Rhett towed us to the moon, as the sky looked like trash the air was smooth, and it was a guaranteed sled run. Unbeknownst to us, there were thermals to be found and Mark Hermann from CT squeaked out a 40 minute flight off tow. I towed up a while after Mark, and Pete J. had taken off right before me. Rhett waved me off tow in front of a rather wide cloud bank, which I thought he was going to tow me right through for a moment. As I looked at this white wave in front of me, I couldn't resist the urge to fly through it.
Normally this would be a very bad idea, but the day was so 'anemic', I estimated there would be little turbulence in there. As I approached the cloud bank, my vario became silenced. I looked over to see the bar staying at zero - no sink! Lift! Had I been more interested in such minor details, I may have been able to ride the front of that bank back to Morningside, but I was too distracted by the thought of flying through a cloud to pay attention.
As I approached the cloud, I pulled the bar in to speed up, in case there 'was' actually turbulence in there. I punched through the exterior wall and immediately transported to some surreal wonderland. Flying roughly 40 mph, things were whizzing by me with a good pace. I could see splotches of the ground poking through the white floor of the cloud below. All this added together to create a feeling of going through some sort of warp in a movie, it was amazing!
After an all too short period of time, I exited out the other side of the cloud with elation. It was so much fun, that I scanned the sky for another. I quickly found a lone cloud in the distance that I could still reach with my current, and descending altitude, and I headed straight for it.
The second cloud was smaller and a little more broken, but still fun to punch through. As I came out the other side I began my glide back to Morningside. I scanned back and forth as I traversed the sky, looking for any lift I could find - nothing. I remembered feeling a few bounces on tow as we passed over the trailer park south of the runway so I decided that may be my best bet.
I arrived south of the runway at 1300' and snagged a small thermal (50fpm) off the trailer park that built with more force (200 to 300fpm) over the corn fields. I rode it back to the training hill to 2500' and then it fizzled out. I went back to the trailer park and found another thermal that was smaller and less developed. I fought hard to ride it up but couldn't stay in it. The air was buoyant and smooth; around 400' over the parking lot and bullseye, there was lift. I turned a bit in the little stuff, doing no more than slowing my descent.
Directly over the bullseye I found a small thermal and smiled as I turned, trying to core up over the LZ. It would have been fun, but no such luck. All told, an exciting and enjoyable flight on a day that looked like nothing was going to happen.
The photo above is a cloud formation that looked like 3 fingers stretching into the ground from up above.
Flight Time: 51 minutes.
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