All day it looked pretty iffy with low overcast and wind. The forecast, though, promised a North wind, giving us ridge lift and clearing clouds in the afternoon. Sure enough, right on cue, the overcast parted and we went to mostly sunny by about 4pm.
I headed up to Harris Hill and did my pre-flight of number 6, a dear friend of mine by now, and was the first to take off into the North wind with 10 gusting to 15 right on the ridge. Up, up, up, we went as we met the lift from the wind off the end of the runway, climbing at about 1,000 feet per minute. I released 120 seconds later at 2,000 feet above the airport.
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| Number 6 and I are good friends |
I decided to probe the ridge for expected lift and headed East to the other side of the ridge while I still had altitude to search for it in case it wasn't there. All I found was fairly strong 4-6 knot sink with some sections of zero sink. I returned quickly, trying a different path so I didn't fly through the sink but it was no help.
Arriving over the Western section of the ridge, there were pockets of what I thought were ridge lift but when I reversed course they didn't seem to still be there. I tried figure 8's when I found it again but fairly quickly, I needed to get into the landing pattern. With the winds being gusty, it was going to be a North landing and that's nothing to fool around with. I sped up, entered downwind and made my base turn close in.
I hate that first base turn - you feel like you've hit a brick wall and the runway starts to rise up to meet you MUCH faster than you are approaching it. It's partly an optical illusion, but also quite real. As you turn base, you are headed toward a higher section of terrain and simply flying towards it makes it look like it is rising up to meet you, but you also have to beat it into the wind, which costs you altitude.
I sped up a little more and angled in towards the runway, then realized I was going to make it with no sweat. I opened the spoilers, checked my airspeed and landed a little further down the runway than I had actually intended, but it was all good.
The second flight was the best one. When I got out of the glider after the first flight, the wind had died down quite a bit, which explained the lack of lift on the ridge. Someone asked me if the clouds were working. Duh? I was so focused on flying the ridge that I couldn't really answer it. Stupid. I had been mistaking thermal lift on the ridge for ridge lift.
Determined not to make that mistake this time, I launched again and got off tow in the middle of a beautiful thermal. I managed to center it and rode it up to 6,000 feet! Looking at the clouds much closer now, I saw that they seemed to be lined in a street, although the actual clouds themselves weren't the classic flat bottom puffy cumulus you normally see. They were sort of wispy and torn up a bit.
I followed the street out a bit and connected with another thermal and rode it up to 6,900 feet. Then, I spotted a street about 3 miles to the East. Feeling brave and knowing I had plenty of altitude to make it there and back, I put the nose down and flew through the expected sink, arriving about 800 feet lower. The street and thermals weren't as strong over there with mild thermals but mostly zero sink, so I headed back to the original street, again another 800 feet lower and connected with a nice thermal that took me right back up to 6,500. Below me, most of the snow was gone from the farms on the hilltops with just a trace left in the shadows of trees and buildings.
The rest of the flight, I flew up and down the street experimenting with "dolphin" flight, a technique I read about this winter. You speed up between thermals, then pull up sharply when you encounter lift. Trying it out, I could fly perhaps 2 miles fairly quickly and lose just 2-300 feet, an improvement over simply straight gliding.
It was getting late, so I put out the spoilers and brought myself down after an hour or so. Lower down, there was quite a bit of 2 knot lift still available. Ignoring it, I entered the pattern for another North landing. With the wind a bit less than before, the final approach was less turbulent and that sinking feeling less pronounced. I put the glider down reasonably close to my aim point and rolled to a stop near the main hangar. All in all, a great way to start the new flying season!
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