GPS LOG!
Saturday April 27th a 500K out-and-return task to Centerville VT a few miles past Morrisville airport went into my computer. The day did not look spectacular but what the heck; you never know. Several pilots were going generally the same route to Sugarbush. Launch was around 10:50 and I started right away just after 11 AM. Initially conditions were pretty good with 3 to 4 knot climbs topping out at over 5 thousand feet MSL. There were a few low moments just after crossing RT 2 and near MT Monadnock that went along with wasted time in weak lift. Conditions got much better near MT Ascutney with 5 and 6 knot climbs well over 7 thousand feet. There were cloud streets but they were aligned more west - east and not along course. Just past 2:30 Sugarbush slid underneath and I considered going on the turn point 30 miles farther. My hope had been to make the turn by 2:00. I thought 3:00 was the latest I could make the turn and still have a really good chance to get home. However reports from the southern latitudes told of blue and inconsistent conditions meaning a slower return. Although I hoped for some kind of miracle street to appear the reality was a gap in the clouds in the RT 89 valley. So at 2:40 I turned with a sigh and headed for home. The return trip brought blue conditions starting at MT Ascutney. Still, thermals were there and final glide height came a few miles north of MT Monadnock. It was a rewarding flight. I used most of the day and completed my longest distance. I just need to become a little better pilot or get a little luckier with the weather to get 500K in the bag.
Mark
GPS LOG!
It looked like it would be the only good day of the weekend, and one of the few left before the upcoming sports class contest in Pennsylvania. The previous weekend I had finally worked the bugs out of the old S-Nav with a tweak of one of the potentiometers that seemed to have developed a bad spot on it. Today I hoped to calibrate it by getting a tow above the boundary layer to test airspeed calibration and total energy compensation.
Unfortunately, I got to the trailer just after Dave Nadler had opened the Duo, and that thing seems to take a while to put together. Or maybe if he just had a real flight computer it wouldn't take so long (well, he's always picking on my flight computer, so there must be something wrong with his!) At any rate, by the time I got down to the grid, I was about tenth and the thermals were starting to work. I never thought I'd complain about that.
I decided to forego the calibration and try the 300 KM flight that Mike Pitoniak did a few days before. I declared it, got ready, and before I knew it (11:07, I think) I was on tow. I released at 2000 feet in reasonable lift, just behind Rick Roelke, gained enough height to feel comfortable, then went back south of the airport for the start.
After starting, I went north again where I found an amazingly long stretch of sink. I decided that I must be heading along between some blue streets, or in wave-related sink, or toward something worse like an off-field landing, so I took a right turn toward Fitchburg. Relief and lift! After that, things got easier, especially since I could see a variety of gliders ahead for most of the way. (See the log files to play back traces of me and a few of the markers simultaneously).
From there, it wasn't too exciting. Once between Orange and Keene, after passing by a few reasonable thermals I got low enough to climb in some weak stuff. But as I climbed I found stronger lift, and it turned out to be a reasonable climb overall. Phil Gaisford, who at one point had been higher than me back at Sterling, saw me thermalling and decided to join in the fun. I got lucky and out-climbed him, or scared him to a weaker part of the thermal to gain five hundred feet or so. He then headed north, and I followed a bit behind and perhaps half a mile to his west.
For about eight miles, I seemed to be in lift while PG was in sink. I held altitude and he kept getting lower, without seeming to pull away much. But then, somehow he shot up in front while I started to sink, and by the time I got to his thermal I was about even with him. I lost a little on him thermalling, and then held on far too long in weak lift as he headed off to the next one. By the time I caught up, he was well above me and on to better things. After that, I more or less took my own route, taking comfort in the clump of thermalling gliders I could often see ahead. Eventually Claremont came into view, and I rounded it to head south on my own.
On my own into the now blue conditions, things looked sketchy at first, but there was good lift. The rest of the flight was uneventful. I got a bit low near Keene, but then found a very nice ride up to the top where the only cloud in miles decided to form. I found another good thermal east of Orange, then decided to stick to the hills west of the Quabbin rather than into its influence to the east. Eventually I got enough altitude to head straight to Southbridge, and then home with a slight detour around Worcester airspace.
What a nice day!
--Bill "BN"