"Forecast: Crappy!," said one of the pilots at the field as Tim Welles and I prepared the Duo Discus for flight. In my fourth cross country lesson, I learned quite a bit, including the fact that a forecast is just that - only a forecast.
As the image of our track above, shows, it was indeed possible to fly cross country on this particular day. The yellow, orange, and red areas show the climb portions with yellow the weakest and red the strongest. Dark blue shows heavy sink. The departure point is at the top in the red "F" balloon and you can see that we headed South/Southeast from Harris Hill in Elmira down to SkyHaven airport just to the West of Scranton, Pa. Total out/back was approximately 155 miles and took 3 hours, 15 minutes.
This time, I tried to be more proactive in flight. I called out audibly, "I'm looking at the cloud street over there and think that there may be lift under it and if not, there is another set of clouds that look like they will work." Tim is a world-class competition glider pilot and I made sure to distinguish between what I thought my level of confidence and experience would be vs. what I would do with him onboard.
Tim threw everything at me this time. I really like his method of instruction - he's both complimentary and demanding. Rather than make you feel stupid, he tells you when you do something well ("you are entering and centering the thermals better") and balances that with teaching lessons ("what did you turn that direction for?!")
I experienced task overload, just like he said I would - try editing the turnpoints on the PDA while keeping the thermal centered plus deciding which direction you will be going when you reach the top of climb! As Tim said, a lot of the things I should be doing weren't things that were unknown to me, but it was the context of the flight that makes them sometimes lag behind where I should have been completing them.
The actual flight went pretty well - our departure from Harris Hill and trip to the Southeast was 180 degrees opposite from where we *thought* we would fly before we put the glider together. The forecast didn't really accurately depict the possibility of overdevelopment to the Northwest as much as it actually occurred. We headed Southeast instead and as we flew along the bases went higher and we found decent thermals in 6-8 knot range that allowed us to average 5 knots in climb in many cases.
We did have to jump across the blue hole drifting South from Seneca lake and that hole persisted all the way South along our route, requiring us to cross it on the way to Towanda and then cross it on the way back to Mansfield. This was the trickiest part of the route as cloud streets gave way to more sparse and less developing clouds. The route I picked might have worked, but Tim vetoed it and we headed more Westerly. He flew for pretty much the only time the whole trip.
That was when I got sick. I thought I'd been doing pretty good, but for whatever reason, I did. Fortunately it was minor and after managing to use the bag, I took over again and flew the rest of the way without issue. Sigh. It is what it is. I've always been a tad prone to motion sickness but my tolerance since I learned to soar has gone up significantly. I'd say that after 2-1/2 hours of flight with plenty of circling and warm temps, I did reasonably well to last as long as I did. Whatever. The real cure is to simply fly some more, so I'll keep doing that and have a bag handy if necessary.
After that little episode, I felt better but I need to figure out how to make the seat more comfortable. You practically recline in the Duo but since we're not flying contests in it, we don't wear a parachute, which acts as a cushion. I used a couple of pillows we have laying around but I need to pay closer attention to what I'm using. My back was sore the next day!
As we approached Mansfield, Tim wanted to point out the local landmarks and it was amazing that you could see all the way to Cowanesque reservoir, our turnpoint and looking Northeast, Harris Hill. It had been a bit hazy most of the way but the conditions were changing and the haze cleared. I took a boomer of a thermal near Mansfield and after topping out at 7,000 feet felt I had plenty of altitude to get home, which was helped by the fact that there was still quite a bit of lift in the blue! We showed in excess of 10 knots of lift even flying in a straight line and took full advantage of it. On final glide, the computer reported I would have at least 2,000 feet above field elevation so I put the nose down and we rocketed the last 18 miles or so at speeds sometimes in excess of 100kts (about 120 mph). It was glorious.
This time, I managed to slow us down, get us configured, and enter the pattern at the proper airspeed. It was still a struggle to suddenly fly so slowly after zooming into the area but I kept a close eye on it and flew the pattern to Tim's satisfaction. Touchdown was sooner, speed was slower, and we coasted to a stop almost precisely on the location we'd left some three hours prior.
What's left? Tim is on duty next Saturday. Weather permitting, I'll get a checkout in the single seat Discus, our club's competition level sailplane. I'll fly locally and find out how it handles (everyone says it flies like a sports car), and hopefully make a couple of landings with it.
Then, I'll do a lead-follow. One of our experienced instructors will lead and I'll follow him on a cross country flight. We'll keep in touch on the radio and I'll get to fly it on my own skills alone. After one or two of those.....well...I'll be on my own! A whole new dimension of soaring will open up for me and one that I hope I'll be able to become good at. I'm looking forward to it.
