Western Winter Wave

Doug is traveling in Colorado these days, and he stopped along the way outside of Denver to take this picture:

The pilots of the Black Forest Soaring Society in Colorado Springs were probably having some good flying that day.

Only 100 days to go

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 today

It's officially winter, and the days are getting longer now.

In case you were wondering, the definition of "meteorological winter" is the period of the three coldest months of the year.  In this hemisphere, that would be the months of December, January, and February.  Duh.

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

More photos from 2016 Wave Camp

Aerobatic

Last chance to name that club member

In case the previous photo wasn't clear enough.

Wave Camp 10/10/16

Dennis sent in some pictures of his and Evan's flight in the Blanik.  They got up to about 14,000'.

Name that club member

This one is trickier than most.

Go Yankees

Congratulations to Evan and Dan, who flew to first and sixth place yesterday at the Region 4S contest in New Castle, Virginia.  In the overall standings, Evan is 4th and Dan is 9th, with two days to go.

Here is what a flight in southern Virginia looks like when the ridges aren't working (northeast wind yesterday).  The 4-turn Task took the pilots to the northeast originally, with a return from the southwest.

At the bottom of the image above, you can see Dan's last climb before his final glide. He really needed it:

And here's a closeup of that climb:

Field landing

Dan landed out in a nice field yesterday. He and Evan are at the Region 4 South contest in New Castle, Virginia. The contest runs through the weekend, and the results are published on the SSA website.