Ramy CAPTURES the EGG from AIR SAILING, flying from Williams

 

The flight from Williams to Airsailing took me first to 25 miles west of Yolla (on the Mendocinos west of Red Bluff), getting as high as 16,000 feet only 30 miles or so from the coast, then from Yolla accross the Central Valley north of Red Bluff to 20 miles or so NW of Lassen where I started climbing again, but had to struggle for a while getting as low as 2500 feet AGL before connecting with the better lift. From there went to Lassen, Lake Almanor, Susanville and  Ravendale area before landing at Airsailing.
Total OLC distance 585KM. Highest altitude over the sierra was the same as over the Mendocinos: 16K!
OLC trace: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...l?dsId=2124662

Arriving at Mt Lassen

The next day I flew back to Williams, but not in a soaring flight. While it looked decent to the SE from Airsailing (but with relatively low bases) it was either overcast, blue or OD to the west, and bases over the crest were only 11K, just as the NAM predicted, so I figured it was not possible to make it all the way to Williams in a soaring flight. It looked bad towards Truckee as well and it looks like no much flying went there at well. As such, I took a 55 miles tow to 12K and released a little west of the crest NW of Sierra Butte, 80 miles from Williams. From there it was a dead glide all the way to Williams, over an hour with not a single climb until landing. With a slight tail wind at the beginning of the glide I achieved 50:1 glide for the first 50 miles until I started flying faster and playing around, arriving at Williams with couple of thousand feet. Since it was not a soaring flight I can't justify for myself to post it to OLC and claim any points.

Special thanks to Lee Edling, who really took care of me while at Airsailing, provided me with a trailer to spend the night and a tow back towards Williams. And many thanks to the Airsailing folks for their hospitality. The Banquet was great and the food was delicious.

Now we need to plan the next egg attack from Byron or Hollister before Lee captures it from Williams again :-)

Ramy the eggnapper

_Plenty of delicious food. We can definitely learn from them how a banquet should be..._,_._,___

Mike Mayo shows how FAA WINGS flights can be soaring fun, with over a dozen required tasks slipped in

Yes, I did have a pleasant "Wings" flight with Monique in KP. It would
have been nice to get the trace and post on OLC. Maybe next time. It
is the same equipment as I used in 5H but that was a long ago now. It
was a Friday, we took off just before 3pm and just before the tow pilot
stopped for the day. No possibility of a relight and it was just
beginning to be soarable. After what seemed like a lot of work we got
to the Pine Nuts and made our way to Mt. Patterson and then back to some
way across Lake Tahoe with "final glide" to Truckee. Landed back at
Minden after nearly 3 hours.

Two years ago I also had a fine flight with Monique for "Wings". That
time it was even harder getting to the Pine Nuts but was rewarded with
wave to 18K eventually. The same wave gave us more than 2000 ft/min
climb to 14Kft in the Long-EZ on the way home to Palo Alto.

My most memorable "Wings" flight was with Dave Cunningham in 81C out of
Truckee. We went to Susanville and back, quite easily, after deciding
at Spooner that the glide angle would not get us to the big clouds at
Freel Peak. Returning from Susanville we were dodging spectacular
overdevelopment. All very pretty.

--MikeM

Bob Semans has a flight of extremes in KP at Minden

A week ago today, I had a flight of extremes in KP.   Take off around 12:30 proved to be too early for a release over the Johnson Lane sand pits.   Down to pattern entry altitude, it seemed to take a half hour of sweating to get back up to release altitude of 6,500 feet.  Finally, my passenger spotted two hawks circling nearby north of Starbucks (stayed with them for three turns) and got high enough to get to the first ridge NE of the sand pit.  There under building Cu a strong thermal got stronger, eventually yielding 13+ knots on the averager for several circles.   So, famine ... then feast!   Went East to the Pine Nuts easily and eventually reached 15k near Mineral Peak with Cu circling the whole Carson Valley.  >From there it was straight flying down the Pine Nuts to Leviathan Peak, Markleeville, Freel Peak and up the Carson Range to Marlette Lake ... the Grand Tour with no circling!

 

My passenger was Mike Wojcik, an ex F-111 pilot, who had never flown in a glider.  He is the USAF Liaison Officer for the CAP Nevada Wing who had come to "inspect" KP as a requirement for me to use a non-CAP glider to give CAP cadets their USAF paid glider orientation rides.  After I return in early October from a trip East, Mike will fly down to Byron to do his inspection of 81C and FB so they will also be approved for me to fly cadets.   I hope to fly a few cadets in October and through the winter. 

 

On this flight, I flew with my own Cambridge Model 20 flight recorder and posted the flight to OLC.   http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=1198649639    As my summer home is near MEV, it's easy for me to fly KP during the week so to avoid the members who come to Minden to fly KP on the weekend.

 

BTW, I brought my Ventus to Byron and look forward to getting an introduction to flying in Tiger County this fall from those who have been making nice flights there.   During the years I flew at Hummingbird, I never got South into the mountains ... but then, in those days I was flying 1-26s.

 

Bob Semans  "SE"

__._,_.___

Rick's first flights in Minden

Had a great week end at Minden flying KP.
I want to start by thanking Mike Schneider for spending more than four
hours while I bobbed and twisted in KP.

On Sat 7/9 I had the second flight of the day. Maja had the first
flight and she came back her usual smiling self. I knew it was going to
be good, we took off at about 3:45 for a 2.1hr intro flight to the world
of more than 1 to 4 knots of lift. I wasn't ready for the tooth jarring
ride to 6,500ft where we found 10kts+ of lift. Spent the time learning
more about thermaling. We got to 14,200ft once. Traveled up and down
the Pine Nuts(SP?) as far north as Virginia City and south short of
Topaz Lake. Moderate to very good lift the whole flight. I am kind of
hooked on this. I can see why the rules say you need a check out here.

Sun 7/10: I took the first flight and it was again a bump and grind ride
to 7,200 ft where Mike cut us loose in 10kts of lift. Today was a
different day. It was up and down the whole 2.1hrs (weird, 2hrs and
8min on both days). We wound up to 10K and then it was 8-10kis down to
9K and back. Hit 11K then 12K off and on, 13,100 for a brief second.
Lost altitude quickly and gained slowly. We headed back to MEV a couple
of times but found lift. We were at the south end of the valley at 10K
and headed back. After all the work we kept running into lift. Back to
12K. Enough of this I worked at loosing altitude. At 8K found lift and
tried to ignore it, I looked and we were at 8,600ft. Flew out of lift,
put KP in a steep turn and came down. I had to leave as Maja and Mike
took off.

Hope Maja posts her adventures soon (HINT).
Again thank you Mike you are a patient teacher.

Rick Robbins

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Air Sailing Cross-Country Camp 2011 - John Scott

XC Camp 2011 by John Scott

The ASI camps are always a great experience and are highly recommended.  Classroom work was very educational, as usual. The weather this week did not cooperate (not so good thermals) so some of us newbies had trouble getting out of the valley.

My first XC was to Stead and I made it, but I didn’t make it back.  I ended up landing out at Spanish Springs.  When I came over the ridge looking for the airport I was expecting to see an asphalt runway and I didn’t have a lot of time (altitude) to look around.  I kept circling over the dirt runway of a private construction site next to residential housing.  Unable to locate the airport I landed on the dirt strip.  After landing, while sitting on the wing of 2SS and studying my Sectional, I noticed for the first time the hollow circle designating Spanish Springs as a dirt strip.  This was also the first time that I noticed the words “Hazardous” as an airport description.

 LESSON #1  Study your alternate airports before you land at them, not after.  It works better that way.

 ASI does not tow out of Spanish Springs (too dangerous) so I had to wait for the trailer and got more practice de-rigging 2SS.  Special acknowledgement to Buzz Graves for all his help and mentoring on 2SS.

My second XC (the first successful one) was on the last day (Friday).  These photos were taken just minutes before I launched.

After releasing at 3,000 AGL I had difficulty maintaining lift over the Red Rocks and the side of Tule Ridge.  I worked my way back trying for lift and thought I was going to have to land and re-light.  Just over the “knoll” to the north of ASI I was saved by a house thermal that took me from 6,300 MSL to 13,000 MSL.  From there I proceeded on course for Tiger passing over Nex-Rad and Pond peak.  It is easier to stay high than to get high.  Thermals are larger (wider) and easier to find and work up high.

 LESSON #2  If you’re new to XC, get high and stay high.  “Tank up” often.

 Any time I got below 11,000 I took the next thermal to get back up.

After passing over Tiger I proceeded to Silver Springs, both of which I easily recognized having now done my homework.  From there I headed back.  I “tanked up” to 12,500 MSL before crossing the foothills.  I was practically at final glide altitude for ASI before proceeding.  Passing over Pond Peak and Nex Rad there was a constant lift in the form of bumpy “zero air”.  I came off First Lift still at 12,500, I hadn’t lost an inch!  During my spiral descent to ASI everything electronic stopped working; radio, transponder, vario.  After 3+ hours my battery was dead.  I made the landing using my handheld.

 LESSON #3  Consider carrying a handheld.

 LESSON #4  If you don’t own an Oudie, or something like it, consider getting one.  Not having to read charts and do glide slope mental math made things more enjoyable for me.

 Flight Statistics:

Duration: 3.2 hours

Maximum Altitude:  13,000 feet

XC Distance: 103 miles

 Every glider pilot should try to attend the two ASI camps “Thermal” and “Cross Country”.

We had people from as far away as Kentucky, Florida, and Canada.

Many people come to these camps more than once.

 END

Terry Lowe flies the Whites at the NSA Bishop encampment - 'Impressive' is the understatement of the year!

I've just come back from 4 days at the NSA Bishop encampment,.  What an experience flying the Whites!  Unbelievable thermals (one went to 17,800') and even a bit of wave to 18,000'.
 
I didn't get chance to drive to Schulman Grove, but I did give the visitors there a close up (and I mean really close up) view of my glider as I rode the thermal ridge lift at their eye level.

'Impressive' is the understatement of the year!

Although I never needed a relight on the four days I flew there, on three of the days I released too early in what I thought was good lift, only to find myself scratching round at 5,800' - 6,000' for 1/2 an hour to an hour trying to find the elevator to take me to the top (I believe my tow costs were the lowest for those four days).  That in itself was a learning experience - doing short, figure-of-eight beats of perhaps 1/4 mile in length, just a couple of hundred feet above ground (airport still within glide, of course), just to stay airborne.  Of course, once decent lift was found, it was no trouble getting to the ridge line.  People often talk about ten-knot thermals when in fact they're really only ten knots (an optimistic maybe) for a short duration.  Well, in one thermal, my averager showed a minimum of ten knots+ for two minutes straight!  Unbelievable!

The other quite amazing learning experience (common knowledge to power pilots, of course) is the effect of altitude on true airspeed.  Since most of the flying on the Whites is above 12,000', a glider's true airspeed can be quite remarkable - and hence the need for extra vigilance in the lookout for other gliders and also being cognizant of the glider's design limits in the sometimes turbulent conditions.  It is easily possible for two gliders to be approaching head-on at closing speeds approaching 250 knots.  The lesson is - use your radio frequently, give position reports and keep your eyes out of the cockpit.  On the day I contacted wave (oh, so smooth), west of Bishop, I initially burned off my 17,999 feet of legal altitude at about 140 kts true airspeed (it was my turn to be cook for the barbecue that night!).

Incidentally, and it didn't seem to matter, anyway,  there was no cumulus on the Whites to mark the lift during those four days.  Once you were on top of the ridge and running in the clear blue sky, it was easy to find thermals just by flying along the ridge, from peak to peak.

All-in-all an experience not to be forgotten and one I hope to repeat in years to come.

Cheers,

Terry Lowe.

Michael Ang, newest NCSA member describes wierd day in Byron-GREAT PICS!

Sunny, rainy, maybe some lift locally, definitely not lift locally, sunny, hail, sunny.  The day seemed to go something like that... interesting to say the least.
Here's us camped out under the wing waiting for a dark patch to keep moving:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mangtronix/5724891065/in/set-72157626606662081/lightbox/
And some more pics, including what the sky looked like Saturday in San Francisco: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mangtronix/sets/72157626606662081
Special thanks to Rick for taking over the towplane to squeeze in a few more tows for the day!

 - mang

Buzz has a Post frontal tiptoeing tour March 22,2011

There are better days, but this one was good enough to take in some
amazing views of our area that is the greenest I can remember. Was a
day to tiptoe and be in the right place at the right time.

It has been nearly month since that epic flight Ramy and I had doing the
Bay Tour in grand style. As we start to leave winter behind, we are
moving into the best time of year of X-C soaring out of Byron. March is
normally when things start kicking off, but this year it has been pretty
flat compared to one of the best February's on record. With lots of
rain in the forecast for the next week, I was getting disparate to
stretch my wings.

Thanks to Rolf and Ramy I decided to take a day off of work and take
advantage of the brief window before the next storm came in this
evening, timing is everything.

Getting to Byron the sky was showing promise with lots of blue in the
valley and nice cumulus clouds over the high country just as RASP had
called out. If the forecast was to pan out we could have cloud bases as
high as 6-7k. Early on it was more like 3-4k local and getting better to
the west and to the south in the Diablo range. The day was definitely
dynamic and was changing rapidly with the next front moving in producing
rain in places and good lift in others.

First thermal was over Byron at 3-4 knots up to a little over 3k. I
worked towards Diablo and Concord I found the cloud base increasing to a
little over 5k. I stretched glide to the Delta and then headed back
south in the Livermore Valley. I could see good looking clouds in San
Antonio Valley with bases near 7k and had little hope of reaching them
until I found the cloud step where I could climb above the lower base by
over 800 ft. I rode this shelf to Rel1 and then connected with the
higher bases. About this time I heard 1JH (Matt) out of Hollister doing
well near Lick Observatory. I continued in the Valley, sometimes
referred to as "Tiger Country" to near Hoover Lake before heading back
north. On the way back I flew over Lick Observatory for some cool
pictures of that classic facility surrounded by snow. By this time the
sky was getting darker as the front was coming through, I headed back to
Byron near cloud base for a easy run.

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=1631754

Attached are some pictures to help tell the story.

Buzz BG

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Fwd: [norcalsoaring] Post frontal tiptoeing tour

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	[norcalsoaring] Post frontal tiptoeing tour
Date:	Wed, 23 Mar 2011 05:31:49 +0000
From:	Buzz Graves <bgraves@aoptix.com>
To:	Norcalsoaring@yahoogroups.com <Norcalsoaring@yahoogroups.com>

There are better days, but this one was good enough to take in some amazing views of our area that is the greenest I can remember.  Was a day to tiptoe and be in the right place at the right time.    It has been nearly month since that epic flight Ramy and I had doing the Bay Tour in grand style.  As we start to leave winter behind, we are moving into the best time of year of X-C soaring out of Byron.  March is normally when things start kicking off, but this year it has been pretty flat compared to one of the best February's on record.  With lots of rain in the forecast for the next week, I was getting disparate to stretch my wings.    Thanks to Rolf and Ramy I decided to take a day off of work and take advantage of the brief window before the next storm came in this evening, timing is everything.    Getting to Byron the sky was showing promise with lots of blue in the valley and nice cumulus clouds over the high country just as RASP had called out.  If the forecast was to pan out we could have cloud bases as high as 6-7k. Early on it was more like 3-4k local and getting better to the west and to the south in the Diablo range.  The day was definitely dynamic and was changing rapidly with the next front moving in producing rain in places and good lift in others.    First thermal was over Byron at 3-4 knots up to a little over 3k.  I worked towards Diablo and Concord I found the cloud base increasing to a little over 5k.  I stretched glide to the Delta and then headed back south in the Livermore Valley.  I could see good looking clouds in San Antonio Valley with bases near 7k and had little hope of reaching them until I found the cloud step where I could climb above the lower base by over 800 ft.  I rode this shelf to Rel1 and then connected with the higher bases.  About this time I heard 1JH (Matt) out of Hollister doing well near Lick Observatory.  I continued in the Valley, sometimes referred to as "Tiger Country" to near Hoover Lake before heading back north.  On the way back I flew over Lick Observatory for some cool pictures of that classic facility surrounded by snow.   By this time the sky was getting darker as the front was coming through, I headed back to Byron near cloud base for a easy run.    http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=1631754    Attached are some pictures to help tell the story.    Buzz  BG   ------------------------------------  Yahoo! Groups Links  <*> To visit your group on the web, go to:     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/norcalsoaring/  <*> Your email settings:     Individual Email | Traditional  <*> To change settings online go to:     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/norcalsoaring/join     (Yahoo! ID required)  <*> To change settings via email:     norcalsoaring-digest@yahoogroups.com      norcalsoaring-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com  <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:     norcalsoaring-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com  <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/   

Ramy (TG) & Buzz (BG) Golden Gate Bridge Flight

Sometimes it's not all about the distance. Today I had a flight which will be ranked way up there with my most memorable flights. After last weekend flight when I turned over Chabot in the Oakland Hills I made up my mind to try one day to continue this route all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge. This requires a very unusual day, unstable, with reliable lift which can allow fly safely below the 4000 feet floor of class bravo.  Today was the day. I made up my mind in the morning to give it a shot and talked Buzz to join me. And indeed, Buzz and myself made it from Byron to the Golden Gate Bridge and some more! We went from Byron to Oakland Hills, Tilden Park, Berkley, crossed the bay just north of the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito while staying below class Bravo (and getting as low as 2300 feet over the bay!), over the Ocean to Mt Tam, Navato, Sonoma, Napa, back to Mt Diablo and an unexpected 5 knots wave to 10,000 feet in less than 15 knots wind, then south to the Diablo Range and back to Byron. The view was spectacular and a video will follow. But it wasn't just a spectacular flight, it was over terrain which I never flown before (and I wonder if any glider flown this route before), and it was the first time I flew with another glider (BG) from takeoff to landing without loosing sight of each other for the whole flight. I doubt any of us would have attempted it alone, but flying together is easier, more fun and more encouraging.

Flight is posted to OLC: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=1616705

Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggv5kkjqHrI

 

Ramy