On July 16th, 2016 I had the distinct pleasure of
sharing a 503 km cross country flight with Tim Gardner as my XC mentor. The flight was a raffle prize generously
donated by Laurie Harden of Soaring NV at the Pacific Soaring Council awards
banquet last winter.
Thank you Laurie
and Tim!
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| The Soaring NV flight line |
My soaring cross country experience started last summer and
since then I have logged a little over a dozen flights in the 200-300 km range
and I was thrilled when they pulled my name out of the hat for this cross
country mentoring flight up at Minden in a Duo Discus.
I scheduled the flight and watched the weather with great
anticipation as our date approached. It
is a 4 hour drive to the Minden airport from my house in San Carlos, CA. But this was well worth the effort given the
huge learning opportunity I was looking at.
I arrived at KMEV at 10am and met the staff at Soaring NV. They were polite and professional and I felt
right at home.
Tim showed up shortly
thereafter and we discussed the weather, TFRs (what would flying the Sierra be
without at least 1 forest fire TFR), airport procedures, and chose our route of
flight and outer turn-point. Based on
the forecast we opted to fly South to the Whites and get to at least Bishop
before turning back and we agreed that 4pm would be the latest we should turn
back in order to make it home before the lift shut down.
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| Inside Soaring NV |
Lucas was working the line and helped up get the glider
ready and out to the line. We were
number two for tow and were in the air at noon.
We took a 3,000’ tow because it was completely blue, the local lift
wasn’t very good for getting out of the valley the day before and the forecast
for today was about the same. Our first
climb got us 13,500’ and the optimism to run down the Pine Nuts and try for the
altitude needed for the jump to the next range.
But we got stuck at the end of Pine Nuts waiting for the lift to get
organized.
After thrashing around for over a half hour working week/disorganized
lift we made it to just over 14,000’ near Farias Wheel Airport and headed South
to the Pine Grove mountains where some clouds were starting to form. A couple thermals later we were over 17,000’
and charging on past Baron Hilton’s Ranch and Lucky Boy Pass (I took this as a
good sign). All along the way Tim was
pointing out airports, waypoints, decision points and xc strategy. I was impressed and grateful for his wealth
of knowledge and teaching style.
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| Southbound into the blue |
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| Soaking up the adventure with an excellent teacher |
Now we were cooking
and making good time. We worked a couple
thermals along the way and were able to stay above 15,000 and with over 17,000’
had a comfortable altitude cushion for the 35 km jump to our next goal,
Boundary Peak and the White Mountain range.
The flight thus far was an incredible experience and I was a sponge
absorbing all the information along the way.
My prior cross country flights were in the area to the North and West of
Minden between Truckee, Air Sailing and Nervino and this was this was my first
time flying out of Minden and to the South.
As we approached the Whites I was awe struck. Tim said that soaring the Whites is a great
experience, but all that much better when you have to fly a hundred miles to
get there.
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| Heading back to White Mountain |
We started off ridge
running all the way to White Mountain where Tim showed me how to thermal a
canyon from below ridge top. I let Tim
take the controls for this lift and was impressed with his skill and a bit
nervous every time we turned into the ridge as this is a skill I had not yet
developed. We were climbing like the
proverbial bat out of Hell when Tim asked if I could see any hikers on the
ridge-top path. There were about a dozen
and Tim decided it he wanted to give them a photo opportunity. So it was time for full spoilers and we
spiraled down a couple thousand feet back down to the ridge were he gave them a
high speed pass “up close and personal”. Here is a link to a video of the fly by:
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| "This is Maverick, requesting permission to buzz the tower..." |
Now it was back to my turn to get that altitude back and off
we went South across the valley, over Bishop and beyond to just pass Coyote
Flats. We got there low, at around
11,000’, and it was a struggle getting back up.
Another glider was reporting a strong convergence over the Sierra to the
South and West of our position and asked if we wanted him to wait so we could
join him. We could see the cloud streets
from where we were. However, it was
going to take us too much time to climb out so we told him to keep going as we again
struggled, waiting for the thermals to cycle.
Our persistence paid off but it was now around 3:30 pm and close
to our agreed upon turn-back time. Since
the clouds to the North were starting to dissipate we agreed to head back and
had to make our next decision. Do we
cross the valley back over to the Whites where the lift was still strong and
marked by a cloud street all the way back to Boundary peak or head off on the
more direct path toward Mono Lake.
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| Cu markers ahead |
Although we saw only two cloud markers we decided to go
direct to Mono Lake. It was 35 km to our
next good climb and then we crossed a big blue patch with no lift for about another
55 km. This lift was a bit disorganized
but we again persisted and got the altitude we needed for the next jump to Mono
Lake.
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| Looking at the Sierra from the east |
We chose well and reached just South/East of Mono Lake at
14,000’, found a climb to 17,000’, and were off on our next jump North.
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Running the gauntlet direct to Mono Lake, Sierra to the
left and Whites to the right
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| Time to go, Sierra on your hip, go fast! |
Our next struggle was above the old ghost town of Bodi in
weak/disorganized lift with only 1 knot on the averager. Our second thermal in that area was much
better and at about 15,000’ we encountered wave and were blessed with smooth
6-8 knots lift to 17,999 and had final glide in the bag. Our glide back was a straight shot of 95 km
at 120-130 knots ground speed and was very satisfying after such a challenging
day.
By the numbers we did 503 km, soared for 5.5 hours at an
average ground speed of 90 km/hr, and used 41 thermals to get around the task. It was an amazing experience and I would
recommend it to anyone wanting to kick-start their cross country soaring
training.
Here is the trace of the flight, which can be found in more detail at https://skylines.aero/flights/66975/
And lastly, I cannot end this tale of good fortune without
again praising the staff, tow pilots, instructors and line kids and fleet of
SoaringNV. This type of one-on-one
training cannot be passed up.
So give a big Hello to Laurie and the rest of the crew from
me next time you are out at SoaringNV and take them up on their offer, whatever
it may be. You will be glad you did.
Sincerely,
Dan Colton
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