Pulpit, August 24, 2009

Fun day out there. I had driven in the morning to meet Steve Ziegler(a retired and hopefully one day returning pilot) in York, PA to pick up his never-flown Lookout GTXC harness for a test flight. Rt. 30 looked like a nice straight shot to the Pulpit so I hopped on it. Ugh!!!! That was a mistake. I didn't even get to the Pulpit until 3:00, set up right away and then sat on the ramp with Cragin, Tony and David B. It wasn't looking too bad, borderline soarable and I was short on time so I decided to give it a shot. I suited up and by the time I was on the ramp, a cloud had moved in and shut it down. Five minutes later the sun came back out, Laszlo launched his PG from the new pad and I followed him off the old ramp. Like the past couple days at the Pulpit it was another scratchy, low flight. I only managed about 250' over the ridge, made a couple passes at the ramp for the spectators and flew for about 35 minutes. I set my landing approach, everything was cool, an then on final I transitioned to the downtubes. Doh!! Leg loops are way too loose. So I just slowed down and did one of those moonbounce landings and ran it out for a soft touchdown. Otherwise the harness fits nice. Plus it will match my new glider! Tony and Laszlo landed shortly thereafter. Overall a nice flight but I haven't had a nice high flight for awhile. Blah summertime. Still a good day.