Well, I wouldn’t have given you a plugged nickle for the prospects of getting a soaring day in today, but in the end it turned out significantly better than yesterday. When I got up this morning and looked at the weather, the satellite loop showed a huge band of high clouds streaming up from the Ohio valley area (my home soaring grounds) into Pennsylvania and New York, and it looked like it was just going to keep doing that all day long. In fact, I remarked to Hank Nixon (UH/OH/K21) that I was thinking of leaving my glider in the box (I got to eat those words later – yum!). Someone pointed out that there was some eastward movement of the junk, and that we *might* see some sun later in the afternoon, and if the sun hit the ground, then we *might* get enough heating to get in a short task. I figured that was the normal insane optimism exhibited by almost all soaring pilots (job requirement, I think), but this time the cloud deck *did* move far enough east so the sun hit the ground, and lo and behold, soaring happened!
In fact, the sniffer (Sean Murphy, XC) launched at about 12:30 and actually stuck, reporting a gain of 500′ or so in a 1-2kt thermal, enough to get another sniffer in the air, and then the entire fleet. Cumulus clouds started appearing, first in very ragged and anemic form, but then firming up quite nicely within a half-hour or so.
The tasks for both FAI and Sports class were one-turn MATs – FAI’s was 66 Perry-Warsaw (about 20 miles north), and Sports was 60 Seven Gullies (about 10 miles north). Initially off tow, it was tough to find good climbs, and most of us stayed on the high ground to the east of Dansville. Unfortunately, there was a big blue hole between the clouds on the east side and the first turnpoint, and so as start time neared, I started looking longingly at some clouds on the other side (the upwind side) of the valley. It took a while, but I finally made it over there, and was rewarded with the sight of other gliders turning climbing in the same area.
Out on course, the climbs were pretty frustrating, as we could only get a few turns in decent lift, and then the thermals seemed to just wander off somewhere. The best technique seemed to be to feel around for a bubble, and then turn as tightly as possible until it was lost, then repeat the procedure. Having two or three gliders in a thermal tended to help, as at least one of the gliders seemed to be in possession of ‘the bubble’ pretty much all the time. Further south where many of us went, the cloudbases were significantly higher and the climbs were a little more organized. At one point I got low, and snagged a 6kt thermal that I rode up from 3200′ to 7200′ msl – woo hoo! That climb pretty much did the trick for the entire task, as then I was able to stay pretty high and get home without much additional trouble.
At the end of the day, the Harris Hill crowd invited me to a brat/hamburger dinner in the main hangar, complete with beer, good food, good friends, flying stories, and other lies ;-).
Tomorrow’s weather looks pretty grim (for real this time, I swear!), so in all probability a rain day. However, I’m a happy camper because we did get a day in today, despite my reputation for ruining contests, and I didn’t land out!
Stay tuned,
Frank
