More Fun At Crawfords

Where do I start! Tuesday, July 28th, Cody and I returned to the Crawfords. It was a stereotypical XC day. Winds were strong from the WNW, with a great soaring forecast to boot. We both launched within minutes of each other and were soon scouring the hill for a reasonable thermal. After twenty minutes or so, I found a boomer at the south end of the ridge. A call on the radio brought Cody down my way, and as I was thermaling up into a nice cloud at 14,000, Cody began circling 2000ft below in the same lift. I hung out and flew back toward the ridge in broken lift waiting for Cody to catch up, but ironically the scenario soon flipped with Cody fifteen hundred above me whiting out in the same cloud I was in earlier. I found another good core and took it back up to 13,300ft. Cody committed to going over the back, so I hesitatingly followed even though the lift I was in was becoming less dependable. Cody was high in a great position, and continued on crossing some desolate un-landable terrain. He ended up with a 58 mile flight just shy of Little America, WY. I however landed out on top of a ridge just 13 miles from launch. Big thanks to our driver Dorothy for a quick pickup.

On Friday, Cody once again showed us how to go XC at the Crawfords. Greg, John Glime, Cody and myself set up in strong conditions at the Crawfords. I had one of the scariest launches of my flying career. After wireing everyone else off, I launched myself with Dorothy on my left wing wire. An errant gust lifted me prematurely and I felt I wouldn't get the wing back down, so I went with it. As soon as I was ten feet off the ground another strong gust from the right turned me 90 degrees to the left and toward the hill. I corrected with full right input and the wing slowly responded and flew out away from the hill. Yikes, should have had a wire crew - won't do that again.

Everyone had a great start once in the air. The conditions were very strong and with 30mph+ winds, drifting back with a thermal was very committing. I decided to stay out front and make a local day of it. Greg and John went over the back landing safely 13 miles from launch on the same ridge I landed on earlier in the week. Cody climbed out succesfully and went on to complete another great XC flight - this time 62 miles.