GPS LOG!
Trying to pick the best day of the week, I was carefully watching the upcoming cold front passage. Would it come thru in time? The choice seemed to be between Wednesday, or Thursday. Thursday seemed to be squarely under the high, so likely low and blue, Wednesday, had the potential of lingering showers. But at the last minute I decided to make it Wednesday. I called Mike to have him make the announcement. I decided to check the forecast soundings to see if we had enough data to get a picture of Wednesday. Much to my surprise, the 1st day behind the cold front was STRONGLY inverted at about 4k, "shoot" I said, low and blue. I called Mike back, and after some debate, we decided it was still the best day, and after all, most any day of flying was better than a day at work ;-)
Wednesday dawned clear with lingering clouds in the east, the frontal passage was a non issue. At the field there still were some distant clouds in the NW, so we were hopeful that at least there could be some Cu to mark our way. Off at 11:30 I took a 2k tow into about 3kts. Not bad, but it was indeed blue, and not likely to change. I was bumping my head against the inversion at 4k as advertised. With such a strong inversion wave was a possibility so I went off to investigate. I have found the most likely places to find wave in sterling are along the power lines, in particular, to the right of the runway over that "pink" colored field. Another good spot is over the farm on top of the hillside a little farther north of the field. Indeed the lift was stronger there and I took a 5kt ride up trough the inversion altitude and after getting a bit bumpier, it then became smooth. I was able to climb to about 5.5k when it petered out. Thinking it was from Wachusett, I attempted to push forward to the primary, but no luck, just hammered in sink and nothing good at the mountain.
Switching back to convective mode, I tried to get away from the airport and at least get to Gardner, but try as I may, I could only get a few miles north of the mountain. Every attempt was stopped by heavy sink (and with a 4k ceiling, it was easy to find yourself uncomfortably low). I tried to the west (to go north) and to the east and no luck. So after a few hours of banking and cranking on what was a surprisingly turbulent day I was about to throw in the towel, when I heard Bob Salvo call, "I think I'm in wave"
"Where are you?" I called. "Over Fitchburg". Off we go... Gerry Bell and I converged on Bob's location, and found a strong thermal. Rather than getting weaker near 4k it seemed to be getting stronger. For a turn or two I saw over 6kts on the arranger. Finally above 5.5 we started to fly straight and explore the wave. Bob was above us, but we seemed to approach his altitude quickly. He was having a hard time getting above 6300 but this was way more fun than bumpy climes followed by getting stuffed. 4B and DT came in below us, and reported climbing at 5ks thru 5k, when puff, the wave shifted. All 5 of us were suddenly in sink. Mild, but sink.
The three on top were high enough to try moving north as it was a pretty good guess that this wave was coming from Monadnock, so that is where we went. Sure enough we re-contacted a few miles north and this time were able to climb to around 8k. Well, push on. I was really hoping we could step our way all the way to the primary over Jaffrey, and this next hop should tell us if we can. Flying forward in wave require faster than normal inter-thermal speeds. You are not only flying fast thru sink, but you are flying to a stationary point. The wind at 8k was nearly 40 kts, so it time to reflex the flap and go...
We found the "bump" at the north end of Fitchburg. We had lost about a little under 2k in the process. We were still high enough to be in the wave, but we needed to stop there and climb so we did not fall out the bottom for the next jump. Gerry headed out when he got to 8k, but I was happily still climbing at 2.5 kts so I decided to see how Gerry and Bob did on the next jump before I pushed on.
Well something happened, don't really know what, but after climbing to 8.7 I pushed up to join RS and Z8. But they were having trouble locating the lift, Bob had a birthday party to attend (his own), and decided to call it a day. When I got to where I thought the wave was, it wasn't. We were up near the SW end of the Temple Mountain ridge but, I couldn't locate Gerry. With no wave we both decided to head home. I stopped a few spots on the way home but could never find better than 0.
However then I heard Gerry say he found it. He too climbed to 8.7 but then decided to head home. I was trying to reconnect at the north end of Fitchburg, but to no avail. I finally gave up and returned to sterling.
While we didn't make it to Monadnock, it was still a great time, and a wonderful flight.
Rick