By Wayne & Ed
Windy, windy, windy.
Sure am getting in my share of ‘windy’ practice lately. If you were at the club contest a week ago then you know what I’m talking about. To me, and I didn’t have a meter, it seemed like a day that I would call 10+. Any dips below 10 would have been caused by an upwind patch of lift that was sucking the prevailing wind down a but. When that lift moved through then its ‘suck’ ended up adding to the prevailing 10.
The difference between yesterday and my previous outings, the last contest and some sport flying last Tuesday, was that the lift yesterday seemed more turbulent and scattered. At 50oz my Vinco TR lite was really getting bounced around at times. There were only a few occasions where I found something organized enough to try and turn in. The rest of the time it was just a case of surfing into the wind. My best times came from hanging out over the levy and sloping the trees. I had a couple of 10 min flights but more often they were in the 5-6 min range.
“There were only a few occasions where I found something organized enough to try and turn in. The rest of the time it was just a case of surfing into the wind.” – Wayne
One thing that was really fun yesterday, and gave Larry a big kick, was that it was very easy for me to match my forward air speed with the wind speed resulting in near zero ground speed. I lost count of the times I came around to set up my landing about 75’ up and just hovered into the wind, with the plane slowly descending like on an elevator, until it just flopped at my feet. There were several times when I could have caught it if I had been bold enough. Once as I was coming in I was down to about 15’ and some lift blew through and the plane just rose back up to about 100.’ It was quite the ride.
Rich [R] was shooting some landings also, making most, but occasionally turning too far downwind to get back. But… he only had to take one trek into the beans. Just keep the speed up Rich and turn sooner than you think you need to on days like this.
Still liking my Vinco more and more every time I fly it. Really love the V tail too. Especially love having a 4 meter plane that will fit in the trunk of my car!
“I got to Field E on the sod farm about 9am and was soon followed by Rich R., then Wayne then Larry. Rich put out his hi-start the rest of us were flying electrics. Wind forecast for 6-7 but was averaging around 9-10 with gusts to 13. Lots of puffy clouds and seemed like lift everywhere. Rich was practicing his landings with his Ava while the rest of us were just enjoying the lift. We started to pack it up around noon but a good time was had by all. Like the man always says: “You shoulda been there”.” – Ed