VSF Wave 2-26-17

Eric (NT) wrote up the day on the PMSC forum.  I (AT) will just add a few comments and a couple of photos here.  The wind was unusually strong at ground level.  There was both cloud streeting and roto-cumulus clouds.  Wave lift was very localized.

Killington Ski Area

Roto-cumulus bars with streeting in the foreground

Here are the Skew-T and HHHR models from the weekend before when we (Eric (NT), Tim(AT), and Walter and Dennis (i1)) could not find wave.  It was a cloudless day.

New Year's Day Flight

I had a nice wave flight to celebrate the New Year.  Took a long tow and could only find weak wave behind Okemo Mountain.  Moved upwind of Okemo because the clouds looked better, and was able to climb while heading south almost to Mt. Snow.  I think the wave system was well establish to the west (from New York) as can be seen in the satellite images.  Okemo Mountain must have interfered with the established wave resulting in the poor climbs east of the mountain.  Maximum altitude was about 15,000'.

Stratton Mountain in the shade.

Mt. Ascutney is in the Center.  VSF, CMH, and Lake Sunapee are visible in the right pane.

Solstice Wave

Took my (AT) first wave flight out of Springfield, VT for the winter during the solstices (actually a week early).  Up north it was completely socked in, to the south there was no clouds but at Okemo there was just the right amount of clouds.  Wave was 1-2 kts down low, increased to 3-4 kts up to 13,000', and then slowed back down above 13,000'.  I was still climbing at 1-2 kts at 15,000' when I headed down to tow the next flight.

Walter and Peter Kelley took the next flight (i1) but couldn't connect to wave.  Then Walter flew with Bob Morehardt (i1) for about an hour and a half but could only get to 8,500'.

 Looking North - too cloudy

 Looking South - too clear

Looking at VSF from 9 nm away, 2 nm up and 50 kt tailwind - final glide even for a space shuttle

911 Wave Flight

Wave season has started (AT).

Weekend Report May 28 - 30 and then some

The longest stretch of flying we've ever had at Post Mills. Seven days in a row and still counting.

It went something like this:

THURSDAY
Dennis (DC), Moshe (RU), Tony (N4), Greg (JD), and Dan (EA) showed up and had flights totaling 746 km. Tim gets extra credit for towing (but not flying) on a Slacker Day.

FRIDAY
Tim and Don repaired a dribbly fuel drain valve on the towplane and decided to do a test flight.  Tim flew 24W, and Don flew 3J.

SATURDAY
We had 19 flights, and Doug towed all of them, including an aeroretrieve from Dean (thanks Doug). Eric took a couple of rides in the Blanik, then made his first FAA-approved flight as Pilot in Command in the USA.  It seems strange to congratulate an accomplished glider pilot on his first solo, so we won't do that. Instead, we'll say Congratulations to Eric on smiling while complying!

(We really need to get an official PMSC hat.  That's probably the only way to keep Evan from advertising other clubs in our News.  Or maybe photoshop).

Tim (AT), Greg (JD), Dennis (DC), Dan (EA) and Moshe (RU) had cross-country flights. Tim and Greg declared an ambitious 500 km task, two round trips to Old Speck Mountain, which is way up north in Maine, 15 miles past Gorham. Greg actually made it, landing at Post Mills a little after 6:30 pm.  Tim fell to earth at Dean Memorial airport on his second trip north. Meanwhile, Dennis flew up to Mt. Moosilauke, and Dan took a crazy trip around Lake Winnepesaukee. Nobody does that in a glider. Moshe made it up to Franconia and took the long way back.

Back at Post Mills, Tony (N4) and Sonny (LT) flew locally, and to top the day off, new member Heather Benson and her family got their first glider flights.

SUNDAY
This was an instructional day, much less hectic than Saturday. Dakai and Skip flew in the Blanik with Moshe, and Evan towed.  Dan and Greg took the opportunity to plan some much needed deforestation at the south end of the runway.

Sunday evening we enjoyed a pleasant cookout, with 20 attendees, and we didn't run out of anything. Thanks, contributors!

MONDAY
Despite a pessimistic email from our Director of Operations, Lane and Tim came out to the field, waited for the ceiling to lift, and then flew in the afternoon.

TUESDAY
Dan (EA) continues to celebrate his retirement, and the rest of us wonder why he hasn't moved to Vermont. The day was a bit windy, and he waited till just before noon to take off.  His first climb was to 15000 feet in wave (probably a Post Mills local altitude record, not sure).  He found another climb in the Sugarbush primary and wandered down to Killington, where he fell out of the wave.  On his way back to Post Mills, he took a selfie to send to all his flying buddies who were stuck at work yesterday. Unfortunately, the photo is not suitable for a family-oriented newsletter.

WEDNESDAY
Six slackers launched, and not all of them came back.  Tony (N4) landed at Dean. Greg (JD) and Dan (EA) fell to earth at Claremont. Tim (AT), Dennis (DC) and Jim (US) made it home. After an aeroretrieve, Tony joined Dennis for a roadtrip to Claremont to get Dan and Greg.

Thanks to Evan for most of the content of this report.

The Big O

Greg (JD), Dan (EA) and Tim (AT) took a circular tour of northern VT and NH on Wednesday.

 

It was a 430 km trip over 7 hours.  These flights firmly put Dan (#1) and Greg (#2) in the lead of the OLC for Region 1.  Tim took the wrong logger and got no points.

Weekend Report April 16 - 17

After two weekends of false starts, in which we tried valiantly to find the right combination of weather, surface conditions, and volunteers, we finally were able to get out of the hangars and onto the tiedowns on April 16.  The weather was great both days of the weekend.

Club members showed up early on Saturday and assembled the Blanik, the 2-33 and 1-23 in plenty of time to go flying.  Thanks to the Slackers, the towplane was already checked out for the season, and we were able to make 18 flights on the first official day of operations!

Most of the flying was comprised of annual check rides and introductory flights for new members, although Dan (EA) and Greg (JD) were able to go off and sample the early Spring conditions in the White Mountains.  Mark (HG), who still thinks that OLC is just a fad, had his first flight of the year in his glider.

In the meantime, Evan got a full dose of instructing as he accompanied both old (above) and new members.  Here he is signing the logbook of new member Eric Woudenberg.  You can tell he's new at this instructing gig, because he still has to look at his CFI certificate for the number. Eric is already a glider pilot, so he should fit right in.

We were also pleased to welcome new student pilots Sam Freihofer and Iver Hulleberg to the Club. They have already had a couple of flights each, and they seem to like it, so far.

Before the day was over, Dennis, Paul, Sonny, Willy, Lane, and Gregg Ballou were returned to flying status.  Gregg is active with the Club again, which is good news because we still need more CFIs.

Tim towed all day Saturday.

On Sunday it was more of the same. Sixteen flights, including Moshe's first flight in PM, and flights by DC, EA, AT, and JD, all of whom struggled to stay in the air earlier in the day. Willy had a couple of solos, and we gave introductory flights to Mark Sullivan and Rick Sayles, both of whom are power pilots looking for something more interesting to do. Andy towed all day.

All in all, it was a great kickoff weekend.  Special thanks to Tim and Greg who postponed their own flying to give rides.

Wave Flights - March 12

Saturday was a warm, cloudless, wave day.  Tim (AT), Tom (2W), Dan (EA), Evan (T8), and Jerry and Larry (i1) flew out of Springfield VT (VSF) with the assistance of Andy L. in the Pawnee.  Evan found the highest climb to 16,000'.

I (Tim) took the first tow around 11 AM followed by Tom.  We found week wave to 8,500'.  I was in the primary and Tom in the secondary.  At 12:40 the wave shut off and sent us scrambling to find lift.  I hung out by ridge soaring the west face of Okemo until the wave lift returned about 20 minutes later.  Tom never fully recovered and landed about an hour later.

I found the Okemo wave to have a very short wavelength.  My climb was only 2.5 nm from the summit and I found lift as close as 1.6 nm (over the base of the ski lifts) from the summit.  Evan and Dan's climbs were about 3.5 nm from the summit.  Once I topped out at 9,000' I headed for Killington.  Thinking the wavelength for the day was short I stayed to the west of Rt 100.  I was rewarded with sink all the way.  At 6,000' I was just about to head back to VSF when I found the Killington wave.  Evan and Dan followed a line further west to Killington and did much better.

Dan topped out at Killington at 12,500' and lead the way to Sugarbush.  Evan stuck around a little longer and got to 16,000'.  Dan, Evan and I found our climbs 4 nm - 4.5 nm from the summit, so it looked like the wavelength was longer than Okemo.

At Sugarbush we all found climbs right over the airport at 5-5.5 nm from the summit to about 15,000'.  We all continued north but Dan was the only one brave enough to hop the I89 gap at Waterbury.  Dan made it up to Mt. Mansfield but could not find the lift and had to land at Morrisville.  Evan and I stuck our tails between our legs and headed for home.

The wind was a bit out of the north and made the return to VSF easy.  From Sugarbush to Killington I gained about 500'.  From Killington to VSF I flew as fast as 120 kts IAS which worked out to 153 kts TAS or 176 mph.  With the quartering tail wind the ground speed hit 216 mph!  Evan and I landed about a half hour after Dan.  We packed everything up quickly and I was off to get Dan.

My new theory about wave in the Green Mountains is that the best lift is at the major ski areas (Okemo, Killington, Sugarbush and Stowe).  The best terrain for skiing (tallest peak, moderate steep slope, bowl shape) is also the best terrain for wave.  As an added bonus 3 of the 4 ski areas have airports near by.

Tim

Wave Flight - February 6

Had another nice wave flight on Saturday.  I took a long tow to the primary but wasn't able to connect so I drop back to Little Ascutney.  From there I was able to thermal into the secondary.  Here is a picture from 8,500' over Little Ascutney looking toward Okemo:

This is the first flight this year where clouds did not obscure the primary around Killington.  This is the view from Plymouth looking toward Killington:

Climbing in the Killington wave to about 12,000':

I followed to the primary to Sugarbush where I climbed to 15,000':

This is the view from Sugarbush looking north.   There was more wave to follow but I was already shirking my tow pilot duties (sorry Walter) and I chickened out.  I turned around:

I got to Middlebury Ski Bowl but the primary hole was getting hazy and heading south with the lowering sun I couldn't tell where to fly to stay in the primary so I headed downwind into a secondary hole.  I got a little lost.  I knew I was 28 nm from VSF (15 nm from 2B9, 11 nm from LEB) and I could see I89 down through the hole but I couldn't tell if the secondary hole was going to lead me too far downwind (like to Sunapee).   I knew I could drop through the hole and land at 2B9 or LEB but I really wanted to get back to VSF.  So I tanked up with a little more altitude and carefully headed south.  At about 20 nm out I spotted the Mt. Ascutney ski runs and knew I was home free.  The hole led me straight back to the airport.  Its nice of the ski industry to create these giant land marks for us but I guess its time to get a moving map display.

- Tim

Wave Flight - February 4

Nice wave flight at VSF but I had taken my oxygen tank out to get it refilled. I reinstalled it and did a leak check but forgot to turn it back on before take-off. I got to 14,000' then dropped back to 12,000' for the rest of the flight. At 14,000' I was still climbing at 2-3 kts.

Up high the wind was very strong and out of the south. Flew north about 23 nm to Sharon When I turn around the computer said I had a 74 kt head wind back to VSF. I took a long time to get back.

Okemo Mountain's "largest vertical drop in VT" doesn't look so large from here.

Airspeed 70 kts, Groundspeed zero, 5.1 kts on the averager.

I followed the hole left of the 'L' in Lebanon to Sharon.  Could not access the primary because of the clouds.

Tim

Wave Flight - January 14

Here are some pictures from my January 14th flight out of Springfield:

The highest I got that day was 12,000'.  I tried to go north but clouds over Plymouth VT blocked the way just like my last flight.  Here are the skew-T, satellite images, and HRRR model from that day:

Andy L. was flying his Champ out of Post Mills and reported:

Many wave clouds when I headed to the airport. Ended up climbing to 4k on the ridge between Warren and Stinson Lake, was heading north towards Dean and the lift seemed strong so I headed to the leading edge of the clouds and continued on to 8k. Got my ground speed down to 12.9 mph.

Note the "hole" popping out from cloud deck, I just had to fly through it.

 - Tim

Wave Flight - January 1

Here is the Skew-T and Satellite images for my January 1 flight out of Springfield. Note the bow wave (V-shaped) cloud formation around Mt. Washington.  I would have like to have gone further north but clouds near Plymouth VT blocked the way.  I stopped the climb at 18,000' but was still going up at about 1.5 kts.

 

Tim

2015 Season Ends

The 2015 Soaring season ended on Sunday with JD flying off into the sunset.

 Greg (JD), Karl (PM) and Tim (AT) had nice wave flights to 10,000' in winds up to 50 kts.  Bill O (3BA), Don (3BA), and Dakai (67) finished the season off with local flights.  Thank you Andy for Towing.  And thank you Karl for the great photos.

Tim