Frozen Lake Fun...

What a great week! Several days in a row of low winds and grey skies meant lots of flying.
​Tuesday morning started with a pre-work flight for Curt and myself. His wingovers are getting pretty impressive.
Then it was a quick refresher for Sarah before we took to the skies to explore the area. She was nervous that she wouldn’t remember how to fly since it had been a couple months since her graduation flight. She did awesome and after landing said “it’s like riding a bike, your body remembers what to do”.
When we landed TJ and Reon were there waiting for us. TJ has been absent for a couple months as well. The holidays were a very busy time for him and he finally was able to return to training. He started the day with eight flights under his belt and added another four Tuesday. We worked on trimming the wing and experimenting with the tip steering. It was great to see both of them again after such a long break.
​Wednesday I met Reon, Josh K, and Robert at the Lake Farm Park boat launch on Lake Waubesa. Nick also dropped in to visit during his lunch break. The ice surface was pretty messed up by all the ice fishermen’s ATV tracks but once airborne the sky was great. We all had a blast!
While we were packing up a news crew pulled up and asked if everyone was ok. Apparently someone driving by on the Beltline saw me doing some acro and thought I was a skydiver crashing into the marsh, so they called 911. The news crew was the first to find us and they wanted to capture the incident and were disappointed when I told them everyone was fine, bloodsuckers! About five minutes later the cops show up and ask the same questions. They were more relieved than the news people. Funny thing is, one is the policemen is an acquaintance of Reon’s which immediately changed the mood from concern to more of a “I should have know it was you” vibe.
Then we all drove over to the next frozen lake, Monona, to meet Angelo and Matt. Matt actually flew to work that morning across Lake Monona and stopped to play with us during his flight home after work. The ice was much nicer there, no ATV ruts to deal with. We all worked on footdrags. For a couple guys it was their first try. Some were more successful than others but we all enjoyed the great open ice as long as possible and only stopped because of the dark.
Thursday I met Nick F and Jake at Lake Puckaway. I was returning Nick’s paramotor to him after tweaking a few things on it and test flying it for him. Conditions were awesome, fully clouded over (no thermals) with a nice steady breeze coming right down the lake. We drove out to the middle of the lake to set up because we could. How often do you you get to drive on a lake? Take off was easy with the smooth breeze and dense air. We played in the sky as long as we could then got a nice meal at the restaurant overlooking the lake and called it a day.
The lakes are only frozen for a couple months a year so you got to make the most of them when they are.