April 27 report

Another outstanding report from Andy Kozak: 

Gliding in New England usually starts with the Super Bowl. So far this year it has been true to form. Monday April 27^th started off with a very good omen. A bald eagle soaring over Post Mills airfield. His tail feathers were illuminated by the sun making them look brighter than any I had ever seen. I was third to be towed up after Greg Hanlon and Tim Chow. Rick Sheppe was the tow pilot. He fairly quickly found a thermal and turned tightly to bring me back into it. We entered the thermal a second time, so I released. Somehow, I felt that I immediately lost the thermal, but looking back at my flight trace I was in lift as I turned 180 degrees, had I just kept turning I would have likely still been in lift. Not sure what happened there.

I flew toward where Tim and Greg were climbing trying two circles on the way which gained me nothing, but I picked up enough altitude in between them to keep going. Finally the vario started to rise, as hoped for, and I could relax.

Greg (JR), Tim (BU), and I (2R) joined up across the Connecticut river in a thermal over Piermont Mountain. I was the lowest but at 6000 feet I decided to leave the weakening thermal because the clouds ahead looked very good. Prior to takeoff, Greg had suggested we make Sugarloaf in Maine our goal. I knew that was a long way and thought it might be difficult for me but that is the direction where I headed. Kinsman notch passed below us, then we flew over Cannon Mountain and Franconia notch. We skirted Mount Lafayette and passed over Twin Mountain. We skirted Mt Washington and flew over Mount Adams and Madison all the while searching for the darkest spots under the clouds.

Mount Lafayette

Mount Washington

We had not yet turned to gain altitude. Greg had pulled ahead and Tim had fallen behind. That is the pecking order of our gliders on glide with Greg’s JS1, my ASW 27 and Tim’s HpH 304CZ. Tim has 17.4m wings and he outclimbs me, but I have a better glide at higher speeds. Greg beats me at everything.

I focused on flying smoothly and at the correct speed to fly. We were at about 8000 feet as we approached a large blue hole over Gorham. Greg flew straight across and I followed. At 5500 feet. Near Berlin I found a strong thermal. The entire route to this point had airfields within easy reach. The first is Dean, then Twin, Mount Washington (Whitefield), Gorham and Berlin. Except for the blue hole over Gorham there was barely a break in the clouds. From here north, as far as I was concerned, the map said “Here be dragons.” To be fair, last fall I flew a bit past Old Speck Mountain (Maine) in wave, so I had a pretty good look toward Sugarloaf. I also would have Berlin airfield which was just toward the east and Bethel airfield just to the west behind me.

Greg had diverted a bit to stay over the Mahoosuc range. I took a straighter path. Somewhere before Grafton Notch, Greg had to take several thermals while I was able to continue straight. I passed him without knowing it. The area around Richardson Lakes seemed overdeveloped but still provided plenty of lift.

Richardson Lakes

I only needed to stop for one more thermal before reaching Sugarloaf Mountain. We had decided to try for Jay Peak next, so I turned and headed west.

We had been flying over the spine of the mountains, and Sugarloaf is essentially the end of those mountains. There is a short and very distinctive Bigelow range just to the north of Sugarloaf. But the nearly continuous cloud street was at an end.

Bigelow range in the distance

It took some time for me to find good lift but I was in range of the Rangeley airfield. Greg had continued further to Sugarloaf airfield. He seemed to find several 12 knot thermals, the best in his life. I was just trying to find a thermal. Tim was struggling a bit as well but we finally got going again.

Greg and Tim suggested airfields and a course line - making my life easier. I had to stop to refuel every 5 or 10 miles but the clouds mostly worked well. Flying parallel and close to the Canadian border I could look almost straight down at the Derby Line crossing. Not much traffic in either direction. Greg caught up to me near Lake Memphremagog.

Lake Memphremagog

I led the way across and then we turned over Jay Peak. I could see skiers getting off one of the lifts near the peak. There was still quite a bit of snow on select trails.

Looking back over the lake we could see the area had turned significantly bluer. Tim was behind us and turned south at about that point. Greg and I shared a last thermal just past Morrisville airport. At Sugarloaf Greg had flown approximately 15 miles further to turn at the airport. In addition he had closed the original 10 mile gap. 25 miles gained, probably over the course of 160+/- miles. In the end Greg would fly 423 miles at an average of 67 mph.

After our last thermal together he flew down the crest of the Greens past Okemo and back to Post Mills. I chose to turn over Ascutney. We live on the slopes there. Normally I would call my wife when passing overhead and she comes out to try to spot me. She has gotten good at that.  At 7000 feet there was no cell reception.

On final glide, between Lebanon and Post Mills, I flew under a cloud where I gained 500 feet in about a minute of straight flight. The clouds were beginning to thin but there was still some strong lift. By then all of us were on final glide. Tim ended the day with 337 miles. I flew 374 miles at an average speed of 61 mph. This was my first 600 km flight. The previous day was my first 500 km flight also at an average of 61 mph. Consistent.

I had intentionally not maxed out my climbs, but left while lift was strong. The clouds looked so good and lift was plentiful so that seemed to work well. It was much easier to do with a high cloudbase. The first long leg of my flight from Piermont Mountain to Sugarloaf covered 110 miles at a glide ratio of 213:1! I spent only 5.2% of my time in two thermals at an average climb rate of 632 fpm.! For the entire flight I thermaled 18.2% of the time. All amazing metrics, clearly spectacular conditions for New England.

One of the things I had noticed with my flights was that my average bank angle was lower and my velocity higher than what I would have liked. The saving grace was that everyone else seemed to be about the same. We seldom fly directly into the strongest lift and center the core for an entire thermal. We level out to move our circle, sometimes repeatedly, and I know I tend to relax as I climb. I am looking for the next cloud, checking traffic and not necessarily only focused on staying centered.

The table below shows Region 1 flights of 250 miles+, which were posted on WeGlide from 4/21 through 5/1. Twelve flights, seven pilots, three airfields, various gliders.

Click to enlarge

The second table has bank angle and velocity for the same flights. This data is taken from WGlide. I think it is representative of our actual bank angles while in a thermal.

Click to enlarge

The Max. bank angle / velocity is for a single segment. For Evan and myself this was one thermal. For Kari it was a long segment.

To come up with an average of average bank angle over 10 flights I eliminated the high and low. The result is 32.6 degrees, and a velocity of 55.8 knots. Someone with more statistics knowledge may want to dive deeper into this and then tell us what it means.

Conclusions:

The King of bank angle is clearly Kari. Only Evan comes close to Kari’s average for a day, but Evan’s was in only one thermal. Kari had an average bank angle of 43 degrees at 56.5 knots. This is about same velocity as the rest of us but with 10 degree less bank angle! They do not build gliders like they used to. However, this still only resulted in a somewhat below average climb. Kari was far from anyone else making a true comparison impossible.

Evan is clearly the King of climb with those 21 m wings. He had an average climb rate of 497 fpm over 3 flights. The nearest was Greg on one day at 440 fpm. I am amazed that Evan has an advantage of roughly 100 fpm over everyone else? How is that possible?

I can claim second runner up for a bank angle of 39 degrees. It was my first thermal, and it was a highly focused climb from 1000 feet above the local terrain.

Tim gets an honorable mention for descending over Post Mills at -372 fpm in a 45° bank, at 88.7 knots and in a 702 ft radius circle.

At an average bank angle of 32 degrees, we flew in circles at best more than 100 feet larger in radius than what Kari flew and what is theoretically possible.

I also looked at a few recent long flights in Europe and Mifflin. We are all actually turning tighter than just about everyone!

Are we all close to the sweet spot for our equipment and Region 1 thermal characteristics? Is there room for us to improve? Should we just claim victory and enjoy the experience? What did I miss?

April 26 report

 Andy Kozak writes:

Sunday the 26th did not start off well for me. Alasdair showed me that the NESA 2-33 was missing a cotter pin on one of the bolts holding the tailplane. The nut was spinning freely but still attached. It had been assembled after our safety meeting and then flown a week ago. I then pre-flighted it Saturday for my Flight Review, with Alasdair. I try to touch everything I am checking to make sure I do not just give it a cursory look, but apparently I had not done so this time.

Bob Iuliano was already climbing out over Hawks Ridge when I released just below him. Usually we would fly together as long as possible but Bob had to get back earlier that day. When he headed toward the Green mountains, I took a northerly track up the middle of the state. The clouds looked good everywhere. A slight detour to the Greens along with the arc formed by the mountain range would result in a longer path versus heading due north. One of my goals has been to fly to the Canadian border, and this seemed like a good day to give it a shot.

The initial clouds worked well. I hit a relatively low point of 4800 feet near Chelsea, but the cloud I had been aiming for looked good and I was within range of Post Mills, so no worries. Near Montpelier I made a pointless diversion east toward what I thought was the best cloud in the area. It offered weak lift but at least afforded me a bit more altitude. It also gave me time to look around, and I noticed wisps of clouds starting to develop in the blue area just to the west. I backtracked west and headed toward the cloud street above Barre. All of this time I was within spitting/gliding distance of the Barre/Montpelier airport, so again, no worries. Turning west turned out better than expected and I was able to turn north while still in the blue. From there I flew without the need for any major climbs, just thermaling enough to top off my altitude.

One of the things that I think has helped my soaring is that I have learned to focus on being smooth and being more selective when slowing down. Not every patch of lift needs a sharp pullup. The glider gains energy in the small pockets of lift that we traverse and every control input or change in flap setting costs something in terms of drag and therefore altitude. I try to pay attention to what my flight computer’s MacCready speed-to-fly is telling me but I do not react instantly to every change. I try to avoid slowing down in anticipation of lift. Not every cloud works and slowing too much leaves me with little energy when I find sink instead.

There are several metrics available in WeGlide that I track. One is glide ratio over segments of flights. The leg from my initial climb to the border was 109 miles. On that leg I achieved a glide ratio of 63/1, significantly better than my theoretical 48/1.

There was a cloud growing just on the Canadian border and there was a light wind from the north. I could see the border on my flight computer but from 5,000 ft I could not actually see the 20 ft border break on the ground. Several roads in the area made it somewhat confusing. I turned, just barely touching Canadian airspace and gaining some altitude in the thermal while enjoying the view.

Heading back south the lowest point of the flight at 4600 feet came when I was near Morrisville airport. There had been a larger than normal gap between clouds but again the clouds ahead looked very good so I was never worried. I had also started to notice that the clouds over the Greens were at two levels, indicating a convergence.

Flying south I experimented with the optimum distance from the convergence line and found it to be well to the east versus closer to the convergence. However, I never did get extremely close so perhaps it would have been even better at that point.

Between Sugarbush and Killington I was able to fly without turning. Near Killington I gained nearly 1000 feet in a thermal and then an additional 2000 feet in straight flight. I did not turn again until well past Bennington. At that point the clouds seemed to be a bit more spread out and there was smoke from a rather large fire. Two years ago I had come this far and then tried to return under an overdevelopment only having to land at Bennington. Not wanting to repeat that, and with plenty of altitude, I turned back. Retracing my recent path I maintained altitude and decided to head east and add a bit of a triangle to the flight. This had the added benefit of allowing me to stay within final glide of Hartness, minimizing the potential need for a retrieve.

In retrospect, I should have continued south into Massachusetts. At that time, I did not know it but two pilots from Post Mills were in the same area with me, just returning from their flights to western Connecticut, near where the three states of Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut meet. Evan Ludeman eventually flew 370 miles and Greg Hanlon flew 304 miles. I could not have flown to Connecticut but I think I could have gone well into Massachusetts, which for me is unexplored territory.

The leg of my flight from the border south covered 139 miles at a glide ratio of 111!  Another WeGlide metric I look at is per cent of time circling. A very good number to aim for is 20%. For this flight it was 16.3%! Needless to say, my flight of 349 miles (560 km) was the longest of my life.

Clearly a great day to fly cross country in Vermont. Hopefully my skills and decision making have actually improved and it was not just the right time and the right place!

Seven by Five

Yesterday was a hot and hazy summer day with a maximum temperature of 90F, a dewpoint of 66F, and negligible wind.  The air was hot, but the ground was even hotter and thus we had a soaring day.  There were cumulus clouds, thankfully.

Five Slackers made seven remarkable flights yesterday in the heat.

With care, everyone took off safely out of Post Mills, despite the 3400 foot density altitude at the beginning of the launches.  Jeff was the first to go in the 2-33, and we joked about getting his 5 hours on his second solo.  He took off at 11:30 and found nothing but sink, the only short flight of the day.

Jeff getting ready to go

He was also the last to take off, at 12:21 (more about that later).

Greg (JR), Peter (HG), Dave (NT), and Kari (2C) took off in rapid succession.  One of these days Peter will learn how to record his flights.

Greg had the longest flight of the day, a tour of the White Mountain peaks (Moosilauke, Lafayette, Washington (twice), Speck, followed by an excursion out to Catamount airfield and a return via the Knox Mountains, for a total of 339 km.

Greg visits several peaks

And here's another picture of Greg's knees:

The other three had nice flights as well.  Peter tried to chase Greg into the Whites, but wound up making a perfect landing at Dean, his first sailplane landing away from Post Mills.

Dave had the longest flight of the day, over five and a half hours, with a high point of 6000 feet, where it must have been a little bit cooler.

Kari made a counterclockwise tour of our task area, visiting Dean, Montpelier, Sugarbush and Brandon before returning to Post Mills.  Then, at the end of the flight, he headed back out toward Wentworth and didn't find any climbs.  He turned around and made a slightly uncomfortable final glide home.

Meanwhile, Jeff vanished on his third solo.  Just when we were beginning to wonder where he might have gone, he showed up in the pattern and made a perfect landing shortly after 5pm, only 11 minutes short of his five hours!  If only he had stayed up on his first flight!

Andy did all the towing (thanks, Andy!)  Seven tows in total, including one at Dean.

Together, then apart

 The soaring weather has been so crummy so far that we've begun grasping at straws.  Perhaps we should do that more often.

Last night the forecast for today was "mostly cloudy," which sounds a whole lot better than "rain all day."  Indeed, the sky was grey all morning.  But that didn't prevent the four desperados from showing up and rigging their gliders.

Here's a nice view of a completely unpromising sky:

Tim (BU), Greg (JR), Peter (HG), and DaveB (NT) launched in rapid succession (4 takeoffs in 21 minutes), and even though there were no shadows on the ground, they were able to stay up!

It is interesting to compare the flights of JR (red) and BU (cyan):

For the first half of the flight, they flew together, advising each other of climb rates and trying to stay out of each other's way in the haze.  They wandered across the river and found their first good climb over Mount Cube.  Then they split up and went their separate ways.

Tim eventually went back to Vermont and found a good thermal to 6000 feet.  He landed just after it started to get sunny on the ground.  A three hour flight, not bad!

Another wave flight

Moshe writes about April 23:

Wild spring day. Thermals were higher than expected, so I headed out cross-country to the northeast, across the wind. But I found rather poor thermals from near Moosilauke to the Franconia area.  I chose not to go to the mountains which were even farther downwind.

Instead I headed upwind (northwest) to try to get within range of Dean - and stumbled into wave!

I climbed to 13000 feet, but with a 50-knot wind across my course line, the 32 miles glide back home was still a challenge - and the arrival altitude promised by the glide computer was completely meaningless.

I tried to make way crabbing sideways within the up-wave.  But that was very slow, and it also wasn't leading in quite the right direction.  So I plunged upwind through wave sink to the next wave cycle.  In my low-performance glider that cost a lot of altitude!

Back in the Post Mills area, it was very turbulent below 3000 feet, so the landing was "interesting" too. 

Visibility was great, The Whites were "right there," and I could see Lake Champlain through the Waterbury gap in the Greens.

In retrospect, I think the Franconia area was in down-wave, thus the bad thermals. Had I gone downwind closer to the mountains then maybe I could have found up-wave - or not, as the wind would interact with the mountains.  The few clouds I saw in the area with bad thermals looked curly, so they must have been roll clouds. The thermal that threw me into the wave increased to 10 knots up high near the upwind edge. The wave lift was about 4 knots, weaker at 13000 feet, but I was reluctant to go higher without oxygen.

Flight log here.

Three in the Wave

Another cool, clear and windy day on Tuesday.

It was Andy's last day of availability as a tow pilot for a while, and three members took advantage. All three had good wave flights.

Greg (JR) worked his way upwind in thermals until he contacted the wave a few miles east of Breadloaf Mountain. That took him all the way up to 17000 feet. Then he worked the wave crosswind to Mount Mansfield. From there he made a long glide back to Post Mills.

Tim (BU) made a similar flight to the northwest.  He didn't get as high as Greg, but he made three separate climbs to 13000 feet as he made his way upwind to Sugarbush.

Finally, AndyK (2R) headed west at first and got relatively low near Tunbridge, but was able to find the best climb of the day (5 knots) and reached 14000 feet over Carrier.

So far this season it's been all about wave.

Andy headed to the flight line

Wave Flight

 Tim writes about April 17:

Actually, it was a rotor/wave flight.

It was a tough start.  There were few clouds to start and those quickly evaporated.  I took a high tow (5K) to the west because if I didn't connect off tow I would have a second chance downwind of the airport.  Sure enough, I couldn't find wave lift near Miller Pond so I headed downwind before I got too low.  I was able to work rotor while drifting downwind.  I guess the wind was about 30 knots.  The lift was sometimes 14 knots in half a turn and minus 14 knots in the other half.  I was able to climb to about 8500 feet as I drifted almost to Mt. Cube.  Was able to work scraps of wave to about 9500 feet but was never well established.  Wind was now about 45 knots.

Moosilauke, Franconia Ridge and Mt. Washington from 9,500 feet

After 2.5 hours I had enough and was going to "declare victory" and land.  Pushing upwind northwest of the airport I found a spot of well-organized rotor lift that turned into wave and went up to 11,000 feet.  This was real wave lift - smooth, consistent and spread over a large area.  Even though there were no cloud markers you could fly carefully and stay in lift (the sink wasn't bad either).  I was able to explore a little and got up to 14,000 feet in the 60 knot wind.  The high winds made it slow to get around but the view was spectacular.  There wasn't a cloud from Canada to Massachusetts.

Below is the SkySight wave prediction and a satellite image from early morning.  And check out this flight to Mt. Washington in a motor glider.

First Slacker Day

 The weather pattern so far this season has been disappointing.  We seem to get a beautiful day about once per week.  The six intervening days are usually quite horrible, with grey skies and every possible mix of precipitation.  Here's hoping the pattern ends soon.

Yesterday was the one beautiful day.  A Slacker Day was hastily arranged the day before, and Andy agreed to be the towpilot.  The day began with no clouds at all and very little wind.  The forecast was for moderate lift to 4500 feet.  They got the altitude right, but not the lift strength.  It was a struggle to stay in the air, giving us some good early season practice.

Tim (BU), who is the only pilot logging his flights on OLC so far this year managed 75 kilometers.  Greg (JR) headed out to Dean but got low most of the way there, nearly landing in a field.  He got back up and came home.

Local flights were made by Paul and Moshe in the Blanik and by Rick and Shawn in the 2-33.  Shawn then had a short flight in the 1-26.

A modest but definite start to the soaring season.  It is fair to say that we haven't missed a good day yet.

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.

A real outlanding

We had a Slacker Day on Monday.  Greg (JR), Tim (BU), and David (JD) flew away, and our new member Shawn got a couple of lessons in the 2-33.

The XC guys had great flights, but only one of them made it back home.  At the end of the day, Andy hooked up Tim's trailer while Greg quickly disassembled and stowed his glider.  Then Andy flew the towplane to Dean to fetch David, and Greg hit the road to go get Tim in Bradford.

Congratulations to everyone for the teamwork - and to Tim for making the first real outlanding of the year.

Weekend report May 7 - 9

It's not easy being a newsletter editor when you're out of town on a spectacular soaring day and nobody writes their story.  All of the following is scraped from the OLC, a few emails, and the forum.

On Friday, technically a Slacker Day, there were eight flights posted, for a total of 2979 kilometers.  Everybody ran up to Mount Washington (probably together), and either came home directly (NT, DC, 2C) or via an excursion over to the Green Mountains JR, T8, AG).  Tim (BU) did the run twice, for 516 kilometers.  David (505) racked up 69 kilometers in the local area in the 1-26.

That was a lot of good flying, and congratulations to everyone.

But if you think that was special, consider this:  Tim (BU), Evan (T8), and Greg (JR) flew all the way across the Champlain valley into New York on Sunday.  This has never been done before.

The next day Evan wrote:

Yesterday, Tim, Greg and I kicked over the left side of the Post Mills sandbox, crossed the Lake Champlain valley and flew to the highest point in New York State.

One of the reasons for trying this on Sunday was that the weather forecast seemed to indicate less likelihood of overdevelopment on the Adirondacks.  Another is that the wind direction (SW) would keep us out of the wind shadow of the big part of Lake Champlain.
 
The second bit worked as designed. The first not so much. It OD’d on us hard, but we managed to find the climbs we needed to make it back. Patience and teamwork were required. Glider performance helps too!
 
Last night I emailed Adirondack Soaring to tell them we’d planted our flag on Mount Marcy and claimed it for the republic of Post Mills.
 
I added “next time we’ll try to bring better weather.”

I don't know what's more amazing, the flight or the fact that Evan wrote about it.

Wave day at Springfield

Tuesday was blustery and cold, but it was the day NESA chose to check out a new towpilot.  That's all the excuse Tim (BU) needed.

After struggling in the rotor for a good while, he connected with the Okemo wave for a nice climb to 9800 feet.

August weather

The Wednesday afternoon slackers showed their respect for our chief towpilot and were ready to go right on time at noon.  Andy towed everybody and went back home to finish his workday.  Other than a brief pause when we thought we had lost the towrope (false alarm), Andy made nine tows without shutting down.

It was indeed the best weather of the week, as Tim predicted.  However, it wasn't all that straightforward.  And it was hot and humid. There were clouds over the mountains, with a westerly wind aloft.  Some of the clouds got out of hand, causing rainshowers and blowoff.  The wind down low was from the south, which put us square in the middle of weak valley conditions, with the cloudfields to the east and west, just out of reach.

The trick was to leave town early, and Greg (JD), Tom (2W) and Tim (BU) did just that.  They made it to the clouds on the Vermont side and followed them all the way to Island Pond, returning via the clouds on the New Hampshire side.  You could not have done any better than that.

Evan (T8) and Rick (LEL) struggled to get away, with Evan making at least three desperate returns to Post Mills before climbing back up.  At least he didn't land.  Rick needed a relight.  They both headed for home when the lightning started.

The day ended early with a ten mile diameter shadow due to blowoff.  Luckily everyone saw it coming and we made long smooth glides into the darkness to land by about 1600.  Evan managed to stay up the longest of all.  After that the sun came back out.  Typical.

Keith (BA), Dennis (DC), and David (505) were all trapped at Post Mills by the big shadow.  Dennis set a record for circling, and David got his first flight of the season in the 1-26.

Weekend report May 22 - 25

PMSC finally got underway at Post Mills this weekend, thanks to all the work on the towplane performed by our chief towpilot and chief mechanic.  It's never obvious how much work the two Andys do in order to keep us flying.  It's a lot.

We did a pretty good job of observing our amended COVID operational rules.

Under our new (hopefully temporary) rules, every day is a Slacker Day.  This isn't great for our primary students, but it makes it easier for our instructors and towpilots to fly on the weekends.  Don't let them tell you that they aren't enjoying this.

Another consequence is that our first weekend of the season was also our first 4-day weekend.

Friday
The conditions were blue with light west winds.  The day started with thermals to 5000 feet, rising to 7000 feet by late afternoon.  Evan, Tim, Dennis, and Eric flew out of Post Mills, and Rick launched at Franconia.  Tim and Evan flew nice round trips to the White Mountains.  Eric did that as well, but was a bit more ambitious.  He wound up landing at Claremont after rounding his final turnpoint at Springfield.  Rick also landed out, conveniently, at Post Mills.

Dennis was the hero of the day, driving down to Claremont to pick up NT, bringing Eric back to Post Mills, then turning around again and driving home (not that far from Claremont).  He walked into his house at about midnight - and was back in Post Mills the next morning.

Saturday
Technically, Saturday can be called Assembly Day, since the 2-33 and 1-26 went together, thanks to the efforts of David, Peter, Karl, Andy, Don, and Karl's buddy Dave from Florida. That leaves the Blanik, which suffers from lack of pilots so far this season.

The weather was strange.  It wasn't blue, but it might as well have been.  High bands of stratus and a few altocu didn't help at all.  Thermals were sparse and difficult to center, but with patience, they could be worked up to 6000 feet.  The wind was southeasterly, which was disorienting.

All flights were local.  Kari probably had the longest flight, with Evan and Peter not far behind.  Dennis had a short one, and Rick couldn't even stay up.  David flew the 2-33 twice and is back on track to get his license early this year.

Sunday
The day dawned clear, but a thin overcast moved in just before launch time and hung around for the rest of the day.  From the appearance of the sky, you wouldn't have thought there was any lift at all.

But this is May.  The airmass is so good that it doesn't take all that much sunshine to get things going.  Tim (BU), Peter (505), and Greg (JD) all had local flights.  Peter's total time in the 1-26 this season is 5 hours already.  He got to 4800 feet and was the last to land.

Monday
Nobody flew.  But before you deny that this was a 4-day weekend, thank Tim for standing by to be the towpilot all day Monday.  The overcast was solid, and the slackers gave up early, as they always do.

There are 12 trailers on the field now (including HK, which just arrived from Florida).

SkySight Wave Forecast....Not!

I was able to contact wave during last Monday's flight.  After the flight I went back to see what SkySight had forecast for the day.

The thermal forecast was pretty accurate:

 

When I got to Twin Mountain (the mountain not the airport), it was completely blue to the North and East.   I was below 5,000' and the lift was broken up.   I figured if Mt. Washington wasn't working and there was sink between Twin Mountain and the Presidentials that I would end up scratching at 1000' over Twin Mountain airport (been-there-and-done-that-before) and I wasn't in the mood.  So I chickened out and instead of heading towards Mt. Washington I turned around. 

When I got back to Franconia I was able to find weak wave and work it up to about 8,000' where SkySight predicted no wave lift:

 

Once I was in wave I could maintain 7,500-8,000' as I drift back towards Twin Mountain (In an area SkySight predicted no wave lift).  At 7,500' over Twin Mountain I felt I could make a run at Mt. Washington and if it didn't work, return to Twin Mountain without too much stress.  As it turned out I flew over the summit with 1000' to spare and contacted weak wave right over the horn.  At times the lift averaged over 3 kts and I topped out at 13,500'.  SkySight was predicting 0.4 kts of lift:

 Recently Matthew Scutter wrote in RAS:

I'm biased because I wrote it, but;
For wave flying, the wave forecasts are so useful you'll wonder how you did it without it. Don't believe me - ask Dennis Tito or Morgan Sandercock, an OLC comment from on one of their 2000km flights, using SkySight in the cockpit:
“The SkySight forecast is so precise that we did not need to look at clouds to find lift. When the clouds went one way and SkySight went another way we found it was better to follow the SkySight prediction. We literally do not need to look out the window to find lift.
I have flown blue wave personally multiple times with SkySight and it really opened possibilities that were not there before. Predicting wave is quite easy because mountains don't move very fast and mid-to-upper level winds change slowly. The same applies to orographic convergences (i.e. wind splitting and joining behind an obstacle) or along the edge of plateaus/ridges. Overlay some wave flights on the forecast with the IGC Upload to see for yourself.
In highly dynamic or unstable wave conditions (fronts passing through etc) though your mileage may vary as to the placement of the wave hour by hour.

While SkySight might be good at predicting wave with big mountains in places like the Owens Valley, Patagonia, the Pyrenees, etc.  I think it still pays for us in New England to look out the window.

One thing that SkySight might have gotten right is the convergence forecast.  Often the transition from Twin Mountain to Mt. Washington is stressful because you are flying downwind, into rising terrain and there is often sink, and if things don't work out, you have to turn around and go upwind through the same sink to make it to the safety of Twin Mountain Airport.  On Monday the transition was easy, there was lift in this area (or zero sink) and little altitude was lost during the transition.  SkySight had predicted 0.4 kts of convergence lift:

P.S. - Thanks for the tow Andy!

Slacker day

After the crummy weekend, everybody was looking for a good day to go flying.  Wednesday was nominated, and when the day came, the usual suspects bolted from their day jobs.  One of them didn't even bother to change into his flying clothes as he went out the door.

In all, 8 pilots made 10 flights.  The weather wasn't quite as good as we wanted.

Don wrote:

The day started out breezy and improved as the afternoon progressed. Thermals were around but all chopped to pieces by the wind. During my brief flight, indications were northerly in the 20s-30. At 3000-5000’. 

Flights that started later in the day tended to stay up. Tim (BU) and Moshe (RU) made two flights, so had twice the fun. I had to leave before Tim/Dennis/Moshe returned so don’t know their stories. Eric (NT) started early and made it to Mt Washington and back. Kari (2C) made an hour plus flight in his Jantar.

Don took this picture of Moshe on his first flight.  Note the scummy sky and lack of cumulus.

Peter and Dennis (DC) made long local flights later in the day, both over 2.5 hours.

Remote slacking

And Dan (EA) seems to have stumbled into some wave on a flight out of Sterling.

Slacker report May 6

It's hard to tell from far away, but it seems the Slackers had a good day on Monday.

Moshe (RU), Greg (JD), Don (JM), Tim (BU), and Dennis (DC) all posted their flights.

A couple of weak days

Sometimes weekday operations don't pan out as expected.  We gave it a shot Thursday and Friday this week.

On Thursday, we had a nice airmass, but the day started with a discouraging amount of altostratus.  Karl, Dennis, Peter, and Rick took their time waiting for heating to start.  Karl showed off his new ID (KH) which is now displayed on his fin and trailer.  Eventually, the sky cleared and trigger temperature was reached.  Karl took off first and stayed in the air for about an hour.  Dennis (DC) crawled up to 5700 feet once and spent the rest of his 90 minute flight practicing low saves. Peter, who is getting really good at unassisted takeoffs, flew the 2-33 while thinking about getting a flight recorder.

There was only one slacker on Friday, Tim.  He and his guest took a wave tow in the Blanik (3BA), but didn't connect.  They had a nice flight in thermals and were able to reach their tow height a couple of times.

Thanks, Karl for fixing the green golf cart again.  It's running like a switch watch.

Hammerwetter

The word is German, but it has become an internationally recognized term for the best possible thermal soaring conditions. I can remember about half a dozen such days in the 29 year history of our club. Yesterday was probably the second best day ever at Post Mills.

The day began with a royal blue sky and a light southerly breeze. Cumulus clouds were slow to develop and never got to be more than 3/8 of the sky. Every one of them marked a good thermal, and the old ones evaporated quickly, leaving no doubts about where to go. The best achieved climb was 9.8 knots to 10800 feet.

The usual suspects - Dan (EA), Greg (JD), Evan (T8), Dennis (DC), and Tim (BU) - were able to take full advantage of the day. The first three were towed aloft by Tim, beginning a few minutes before noon. The backup towpilot arrived just in time to launch Dennis and Tim.  After that, it was very quiet at Post Mills for a long time.

Dan, Evan, and Greg went over to Stockbridge and flew down the Green Mountains to Mount Greylock in Massachusetts.  Then they turned back north and flew the whole length of Vermont up to Camel's Hump. At some point, Dan fell behind and flew by himself for the rest of his flight.

While this was going on, Dennis and Tim had their own plans. Dennis declared a 314 km triangle with turnpoints at Gorham, New Hampshire and Springfield, Vermont. Tim went the same way at first, although he did not see Dennis. Tim continued on and turned at Old Speck in Maine and Pittsburgh, New Hampshire, which is well north of the Vermont/Quebec border. He made a long straight glide from there to Topsham, where he picked up another street and headed NNW to his final turn at Barton, on the way to Newport. When he got home after this W-shaped flight, he had flown 508 km.

Dennis, who did not have the luxury of following the streets on his declared task, made it to Gorham without too much trouble and retraced his steps back to Post Mills, and then on to Mount Ascutney and Springfield. He was high enough at his second turnpoint that he was able to make an 80 km final glide back home. His flight qualifies for the Gold Distance and Diamond Goal badge legs.  Congratulations Dennis!

So with Dennis, Tim, and Dan back home, it was apparent from the lowering sun and the freshening southerly wind that we might have some retrieves to do.  Sure enough, Evan phoned in from Dean at about 7:15pm. We called him back from the clubhouse phone (a first!) and while he was talking with us, we could hear him talking on the radio to Greg, who was still in the air. During Evan's 3-way conversation, Greg decided to turn back and land at Dean as well. He was actually closer to Post Mills than Dean, but with the wind, it was a prudent call, especially after 7h40 in the air.

In no time flat, Dan and Tim were on the road to fetch them.

The day's OLC results were nothing short of spectacular:

EA 640
T8 636
JD 622
BU 508
DC 345

Hammerwetter indeed.