Fun Flying at Wallaby Ranch 2012

The Skydog Report

We will be taking our bikes and Maureen has a  snazzy new road bike and hopefully she will be able to keep up with our friends at Wallaby who go for some pretty long trips.

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Wednesday February 8th 2012

OK so here we are at Wallaby Ranch in Florida and Malcolm Jones the owner has made many fine improvements since we were here four years ago. Wallaby is looking great. We arrived on Wednesday afternoon and organized our lodging. Thursday and Friday have been too windy but sunny so we went bike riding on the Van Fleet Trail. Maureen rode 30 miles each day and I did twenty miles and we saw two groups of large alligators with many babies. We took lots of photos. On Friday morning there were many tandems and two solo flights then around one pm two solos went up and sledded down.

Saturday is really windy like gusts to 30 mph so we used the R/C sailboats for a bit and enjoyed the sunny 60 degree day. Later on Eric and I tried a land sailor and it was great fun.

Sunday is windy again but the forecast says that Monday should be good for flying so I will get my glider ready for then.

New Sign

Wallaby Tandem

Lucy Relaxes as Tandems Fly

Ready to Go

 Fabiano Nahoum Brazil

 Malcolm Sends Them Off

Laurie's Lucy

Uma Gets Tugged up Tandem

Aric Takes Uma Tandem With A Smile

Bob Roth Ready to Go

 Steve Prepost and Uma

 Fabiano Wingin

 Paul in the Dragonfly

Bob Roth Sailing Away

Flash Enjoys a Bike Ride on the Van Fleet Trail

Alligator on the Van Fleet Trail

Turtle on the Van Fleet Trail

Big One

Colorful Alligator

Lance Has a Go At It.

Eric Follows Skydog Bob on the Trike Land Sailor

Bob Doing a Quick Turn. Cool Fun !!

Monday - Our first really good day and it starts out showing some wind so no tandems today but by 10 am the wind is subsiding and by noon about ten gliders are set up and ready to go. I take the first tow at 1:15 pm and Paul puts me into a nice thermal that I take back to the North about a mile and this one takes me to 3,600 feet above the field. Other gilders are getting up and I can use them for thermal reference and I see two gliders going up to the southwest so I head over there and get into a good one south of the field about a mile and I take it north for two miles putting me over the sand pits. Oded is circling over the ranch so I join him and we thermal close together for ten minutes and then I venture to the south again and find another good one and take it back to the north at 4,000 feet. I see a few gliders starting to get lower so I hang onto any scraps that I can find and I watch as a few gliders land and I get down to 1,700 feet and finally I catch a whooper thermal and climb out with Scott who also flies a T-2 that is blue and white and we take the lift to 4,300 feet competing for top spot. At this altitude the lift is getting lighter and Scott heads south and I try a little north of the sand pits and find a really good one that reads 800 feet per minute steady lift and this baby takes me to cloudbase at 5,900 feet. Oh shucks can't I beat 6,000, so I head to the north end of the cloud and find good lift up the face of the cloud and make it to 6.015 feet and then decide to head back to the ranch skirting around the cloud. I get back over the ranch and bubble along at 4,000 feet for a while. No other gliders in the sky at Wallaby as they have gone for afternoon mealtime so I ended the flight all alone for over an hour. My total airtime was 2 hours and 1 minutes and it was a blast.

Around five o'clock Marty Beckenbach and Oded decide to go up again and Oded has a nice boaty flight for a half hour and Marty has a good one too.

Paul Tugs

 Oded

Oded

 Marty Lifts Off

 Two Rigids Coming Up

Marty

Oded

Subdivisions Beside Hyw. 27

Tuesday starts out good and the tandems start up after the balloons fly away. After the tandems and breakfast the wind had come up a bit too high for us to fly and Maureen took Oded on a 20 mile bike ride. Around 4:30 Oded and I took tows and I survived for 24 minutes and Oded did about the same on this nice warm day.

Diego, Jim, Lance and Mick flew their R/C planes at 5:30.

Steve and Tim

 Aric and Katie Tandem

 Uma wingin with Steve

The Skydog Report

Wednesday starts out calm and the tandems are off to a good start but by 9 am the wind picks up and breakfast is served. By noon the wind has dropped off and gliders are being set up and Tom Nejame is the first to push out to the launch followed by Marty Beckenbach and Bob Roth all with Atos VX ridgids. I followed along with many others including Oded Kalir hot on my heels. Tom takes off first and then Marty and I am off next. I got towed to 1,600 feet and was able to get up OK to about 3,200 feet but there were large sink areas most everywhere and all but the ridgids had to take second tows including myself after a 28 minute flight. On my second and last tow for the day I got into some great stuff and flew for 3 hours and 28 minutes. Many times Oded and I were thermalling together having a great time. Cloudbase was 5,100 feet and I climbed up in front of one to 5,290 feet and then headed toward the cloverleaf at hyw.4 and 27 and stayed well above 4,000 feet all the way there and back. Oded and I were trading places many times in this flight. At the end of the day I thought that I was the last one in the air and was watching as many pilots landed ahead of me and finally I headed in to land right behind Oded's glider in the set up area. While I was putting the cover on my T-2 another glider came in to land and Miseal from Venezuela said that he had flown to Wal-Mart which is about 7 miles up hwy 27 and had flown back to the Ranch with no problem. After another half hour Rick Bremer landed with his Ghotbuster. Tom Nejame had flow to Hanes City and then to Fantasy of Flight and back to the Ranch. It had been a wonderful day.

  Pilot Flies the Dragonfly

Tom

Tom Nejame

#4

John

 Patrick Landing Ahead of me

Rick Coming In

 Rick Lands Last

The Skydog Report

Thursday thru Sunday have been too windy or too cloudy to fly so we have been biking and touring around and today (Sunday) we used the landsailors again and that was a blast. Thanks Tyson.

I read that the pilots at The Florida Ridge had a great day on Saturday with twelve pilots to cloudbase.

We expect that Tuesday may be good here at Wallaby again.

 Patrick Making the Turn

Eric Walne having a Blast

Gilles Roussell - Windy Sunday Land Sailor

The Skydog Report

Monday Tom Nejame and Maureen go for a 38 mile bike ride and they average 14.9 miles per hour. Looks a bit too windy again but after a bike ride with Gilles and Patrick I feel that a flight even if a sledder would be satisfying so I get Patrick to set up and by 2 pm we are ready to launch. I go off first and after being let off over hyw. 27 near the subdivision I find a good thermal and take it up to 4,000 feet and head toward the Ranch following some good lift and I get to the southwest of the Ranch at 4,300 feet and decided to head over to the warehouses and again find good lift up to four grand. I notice that Patrick is being towed up and Paul brings Patrick up beside me and Patrick pins off. We thermal together for a while and Patrick gets above for a bit but then I go on chase and get into Patrick's thermal and core it above and Patrick decides to go for new lift and looses a bunch as I watch from 4 grand. Finally I head southwest again and I get down to 2,800 feet and then find good lift back up to 4,200 feet and then cruise back to Hyw 27 to see if the same spot over the subdivision is working again and sure enough back up I go. I see that Patrick has landed and that Gilles is getting ready to take Patrick's glider for a spin. Now I am getting low after an hour and I get down to 1,200 feet just to the north of the field and find another good one and take it to 4,300 feet. Gilles is being towed up and Gilles gets dropped of in a good one and takes it up to 3,500 feet and has a nice flight and lands. I am still finding lift and take another one to the south of the Ranch and up to 4 grand again. Finally after two hours I am getting low and could not find another thermal.

Patrick O'Donnell Happy to be in Florida

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