Thank-You Tony for offering to give me a ride to Secret Site for my first flight in the new Tracer Harness. There were three other pilots there besides me: Tony Middleton, Mark Stump and Mike Kelsey, The conditions were not as strong as we hoped they would be but still I am quite glad that I went. John Flatte's record flight of greater than 60 miles still stands. As a matter of fact, Tony was the only one who really got up and he wasn't nearly high enough to consider going cross country. Mark Stump was above launch for a little while but sank out when he headed north along the ridge. I launched after Mark and heard Tony yelling for me to turn right off of launch but the vario was showing only miniscule lift and was not comfortable risking sinking out while turning so kept on flying straight and hoped for better lift. I didn't find any ended up just barely clearing the fence on the other side of the railroad tracks.
The landing field is in horrible shape with the thickest tall weeds I have ever landed in. It was very difficult to carry the glider to the breakdown area even though Mark had cleared out a path ahead of me. While breaking down the glider I started having a sneezing fit and Mark came to the rescue with some appropriate medication. Thanks for that Mark!
I will eventually post a short MP3 of pilots talking before launch. The battery has since died and it is time for me to go to sleep so the MP3 will have to wait at least until late Sunday night when I get off of work When I do post it, the URL will be HERE. so listen to it if you have time and the inclination.
UPDATE:I couldn't stand the thought of the mp3 not being available to people to listen to while I am at work this Sunday, so I went ahead and changed the batteries in the tape recorder and uploaded the audio. It is about 500KB.