Last flight out

Tim took these pictures on his way into and out of Gorham, to retrieve the PW-6 yesterday.

Altitude Record

It isn't official yet, but it seems that Tim Chow has broken the 49-year-old New Hampshire altitude record!

On October 9, Tim (BU) took off from Gorham and released over Mount Hayes at 2200 feet AGL.  He found some weak lift that took him up to Berlin where he got to 8000 feet MSL.  From there he transitioned to the Mount Washington primary (in the vicinity of the Wildcat ski area) and started climbing at about 8 knots on the averager.  He moved forward as he got higher and eventually topped out at 33031 feet MSL, which exceeds the old record by a little more than 1000 feet.  His high point was remarkably far upwind, about halfway between Route 16 and the summit of Mount Washington.

Tim's low release allowed him to claim the altitude gain record of 30046 feet.  The previous record (26271 feet) has been held by Evan since 2015.

Paradoxically, it was a warm day.  The sounding shows a very deep stable layer and ideal winds.

Congratulations, Tim!

Name that club member

Transition to Wave at PM

Here is the log of my flight last Saturday where I transitioned to wave a few miles north of PM airport.  I transitioned from thermals to wave at about 6,000' (cloud base) and then climbed in wave to about 9,000'.

The wind was out of the west (left) and I was flying directly downwind.  I was able to climb a little in 2 broken thermals (thermals are typically broken up by the rotor).  The third thermal was particularly strong (8 kts) and took me to cloud base.  I then pushed forward and continued to climb while I "ridge soared" the front of the clouds.  As is often the case the clouds drifted downwind.  Often more clouds will form up wind and you should push forward to get up wind of the new clouds.  In this case it looks like a jump downwind to another wave peak.

I was able to go to Franconia in wave without losing much altitude but I fell out of the wave (I thought for sure I would find better wave there) and had to thermal back to PM.

Here is the entire flight log:

Here is the Skew-t for the day:

The satellite image shows cloud streets (parallel to the wind) and not the usually wave bands (perpendicular to the wind):