decided to attempt a 50 km triangle speed run after assessing the conditions from Degtoff who was already at altitude.

Robin sends in the following:

The conditions on the 50K day were blue with great visibility and quite good lift when you found it. I chose a start point on the Highway N of Hearne. The northerly headwind of 12-18km/hr certainly didn't help on the way up to the first TP and I could never really maintain a comfortable altitude with fairly heavy sink ater the first climb. In the end I had to take a slow climb just after Calvert to avoid landing at the TP. I still came round the TP low but managed to pick up a stronger climb immediately after that set me up for a long dolphin glide to Franklin in relatively good air. I got a reasonable 400fpm climb at Franklin that got me to around 2,800' agl and this altitude together with the healthy tailwind and some dolphin flying on the way in gave me enough to stretch out to the finish point. It was a fun flight - the great visibility and doing most of the flight at 3,000' or less agl made me think I was going to land at any time. I tried hard to optimise the glide lines to pick up the vegetation changes (tree lines etc.) and probable triggers along the way. Still thought I was going to land in every ranch and in the end I was truly surprised to get back to the airport. It was a world record time around 46km/hr with the previous record being held by Davis of around 40km/hr down at Wallaby.

See his barograph trace and track log below:

Windy Sunday

Sunday morning the north winds steadily increased to 20-25 mph and gusty and stayed that way throughout the entire day. Kenneth Cobb showed up around 11 am, just as the winds began to increase, but was at least able to meet April from Florida. April flies at Quest when she's not training animals for movies. She is currently working in the Round Rock-Hutto area on a film called The Secondhand Lion. April is training pigs for this one and she'll be around until mid-Nov. Reed Murray also stopped by, driving his house, on his way to Waco. We all had a nice visit and even talked about a few things other than flying (not too many though!).

Hurricane Isadore keeps heading south, but the experts insist that it will take a northerly route at some point...we'll just have to wait and see.