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Index to weather maps

Hangola January 15 & 17, 2000

Tom and I were the only ones to show up at Fisher Road on Saturday! What's up with that?

I 'won' the toss and launched first. Winds were coming straight in. After a couple of passes I noticed that I wasn't going up, so I pulled the string to the wing and beelined it to the hump. There I struggled and started going up. I was high enough for Tom to go and get his glider, but by the time he was back on launch, I was back at ridge top.

Tom launched and stayed by launch and was doing much better than I. I searched for a better spot. There were lots of thermals, but all pretty small. If the sun had come out a little bit more it really would have been boowah! I got over an hour and landed at the primary, Tom got about 2 hours and landed at Ritchie's Knob.

Neither of us got cold but both of us noticed that our gliders seemed very stiff in handling. Couldn't decide if it was the cold, the small thermals, or just what.

-Mike Balk

Well, we went. It was cold. We threw Ed Reno off, then got ready ourselves (Tom and I). And we waited. Cycles came through, but cross and not in the slot. Then we noticed that the cycles were fewer and further between. We hadn't seen Ed in almost an hour. We had visions of him 4,000 feet over with the best flight of his life. That or sinking out one finger away.

Then Ed appeared. Low and heading for the field.

After waiting over an hour (at least it wasn't that cold without the wind!), Tom and I both took our sleds. I hit one section of less sink, and just as I was about to turn in it, I went over the falls! My vario recorded no lift, and max sink at 825 feet per minute! Well at 825 feet per minute it didn't take me long to get to the LZ!

It was very nice and warm in the LZ. At least we didn't have to hike up the back!

-Mike Balk

It was a boo-wah day at Wallaby's on Sunday with big puffy cumies and cloud streets in all directions. Unfortunately, Karen and I didn't arrive there till Monday since we were visiting her folks in Daytona--- Christy can give you the details about Sunday. We flew anyway and I found a couple of weak thermals that kept taking me away from the LZ. But since I was in a rented Falcon without the bag and not prepared to go XC, I came back to the LZ and sank out with the rest of the crowd flying in that over-developed area-- ended up with 25 minutes. Karen test flew an Ultrasport 135 and declared it to be too big. She couldn't reach the nose wire connection to assemble the beast and the base tube hits the tops of her feet. Damn thing weighs as much as my Ultrasport 147. She had wanted to test fly the XC 132 as well but Christy had rented it for an XC seminar and disappeared into the wilds of Florida with it on her second flight. I took a second flight on a US 147 when the sun came back out, but by the time I got it together and found someone to tow me, it had shut down again-- hence a very smooth sled.

Matthew (glad to be out of Florida, of Karen and Matthew)

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This page last updated January 18, 2000