Ridge soaring on the Sequatchie Ridges !

A bit late today, sorry about that!
With a “slow” time in soaring, due to the chance of seasons, it is more or less the interesting wave flights and ridge soaring who attract our attention, atleast certainly mine.
Wave of course shows by lenticular clouds and the mountains produce a standing wave.
Ridge soaring also over mountains is air ,forced upwards by the slope, for those who are not glider pilots.

Ridge soaring, I never really saw it with my own eyes but it sounds like fun. Sarah [KellyArnold] organized a 10 day ridge camp on the Sequatchie ridge.
One of the pilots flying a few days during the course over there was one of my friends Werner, who raced last Wednesday over the ridges to finish his day with 770 km., topping the OLC list. Reason to check with him  what it is all about , this ridge soaring. Here is his story!

—“The Sequatchie Ridge Camp Rocks!

As for the last several years Sarah Arnold Kelly again organized a great ridge camp in the Sequatchie valley near Chattanooga, Tennessee.

 This year’s camp started with a very promising day for Wednesday March 6th, 2013.  T wind promised to be perfect for the Sequatchie and Lookout Mountain Ridges.  The wind was forecasted with winds from 320@20-30kts.  Unfortunately the base was just above the ridge top at about 3,000ft for most of the day.  The low base left the northern and higher end of the 100k long Sequatchie ridge (Hinch and Brady Mountain) in the clouds and did not allow for anyone to transition to the Lookout Ridge which adds another 100k through Georgia to Gadsden, Alabama.

Nevertheless several of the camp participants had great flights.  I was very happy with 570k @ almost 130k/h.

The immediate forecast did not promise any good ridge conditions until the following week.  The long-term forecast had Tuesday and Wednesday listed with the next possible chance for favorable weather conditions for the ridge to work.  By the weekend the forecast already promised for Wednesday to be a good day and I started planning another trip to the Marion County airport in Jasper, Tennessee.

Sarah told me that several pilots were planning to fly a 300k out and return Diamond Goal flight and after completing that part adding another run up and down the ridge so that the flight would also include Diamond Distance.  Since I never flew that task before which left the Sequatchie ridge at the lower end and followed the Tennessee River for 60k south to Scottsboro, Alabama I decided to declare the same.

During my flight preparation Tuesday evening I already saw that the weather forecast for Wednesday promised to be a classic ridge day with perfect wind conditions 310-320@20-25kts and cloud bases of 5000ft early in the day rising to 6000ft or higher in the afternoon.

Prepared for a nice long flight I arrived early at Marion County Airport and immediately assembled and loaded the task into the logger.  I decided to add 10 gallon of water as it makes a much smoother ride in the sometime bumpy and turbulent places close to the ridge.

I took of 9:30am CST and after flying through the start point at the rock quarry at the south end of the ridge flew directly to the deck of the ridge.  The ridge worked beautifully just as forecasted completing the first leg (92k) with 95mph (153k/h).  As I was trying to arrive at the south end of the ridge together with a couple of pilots that asked me if I would fly the soaring part of the task with them and possible mentor them should they need help or had questions what route to take at any given time.  Since I started earlier then both and flew an ASW27 vs. ASW15 and Ka6 I had plenty of time at the north end of the task so that I thermaled north to optimize my OLC distance.  I left the ridge and thermaled 20k north with nice thermals and a 5,000ft base.

The second leg (153k) was uneventful and as planned I met up with the ASW15 and Ka6
at the end of the ridge and we all flew south thermaling a beautiful cumulus
covered sky.  When we arrived at our  southern turnpoint the nice cu’s were much further apart so that the first part  going back north turned out to be a bit more of a challenge.  We all looked across the river to the east at  a smaller ridge that really should work but unfortunately would not leave many  safe landing spots if needed. 

Well after  about 15 to 20k thermaling I flew over to the ridge to see if ridge produced some thermals and if the ridge worked.  I found great thermals and of course the ridge worked as well.  Shortly after all three of us transitioned to that small ridge I arrived at the end welcomed by a 10kts thermal so that I could easily transition back to the Sequatchie ridge and complete the 300k out and return.  Now I just had to fly the ridge once up and down and that would complete the 500k distance.  The ridge still worked wonderful if not even better than in the morning.  I less than one hour I flew the 200+k to complete the declared task.  The ridge worked so nicely that I decided to fly north once again so that I could optimize my OLC distance for the day.

As it happened when I arrived at the northern turnpoint again there I found a very nice thermal and a beautiful looking cloud street going northeast for as far as you could see.  Of course I could not resist and decided to fly along the cloud street to Crossville, TN at that point I was at 6,200ft and at the cloudbase gaining a good 1,000ft flying between 60 to 90 mph.  I could still not see the end of the cloud street but experienced some snow showers and I had problems with my canopy freezing over as soon as I closed the ventilation.  Well cold but very happy with a great flight I decided to turn around and had south to land 40 minutes later at Marion County Airport completing 770k @ 118k/h.

A great day thanks to Sarah’s Ridge Camp! —“

And a big THANK you to Werner to share this special flight with us.

 

Some of the young German pilots enjoy wave in France in Serres la Batie; One of them Benjamin Bachmeier.  I call him one of my soaring- friends as well, as he is like me a busy- blogging-bee.
He also topped last week a day on the OLC not racing the ridges but high up in wave; 723 km. in the Discus 2 up to 5684 MSL/ 4524 AGL. He shared this nice picture.His flight , is on the top-spot on March 15, when you want to see height and direction.

Serres by Benjamin

That’s it for this week. The rest of the soaring news is on www.soaring.eu when you would be interested and have not yet read it.
Cheers Ritz