Saturday was busy.
There were six "Guest Rides", people who just show up and want to take a $125 Glider Ride.
At one point there were 8 gliders lined up waiting for a tow.
I spent the day "working" on the ground, as payback for the times others did work while I was in the air.
Sometimes a late day flight is the best time of day. I took off about 4:30pm, the first time all day there was nobidy else waiting to go up (though there were some more flights after i was up). Late day,the thermals are maxing out, the air generally smooth,
Made it to 6000 feet for the first time this yeat at 5:53pm.
The mechanical altitude indicator drags a little, but the flight computer gave me 6002 feet barometric (which seems quite accurate on the ground) so I'll go with that.
GPS says 6171 feet, but it isn't necessarily
accurate for height.
Same shot.
Gonna head to that line of clouds in from of me, about ten miles away along I-75.
Not much between here and there, so will see if I can make it.
I did, about 40 minutes later, found some lift along the way to the left in the picture above.
I could have stayed up, but was getting a little chill in the cool air.
So that set me up for a long glide to landing...
28 minutes and 30 seconds, losing 5,128 feet to the approach, at about 70mph average
That's 102fps forward, and 3fps down, so a Glide Ratio of about 34 feet forward per foot of drop, and a glide distance of about 35 miles. That's decent for my antique plane.
I think that's the airport right in front of me below, about 10 miles away, so I turned left toward Dade City (10 miles north of the airport), then turned south and overshot the airport still burning off altitude, for a right downwind and landing headed south.
The flight computer is set to keep a line on the map that shows the heading between me and a chosen target, in my case, the airport, in case it is not clearly visible to the eye. A handy little toy.
Nice late day flight.
Below, the little airplane symbol is at the start of the final glide. Barograph at the bottom shows time and altitude. Squiggles on the map are circling in rising air.
The gray line is "airspace". Left half is Tampa Class B above 6000 feet top left and above 3000 feet lower left. Tight side is unlimited for us. Don't bust the Class B limits.