along in NCSA's Grob 103 N3981C for his WINGS flight. He got off tow at 8400', and he took us to over 16,000' in less than 20 minutes north of Truckee. We then
flew east over the ridge but turned around past Spooner Lake over Highway
50—Mike noted virga ahead. Seems the earlier launches made it past
that area before our arrival.
Returning to the Truckee Valley around 10,000', Mike again brought us up
past 16,000' and
he headed us northwest, running a nice cloud street passing over Sierraville
then Nervino and abeam Quincy almost to Susanville.
Good fun. We could see the cloud street extending up beyond
Ravendale and parts further northwest. Alas, we turned home so I could land
and head home, only to note
that the fun cloud street we had flown in on had begun to overdevelop with
virga. We made our way home via a more northeasterly route from
near Herlong through what
Mike noted as a possible convergence line between the east winds aloft and
what had grown into a squall line of virga to the west. We observed a
single
lightning strike along the path that we had earlier taken and Air Sailing
Gliderport to the northeast.
It sure was fun flying along below 18,000' at 80 to 90 knots indicated with
4 to 6 up and Stead made. We could see Lake Tahoe to the near right and
Pyramid Lake to the left all in their full length with just a turn of our
heads. Beautiful.
We arrived over Truckee at 12,000' and enjoyed the intentional glide down.
As we looked up at the OD in the sky, we both smiled, enjoying our 4 hour
flight. We had
adjusted our route according to the weather for the day, flown always within
glide distance of a paved runway, and landed safely having enjoyed beautiful
country sights along the way.
Mike M. and Dave C.
No comments:
Post a Comment