We've often joked about it at the airport, but the signs were quite evident today. With the uncertain weather forecast, I arrived hoping to fly but expecting to do little more than update the airport database in my LX-5000 flight computer. As it turns out, the winds were blowing at 15-20 knots down runway 13 and it was raining on and off. There was no way I'd assemble my glider in those conditions, nor would I leave the canopy open while I tried to interface my laptop with the LX-5000.
So I did the only other thing I could do: hang out, watching the weather and complaining about not having any good flights recently. Jonathon and Miguel were itching to fly, anyone could tell. (They ended up taking up the Grob 103 in search of wave lift.) Yesterday Lance said he's been dying to get a good day of soaring in too. And I've had that feeling for a while now too.
I chatted with Richard a bit as we waited around and watched the weather. With the wind blowing that strong, I figured there had to be wave somewhere. I really wanted to go find it, but the clouds were making that nearly impossible.
After a bit more time went by, Drew suggested that I take up the Duo Discus with Richard. I'm not one to turn down a chance to fly that fine machine, so off we went. We towed to 5,700 feet and found little more than light rotor. The only exciting part of the flight was my landing. Landing on 13 with a 20 knot headwind made the approach amusing but uneventful.
The rain was really starting up again when we landed. I hung around long enough to help Richard and Brett launch in the Duo. As I was leaving, I witnessed Scott taking off in the 1-34 in heavy rain.
Driving home in the pounding rain, I thought about the activities I had just seen and particpated in. A bunch of us were so desperate for decent flights that we put up with the rain, heavy cloud cover, and 15-20 knot winds in late Feburary.
I tell you, soaring is an addiction.
See, after that I came home and futzed with the Gimp and ImageMagick in long but successful attempt to add an overlay of labels to a new local soaring forecast that Dr. Jack has developed.
Posted by jzawodn at February 19, 2005 10:44 PM
Nah! Real men fly airplanes without engines :-)
Good going Jeremy!
And, yeah, you are addicted... Could be worse though. You could be addicted to computers or ham radio or... Oh, never mind.
I feel the same way about kayaking. I've spent a lot of hours hanging around with my gear plotting courses, willing the weather to change.
It's beautiful when it works, and skipping across the tops of the waves and surfing down the fronts feels a bit like flying. Magic.
> Real men fly airplanes without engines.
Bwahahahaha. True.
