wind fighting with thermals, paperwork and nice dinner at the lake

The wind started blowing already in the early morning. There were some clouds in the east which overdeveloped pretty quickly. The valley and the Pine Nuts basically stayed blue with some rotor-like clouds over the Sierras. The surface winds were blowing mainly from the south and were pretty steady. We started working on all the papers and will finish it tomorrow morning.

... I wish ...

Lake Tahoe

Since it's been a pretty hot day we decided to drive up to the lake for a nice dinner at the Edgewood Golf Course. The food was just beautiful (we all got steaks) and the view was irreplaceable. The winds were really strong up there and the lake kind of looked like a sea with all the waves.

windy day

Edgewood

Edgewood

Zig and Ludmilla after a huge meal

let's make the best of it - two national records

Three days to go ... Weather turned out to be better than everybody expected. I declared a 200 km triangle (south end of the Pine Nuts - North Mono Lake - Mount Grant and back) and made it with 128 kph - good enough for a polish feminine record in 15 meter and open class. I know ... this might sound kind of not serious enough but after all the bad weather we had it's better than nothing. Everybody was desperate to fly today and got rewarded for that. It's been a nice day with Cu's (!!!) here and there. I think that the task was a bit too short but as I said - predictions for today were much worse than the reality. I'll be flying tomorrow as well but have to consider that we have some paperwork to do. I've posted todays flight on the OLC.

Ziggy also succeeded today - he got out of the Valley for the first time!

Mike watering up this morning ;-)

Mt. Patterson

as long as the sun is shining

beer time!

shopping tour

I'm not gonna write anything more about the weather. We've been to Reno today and checked out the shopping malls. I had a few specified needs but Ziggy was all over the place looking for stuff he might eventually need. I got quite a few pairs of Levi's jeans and nice winter shoes. Ziggy has been out for anything he could find even one more of the funny Moshi clocks. We also discovered a nice truly american diner where we had huge old fashioned burgers for lunch. We finished up in the Tail Dragger with all the boys and then in the Genoa Bar ...

Joe's diner

give me my burger!

blue as it can be

It is even hard to stay up in the air ... Chuck sniffed again.

Chuck studying for his BFR

Tom & Zig

mirror

what are the winds doing down there?

lunch at the lake

hahaha

cooling required

yesterdays update

Since we both were pretty tired last night the post was short. I decided to write something more about the weather since it was interesting. The wave looked really good early in the morning with beautiful lennies marking at least 3 waves. The winds were picking up as the day progressed and there were more and more unusual cloud formations. It all looked kind of unorganized and hard to figure out. The dynamics of it all were impressive and the whole sky pattern has been changing within minutes. We got Ziggy ready and sent him up as around 11 am. He got off tow just below 9000 ft and got into wave pretty quickly. After just a few minutes he called in and asked for the wave window. As usual this was no problem whatsoever and he got cleared to 28000 ft till 5 pm loc. In the meantime I was performing all the hectic activities getting ready for my attempt. Filling up the Ventus was easy and quick ... declaring the task was hard cause nobody could tell how the weather is gonna look like in 10 minutes. I finally decided what turnpoints I will use and jumped in. Although the winds on the ground were already pretty strong and gusty take off from 16 was no problem. The glider flies just beautiful in every conditions. I went off tow about 8000 ft and had to fight in the rotor for another hour or so to be able to contact the wave. I finally managed it and tuned to Reno Approach where I heard Ziggy reporting that he's descenting through 19000 ft and will be clear of A airspace soon. I was really happy to hear that cause the conditions were far from easy. The clouds (mostly lennies and some rotor clouds) were at around 13000 ft. The reason for the unstable and unorganized wave was the wind that was coming to much from the south. I was showing winds out of 200 at 40 kph and not much gradient with the altitude. But still ... there was some wave. I finally climbed over the clouds and decided to go for the first run on my triangle to mark the wave. I went all the way down to the first turn point and "draw the line on my PDA". Going down there took me like for ever. With 110 kts IAS I was showing 140 kph on the GS ... I came back to the start line in no time though and started the task from 16200 ft. The run to the first turn point was pretty straight forward since I already had the line marking the wave. I was pretty slow on the GS and had an average of ca. 165 kph on the first turn point. I turned and the ground speed went up to 340 kph (!!!). Things were going just fine and I had 190 kph on the 2nd turn point that I reached after 7 minutes (the leg was 35 km long). I was heading for the finish and my speed went up to 203 kph 7 km short of the finish line. I was missing 1500 ft altitude and was pretty positive to regain it in the spot I marked before I started. The wave already changed again and my good lift was gone .. there goes the record. Well no need to be upset. You just keep pushing it and hope for the best. If I go slower to "save the altitude" I will be to slow anyways ... It's been a nice and interesting day though. Ziggy already landed on the 16 at that time and I was getting ready to do the same. The clouds went sort of vertical and started pouring freezing virga and it was about time for the beer. I landed at 16 with almost no ground speed on touch down. The wind was blowing from 190 at 30 kts at that time.

The wave is gone today. There are still some pretty strong winds aloft that are fighting the thermals. Chuck just went up in his 27 and we're waiting for him to give us some update on the conditions up there. Ventus is watered up and ready to go if it makes sense some time during the day ...

Chuck - our sniffer today

let's get him out of here

"glider tow rolling 16, left turn out" 

Ziggy's Diamond Altitude!

As we said - today was the day. Ziggy went up in Mr. TW and completed his diamond badge. He climbed up to 27.150 ft. Congrats on that Zig!

the beer after

I filled up Mr. 00 and tried the 100 km triangle for speed. I almost made it ... almost is not enough though. I was showing 203 km/h till 7 km short of the finish. I was missing 1500 ft altitude to fulfill the altitude requirement and was hoping to regain it in the primary wave that was working perfectly before. Too bad ... the plan didn't work out ... the clouds got thicker and started pouring out freezing rain ... no lift whatsoever. This leaves a bit of bitter taste since I was soooo close ... again. I'm happy for Zig though and we had a beer or two to his achievement.

beer or two

I guess I'm ringing the bell tonight

"no, Devin it wasn't me!"

morning sky

and the evening sky