Summertime, and the living is easy

Happy Solstice!

Today is the longest day of the year, but it isn't the day with the latest sunset.  That day will be Wednesday, June 27.  The sunset will occur on that day at 8:36pm, almost two minutes later than today.  Tonight will last only 8 hours and 32 minutes.

And Happy Birthday to the Solstice Babies: Lane, Andy, Tony, and Sherry!

Mt. Washington Wave Flight

Dan (EA) and I (BU) had surprisingly good wave flights last Saturday.  The forecast was for strong northwest winds but the boundary layer (top of thermals) was forecasted to go up to about 7,500 ft.  The top of the boundary layer is the dividing line between unstable and stable air.   For wave you normally want stable air at the top of the mountains so we were not sure if we would find any.

Thermaling and ridge soaring to get to Mt. Washington was fairly straight forward.  Then Dan dropped back to the Carters and found wave over the Wildcat parking lot so I followed.  We enjoyed nice strong lift sometimes over 6 kts up to Class A airspace (18,000').

Dan at 17,742' still climbing at 2.7 kts

You would think from 18,000' the trip home would be a piece-of-cake but with the strong headwind and abundant sink Dan just squeaked it into PM.  I stopped to pick up extra altitude at the Mt. Lafayette wave.

Weekend report June 2 - 3

We didn't fly on Saturday due to wind and projects.  Dennis spent the day compounding the 304, and Rick worked on the golf cart trailer.  Belated congratulations to Dennis for getting his Gold Distance/Diamond Goal flight approved by SSA!

We made up for lost opportunities on Sunday, with thirteen eventful flights.  Skip (JS), Moshe (RU), Karl (HK), Peter (67), Doug (3BA), and Dennis (DC) flew locally in conditions that improved as the day went on.  Late in the day, Kari joined them, with his first flight in the 304.  David is getting the hang of the 2-33, climbing almost 3000 feet from pattern altitude.

Meanwhile, Evan (T8), Tim (BU), and Greg (JD) went up to Twin Mountain and back in a flight of three.  Greg reported that it isn't quite as easy to go to the White Mountains when the top of lift is only 4500 feet.  It isn't as easy getting back, either.  Here is Evan almost landing at Dean, after his high point at Mount Lafayette: