8/14/20 Wharton to Gloster

Flight and/or trip reports
Post Reply
nuclear
Site Admin
Posts: 53
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 12:20 pm

8/14/20 Wharton to Gloster

Post by nuclear »

Wharton to Gloster

Winds were light (~10 mph) out of the SSW. Anticipating a more usual 140ish wind heading, I had mowed a nice runway in the middle of the field parallel with 14 the night before. Oh well. There were two fairly well defined cloud streets over head. One to the north that looked better around the airport but more sparse downwind and another to the south that was the opposite. Leaving my fate in the hands of Tiki she towed me up and we were soon heading towards the northern street. We launched around 1pm.

Dropped off in lift, I worked up to around 4500. While doing so I watched the clouds down wind break up and the sky was getting fairly blue. I hung out in the lift I had maintaining for as long as I could then headed off downwind, not finding much lift. This soon had me low, getting down to about 1000 ft and it was looking like yet another Glen Flora XC. With an LZ picked out, I started following a bird. He wasn't circling but I didn't have any better ideas. He lead me straight into a cornado. It was a strong climb straight up to 3600 ft, using the bits of corn leaves to help me visualize the thermal.

After the cornado, I stayed with that lift slowly drifting along, eventually topping out around 4400 ft. After this I spent a good deal of time and altitude trying to find more lift, getting down about 1200 ft SW of East Bernard. The day seemed to be turning on at this point and it wasn't long before I was back up over 3k NW of East Bernard.

I had started the day with the idea that it would be nice to fly to Wallis, even setting it up in the 6030. There is a park south of town that I pass by when driving down to Wharton that always looked to me like a good LZ. Big field, flags, and a covered pavilion where one could break down in the shade. To top it off, I had seen them mowing the field on Thursday when I drove down so I knew it was nicely mowed. With my goal in sight, I pulled on VG and went on glide, making it with about 1400 ft of altitude. Perfect, only now I couldn't get down. Everything was lifting off and I was having serious doubts as to whether I really wanted to land in those conditions. I decided to keep going and climbed up over Wallis.

Downwind of Wallis there was a long stretch without many good landing options, so I hung around over 36 for awhile looking for a good climb to get me high enough to make it past this. I got down around 1200 ft, but was consistently finding enough to at least maintain while I hunted keeping a good field in glide. After about 10 minutes of this I hooked into the best climb of the day, hitting over 800 fpm up and topping out over 5500 ft at cloud base. A bit concerned about the time and my proximity to Houston's airspace, I decided to land at Gloster.

Ended up being a little over 3 hours and about 34 miles, both personal bests for me and by far my best flight this year. Thank you Tiki for driving for me and making this possible.

https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonar ... ht/2606057
Matthew McCleskey

Nate
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat Apr 25, 2020 7:20 pm

Re: 8/14/20 Wharton to Gloster

Post by Nate »

Sounds like an adventure!! I love ready flight reports. Thanks for sharing!!

User avatar
Rich Diamond
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu May 07, 2020 5:29 pm
Location: Sugar Land , Tx
Contact:

Re: 8/14/20 Wharton to Gloster

Post by Rich Diamond »

Congrats Matt , your on your way to keep breaking your personal best !

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

Re: 8/14/20 Wharton to Gloster

Post by Tiki »

What a wonderful flight Matt. Had I not stopped at Dairy Queen in Wharton to get an Oreo Blizzard and got behind two slow ordering vehicles I would have probably caught your landing. No matter, you did great and I look forward more breaking of your PB this summer.

Nate
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat Apr 25, 2020 7:20 pm

Re: 8/14/20 Wharton to Gloster

Post by Nate »

Dairy Queen - I love the blizzards. BUT that place is a total roll of the dice when it comes to the clock.

mickhoward
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 8:29 pm

Re: 8/14/20 Wharton to Gloster

Post by mickhoward »

Congrats on a nice personal best flight and thanks for the great report.

BobFisher
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri May 15, 2020 9:56 pm

Re: 8/14/20 Wharton to Gloster

Post by BobFisher »

Nice one Matt. The XCs where you just cruise along under the clouds are rewarding when you are flying them but the ones like this where you have to work a little harder for it are more rewarding after the fact.

Post Reply