Weekend report April 24 - 25

Saturday was a spectacular soaring day, and we might have accomplished more if the wind had not been a factor.  In deference to the blustery conditions and overall conservatism of a bunch of rusty pilots, we weren't as eager as usual to fly at first.

The air was unstable, which gave us good thermals initially and overdevelopment in the late afternoon.  The rainshowers were widely scattered and fairly easy to avoid.  Some of them were snowshowers. 

Greg (JR), and Tim (BU) were first to launch, and they promptly disappeared for the rest of the day.  They flew together up to Mount Washington, then Colebrook and Newport, and over to the Green Mountains, where Tim got a bit low.  Greg took the opportunity to dash up to Jay Peak and back.  They made it home in good shape with long final glides from the northwest.

Here's a picture Tim took of Greg over the Presidential Range.

And this was Greg's view at the time.

Here is Newport and Lake Memphremagog:

Back at Post Mills, Peter K (3BA), Dennis (DC), Henry (67), Darrek (67) and Matt (3BA) dodged rainshowers in the local area and enjoyed some good climbs to 9000 feet.

And, for the first time ever, Sonny (LT) flew his airplane and his glider on the same day.  He took a quick morning trip to Gorham in the L-16, then worked all day helping other people fly (as usual), and finally had a nice flight in the ASW-19 after the sun came back out in the late afternoon.

We also received this report from Greg H (YZ), who flew at Springfield:

I too had a special flight on Saturday in my Std Cirrus. Released at 2,800ft at 12:15 pm, climbed to 9,500 within 25 minutes. Headed upstream and left cloudbase at 10,200 and immediately flew into wave (5 miles west of KVSF) at 1 pm. Pretty constant at 300 to 500 ft/min lift. I wiggled and waggled @ 41 mph to find the edges and best lift but never could hit it perfectly. Left wave at 13,200 feet still producing 350 ft/min due to some concern I had about being so high for too long a time (I was above 12,500 ft for just 3 minutes at the time), but I heard a Citation was in the area and got chicken. At least 1000 feet above the highest Cu.
 
Wish I had my O2 tank filled and bought a mask.

We didn't fly on Sunday, but Saturday was enough to call it a successful weekend.

Oh, and the Perry contest ended.  Be sure to congratulate Evan, who was the winner in the 15m/Std class!