High Point

WNW 5 – 15 mph;  Larryboy, John “Homer” McAllsiter (U2), Gardinator, Greg Beyer (Sport 2), JR, Ben, LE, and Shimmy Shimrock (PG) take a mid-week flight that works out well for everyone.  The day started a little strong which meant the PG pilots had to watch the hangies flying around until conditions mellowed enough for everyone to join in the fun.  Larryboy had the altitude gain of the day to 4700’ and ended up flying down the ridge to Zirks and then out for a landing at Barton’s LZ after an hour.  Greg bailed OTB to land at the Cumberland airport after getting an hour to avoid the complication of landing in the Fairgrounds LZ.  Homer soon followed Greg’s lead and opted for a nice landing at the airport after an hour.  Gardinator and JR were close to getting scraped off the ridge to the main LZ, but found a climb on the West Face with JR then bailing OTB to join Greg and Homer at the airport for 1.5 hours.  Ben, LE, and Shimmy were eventually able to get off the hill in the mellowing conditions with Ben and Le landing at the airport after 45 minutes.  Both Gardinator (two hours) and Shimmy (an hour) landed at the main Fairgrounds LZ.

High Point

NNW 5 – 10 mph;  Pat H, JR, and Johan Ohlson (Icaro Laminar) experience the best Saturday conditions we’ve seen in a few years with strong climbs (500+ fpm) to almost 9000’.  The lack of a driver kept everyone local, but Pat and JR did venture south down the ridge to Zirks and then on to Pinnacle on a tour of the local sites.  After 1.5 hours, JR opted to land at Barton’s LZ while Pat flew back to the Fairgrounds in search of Johan who had not been heard on the radio for a while.  As it turned out, Johan opted to land at the Fairgrounds where his vehicle was parked and Pat chose to join him there, although that required a sacrifice to gods of aluminum.  Meanwhile, Larry H, Pete, and Larryboy Ball (T2) were aerotowing from a site near Columbus, Ohio called Wesmar and they experienced similar outstanding conditions, but actually did something with them.  Pete landed near Mineral Wells, WV for 98.7 miles, Larry Ball flew back to his farm near Coolville, Ohio for approx. 80 miles, and Larry Huffman got away from the airfield and landed after approx. 35 miles.  One other amazing thing about this day is that we had radio contact with Pete and Larry over a straight line distance of probably 175 miles.  Those two-meter handheld radios can really push a signal when everyone is transmitting from 9000’!