Ollie Gregory has been on the mend since his "unscheduled landing" last year. He now has a new rigid-wing, and back in the saddle again. Anyone that know him, knows just how good of a pilot, and guy that he is. Below is his email to the TTTmail about his maiden voyage yesterday. He hasn't flown since June of last year, and he comes out with a 32.5 miler...... class act !

"Had a good flight to get me back in the game! Bout 25 or 30 gliders were set up at Henson's with some of the FL folks and Gary Thompson from Knoxville and lots of other people. We even had a couple of pilots from King Mtn. Heather and Adrian who are passing through on what sounds like a summer of flying.

After a few pilots launched and almost got up, Steve Lee and Kathy launched. Steve got up easily, but Kathy was a little behind him on launch so she didn't get a shot at what Steve used. She gave it quite a try, but ended up in the LZ. I was busy trying to get everything into my new harness and figure out how to set up a VR so I wasn't ready till after 3PM. Turned out that was a good thing. My buddy David Giles lauched first when a female pilot showed us where the lift was. He got up quickly. I got off the ramp with what felt like a good launch a few minutes later, but he was too high to relate to. My buddy James Stinnet on the Phantom followed me off and we got up pretty well.

I think we got about 2500 over and were orbiting around in light stuff with Gary Thompson on is Litespeed. I wanted to see what the Pale Glider would do so I took off toward the south, big wheels and all. Dave, James and Gary soon followed. It was a pretty long glide between thermals and I made the mistake if leaving light lift over the edge of the plateau to fly toward Dave and James climbing over the east side of the Valley. I got below them and had to be low man for a while as we worked down the valley toward Dr Dales.

It was around there that Gary got low and ended up landing at Dr Dales strip. We flew on for a long glide again. I missed the ticket on the next climb and got to watch as Dave and James climbed away from me. They ended up one thermal ahead as I had to search and be patient to get up well again. Finally I got to 5000 msl and started after them. They were searching and climbing about 2 miles north of Inman's point while I was gliding at them. I found a little lift and shifted a short ways toward the good side and had the climb of the day for us. They were several thousand over my head and a little further on course, but this thermal was averaging 500fpm and was very easy to work and center. I caught them in this thermal, but to tell the truth, they were loitering for some time trying to let me make up for the bad climb.

Together we headed across the TN gorge and toward Lookout Valley. We'd topped out about 6200 msl or more, so it was pretty easy with the tail wind to cross the lake and gorge areas. I hit a lot of sink to the north of interstate 24 and just west of Lookout Valley. I let the bar come back with flaps dropped and boy does the Pale Glider GO! I didn't have any waypoints at all in my 6030, so I wasn't sure how well we were doing, but Dave said we had it and James said we had Lookout launch by a little. James and I stopped to turn a few times over interstates 24 and 59 junction area. We had plenty, so we ran toward Lookout launch. Terry Presley was up near Lookout launch and was the only wing we could see in the sky. Terry had been flying all over the place. I rocked way up to see how the harness and wing liked landing positons and flew by the ramp. Got down easily and set up a conservative approach. I tried to run out the landing, but dropped the bar. Glad I had the big wheels.

32.5 miles on my first one since last June. Sure felt good. Sure was fun flying with my buddies. Gotta work next weekend, but will see ya on the hill the following weekend and at Mayhem. Ollie "