Saving the best for last - October 21

The last day of wave camp was, by far, the best. Sonny and I thought we were the earliest risers as we met for pre-dawn coffee in Gorham. The sky was clear, Venus was high above the eastern horizon, and it was windy on the ground. The wind report from the summit was 280 at 80 knots! A bit breezy even for glider pilots. We were happy to learn that the winds were forecast to diminish to a mere 50 knots by noon.

At the field we were met by several enthusiastic members, including Thomas, who had left home at 0430 in order to join our dawn patrol. We dragged our feet a little, discussing the concept of "too much wind for wave," but eventually Tom C and I took off and headed for the Crescent wave at 0800. That flight turned out to be an hour long technical lesson. We made several transitions among ridge, rotor, and wave lift, but we did not reach a braggable altitude, alas.

Tows were made to the secondary (near Mount Carter) for the rest of the day. The wave was stretched out to an unusal wavelength, due to the high wind speed, and there was a lot of rotor to make the tows interesting. The following altitudes were achieved by PMSC members:

Thomas 22500
Bob D 20000
Pete D 22000
Sonny 19800
Steve 25500
Jason 19700
Tom H 20200

Jim David of GBSC got the highest, 28000 feet - the limit of our air traffic control clearance. He was still climbing at that height!

Everyone was impressed at how easy it is to move backwards in the wave, Steve most of all. While Steve was enjoying the view in PM, he blew all the way into Maine. Imagine his surprise when he realized that he would not be able to make it home 25 miles from 17000 feet. He landed at the Bethel airport.

In addition to showing Jason how to fly the wave, Andy skipped some flying opportunities and removed the bad cylinder from our towplane (click photo to enlarge):


Note that the cooling fins on the cylinder head are not parallel to the fins on the cylinder base. The junction between the two failed. Also note that latex gloves do not keep the grease off your forearm.

Because it was the last day, and the GBSC towplane had to get home, we started packing up in the early afternoon. All of our equipment, save the poor L19, made it back to Post Mills. (Steve was retrieved by a sleep deprived Thomas). Andy and Jason had the last tow in the Blanik, hitching a ride to Post Mills on the towplane's trip back to Sterling, Massachusetts.