Friday, October 27, 2017

Sugarbush Wave

I had a nice wave flight today.  Lift was rarely over 1.5 kts.  Clouds were few and far between but I did mange to get to 8,300'.  Wind was about 40 kts right from Sugarbush.  Thank you Rick for towing!

https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=6161120


 Sugarbush and Camels Hump.  Adirondacks in the background.
Union Village Dam in the foreground and my neighborhood.



Sunday, October 22, 2017

New glider on the field

Congratulations to Gregg on the first flight in his new 1-26!


By my count, this is the 19th glider based at Post Mills.

Saturday, October 21, 2017

6Q is back in the air

Congratulations to Kevin for putting 6Q back in the air after an extended time in its box.


Sunday, October 8, 2017

Wave camp report - October 7

Still more aviation happened today.  We woke to pretty nice conditions, blue skies, some cloud, a little wind.  Your forecaster was a bit surprised as it did not look like the sounding.  The wind on the ground was slightly favoring easterly takeoffs, wind aloft was south south west.  There were wave indications, just not in the usual places.
 
I  took off to the east and flew to the Carters, not expecting them to work, but we were seeing some vertical development that looked to have wave influence on the south facing spur of the northern most peak.  Indeed I found some rotor, and then wave, and was able to climb to around 8000 feet.  However, from the start of the climb, our lovely blue sky was filling in fast, and more worrisome was very low, very wet looking clouds at the south end of the valley.  As things were filling in, I descended to below the overcast that was now covering the airport.  Cloudbase there was around 5000 feet, but with plenty of lift - so if you wanted to stay up, you could.

There were about ten flights in total, with the high flight near 10,000 feet.  The day did end in a bit of rain at 3:00 but good flying was had. 

I am less optimistic for tomorrow and Monday, but later in the week could be very nice.

 RR

Saturday, October 7, 2017

Gorham early report

Wave camp has started. Here is a report from Rick Roelke.

Driving up through the rain, I did not hold out much hope for the day, but having 1000lbs of Ox in the back, and thinking someone might want it, I soldiered on.

The rain stopped shortly after my arrival, and we could see bits of blue, so it looked like it might work. Walter was delayed due to the weather, but we rigged anyway. Peter Stauble was the wind dummy, with a tow to the carters, not far behind, I did my first self-launch at Gorham and it worked great.

I motored to the top of Mt Hayes, where I found the crescent wave. Very slow at first, getting better with altitude. The carters in the meantime were not turning out to be the easy way. Roy, however, did find his way into the primary from near wildcat after a sporting round with the rotor there. I left the crescent wave at 7k and joined Roy in the primary where I found a brief bit of 8 kts, climbing to 20k for the first diamond of camp. Roy would have me point out that he got above 20k in a "real glider"...

John Good also got high, and then (intentionally) headed down wind to explore four cycles of wave east of the carters, and then landing at Bethel. 

I think we had 7ish flights today, good time had by all.

All in all, a good start to camp, particularly after a drive up in the rain...

The big question is what will the weather bring. It looks flyable the next few days, with wave opportunitys, but plagued with excessive moisture. Today we had solid undercast for as far as you could see upwind, but the valley was open all day. So forecasting is difficult. I will tell you it is not optimum conditions, but don't shoot the forecaster if we sneak in a few high flights.

all for now.

RR