Copyright 2001, John Gossett Austin, Texas
I took advantage of the cancellation of a long standing regular Tuesday appointment to leave work at the appointment time (3:30) and go flying. Did I feel guilty about leaving work to go flying - nah!
(Marital side note - my wife and I discovered that "nah" doesn't really mean "no", it means, "I really want to say yes, but I am too wishy-washy to say yes.")
Local conditions were dry and hot with temps in the upper 90s as Texas was under a summer high pressure ridge. The wind conditions were wierd though. The direction constantly shifted from east-south-east to south-south-west and the velocity shifted just as frequently. I spent a lot of time hunting for my hi-start parachute in the tall grass because there was no telling where it would come down.
I would have thought with the sun shining relentlessly that there would have been really good thermals, but I found only a couple weak lift areas. The difficulty for me was that the shifting lightly gusty winds would suddenly change the attitude of the skeeter by tossing the nose up, or a wing up, and I would think, "lift!" As soon as I saw it bounce I circled around only to find no lift. So I kept asking myself, "how do I distinguish a wind-tossed wing from a thermal encounter?" I launched a lot of times trying to answer that question, but without much success.
So that hot afternoon basically resulted in a lot of launch-and-land practice that ended on one positive note - two hours of fickle winds flying without a single crash!
Copyright 2001, John Gossett Austin, Texas