Truckee to Byron via White Mountain Peak and Yosemite

16K over Yosemite park within sight of Yosemite valley

Crossing the sierra from Sonora Pass area

 I had an interesting flight on Saturday from Truckee. Thanks to Jim Alton (who also lives in San Ramon) who volunteered to drive my car and trailer back home if I fly to Byron, I decided to keep this an option in case I can get high enough over the Sierra crest. My plan was to go back home Saturday night anyway, so this sounded like an attractive option. The day started slow though, and I had to struggle to get out of Truckee, and to get to Patterson where the first clouds started, but once there, it was relatively straight forward to get to White Mountain Peak, and to cross from there to the Sierras near Tioga Pass. I got to near 18K and flew deep over Yosemite park within sight of Yosemite valley and Half Dome. Still crossing to Byron from there was not a sure thing, I needed to get further NW first, so followed the clouds over the Sierra crest to near Sonora Pass, but could only get to 15.5K or so there, which gave me marginal glide to Byron with 10 knots easterly tail wind.

There were more clouds further west of the crest, but they were not giving much, but I managed to gain some on glide also thanks to the easterly wind. But once over the western slopes of the Sierra, the 10 knots tail wind turned to 10 knots head wind due to NW wind aloft, and it stayed that way all the way down to landing. I also needed to crab some to the north to maintain heading to Byron. My flight computer did not pick up the change as I was not turning, but I started loosing on glide to Byron quickly. The only indication I had of the change was by comparing my ground speed  to my TAS. I wonder how many pilots looking at those 2 numbers side by side in their flight computer? If your flight computer provides TAS, I highly recommend this method, as it is the most instantaneously HW/TW info. Anyway, once I figured how to tell XCSoar that I actually had 10 knots head wind and not tail wind, most of my margin over Byron was gone, but by now I was already committed. Of course I had plenty of margin over the Sierra so it was a no stress, 100+ miles glide which took 1.5 hours.

Long story short, I barely made Byron.  Around 20 miles out I was only 500 over glide, but it didn't look right. The glide angle to Byron looked much more flat than it should until I realized I need to adjust for Byron pressure altitude which was 600 feet off! Once adjusted I lost all my margin and just had enough for base to final. The vario never beeped even once since I left the last cloud at around 15K. Still I managed 40:1 glide with 10 knots head wind and slightly sinking air. Not bad. One point less in glide and I would have landed short...
I was hoping to still find pilots at Byron since after all the forecast for the Diablo Range was great if someone took high tow. And indeed I found Yuliy who was still working on his glider when I landed around 6:30PM.

Special thanks to Yuliy for the ride home, and to Jim Alton for driving my car and trailer from Truckee Sunday night. 
This is BTW the second time I fly across the Sierra to Byron, the first time was nearly 10 years ago from Minden with my old LS4.
Flight is on OLC:  http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=2486655




Ramy

Minden 2012 Wave Camp summary - Walter Friedrich

John Randazzo and I attended the Minden Wave Camp this year from
Sunday 3/25 through Saturday 3/31 and we took glider Twin III KP with
us.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Price: $300 course/manual + $900 tows/instruction + $60/night hotel
(NCSA paid for trailer/glider parking and oxygen)
Number of participants ~12
People with their own gliders ~8
Total Number of flights: 6, Fliths with instructor: 4
Number of times I connected with wave: 2
Number of times I got into one of the windows: 1
Number of days with some wave ~5
Format: morning weather debrief + seminars, afternoon flying (flying
took precedence over seminars if possible)
Minden is run as a business by Soaring NV with friendly people (not
cheap though)

DETAILED DESCRIPTION:
In preparation for this camp, I took the simulated Hypoxia class at
Van Nuys, which I think was important as the possibility of hypoxia
symptions/ issues is real. We also prepared KP with backup oxygen
bottles and clear vision panels.

Bringing your own glider certainly allows you to save some money but
it gives you less chance of getting experienced wave instructors.
Weather changes very fast and can be very windy and gusty making it
difficult to assemble or disassemble your glider. We couldn't
disassemble the glider at the end and I had to return to Minder
mid-week to retrieve it.

Seminars were mostly good:
"Forecasting and recognizing wave" by Doug Armstrong
"Aeronautical Decision Making" by Russell Holtz
"Using Condor flight simulator" by Tim Gardner
"How to fly in it when it gets here: FAA guidelines and the latest on
trasnponder use" by Mark Montague
"Wave flying" by Pete Alexander & Rick Walters
"OLC (OnLine Contest)" by Michael Mitton
"Flying the A-12" by Frank Murray
"Aeromedical factors" by Dr Morgan McCarroll
"Perlan Project Update" by Einar Einevoldson
"Tactical Wave Flying: a Primer" by Kempton Izuno

There are 3 wave windows above MInden (West, Central, East) extending
from 18,000 feet to 28,000 feet and which are opened by the ground
crew based on pilots' requests via radio. Windows stay open normally
til the end of day,unless it is released early.

Sunday was just checkin day and allowed us to assemble our glider in
preparation for camp. Our first flight on Monday was just an area
checkout with the local instructor. Conditions weren't too good for
wave flying (mostly wavelets), even though at least one person was
able to get into it. From the second day on we were trying to connect
with the wave with an instructor. After connecting the first time and
getting into the West window I tried it solo and with a passanger over
the next few days, succedding once again. Even flying with an
instructor is no guarantee of connecting with the wave.

Wind was southernly for most part of the week which isn't good as it
doesn't come squarely across the mountains and ends up creating
wavelets which are a lot harder to connect. Whenever the wind turned
more Westerly, conditions improved significantly. Quickly learned that
spending too much time following the weather forecast is useless as
the weather conditions change really fast and being at the airport
ready to go is the best approach. Wednesday was forecasted as a down
day with snow and rain, but turned out to have great wave conditions
towards the end of the day.

Closely monitoring the weather and wind conditions on the ground is
key while approaching airport to ensure a safe landing. Winds change
fast and we had planes at time landing in different directions in a
short period of time. We had rotor close to the ground at times. One
of my flights encountered rotor as low as 200 feet AGL (airport is at
4,700 feet MSL), with tow extremely turbulent til just below the wave
(about 9,000 MSL). We had clouds all days which helped determining
where we should go. It is unfortunate that the most favorably oriented
runway is actually a closed runway, but often used by glider pilots in
order to avoid dangerous crosswinds.

Most of the time we had sunshine above the clouds which prevented the
temperatures to drop too much. I never had a frosted window and only
John reported that he saw it starting once but the section covered
with clear vision panels remained clear.

Settting up oxygen on the ground was key to avoid last minute trouble
as lift is strong and the wave window approaches quite rapidly. My
instructor tried to switch from a canula to a mask and had problems,
ending up sticking the oxygen tube into his mouth when his oxygen
level had dropped into the low 80s with early signs of hypoxia. We had
a full oxygen tank, plus backup bottles (never had to use them) and
oxymeter. I always started with the mask on and oxygen flowing from
take off on if the plan was to connect with the wave.

Soaring NV was always willing to let us borrow flight recorders for
OLC or badge purposes. Really nice and attentive people.

I think it was well worth it, but to fly wave in the future and keep
costs under control, I will be heading to Air Sailing where they also
have 2 wave windows and operations are far less expensive. I did
become a member of Nevada Soaring as well.

Hope this helps.

Walter

Mang's goofy photo + Practical tips on doing a checkride with Rex at Williams

photo of CFIG Ed Skuzinski on left. Great guy and great instructor!

Ok after the longwinded story here are a couple of practical
notes/tips on doing a checkride with Rex at Williams:

- know the speeds of your glider very well and be able to quote them
immediately
- when Rex tests you on soaring weather, you should know more about
the RASP than the METAR!
- know what the weather forecasts / conditions are for the day of your test
- expect to be asked questions that go into real understanding, not
just rote learning (but you're not expected to have advanced
understanding at this stage)
- stay calm... it'll be ok!

- mang

tales from the check ride from Mang

Had my check ride today at Williams for my Private Pilot Glider. I
did most of my training with the fabulous instructors at Byron and
then had a final few lessons with Ed in the ASK 21 at Williams.

The weather for my check ride didn't look great. I had checked the
NWS weather forecast for Williams and there was a "red flag" fire
alert due to dry gusty winds from the north. I checked the local
conditions at Williams in the morning and there was a ~16kt wind from
the north with a gust of 24kts. For those of you who don't know
Williams, the runway runs 16/34 and the staging area is at the south
end. So takeoffs are to the north and landings are usually to the
south even if there's a slight tailwind. Landing to the north means
crossing above/between two houses near the end of the runway and
requires three landings with an instructor before they'll let you do
it as a student or renter. I had none such landings so that wind
favouring a landing to the north didn't look good!

At noon the winds were something like NNW 15kts gusting to 18. Still
too much for a normal downwind landing. Rex, the designated examiner
and guy-who-runs-the-place at Williams was thorough in the oral exam.
His style is a little instructional - he wants to see how much you
know but will help you understand the more advanced aspects. Like we
all know that a tow rope can have a breaking strength of no more than
200% of the max gross weight of the glider. Say you have a tow rope
rated for 4,000lbs and your glider weighs 1,320lbs. What happens when
you put a knot in the rope?

As an aside, I already saw the effects of knots on rope strengths the
previous lesson at Williams. When first practicing slack lines my
instructor was a little over eager in putting in a big loop and I was
a little under eager in taking it out. POW! It broke right at the
knot all the way at the end of the rope inside the tow plane! The
effect of an approximately ~150ft rope trailing off the nose of an
ASK21 is a moderately increased sink rate and slight wobbly feeling at
the nose. We did a normal pattern to the grass strip next to the
gravel runway and dropped the rope as we got low on the final. No big
deal, but if you were out further (say towing to the mountains) you
might want to consider the increased drag/sink and drop the rope
somewhere safe if you felt it would be an issue.

After the oral part of the exam. We decided to wait awhile for the
winds to drop down. At that point it was a smooth 9kts more or less
straight down (or hey, up!) the runway. Probably doable but part of
being a glider pilot is respecting the weather and making prudent
decisions! About two hours later the wind was down to 5kts (though
still the wrong way!)

The flight portion was fairly straightforward, though again Rex was
able to thoroughly school me on some finer points of airmanship. My
slack line recoveries were not so great but at least I didn't break
the rope (equals automatic fail). Rex showed me using a forward slip
off to the side of the towplane as a recovery technique. Kind of like
it... gets the glider's nose way out to the side without bringing the
glider itself further out and the timing isn't as critical as with the
"dive to match speed" technique.

For the downwind landing after I'd selected my approach speed (at the
recommended speed of ~50kts since landing downwind and the wind was
smooth on takeoff) Rex made the point that the speed in the pattern
doesn't have to be the same for all legs and I decided to go with a
"speed to fly" of 55kts for the upwind leg. With my brain somewhat
cooked from the few hours in 100+ degrees heat I descended down at the
initial point to 1,500' instead of 1,200' (usually you try to arrive
at the IP at Williams at 1,500' and then circle down to 1,200' before
entering the 45 for landing). I realized I was high, commented on it
and decided to bleed some off with the air brakes on downwind. You
can bet Rex didn't let me ignore that I had some more altitude to play
with before safely reaching the IP with some to spare.

I turned crosswind further from the runway than usual, to give me more
time on line up and stabilize on final while being blown towards the
runway (5kts windspeed on the ground). I had to crab away from the
runway to maintain my track, so the turn to final was more than 90
degrees. I'd made downwind landings before at Williams, but it'd been
awhile. While on final the "half airbrakes" glide slope was a little
more shallow than usual since the ground speed was higher. Took a few
quick cycles of "getting too high, full airbrakes! getting too low,
less airbrakes! ok, half!" to get on a decent slope to my approach
point but I got it good enough to stabilize before the flare.

After touchdown flying downwind you can quickly lose directional
control as the airflow on your control surfaces decreases but you
still have decent groundspeed! It's key to have everything lined up
before you touchdown and before you lose directional control. With
the 5 knot tailwind it wasn't too bad. I stopped the glider within
the 200' target area mandated by the test standards with just a touch
of yaw at the end.

Rex shook my hand and congratulated me, then continued to school me on
what to do better! Passing was both an accomplishment and
reinforcement that there's so much more to learn and refine! That's
part of what keeps it fun :) Next goal is to get checked out for
mountain flying and keep refining my techniques!

- mang

Epic Thursday

High over Napa Valley with Byron already in glide

As promised, Thursday was by far the best day this season, and one of the best days at Byron that I recall. The soaring conditions ended up even better than expected and everyone who flew had a blast. Bases were as high as 7500-8000 feet over Byron later in the afternoon, and up to 9500 feet further north! It was breezy with NW winds 10-20, similar to last Sunday, but as I wrote in my previous report, sometime the wind is a big factor, sometime not. While we had wind induced lines of  strong sink, the thermals were not shredded, they were strong and fat. Later in the afternoon there were large area of OD which needed to be dodged.

I launched early (11AM) when there were only few cu around with only 4-5K bases, and went first 25 miles SE to the end of the cloud street, then went north across the delta towards Williams. Crossing the delta was a bit challenging, getting down to below 2K near Rio Vista, but got much better by the time I got to Vacaville. Since there was OD near Williams, I continued NW to the north shore of Clear Lake 20 miles east of Ukiah, then back south to Crazy Creek, Mt St Hellena and Napa, and continued pass Byron to between Westely and Modesto, then back to Byron. On my final glide back to Byron, at around 3000 feet over Mt House, I hit very strong lift 10-15knots on the averager under a strong shelf of OD. Since I was coming down to land I sped up, but was still climbing fast even at speeds over 100 knots, so decided to slow down instead and kept climbing straight ahead until I needed to pill off to the side to avoid getting sucked into the cloud. In less then 3 minutes I was back above 6K over Byron, so decided to do a bonus run to fly over my home at San Ramon before landing back at Byron after 7.5 hours!

Total OLC distance was 633km http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=2253900

This was my longest flight out of Byron, and to the best of my knowledge the longest flight from Byron ever. It broke Yuliy's record of 620km set couple of years ago. If anyone knows of any longer flights from Byron/Hummingbird in the old days please let me know.

Many thanks to Paul for volunteering to tow mid week, and to Jerry for volunteering to help on the ground. Without those volunteering mid week, we would have missed most of the best days at Byron, since days like Thursday are very rare, and only happen on weekdays. It was great to see that 5 pilots managed to take advantage of the excellent soaring conditions. To those who regret they didn't fly, I can only say this: It is OK to move meetings around, or take the day off to take advantage of a great soaring day.  If you love to soar for hours and miles, the satisfaction you will get is priceless.

Ramy

Terence Wilson soars into the lead

"  For the coveted 2012 Awards for Longest Distance Flight in a 1-26 as well as Longest Duration in a 1-26

see Terence's flight:
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html;jsessionid=61F565C539BB9EDA2629D0B5A7EB9C8B?dsId=2248748

Way to go, Terrence!

But who's gonna step up and take over 1st place?????"
-Larry

Buzz reminds the club that "We have a one of a kind Al cast 1-26 trophy in the club that to me has a unknown history. We engrave the winner of the best flight each year. Would be fun and encourage more use of that special plane."

Terence's 1-26 flight yesterday, Sunday April 1st, no fooling,

"When Ramy sends an email alert of good soaring, it's time to rearrange your schedule and get to the airport. I arrived at Byron a little later than usual and found myself second in line for 972 and SS. Charlie was first up in the 1-26 and soared for about 0.6. I'm pretty sure he cut his flight short to give me a shot. Thank you Charlie, you are a gentleman. The post-frontal winds were moderate out of the north west with blue skies and patches of Cu's over Brushy Peak and the Diablo Range. I had planned to release over Los Vaqueros, but Rick in 16Y recommended going straight to Brushy, which turned out to be a better plan. Thank you Rick. After releasing at about 5000MSL directly under the dark part of a big Cu I circled around looking for the lift core, however, the best I found was about 10-20 seconds @ 2kts. Pretty anemic. After meandering around in zero sink I decided to venture downwind where I was able to connect with stronger thermals over Altamont. Discretion being the better part of valor, I didn't let myself drift much further than 580; if I'd been flying SS I probably would have headed towards the Cu's in the direction of Tracy.

On a couple of occasions I was thermalling under the same cloud as FB. In this situation the difference in turn radius between the two ships is stark. And today my neck is sore from twisting and stretching to keep that other glider in sight. If you have good eyes you should be able to see FB in this short video I shot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6c6_jbXy6A

After developing a slight headache (dehydration?) I started a leisurely final glide back to Byron from 580. The 30 pattern was busy enough that I opted to take the 7 knot crosswind and land on runway 5. Why enter the fray when there's a perfectly good runway that nobody is using?

Thanks to everyone for helping out. Special thanks to the cadets for helping me get the glider back to the tie-down."

Terence

__._,_.___

Mang experiences wave and convergence happening in different places at different times in a great flight with Buzz late Saturday

-Had a great flight with Buzz. Launched around 3:30pm and got off tow
at 4,000' over Vaqueros Reservoir after contacting wave. Had some slow
climbs (2-4 knots) near the north east end of the reservoir in front of
a very strange rotor-ish cloud. We tried a few times in front of the
cloud but it was a bit of a mixed bag... a little further upwind (west)
was better. The clouds would form and disappear repeatedly - Buzz's
theory was that "burbles" were coming through every now and then. Likely
there there was also some convergence happening there too.

We climbed to 5,900' but I couldn't quite break 6,000'. With sunset
approaching we followed a line (convergence + wave?) towards Tracy. With
an easy run in 2 kts up we were getting closer to Livermore and some
really interesting clouds. We got to those clouds at about 5,000' but
with sunset closing in and having hit areas of 8-10 kts down we headed
back towards Byron.

Just south of the airport we hit some areas of 8 kts up! Buzz took the
liberty of demonstrating a wing over or two to help us bleed off a
little altitude.

Landing was a little interesting. We'd taken off on 23 but the AWOS was
saying winds at 280 degrees. We were clearly being blown downwind more
along the line of 23 and the ripples on the forebay seemed to agree with
this. Also we could see the clouds rolling over the hills in the line
of 23. So we didn't quite believe the AWOS and Buzz had us keep
listening to it to see if the reported winds would change.

We looked to the windsock but couldn't quite make it out (it was in
shadow now... getting time to land!) Since we had plenty of altitude we
overflew the field to get a better look. Sure enough, the windsock was
pointing more in line with 30. With the turbulence we'd been feeling as
we descended near the airport it seemed like there was some serious wind
shear with the winds up above the hills maybe 90 degrees from those on
the ground.

We landed a little before sunset and Yuliy greeted us with "aren't you a
little early?" The flight was 2 hours and exceeded the battery capacity
of my Mio 400 GPS! That's a personal record for me. Many thanks to
Buzz for the great flight with some really interesting weather and the
FM for sticking it out when it looked like it might be time to close up
shop early.

Buzz treated us to some planet gazing with his neato telescope. Very
cool to see the moons of Venus! Hopefully we can convince him to bring
it up to Truckee when the time is right!

Pics!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mangtronix/sets/72157629558794021/show/

As an astute reader pointed out, it was the moons of Jupiter that we
were looking at. Guess I could use another astronomy lesson ;)

- mang

Buzz writes:'we appeared to have some strong shearing at both the low
levels and upper levels as the frontal system was entering the area.
Sometimes you have to say " lift is where you find it" and stop thinking
too much.

Many many thanks to Sid and Dave for running an efficient operation and
going the extra distance to accommodate Mang late arrival. We all
agreed we were there to fly and made the best of things. Getting Mang
and I in the air after nearly shutting things down around 3 pm and Sid
for staying so late was not unnoticed. Mang and I were determined to
make it appear worth while by having a good flight and to make others
wish they had joined us.'

Saturday looking good, wrote Ramy, and Mang had his first gaggle flight

Friday Feb 17, 8:22PM Ramy wrote: Saturday looks like a nice post frontal day with 4000 feet bases over Byron.
I am planning to fly........  Promptly, Shannon..., followed by Larry..., then Morteza ....wrote: 'me too'........

This was a great day for local soaring and my first day flying with a little gaggle of 4 other gliders circling in the same area.  Launched pretty late in the day with Mr Randazzo and released at 3,500' over the Vaqueros Reservoir.  There were a few little wispy clouds with some 2+ knot climbs underneath them.  Found a few other gliders in the area and circled while being blown downwind toward Vasco Road.

After feeling like we were topping out around there around 3,800' we followed KP(?) south and ended up working an interesting growing cumulus (see Dmitry's pics) with some solid climbing underneath and along the northwest face of it.  It was here that we had 5 gliders (including us) circling around and it was nice to have another pair of eyes in the cockpit for my first gaggle!

We topped out around 4,000' and a had a little flyby from Ramy.  With Peter calling on the CTAF "sunset is in 30 minutes, don't land in the dark" there was general motion back to the field.  With the sun almost setting behind the mountains the pattern was starting to get crowded!

KP was giving regular position reports to the Elevator and it looked like we in 81C would be the first to land, on 23.  We were at about 2,500' and heard a call from Dmitry that he was in the pattern for 30.  A few more calls back and forth and it was clear we were going to be a little close, with Dmitry landing first.  Dmitry ended up landing on 23 and I was on final for 23, quite high.  John called out "81C is making a 360 for traffic separation. On final for 23".  I did a 360 and ended up at a better altitude and giving Dmitry more time to clear the runway.  We landed uneventfully and made the first turnoff.  With my altitude in a similar situation in future I'd probably extend my downwind to give more separation (I had been holding more altitude once we heard Dmitry's calls).

Great day!  Thanks to all for making it happen.  Lots of smiles from everyone after they finally came down :)

---A few pics from Saturday from the ground:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mangtronix/sets/72157629380870367/

  - mang

Dmitri sent his Shots of the day: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3421642226580&set=a.3421641546563.2173019.1435947315&type=3&l=0aa07312f5&theater 

11:30 PM, Saturday, Ramy Yanetz wrote:

It was great to see 5 private ships and 2 Grobs flying today. The day turned out as promised but after a slow start. After calling a good day I was ready to put my glider back in the trailer at 2PM and hide when everyone who launched landed back shortly due to a mix of stratus, high clouds, blue hole and rapid cycling clouds with no lift. But shortly after 2PM the wind suddenly shift from 23 to 30, which resulted in a nice shear line right over the airport extending between mt diablo and Tracy. Good climbs averaging 5 knots to around 5000 feet, with wavelet to 6500 feet or more downwind of mt diablo. 

Tomorrow might still be soarable but drier.

__,_._,___

WELCOME MATTHEW GAST, newest NCSA member!

A few words about myself:
I have wanted to be a pilot since I got my first set of plastic wings
from TWA. Through my career, I've flown as a commercial passenger for
hundreds of thousands of miles, and the airlines have been unable to
beat the love of flying out of me. I took up soaring on the advice of
a friend, who said "if you want to actually learn proper use of the
rudder, start by flying gliders first." I don't have a concrete goal
joining NCSA, except that someday I'd like to combine flying with my
other hobby of photography. It's hard to imagine a taller tripod than
in the wave.

Matthew

Author, 802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide (2nd Edition)
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/802dot112/

more Highlights from Saturday, from Mang, witha a great rainbow photo

Mang had his second solo flight Saturday, and  Yuichi Takagi had his first day as NCSA tow pilot:

<Saturday was my second solo flight.  I was all set to go on runway 30 but then checking the AWOS the winds were from 250 and I made the call not to launch.  Our great ground crew (thanks Jerry et al!) pushed 81C and me over to 23 and I was much happier launching off 23.

Yuichi towed me out near the reservoir and it was clear that there was some convective action because every now and then the tow plane would surge up or down almost a full tow plane wingspan.

I released at 4,000' a little south of Vaqueros Reservoir.  I saw a line of clouds on the east of the Altamont Pass and figured that would be the best lift.  But fighting a strong headwind I hit the 3,000' limit I'd set for myself without getting to the clouds and decided to turn back to the airport.

There was lift over the windmills west of the airport under clear skies but it was pretty bumpy and seemed unorganized.  I tried to circle but most of my circles would be half lift and half sink.  I was almost holding 2,900' but couldn't quite stay there.  I would do a few upwind legs as I could see I was being blown east at a pretty good clip (you can see what my circles looked like on OLC http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=2195421).

I tried going upwind to see if there was anything different and hit an area of 6-8 knots down.  Hmmm, does that mean it's going up somewhere?  I didn't have a lot of altitude to try penetrating upwind so after some more circling attempts headed back to the airport entering the 45 at a quite comfy 1,500' and bleeding off the extra altitude with airbrakes.

Next time I'd be tempted to tow a little farther/higher to be able to sample the area I thought would be the best lift with some margin to make it back.

Oh and before takeoff Dmitri sagely asked me if I really wanted to take an unsecured water bottle with me. I elected not to and was glad when I hit a bump that would have sent it flying (under the pedals or somewhere equally dumb no doubt).  Would be nice to have a cargo pocket up front in FB.

Here's a rainbow from the ground.  Turned into a great day!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mangtronix/6741071727/in/photostream/lightbox/>

  - mang