Mia's turn to run the rig, Mike had to return to work, so his team replacement was newly arrived Randy Pankew (our token flex pilot). We had blue skies with lots high thin cloud and a forecast that produced mediocre numbers for the day. Not too inspiring but any day flying is better then a day at work.
Harvest has shifted into high gear with the town of Mansfield buzzing with trucks and activity. When we arrived at the tow site, the combines were cutting to the East of the tow road. Good news when it comes to thermal triggers (IMO), lots of machinery tends to create more trigger points. Even if this is not the case we suddenly have allot more landing options ;-)
Randy snuck in ahead of me for the first tow (the little weasel ;-) . He pulled a 2000 ft tow, released and was soon climbing through to 7000+ft als. I followed about 15 minutes later (excellent turnaround by the tow master Mia), I had been climbing like stink but Mia had to pass some traffic on the road so I hung on for another 1/2 mile for a 2000 ft tow. Having passed through and area of lift, I had to back track the 1/2 mile to source the lift and soon climbed up to 5500ft asl. For what ever reason I consistently found myself unable to get through 6000 so I decided to leave the tow site and head east to Banks Lake (after Randy). As I blundered along, Randy was on the radio saying things were not looking good and he was getting low (he eventually landed near Sims Corner). Not inspired, I continued east in a somewhat recreational mood.
I arrived at the edge of Banks Lake low and unable to continue on. For the next 45 minutes I played with low save after low save (I think my lowest save was less then 400 ft). Normally my stress level goes up when trying to dig it out of the dirt but the situation was quite relaxing.... LZ was right under me, the air was not radical, Mia was only a short distance away. If I sunk out I had a nice place to land, good wind (from the S-SE at 10-15km) and best of all cold beer and Park Lake where only a short drive away. After multiple excursions to 5500ft asl I made the decision to plunge east across banks lake (a very low crossing indeed).
As it happened, lift did get better on the east side of Bank's with climbs now getting me up over 7000ft. I slowly worked my way east to Wilbur Airport (my new goal for the day). Mia and Randy where waiting the airport when I arrived (of course now I was having trouble trying to find some sink!) As I approached to land I had to share the pattern with a V tailed Bonanza. I took advantage of a thermal to let the Bonanza go first then found sink to spiral down. There was a nice south wind and I lined up on the taxi way next to the hangers (the Bonanza was at the fuel pumps). Everything was looking sweat until a dust devil caught my right wing on touch down, a little bit of a skid that gave me some road rash on my right knee... then penalty for landing on the pavement (grass looked to be a little too tall between the strip and the taxi way). The peanut gallery had a few comments to chirp about my landing, to which I answered "I see a low tow in your future". ;-)
A nice little flight of 70+km and 3.2 hours of lazy touring over the highlands of the basin. Thing is the real reason for Wilbur being goal was our tradition seeking out of the quintessential American classic burger joint....
Billy Burgers, the Classic American diner. Simple food..... that you can eat with your hands! Definitely a "must stop" if your find yourself in the Wilbur area.
The trip home included the mandatory swim in Park Lake and the late evening cruse up L road (combines were running well into dark). Sad thing.... the days are getting shorter.
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