Slacker Day in the New Climate

Whatever we think we know about the new climate is probably wrong.

It used to be that we never got a cold front in July, and on the rare occasions that cool air from Canada arrived, we never got Spring-like windy conditions the next day.  Finally, we never used to think about wildfires a thousand miles away.

Yesterday, for the second Friday in a row we called a Slacker Day following a frontal passage the night before.  Most of us expected cool dry conditions with high cloud bases and a light NW breeze.  Moshe was the only one vigilant enough to check for wind and smoke.  He warned us, but we didn't listen.

He discovered, from the usual sources, that it would be atypically breezy, and from a newly discovered website, that a high pressure system would be bringing us a band of smoke from Saskatchewan.  We went flying anyway.

Seven gliders launched in gusty conditions, beginning about noon.  At first the sky was blue.  We found climbs to about 5000 feet, but kept blowing south while circling, making it a struggle just to stay local.  Greg (JR), Dan (EA), and Andy K (2R) took advantage of their high performance gliders and charged off to the northwest.  Moshe (RU), Peter (HG), and Dave (NT) fought the wind and sink to no avail and landed back home.  Rick (LEL) took the easy way out and dashed down to Lebanon, found a nice climb to 6000 feet right over the control tower and followed a street back to Post Mills.

By mid- afternoon the sky to the northwest was completely gray.  The combination of a relentless headwind and decreasing visibility made it difficult to be optimistic about getting anywhere that day.

Greg made a low save at Morrisville and finessed a return to Post Mills.  Andy turned around just past Catamount and nearly landed at Montpelier.  But he made it home.  Dan didn't get the memo and landed in a field near Morrisville.  Everyone was on the ground early, several hours before sunset.

Greg went off to retrieve Dan, so we'll probably get a story from them later.

All in all, it was a fun day for everyone - except the firefighters in Canada.

Weekend report May 12 - 13

The forecast for Saturday was "first half cloudy, second half drizzly." In reality it was "first half clear, second half cloudy."

A good collection of members showed up, including Thomas (yay, Thomas, come back soon!). But it turned out that most them came to drop off their parachutes for repacking. The only person serious about flying was David, who was able to get four lessons, including one of most of an hour in duration.

David returned on Sunday, to better weather, and had another soaring flight. The tow was "interesting" (he might tell you the story if you ask), but the rest of the flight was quite enjoyable. He is making terrific progress, due to his enthusiasm and willingness to show up at every opportunity.

Also on Sunday, Skip (JS), Don, and Henry made local flights while Mark (HG), Tim (BU), Moshe (RU), Greg (JD), and Evan (T8) all headed for Mount Washington. At the end of the day we had only two retrieves to do.

Eight aloft

It was a great day for slacking on Tuesday, and we had eight flights.  The conditions were blue with good lift to 7500 feet, and you could get to 9000 if you were lucky or patient.

Karl (HK) finally recorded a flight, and here it is:

You can see that he flew around for a whilc, and then went up to North Haverhill.  Good flight, Karl!

Peter (67), who doesn't need any instruction on thermalling, flew for a couple of hours, and Henry (3J) was up for almost as long.

Meanwhile, Dennis (DC), Mark (HG), Moshe (RU), Greg (JD), and Dan (EA) combined for a grand total of about 2000 kilometers! Dennis and Mark went to the White Mountains and got sort of stuck there for a while. Moshe went his own way (south, mostly). The others went west to the Greens and had a great time running up and down the ridge over there.

Eight flights on a Tuesday, more than either of the previous weekend days. Perhaps we should rename ourselves the Post Mills Slacker Club.

Our crack weatherman, Moshe, predicts that tomorrow will be even better.

Weekend report May 5 - 6

Saturday was blue all day, with enough wind to make us shy about instructional flights.

Toward the end of the day, David Lysy had a nice flight in the Blanik with Evan for an hour and a half, and Moshe showed Rick a few thermalling tricks over the copper mine.

Dennis (DC) and Mark (HG) flew around the neighborhood, while Greg (JD) and Tim (BU) stretched it out a bit with modest cross-country flights.  They worked three wavelengths upwind to some nice altitudes (Tim reached the legal limit). The OLC machine didn't give Greg credit for the second half of his flight for some reason. Perhaps it thought he started his engine, or something. [Update: Moshe speculates that his groundspeed got too low, and the algorithm gave him a virtual outlanding. That sound right].

At the end of the day Karl (HK) got his first flight in his new glider and did a great job. He is still sorting out his flight recorder, so there is no flight log for this flight,

On Sunday, it was overcast and not raining for the first half of the day, and overcast and raining for the second half.  Henry and Peter took a bunch of instructional flights, Peter went solo, and Keith Merrick, who claims to be back into it, got back into it.

Weekend report April 28 - 29

The club got off to a great start, with the long-delayed first official weekend of operations.

We had fourteen flights at Post Mills and at least one in Pennsylvania.

Dennis took the first flight of the year on Saturday in the Blanik, followed by Kari, Eric, Pete, Mark, Sonny, Henry and Doug.  Then Eric (NT), Dennis (DC), and Mark (HG) took off in their own gliders, as did Greg (JD) and Tim (BU).  Greg and Tim found their way up to Mount Washington, and had nice flights that included a wave climb.  Everyone got home, which was nice, since we weren't all that organized back at Post Mills, and retrieves would have added some complication.

We're having the usual startup difficulties (trouble with the towplane, golf carts, mud, etc.), but none of these problems seem insurmountable.

It rained all day Sunday, but in Pennsylvania, Dan (EA) spent a nice afternoon running up and down the ridges between Nittany Mountain and Bedford for 365 km.  Evan is there also, but he hasn't posted anything on OLC yet.

First XC by Mark Hopkins

I flew my first x-country flight on Saturday with Greg Hanlon (JD). I took a 3K tow and parked under a dark cloud to the south of Tug. The lift was weak, but I managed to work up to 4100’ or so. The cloud base was probably 4500’, but couldn’t make it. Our task was to head NE so I flew a few miles to a spot on the north side of the airport to wait for Greg. He joined me soon and we headed to the ridge between PM and the river and tried to gain as much altitude as possible for crossing the desert between PM and the first clouds over near Cube. I circled awhile under a decent cloud and got up to 4500’ or so. At this point Greg said there was nothing to be gained by waiting. He pointed out that we had Dean by 2000’ or so, although there was a substantial disagreement between JD’s glide computer and mine - mine said Dean by 1500’ (Greg had put my polar into his computer, which was really thoughtful of him). I definitely would not have made the jump if I were by myself, but having Greg’s experience and coaching made all the difference. I was very surprised that once I committed to Dean I didn’t think about PM again. We worked our way towards the first mountains and found enough scratchy thermals to maintain our altitude WRT Dean, although my MSL was decreasing. Eventually, we reached the NW shoulder of Moosilauke. At this point I was showing 1200’ to Dean although Greg had me somewhat higher. I almost pulled the plug here and headed for Dean (I think I was down to 3500’). Just when things looked bleak (to me) we found a decent thermal that took me to 4500’ and put us in glide for Franconia. We headed for the ridge at the back side of Cannon and found plenty of good lift to take us over the north end. The thermals here were topping out about 5500’. So things were starting to work. Listening to the radio of the goings on at Post Mills where folks were falling out added to the excitement of having made our getaway. Greg was making things pretty easy for me, looking ahead, coaching constantly, and patiently circling overhead while I thermaled slowly upward. All I had to do was fly my plane and try not to do anything stupid. Over the mountains it was a beautiful soaring day with plenty of nicely spaced cumuli. We still stopped at almost every cloud to tank up, which I suspect Greg might not have done without me. But perhaps it wasn’t the easiest day either. So we flew over Franconia ridge at 5500’ or so and then continued over to Garfield and on to Twin Mt. I think I reached 6000’, my high point for the day, at one point. The scenery over the mountains was awesome. I really enjoyed flying along the ridges and taking a little time to watch the scenery below. Our goal was the Mt Washington Hotel, but the clouds there had a different character. The cloud base was lower, the bases were wispy and the area looked overdeveloped. At some point Dan Mac (EA) passed us on his way to Washington after escaping PM. Greg probably would have continued, but he thought things might get a little bit exciting and that I had had about as much stress as I could take. So we turned around and headed back along the ridge to Garfield, over Cannon and on to Moosilauke. The flight home was as easy as the flight out was hard. There was plenty of lift and we passed Moosilauke at almost 5000’ with PM in comfortable, fast glide. We got to Post Mills at 1800’ (just as the glide computer predicted). 

Looking back on the flight, I think that it has given me the confidence to venture out on my own. I know that Greg was balancing a lot of variables that I was just dimly aware of that made our flight possible, but the essential parts of the experience are to make the psychological leap to leave PM behind and make Dean (or Warren) your airport and then to maintain a sufficient reserve altitude to glide to each successive airport as you move away from PM and again when you return.  Having done that once, I hope I can do it again.