An OD day

As soon as I went out to the runway around 8am, I noticed several clouds with virgas in the north, west, and south. A local weather guru predicted them to go away by the afternoon, but they kept developing and were there for the whole day. After I launched and caught the first good lift to 12,000 ft, it was obvious that the east was the only way to go. Even in the east, one in 4 clouds had virga underneath. I kept going east around 40 nautical miles, then turned back worrying the returning path might be closed by rain. Some people went further east, but last year's bad memory kept me from taking the risk. Last year, I landed out on Mud Lake airport when I came back from Yellowstone. I wanted to overwrite the memory with a successful flight coming back from the east.

Since I was coming back from the east, I had to take the terrain into the account to calculate the final glide. King Mountain Glider Park is on the west side of King Mountain, so I needed to be at least 2,000 ft over the glide path. When I turned back, I had something like 2,000 ft over the glider path, but I lost altitude considerably in the rain and had to use a few thermals to regain the altitude. Eventually, I came back with enough a margin. However, the air was rather bumpy and I threw up again. But again, I had a relief bag and had no trouble handing it. Yesterday, I gave up at 14,000 ft, but today I was able to go up to 16,500 ft, so it's getting better.

There was one landout on Mud Lake, and a motorglider used the motor to fly back home.

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Nasty virgas

Flew 187 km