Wharton 6/13

Flight and/or trip reports
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Nate
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat Apr 25, 2020 7:20 pm

Wharton 6/13

Post by Nate »

Well, Robin called the weather and Tiki called my BS.

I told Tiki I just wanted to rehab my shoulder and knock the dust off of my AT skills. She said "Bravo Sierra Nate. I'm not gonna see you back here again."

Robin and Mick had Sasha tee'd up for retrieve and very kindly offered me a seat if I chose to venture down 59.

Tiki waved me off in lift. I'm glad she did because I sure didn't realize we were in it until off tow.

The day was blue with a few haze domes. I saw a few little clouds but all short lived. I've never flown that direction before so it was nice to have a different sight picture. Very pretty with the different rivers, etc. As I was drifting north of Edna (without radio again), I called Sasha. Yup, Mick about 5 miles ahead, Robin 5 miles behind. Ok, guess we keep going. I was surprised to see Victoria class D coming up and since I didn't have a waypoint, I looked at the Garmin and ground to figure out which road was 59. It was cool to see 77 going south and Refugio very distant. Ahh, something familiar!

I drifted just south of Victoria airport and then on the south side of downtown. There were good landing fields on the west side. Maybe I'll wind it down. Let's call Sasha and see where the guys are. I was on the west side of Victoria, Mick was heading toward Goliad, Robin was coming up on Victoria, and Sasha was between Robin and myself. Might as well go further. I split the difference between 77 and 59 as it seemed like a good LZ near houses. Getting closer and under 2k, I could see that my one landing field was actually 5 fields with lots of cross fencing. Beep, beep, beep. Ahhh, finally GENTLE buttery lift in the blue. As I climbed up to 6k again, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to correct my folly and head north, landing on 59. I didn't glide too far when I hit more lift. The adventure kicked in and my shoulder which had been aching since El Campo quit hurting. I could see Goliad ahead and that 59 curved S west of town so no need to fly up to the hwy. I crossed directly over the mission at Goliad which made for a cool visual.

West of Goliad, at around 92 miles out, I spotted some kind of RC glider north of 59. At 2nd glance, I realized Robin had caught up and was about 2k below me. Might as well see what he can find. Faster alone, further together. We drifted in some lighter but solid lift, climbing up to around 5k. From there it was all light bubbles to Beeville. I struggled to see the wisdom in milking the light climbs as we surely could have gone further but the day was ending. Robin opted to land. My shoulder pain was there again adding a lot of white noise. Robin landed and seemed to have some ESE rather than E or NE. I made a poor yet also good judgement call and landed about a half mile away in a huge field with very short grass. The field allowed me to land next to a house yet have a good overshoot and a few directions. This space wasn't needed but recovering from an accident combined with pain clouding my frontal cortex, easy seemed like the best option rather than a series of decisions in a compressed amount of time. No drama, landed next to the house. Great day.

Like almost every flight where one runs out of light, I wish I would have flown faster. That is easy to say in hindsight, but it is hard to fly fast when you land early from pushing too hard.

Thank you Tiki, Robin, Sasha, and Mick

https://www.livetrack24.com/track/1663170

Tiki
Posts: 196
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 2:54 pm

Re: Wharton 6/13

Post by Tiki »

Excellent report Nate ... also you couldn’t help it...you had to go ... it’s called PPS (Piped Piper Syndrome) 😁 It’s a victimless crime...

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