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

Inactive member

 

Inventing the Wheel

 Every 15 years or so, I take apart the mainwheel of a 2-33.  It happens so seldom that I have no memory of how the glider's undercarriage is designed when I attempt to do it again.

A few of us showed up yesterday, with the hope of flying, but the weather did not cooperate.  Instead, we did some maintenance.  Don and Greg worked on the Blanik interior, which is much improved, thanks to their efforts.  Tim decided to inspect the mainwheel bearings of the 2-33, and DaveB, Andy, and I helped on that project.

The first step is to place a log under the skid and hoist the tail onto a sawhorse perch.  This raises the wheel off the ground and allows it to be removed.  Once the wheel is out, the fun begins.

The wheel/brake assembly consists of at least 50 individual parts, all of which must be accounted for during the disassembly.  Tim and I tried hard to memorize how it came apart, so we could put it back together properly.  My concern for reversibility prevented me from properly appreciating the engineering that went into this wheel.  Until today.

 Most of those 50 parts were custom designed and manufactured by hand in limited batches.  No wonder gliders are expensive!  I can picture Ernie Schweizer spending a few weeks in 1966 with his engineering drawings, lathe and calipers - to come up with all those shafts, spacers, covers, housings and seals that comprise the wheel.  The bearings, shoes, and pads are probably from automotive stock, but designing a glider wheel around those parts must have been challenging, as well.  I'm sure the wheel was derived from the 2-22 wheel, vintage 1946.  I wonder what improvements were made twenty years later.

 Anyway, Tim and I greased the bearings and put it all back together (unsuccessfully, on the first attempt, oh well), and reinstalled the wheel just as it started to rain.

Glider maintenance, like flying, is challenging and satisfying.  Both give you an appreciation for those who made it possible in the first place.

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.

Assembly Day

 After a bit of confusion on the Forum about whether the weather would be suitable for assembling gliders, and a last minute decision to go for it, we gathered at the airfield yesterday and got to work.

The ground was just barely firm enough, and the air was just barely warm enough to get things done.

It was a fine turnout.  Andy, Dave, Dennis, Greg, Henry, Kari, Klaus, Leslie, Moshe, Paul, Peter, Rick, Shawn, and Tim pitched in and assembled two gliders and fetched several others from storage.  It looks like a gliderport again, with two gliders tied down and about 10 trailers parked in the assembly area.

And we flew!  The instructors bootstrapped themselves into currency and proceeded to give field checks to a few members.

Welcome to the 2025 season!

Spring Training

 It's not quite Opening Day, but the die-hards are in the air already.

Greg, Tim, Andy, and Don unwrapped the Blanik, assembled it, and made two flights today.  The conditions were good, albeit a bit breezy.

Congratulations to the early birds!

Oh, yeah, the golf cart broke as well.

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.

Wave flight

 Andy Kozak (2R) writes:

May 31, 2024 - My most spectacular flight! 

The Skysight forecast was for strong NNW winds with high cloud bases. I had left my glider in the trailer overnight at Post Mills Airfield and was once again going to fly with Tim Chow (BU) and Greg Hanlon (JR). The morning sky showed lenticular clouds, indicating the presence of wave, although Skysight had not predicted wave. We prepared our oxygen systems. My pulse oximeter system can be preset to automatically provide oxygen once I am over 10,000 feet. All I then have to do is put on a nasal cannula. 

The goal for the day was Sugarloaf mountain. in Maine, 250 miles round trip. 

Here are Tim and Greg over Lake Fairlee. Post Mills is just to the left of the lake.

I topped off first and set off hoping to spend at least some of the day leading. This would not last long. After a climb over Piermont Mountain, I was a bit higher so I probed the leading edge of the cloud, hoping to connect to wave. Tim and Greg continued on course and I was suddenly off course and behind. 

For any sustained longer term flight, being able to thermal in consistent, steeply banked (45+ deg.) circles is critical. The NESA 1-34 is great for this with relatively good performance and a good trim control to reduce your workload. It helps to have a relaxed, light touch on the controls. 

Finding myself behind I was anything but relaxed and my thermaling showed. Greg reported good lift over Mount Lafayette but by the time I got there it may have been too late, or I was just not flying well. 

The thermal seemed broken up; there was noticeable strong drift over the 5,000 foot peaks, and I did not have a lot of room to work with. I was forced to penetrate out toward the northern entrance to Franconia notch. I flew through what seemed the worst extended sink and strongest turbulence I have experienced. 

Then, as if by magic it all changed. I turned the corner past Mount Lafayette and flew over of the north facing Lafayette ridge. A two place ship from the Franconia club was thermaling further to the east along the ridge. It was bright and sunny, with smooth air. After gaining some altitude on the ridge I headed for the clouds in the valley. I was somewhat low but within an easy glide of either Franconia, Mount Washington or Twin Mountain airfields. 

After gaining altitude over Cherry Mountain, the clouds provided mostly straight line flight with minimal circling toward Mount Washington. At 9,000 feet. I put on the nasal cannula. I passed just to the south of the summit. To my surprise there was no sink. Lift seemed to come in surges that threatened to pull me up into the clouds. I blundered about over the Carter range until Tim suggested I fly back toward Mount Washington and over the “Horn”. This is the sharp, uphill, left turn under my wingtip:

It used to be customary that drivers on the Mount Washington auto road sounded their horn at this turn. The road was narrower at that time. It is a well known location for wave lift. 

I found smooth, steady 2-3 knot lift. Not very strong for wave. Greg and Tim had topped out at 13,000 feet and headed NE toward Old Speck Mountain, but I was too low to follow and very content to continue climbing.

In this photo you can see Huntington Ravine as the prominent rock bowl in the lower left third of the frame and at the bottom you can see snow in Tuckerman ravine, a mecca for extreme skiing.

And here I am  at 16,500 feet next to a lenticular cloud:

At that point I noticed a much higher lenticular cloud had formed just to my south. I lost some altitude getting to it but there was good lift along its leading edge:

At 17,800 feet I headed away from the lift so as not to violate Class A airspace. It looked like the cloud and likely the lift, extended another 10,000 feet higher.

The flight back was smooth and fast. Once at cumulus cloud level, turbulence restarted and continued down to the ground. 

We never reached our goal but found something special. The White Mountains are beautiful viewed from the air as well as from the ground. Add cumulus and lenticular clouds and their associated shadows and the views on this flight were spectacular. The OLC link is here. 

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.

Town Meeting January 22

The future of the airport was discussed by the Thetford Selectboard for the first time last night.

It was listed on the agenda as an "update," so we didn't expect any public discussion or debates.  And we were not disappointed in that.

There were six Selectboard members and nine members of the public (mostly airport supporters) at the meeting, and there were about fifteen others tuning in on Zoom.

The update consisted of a report from the Selectboard that the bequest from our former owner was still being discussed, out of public view, between lawyers representing the town and the estate.  So, no definitive proposals exist yet.

Reading between the lines, it seems that the town has three options:

1. Accept ownership of the airport and form a business plan to operate it.
2. Accept ownership, and then transfer it to a private entity.
3. Refuse ownership.

The Chair of the Selectboard expressed doubt that the Option 1 could be made to work (this is good news).  Then another member of the Selectboard said that Option 2 (which all parties seem to favor) is tricky, but possible.  He explained that there might have to be an appeal to the Probate Court to allow this.  Nobody mentioned Option 3.

The bottom line is that we are still at the very beginning of the discussion about the future of the airport.  We must continue to wait for the estate to be settled and for the lawyers to let us know what they think is possible.

The good news is that everyone in the room agreed that the continued operation of the airport is in the best interest of the town.  The Selectboard remarked about the level of interest shown by the community (both in person and online).  The Chair, noting the unusual turnout, thanked us for being there and took our picture to mark the occasion.