click to enlarge Sara's flight image

Fellow Ridge Runners,

Well Will says last week had 4 good ridge days. I can only attest for Friday when John M. and I flew. It was Fun and it was Fast. We both made several runs up and down the full length of the ridge there and with some preparation it would have been a good day to jump the gaps and head further North.

I timed 4 runs from the Fire Lookout tower on the north end to the southen most Microwave tower:

N to S 9:24
S to N 7:48
N to S 7:54
S to N 7:48

The fastest time for covering the 14.09nm/16.22sm distance gives an avg speed of 108.4knots/124.7mph!

This got me wondering how fast anyone else has flown the local chilhowee ridge, i bet several others have done it faster. We ought to have an informal "competition" just time it with a stop watch or GPS and share it with the group for a 1 way trip and a N-S round trip.

Get you stop watches out and lets share stories! (via eMail to be posted here)

ruf

Feb 4th 2000.

PS The snow was pretty too, especially saturday when the mountains to the north and east were white capped.


-------------------------------- 1st Reply Feb 21, 2000 --------------------------------

Guys:
Maybe not as fast as Chris', but averaged 95.62 knots (bewteen 16:04:14 and 16:13:38) over the 14.5 NM+/- run on my fastest pass. Fastest speed was 120 knots.

File is attached: 02jc5721.cai
Mitch Deutsch
AS-W20B (aka "6i")
Marietta, GA USA



-------------------------------- 2nd Reply Friday Nov 19, 2002 --------------------------------

Hey Chris,
Friday Nov 19th 2002 we had a good blow at Chilhowee. Winds were 15 knots NW. Fred Salyers and his friend were in CS, Steve Wood was in his DG400, Roger Sommerville was flying the long winged Cirrus, Don Tawser was in the Cobra, and I was flying the Janitor. I only made one timed pass, and it was 8:03 sec from Lookout to Microwave, with a max speed of 139 mph at the finish. I blew the start though. I passed through the start line at 95 mph, so I left "a little soup in the bowl". It was neat though, and I was suprised how smooth it was. (The Jantar is) definitely a better ride than my old Junior, and a little faster too. Fastest speed in the Junior was 9:58.

See ya at the Gliderport,
John McClary

-------------------------------- 3rd Reply April 10, 2004 --------------------------------

Chris,
You have probably all but forgotten the friendly ridge-running competition from a few years back, but I got to fly Leo’s new Silent a few weeks back, and when he told me he the logger was on and operational I couldn’t help but see how fast I could fly the ridge. The stats are in: 9:02, for an average speed of 107.75 mph. I know it isn’t quite as fast as the numbers posted on the web, but I was kind of proud of them for a start! J Now I can see that I will soon be an addict to all the multi-colored lines drawn by little racing gliders over all types of terrain. Fun times ahead… Sarah Sarah_Ridge_Flight.igc