People rave about Texas for XC and epic flying conditions. People tend to think we have great XC here 10 months out of the year. Truth is that it is more like 3-4 months tops.

XC conditions are finally here. Let’s go fly and let’s be SAFE.

I am comfortable operating from a visceral place with my preferred form of blindness – faith. ~ Me

Soaring pilots cannot see the air, but the air is like water – not always smooth. Sometimes, if we could see it, we wouldn’t get in it.

Sunday I was towing behind a trike when I saw it get slapped down by sinking air. All I knew was I wanted nothing to do with this parcel of air – I just wanted to land and the bigger the landing zone, the better.

I could have towed again but felt more like hugging my babies than flying. I went home and did just that.

After a long time of not flying and an even longer time of just talking about flying, I got out for some aerotowing this past week.

It was my first aerotow since August 2010 and first to over 1000ft in 3 yrs.

On the 1st tow, I pinned off at 1700ft and flew up to cloud base at 4900ft. I jumped around from cloud to cloud for over 2 hours before deciding to land. A quick peek of what it looks like from cloud base. Nice and cool.