Source (p26)
Thursday, July 23, 2020
No circling needed
Here is Evan's account of his July 18 flight, grabbed from the PMSC Forum without his permission:
I took a swing at a 300 km O&R yesterday, Start/Finish at Dartmouth Skiway, turning at Elephant Mountain, which is up in the Mahoosic range. The advantage of this course is that it runs about as straight along the high ground as you can find in our area. The tricky bit is that you really need to be high at the far end. Berlin airport is a useful bailout, but if you can't keep that in range, the other options are generally east of the high ground, in the coastal plain, and if you have to divert, you have a reasonably high likelihood of getting stuck, then subjecting one of your buds to an O&R of a different sort. IIRC it was about 3:20 each way to Thomas airport in Roxbury (2016 or 2017. Thanks Tim).
It was clear pretty much immediately that this wasn't going to be the day. But I thought I'd take a stab at it and see how it went. I had to hang around until nearly 2pm to let the day heat up to make it even semi feasible.
Here's the first glide
The stats are fun, especially the 108:1 glide ratio (I got some orographic help at Moosilauke and Kinsman).
Here are the stats up to the point I abandoned the attempt due to 6000 foot bases nearing Old Speck. I'd already decided I wasn't going past Old Speck unless I had 6500 minimum... and except in really perfect conditions it's hard to see how I could be fast beyond Old Speck unless I had closer to 7500.
If I took the time to fiddle the settings in SeeYou, that "0.01s" thermal would go away, making it three glides with average distance 42.2 km. The reason for all the left turns is that I habitually start my turns upwind when on a cross wind leg. 67mph was a pretty good speed for Saturday, but it was clear it wasn't going to last. I'll try again some other day. Here's the whole flight.
I took a swing at a 300 km O&R yesterday, Start/Finish at Dartmouth Skiway, turning at Elephant Mountain, which is up in the Mahoosic range. The advantage of this course is that it runs about as straight along the high ground as you can find in our area. The tricky bit is that you really need to be high at the far end. Berlin airport is a useful bailout, but if you can't keep that in range, the other options are generally east of the high ground, in the coastal plain, and if you have to divert, you have a reasonably high likelihood of getting stuck, then subjecting one of your buds to an O&R of a different sort. IIRC it was about 3:20 each way to Thomas airport in Roxbury (2016 or 2017. Thanks Tim).
It was clear pretty much immediately that this wasn't going to be the day. But I thought I'd take a stab at it and see how it went. I had to hang around until nearly 2pm to let the day heat up to make it even semi feasible.
Here's the first glide
The stats are fun, especially the 108:1 glide ratio (I got some orographic help at Moosilauke and Kinsman).
Here are the stats up to the point I abandoned the attempt due to 6000 foot bases nearing Old Speck. I'd already decided I wasn't going past Old Speck unless I had 6500 minimum... and except in really perfect conditions it's hard to see how I could be fast beyond Old Speck unless I had closer to 7500.
If I took the time to fiddle the settings in SeeYou, that "0.01s" thermal would go away, making it three glides with average distance 42.2 km. The reason for all the left turns is that I habitually start my turns upwind when on a cross wind leg. 67mph was a pretty good speed for Saturday, but it was clear it wasn't going to last. I'll try again some other day. Here's the whole flight.
Tuesday, July 7, 2020
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