The past two days have alternated between being spectacular and frustrating, usually in close succession. On the one hand, we are really lucky to have some really nice soaring conditions in the summer time. It’s hard to complain when you are getting to 6500ft and 7800ft respectively. On the other hand, we’ve had to deal with storms, large sinkholes, and areas of rinky-dinky lift that made things more challenging. Nonetheless, 210 miles on thermals; that’s a fine day’s work.
Today Sean Murphy set our task. Wellsville – Loon Lake – Canton Lake – Harris Hill; Turn Area Task with a 3.5 hour minimum time. He flew the Duo Discus with Tom Hogrefe and also had a great time. The task was well set for the day.
It took a while for Noah and I to get connected with the lift. After release, we struggled to find a thermal. It took 20 minutes to get above release altitude, though the one that got us there was a real solid 4.5 knotter. This got us up to start altitude and we got going a little after 1:20 pm.
The conditions got cooking and we cruised along to the first turnpoint. Things slowed down on the second leg due to cirrus and mid-level moisture. We developed some altitude separation getting into Loon Lake and Noah did a good job of rounding the turnpoint a bit deeper and coming back with me at the same altitude.
The next leg got trickier. The working thermals got pretty far apart and we started to get some disconcertingly low points. At one of these points, I released Noah and he went ahead and marked the next thermal. This worked out well; we ended up minimizing the altitude seperation between us almost completely on this one.
Getting across toward Armenia Mountain, things got really tricky. We were down to almost 3000ft and few of the clouds were working. The one thermal that did work got us just high enough to poke into the high ground to the south. Noah picked up a weak thermal in the middle, but I wasn’t high enough to connect with him. I kept going, hoping to find a thermal toward Buttonwood Mountain. No joy.
At this point I was paying a lot of attention to the fields below me. None looked enticing. And then I realized that the windmills on top of the ridge were turning. Not very fast, but turning nonetheless. This perplexed me, because the winds were from all directions, but north today. I gauged whether the windmills were angled off from the ridge; nope… straight perpendicular. Well heck, if they are turning, then the ridge ought to be working. Maybe good enough for a save?
I got to the ridge, felt a woosh of more solid air and hung a right along the ridge. By golly, this might actually work! I floated along, slowly settling down. And several miles later, I hooked a bubble! The windmills were a bit disconcerting; I couldn’t make a full turn until way well above ridge top because I didn’t want to drift into them. And as I started climbing, the wind read only about 8 knots from 340 degrees. 500ft above, the wind went to zero. I have no idea where the wind came from or where it went, but all I can say is thank you very much. This got me up and away and heading back home.
Noah smartly turned in his weak thermal and headed back while he had the chance. However he was struggling along back to the north in survival mode. He dutifully reported this to me and I made every use of the decent thermals over the high ground. This got me to a MC 3.3 500ft over final glide, which I cautiously flew back home. 65-70 knots, slowing down in the good lift and speeding up to 75 knots in the sink. I held my breath a good ways. Even 4 miles out I was thinking I might need to do a rolling finish if I hit a bout of strong sink. But it actually worked out very nicely, for a very efficient final glide.
Team flying worked well today. When we were close together, we sampled the air well. We got separated twice, the first time reconnecting nicely. The second time, Noah relayed useful information which increased my speed. All in all, a great training day!
Noah’s flight log can be found here.
My flight log can be found here.
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Thanks Aero Club Albatross and Harris Hill Soaring Corporation for letting us use their club gliders toward training for the upcoming Junior Worlds!
Soaring Economist 