They were able to fly in the Comp on Thursday and Friday, but I’m posting this Saturday morning, and I’m pretty sure Saturday will be cancelled as well, due to high winds and a strong chance of thunderstorms.

Although it didn’t work out like we had hoped, that’s the nature of hang gliding…we depend on the weather being good. Maybe next time…

Today, we woke to clear skies, but still a lot of wind. With nothing else to do, we spent the day setting up the outdoor showers for the meet, including propane fired hot water heaters….fun stuff.

Pilots meeting was scheduled for tonight at 8 PM, but it’s been postponed until tomorrow morning. The weather forecast looks like the strong winds again tomorrow, so it’s questionable if we get to fly…more later.

I’ll post pics and updates as I can.

At this point, the best possible scenario – I’ll receive it before the weekend of April 16 – 17. That would put it at about  3 1/2 months from  order to delivery. That’s a long time…

We had one 100+ mile flight, by Mark Stump on his Atos VQ. He launched from Heavener, Oklahoma, and made it to the Morrilton Sod Farm, flying what we like to call the “Heavener Highway”.

My personal best of the year was the day following Mark’s flight, when Chris Price and I headed to Heavener hoping that the conditions Mark had experienced would still be happening. The conditions were still good, but we didn’t score the big 100 that we were after. I made it from Heavener to Nebo, for a flight of 77 miles, and Chris made it to the 74 mile mark. We were pretty happy with that, although our sights were set higher. I was flying my Atos VX, and Chris was on his Wills Wing T2.

Looking ahead, we hope that this year was the beginning of a trend of better flying conditions. We achieved better altitudes this year, consistently having days when cloudbase was 6000′ AGL or higher. There’s still lots of room for improvement…I remember conditions twenty years ago that were much better than what we’ve seen lately. Maybe we’ll get lucky and have some of that type of weather in 2011.

By next spring, I plan to be on a new Wills Wing T2, or possibly a T2C . I’ve been flying my Atos VX since I started flying again here in Arkansas, and it’s been a lot of fun. It is an awesome glider, but I do somehow miss the flex wing experience. After flying flex wings for over 20 years, I guess I’m not ready to permanently abandon them for the luxury ride of a rigid wing. If I get a chance to sell my VX, I probably will. If not, I may fly both rigid and flex next season.

A group of us will likely be heading to Florida in the spring, possibly for the Wills Wing Demo Days at Wallaby.

XC skies had a ”better than mediocre”  forecast for Saturday, and an epic looking forecast for Sunday. Turned out it was half right. Sadly, it was the Saturday forecast that was closer to the mark. Sunday did not qualify as “epic”.

Saturday we got to Mag, and were greeted with stronger than usual southerly winds, but it was not blown out. I launched about 1:30, popped up on the ridge, and pretty quickly took a thermal to base, about 5400′ AGL. That’s better than it’s been lately…we’ve become so used to cloudbases at 4000′ that a 5000′ day is a surprise. I headed east, trying to make the usual flight to the Nebo/Dardanelle area. The best conditions encountered were over Mag, but I did catch a few thermals and made my way to an unplanned LZ out in front of Nebo. I had hoped to make the sod farm, but it was not to be.

Sunday, with the XC skies epic forecast foremost in my thoughts, we headed to Mag again. Pete Lehman was coming through on his way south, so we hooked up with him at Dardanelle, leaving his rig at the sod farm. An hour and a half later, I launched first, and he was just a couple of minutes behind me. It actually did feel epic over the mountain, with a screaming fast thermal up to 5600′ AGL. Pete was climbing up to me in a similar thermal as I headed east, and he fell in behind me. In the meantime, Phil launched, followed by John, Donna, and Walt.

By the time Pete and I were north of Havana, we had left the epic stuff behind and were groveling for lift. Down to about 4000′, Pete decided that he didn’t like the looks of the blue hole ahead of us, and he made a move out across the valley. This can often be a bad move, but it turned out to be a very good move for him. I dove on out into the blue hole that was between Mag and Spring Lake. There was a good looking cloud at Spring Lake, and I hoped I could make it, but it wasn’t to be. I turned back when it became obvious that I wasn’t going to make it past Spring Lake, and looked for a save on the glide out to Woodson’s airstrip. It wasn’t happening, and I landed after a measly 45 minutes in the air.

Pete was now out in the valley somewhere, reporting unreliable clouds and extremly light lift. However, he was managing to stay up, and it wasn’t long before he was reporting that he had the sod farm on a glide.

John made it to Woodsons, followed by Donna and Phil. This was the longest XC flight Donna has had in Arkansas, so she was pretty pumped. If it had not been for the blue area, I believe she could and would have made the flight to Nebo. Walt was flying James’s ATOS, and he had a good flight, ending up at Rick’s LZ.

Overall, conditions were better than they have been, and I can only hope that things will continue to improve. We used to have some really good days in the summer here in Arkansas, and I believe that we will again. Maybe it’ll get cranked up for the rest of the season.

Here’s a pic of Pete getting set up.