Monday, May 20, 2013

Weekend report May 17 - 19

Update: lots more detail in the Comments!

All I know is what I read on the OLC page. It appears that Greg (JD), Tim (PM), and Moshe (RU) had good flights on Friday, with a total of 569 kilometers.  All three of them went up to Morrisville and back.

On Saturday, Skip (JS), Greg (JD), Thomas (ZP) and Moshe (RU) combined for 1051 kilometers with flights to the White Mountains by various routes.  Thomas might have had a state record, if only he had declared it.

One of these days we should choose a Task at the beginning of the day and fly together!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Rick (?) for posting what you could, even as you are (or were?) away. My comments:

Friday the winds aloft were about 20 knots at 4000 feet and 13 knots at 6000+, from the NW. So all headed towards MVL as a loose pack, including also Paul who did not post a flight log. Tim wanted an earlier (1pm) start and Moshe thought conditions will be better later (2pm), they both got their time wishes although perhaps not the conditions they hoped for. There was a lot of strong sink. Everybody seemed to get low somewhere enroute, some miles out of PM or near MPV. Circling in weak lift meant drifting back to the South rather fast. The valley between Mt Hunger and Mt Mansfield was under the shadow of overdevelopment and mostly sink. Somehow Tim made it to Smuggler's Notch although got low and retreated towards MVL. Moshe made it only as far as the North tip of Waterbury Reservoir and retreated. The return trips to PM were amazingly fast.

- Moshe

Anonymous said...

Saturday: the forecast was for less wind and good lift, especially to the Southwest. Moshe took off early for a change (12:30), hoping to reach the Southern Green Mountains, but got cold feet (in more ways than one) South of Killington near RUT, and headed back North, reaching 10,000 MSL, and later East towards Franconia, and rounding out a big rectangle by almost reaching Lebanon for a 5.6 hour flight. Greg and Paul headed straight to the Whites where ceilings were "only" 8000 or so, but the extra cloudiness kept Greg cool (he seems to like that). His flight log shows how broken the OLC algorithm for fitting an FAI triangle is. Meanwhile Thomas left burn marks in the sky as he smoked a 300km triangle (Springfield, MPV, Gorham) at blistering speed, although the same broken algorithm cheated him out of a few km on the triangle calculation.

- Moshe

Anonymous said...

I should add the Paul also flew to the Whites on Saturday but did not post a log. He and Moshe managed to find each other afterwards and fly together for a few minutes towards Lebanon. The practical difference between the glides of the LS4 (and similar 15m ships) and the 12.5m Russia is still unknown, but flying side by side briefly does not demonstrate a large difference. When will we add a Silent to the mix?

Anonymous said...

Also on Friday Mark gave a ride (or two?) to his son in the 2-33.

And a big thank you to Andy for coming on his lunch break to launch the 5 of us slackers. Do they ever have contests in precision rope drop? Andy demonstrated that art, with the glider end of the rope coming to a stop exactly abeam the front of the next glider to be towed - but off to the side, inches from the edge of the mowed runway.

Tim said...

And you guys forgot Mark and Karl's flights on Saturday. Mark got thoroughly checked out in the 1-23 and flew with a guest Alden and his son in the 2-33. Karl took the 1-23 to Dean. Both Mark and Karl had flights up to around 10,000'.

And you guys forgot Sunday where instead of towing Bob got thoroughly check out in the 2-33 (3 flights). And Keith managed to soar the 2-33 under the overcast for about 45 minutes.