Cherokee Kid Rides Again

It's been way too long since I went soaring in the Cherokee. I had it out last year in September for our vintage rally but didn't get a chance to fly it myself as it was flown by friends visiting from out of town.

This year I spent most of the season distracted from flying the Cherokee since I was prepping for the Pan Americans, Cordele, and Lithuania. Now that I'm home, It's YYY's turn to fly. Just in time for our vintage rally again!

Yesterday I ended up having a nice soaring flight in a friends Bergfalke after a quick sled ride in the Cherokee. Launched a little too early. Oh well, Pete did take the Cherokee up and enjoyed a couple hours soaring in it.

Today I had no plans to fly anything else. Launch at 1:15 with a 95ish mile declared triangle. Cu popping. Up and away. Been well over a year since we soared together but its amazing how that glider speaks to me. No trouble finding exactly where the thermals were just from feeling my way through the bumps.

My declaration was not without trouble as the first turnpoint was out of the cloud field. Oh well a slightly low point, dig back, run back to clouds. Turns out turnpoint two was out the other side of the cloud field so I just decided to stay with the clouds.

I made sure to take some really weak lift along the way to get my circling percentage up to a respectable level, just for the ol' Gapa Geezer!

As the clock ticked by I had my eye set on 5 hours. I already had plenty of altitude for a 1000 meter gain and had made it 50 km away. At VSA rallies we get excited about making silver badge legs so we can get the cool VSA coins, engraved with three Pterodactyls! Doing all three Silver legs on one flight is always fun.

The last couple thermals barely averaged 1 knot but up is better than down and we enjoyed that nice late afternoon early evening air, perfectly smooth, circling down under 45 mph indicated.

I landed just after Dave, which is unusual. He's usually the last one down, and just before Jim. Both in Ka-6's. Five hours 17 minutes on the clock. Didn't feel tired until I got out of the glider.

OLC says 23 mile per hour average. It wasn't strong but it was fun! pretty cold up high too.

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...l?dsId=4759059