99 Soaring Fans, This Is Bravo Zulu With A Report From CCSC XC Camp Day 2
Today we followed the schedule and the weather cooperated, sort of. For the morning lecture, John Lubon shared his philosophy with us on thermalling techniques and gave examples of what to do above and below the “hard deck” of 2000 feet AGL. Following lunch, my group assembled and was in the grid by PM and in the air by 2:30. Being first in the grid has an advantage of getting more flight time but it means working lower and slower lift; but we all climbed out to cloud base at about 4500 msl. Getting together was a bit of a challenge since individual members found lift in different places. Our mentor, Frank, kept in contact with each member of the flight to make sure we were all “OK”. We finally gathered near Dayton and moved out under a nice cloud street toward Richmond. About halfway there the clouds ended and we tanked up and pressed on into the wind and blue. After watching Frank digging himself out of a low spot we moved on to enter the Richmond area before returning to CCSC where we found clouds again and lift up to 5000 msl. Then it was off to Clenton county airport. Frank and I were together for this last leg but finding no lift under 3 different clouds, Frank turned us around for a run back to CCSC. We arrived overhead at the planned 1500 agl for some thermalling practice, which went rather well. I found my place in the landing sequence and finished my landing abeam my trailer to end another great day flying at Caesar Creek.
A quick lesson for team flying for me: I had been flying outboard of Frank but back about 30 degrees at his 8 or 4 o’clock. This would be a normal combat cruise position in the Navy but for team flying 9 or 3 o’clock is better. There, both pilots have an “external vario” to help with finding energy. Additionally, when one hits a thermal and turns the other is set up perfectly to turn toward the lift and enter the thermal.
The evening lecture featured John Lubon again and his talk centered on “cruising for speed”. He talked about the factors involved in deciding how fast to fly between thermals. Good stuff and another super day is in the bag.
Bravo Zulu, aka Bug Zapper out.
