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Tuesday didn't look too promising at first. The sky had a lot of high cirrus and no obvious thermal activity, but we took a tow and the tow pilot headed for an area where he thought lift would be (you can't beat local knowledge). We scratched around for a while, eventually found a thermal and headed up. We maintained a good altitude of about 8-9,000 MSL for a couple of hours, exploring the area, and eventually ended up soaring along a ridge at 9-10,000' MSL. We did this for about an hour, as there was a report of wave in the area and we could see the lennies forming in front and behind us.
This really paid off for us. All the other gliders had returned to the field and we set off upwind. We contacted the smooth wave lift and almost before we knew it we were contacting Reno Approach, since we were now approaching 18,000' MSL. We came down with full spoilers at 80kts to around 9,000' and said "what the heck, let's do it again". So up we went in 10kts+ to 18,000' again. This time we flew downwind (through the sink) until we contacted the next wave, which we worked for a while. We didn't get quite so high in this wave since we were getting pretty close to cloudbase.
Since we now had plenty of altitude and knew where the lift was, we did more exploring, burning off altitude for distance, Tristan taking some sightseeing photos on the way. Since we had only been in the air five hours, Tristan made the decision to go into the wave again. So, off we went rocketing up to 18,000'. This time we came down with full spoiler at 80kts again, and landed back at AIR sailing after a total of six hours in the air. Did I say I needed a foam cushion?
Thermals, ridge lift and wave, all in one six-hour flight. Magic! I suppose Tuesday wasn't a bad day, after all.
Today (Wednesday) looks like it might be another wave day.
Oh dear. Where's the foam?
Terence Lowe.
-photos by Tristan
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