The 'Fling' gets Flung...again...this time on it's Hi-Start

RknRusty wrote:Wayne is good at it. His hobby used to be soaring, and they would ride the Appalachian ridge to Virginia and back in a day. While I was down this winter, he got bored and bought a 3 meter electric and take it out to our Congaree field. He puts it up and looks for the slightest flutter of a wingtip, turns into it and shoots way freakin' up. He also follows the buzzards. Maybe you should shoot some cats and take them with you, scatter them about and wait for birds of prey Lol







Juuussst Kidding!

Yeah, those guys really learn to read the air, and that's the draw for this stuff.  I've had some great saves where I hooked into lift down low and climbed back out to altitude, and the feeling from that is as big a thrill as anything done with any other kind of flying.  There were PLENTY of other times when my gamble didn't pay out, and I'd be climbing over fences, and moving the transmitter stick to make some servo noise to help me find a sailplane in the tall weeds....

What seems like a hundred years ago, I used to make every-other-summer trips to Seminole Glider Park near Clermont, Florida.  I could rent two types of sailplanes there:  the somewhat portly Schweizer 2-33 that, for me was kinda like the family mini-van, and the sexy Grobe 103's that were about sleekest sailplanes I could find on a rental contract.

I usually ended up in the Schweizer, as the Grobes were heavily booked, though I tried to schedule my Florida trips to be there during the slow season before March, and managed to get my hands on the Grobes a few times.  I never got to slope-soar like your friend, but that's on my bucket list.  

All of my flights were thermal-hunting, and I managed some good long flights, once nearly punching into the bottom of a building cu while looking down and concentrating on staying in the lift that made it.  It was also not unusual to share the lift with good-sized hawks and buzzards, who where probably shaking their heads in disgust at having to share their sky with such a wannabe.

Adventures from long ago.















Yeah, probably wouldn't shoot a cat, but there's groundhog out at the far barn whose days are numbered...

Edit: Here's a dose from my favorite chapter from Dave Thornburg's Soaring Book: