The Pressure..

This past weekend was a H pressure party. I shouldn't complain with the way this season has panned out though. At least it wasn't raining for once..


The system caused a blue hole as predicted. We ended up with storms developing off to the West over Rutland, about 30 miles away. Ilya and Max took tows up but weren't able to find anything worth writing home about. I hopped in line anyway to take my sledder like a man. Caci had gone up before me and was working something off to the NE of the park, the only game in town it seemed. I towed up, found nothing off to the West, and made a dash for the terrain over the park near where he was. Nick flew past me and was on his way to land, it seemed it was shutting down and I was bumming for being just a few minutes too late.


I was down to about 400' over the hill when I caught a puff of zero - I'll take it. I started circling and it started getting a little better, up to about 50fpm. I was trying to stay as flat as possible but trying to turn tight enough to keep in it. Then a hawk out climbing me about 100' to the East caught my eye. I adjusted to where he was and got into 200fpm.. Thank you, bird! He and I shared the thermal and as we climbed out we got into 500fpm! We were then joined by a turkey vulture shortly before the thermal ended up crapping out on us. With the feathered assist I ended up gaining about 1,300' and came in to have a perfect landing. Always a plus!


Sunday was a repeat day. H pressure, predicted to be blue, light winds. Ilya and I dissected the weather predictions and set on a 3pm launch time to be when there would be lift, if there was any at all. Clouds ended up forming all around us, they looked decent but tattered and I was worried it was just from moisture from the night before rather than actual lift. We got on the carts, Ilya, myself, and Jeff and I made a comment about feeling like we were too early. Ilya would later agree that we should've waited.

Takeoff with hubby assist (Photo by Max Kotchouro)

We ended up back on the ground while Jeff remained up so we went for relights, mine being later than Ilya's. As I was towing up noticed they were getting low. I got dropped NE of the park and made a dash for a cloud that was about 500 higher than me, there was absolutely nothing under or near it. Time to hunt.. Jeff was still scratching low near Calavant Hill so I headed that way and found a scrappy 0-50fpm. I began working it.. but he was getting bigger. I clover leafed around to see where his core was and found 600fpm down all around.. I stayed with what I had. He never got all the way up to me and went off to land. I was getting low again so I headed for more terrain over Morningside. I was over the hill and again had a 0-50fpm that I started working. I managed to scratch out a 33 minute flight from it. This weekend was a test of patience and thermal-sniffing, which is good to have once in awhile.