With wind blown clouds over the Mendocino Range, energy was in the sky, so I decided to take a mountain tow aboard "Juliet Hotel." Close to the mountains the air became rough and we hit widespread sink, actually loosing altitude on tow over a seven mile stretch. My nose is pointed towards Snow Mountain but our ground track is crabbed towards Goat which is out of the frame to the left despite an 80 Knot tow speed.
As we neared the ridge frequent slack line occurred and I worked to keep in position. At 8000' feet my computer indicated I was below glide slope to WSC at 32 miles out due to 52 knot North-East wind over the ridge. With the strong head wind, big sink and slack line I was so puckered up I made an ultra-conservative release at 10,000' which was one of the highest tows ever out of WSC. I knew I could some day break a gliding record. I then contacted weak wave and climbed high so I could finally take a deep breath and enjoy the spectacular view of the snow covered mountains of Snow and Hull as well as Lett's Lake and Lake Pillsbury.
I reached 13000' above Goat and was frequently flying backwards in this high performance glass ship. I pushed the nose over to 90 KIAS to penetrate and found myself high over Bear Valley in lighter winds and I was able to breath real easy.
With good altitude I pushed North-East into the wind and contacted a weak convergence over the middle of the valley. At Maxwell I hit good lift and spun it up.
With the convergence I pushed a little further upwind and followed HWY 5 with Willows in the distance.
After flying the convergence I took a fun and fast downwind glide to WSC where I found the reason for the convergence as I landed into a light South wind after 4 hours in the big air.
As we neared the ridge frequent slack line occurred and I worked to keep in position. At 8000' feet my computer indicated I was below glide slope to WSC at 32 miles out due to 52 knot North-East wind over the ridge. With the strong head wind, big sink and slack line I was so puckered up I made an ultra-conservative release at 10,000' which was one of the highest tows ever out of WSC. I knew I could some day break a gliding record. I then contacted weak wave and climbed high so I could finally take a deep breath and enjoy the spectacular view of the snow covered mountains of Snow and Hull as well as Lett's Lake and Lake Pillsbury.
I reached 13000' above Goat and was frequently flying backwards in this high performance glass ship. I pushed the nose over to 90 KIAS to penetrate and found myself high over Bear Valley in lighter winds and I was able to breath real easy.
With good altitude I pushed North-East into the wind and contacted a weak convergence over the middle of the valley. At Maxwell I hit good lift and spun it up.
With the convergence I pushed a little further upwind and followed HWY 5 with Willows in the distance.
After flying the convergence I took a fun and fast downwind glide to WSC where I found the reason for the convergence as I landed into a light South wind after 4 hours in the big air.
No comments:
Post a Comment