Cloud Base addict

These guys were like house cats in the Wolcott LZ, curious and super friendly.  Amazing animals. 

I had a quick flight in overly strong lift.  So much that I ran from it, which was out of character.  Getting conservative I guess.  After the skies filled in with gust fronts everywhere we looked, Fred and I finished burgers and went back up.  Wolcott delivered by drying out and stablizing in spite of everything (just like always).  Got a half hour.

Lookout has been wet but the cold fronts have made things work.  Yesterday, I broke down the ATOS in rain and hail as a tornado touched down in N. Denver (but it was good before I was ready).  Today was forecasted to overdevelop later, but to still have tornado potential. 

The big scary stuff didn’t happen till after dinner.  It was super scratchy/nice for hours and hours and hours….

Above, Jan.  Below, Casey.

Above, my Chris Price Cocoon made from climbing ropes!  Balled up for the first time in a cocoon and was amazed at how much more speed I can get, just starting from level flight. 

The usual yet covert launch buzz usually ends when I’m pulled in as far as possible, but with this whole balling up thing, I could get the extra 10 feet down to mess up Kiernan’s hair. 

So, today had 4 flights for me.  One LZ landing, one fairly normal top landing, and 2 new toplandings in NNE wind. 

How do you land in N, NNE, NE wind?  I tried it from the standard approach, coming in behind launch and trying to hit the hill back there but that’s making me land directly downwind and it’s way lifty back there since it’s creating ridge lift.  Overshot that.  Then I tried an approach up the launch face, but with more of a NW direction instead of straight up launch in a West direction.  But I overshot that too, partly because it’s pretty tight in there between the “M” and the hill.  So it’s not big enough to hit with safe speed.

So, 3’s a charm.  I needed to fly straight into the PG launch and forget about trying to face “into the wind”.  Just aim at the hill and keep lots of speed and flare.  So, that worked out pretty darn good.  The next time, I did the same thing but was anticipating just aiming at the steep grassy hill (crows nest) to land on.  I ended up a skosch low and just flared to land right smack dab in the middle of the PG launch.  Somehow, my feet barely got under me, but they slid out too far and I kinda caught myself with my dairy-air.  For 5 seconds I thought I broke my tailbone off in the mountain, but all is good, with a mother of a bruise.

Airtime:  2 hrs

Flights:  4

Toplandings:  3

Afterthought:     One cloud dropped out early in the day and made a couple rumbles of thunder.  It was isolated and nothing else looked bad.  Fortunately, something above (inversion I think) was keeping the moisture from pluming up into super cells.  A little bit of sun today would come out and then everything would lift a little stronger and cloud up the entire sky and slow the sun enough to keep the lower atmosphere under boiling and at a perfect simmer.  Cloudbase dropped to Lookout Mtn tower height 3 times during the day.  I landed a couple times just because I couldn’t tell if a couple clouds were blowing up, but they kept their manners and I’d launch again.  So, the early morning cold front potentially had some delayed pulses that we saw later, or something way north around Boulder could have dropped out.  It was between N and E and between 4 and 11mph I’d guess all day.  Went home b/c I was too hungry to fly more and it just seemed like rain would be coming eventually.

Got to go Aerotowing at Farm Flight with Jim Yocom and Tim Collard!  Couple cool experiences/lessons today. 

After the kids’ soccer game, I bolted 1hour NE to Farm flight.  On the way I saw 3 PG’s low over Bandimere and we chatted a bit on the radio.  The over-development started earlier on the front range and they were getting to the end of the day by noon.  Luckily, way out east, we had about 6 more hours before OD would mess with us. 

There was a perfect East wind for launching most of the day while I set up late. JY already had 45 minutes airtime and was cooking up brats and helping others fly.  A couple dust devils cut JT and Dan R. tows short.  Seemed like good soaring.  I got my butt launched finally and Tim took me straight upwind for a couple miles (great tow :)).  I floundered for a bit, but eventually got something that I reluctantly had to leave at the 8kft ceiling for DIA airspace.  Then cruised straight for the edge of that airspace so I could get higher.  RIGHT on the edge of it, I got a solid a 400fpm to almost 10k and started playing. I was trying to make a line with some upwind clouds and penetrate to them.  I had a sweet 3 mile glide that I thought was a lift line, but in retrospect, I think it was mostly the Atos’ fantastic sink rate.  Anyway, I made it to a line of weak clouds that were lifting and one even formed above me.  I was sure one was dying that I went under anyway, but it was still lifting.  Clouds are an interesting mystery.

Got tanked up around 6.5 miles upwind and decided a good goal would be to make it 10 miles upwind before I turned back.  So I left from 10.3kft and hoped for the best.  I didn’t really get ANY lift after this and managed a 14 mile glide somehow! 

On the long downwind glide, the 6030 predicted I’d make it to the tow field with 1500ft to spare, but I had 300, barely.  From how low I felt as I started the 10 mile push, I didn’t think I could venture South to get under a nice set of clouds and still make it.  So, I made as straight of a line as possible.  Check that baby out above!  Checking the polars revealed way too rosy figures of:

-118fpm @ 22mph

-374fpm @ 52mph. 

Not sure how I got those in there.  So, the new one’s will be:

-138 @ 23   MFG recommends -135fpm @ 23mph

-394 @ 41   MFG recommends -400fpm @ 42mph

At least they’ll be closer.  I was surprisingly close to those figures which would be remarkable.  I’ll go out early and do some morning air polar tests sometime in the near future.

**Lesson of the day: Take some time before launching to ask for the launch crew to run a wing and explain how to do it.  I didn’t today, and the slight cross wind caused me to bounce out of position on the cart waaaay before I had safe flying speed.  With my glider unseated in the dolly, but accelerating, all I could think to do was fly the glider sideways and hold onto the flopping dolly until I had more speed.  It worked.  Another lesson is to hold the dolly tighter to my basetube by choking up on the dolly tubes.  That way, it’ll be harder to get it unseated!  Averted disaster, learned a lesson, all is well. 

Airtime:  1:25

Miles:  25.2

Flights:  1

Like the previous days (I missed), 5/29 had very unstable conditions.  In Morrison, the cycles were pumping through at 9am and a couple birds were circling out my window.  Only problem was that the moisture was blowing up into overly concerning storms by mid afternoon.  Friday, I launched about 12:15 for the first flight with the goal of flying 10miles South to land at my house but after getting up sizing up a big cell along my path I quit after a few miles and headed back.  Google Earth view of that flight below:

Had just gotten really high at Heritage too, so after getting back to Lookout, I got to do lots of wing-overs and then top-land so I could turn my keel mounted video on.  Did my first “climb-over” kinda wing over which was a turning point.

The second flight was near Casey and Brett doing a tandem and we kinda just floundered around for the first 10 minutes.  They headed South and I hung out but ended up needing a super low save to get back in the game.  Here’s a snapshot from 550ft below launch!!

After getting up, the cell had drifted a little further south so I worked towards my house again. 

The next 2 pictures below are the same canyon, same thermal.  Kinda cool perspective I thought.

With all the clouds, and 10.5 of altitude, I pushed out East for a change and got a unusual flight apart from the foothills.  Wanted to call Jim as I was over his Golden office at 12.5k!  An enormous dust devil was in Golden, crossing a construction site and looked to connect to the cloud I was heading under.  So I kept driving through some weak lift and half a minute later, the vario went to solid 600fpm, then 1000fpm!  I ended with 866fpm on the 5second averager (says the 6030), bumping up past 1000fpm often.  Flychart doesn’t quite show that much.

Video got filled up, but the clouds were forming in a half circle around the upwind side of the big cell I was following.  From the lakes and the radio reports, I was keeping a pretty good “out” to run East if the gust front ever materialized but it never did.  I think the cell was creating a massive wall that the East wind was bunching up against.  These upwind clouds were what I was using to travel South and were forming about 5 miles upwind of the cell at first, then extended from 5 miles to probably 15/20 miles upwind with nice cummies all over the place.  If it wasn’t for airspace, I would have ventured much further East!  When I hopped back over to the foothills in the shade, the cell had traveled pretty far South.  Instead of landing at my house and having to get the family to drive me back to Lookout, I figured it’d burn less hall passes to just try to get back to the truck myself.  Made it back to Lookout and toplanded again so I could get home for dinner!  SuWEET.  Might be the first time I’ve driven down.

Here’s the tracklog for the bigger 2nd flight…

Flights:  2

Airtime:  1:45

Miles:  Flychart says 9 and 21.

Toplandings:  2 of my best

Afterthought:::  If I was reading all this cloud flying stuff as another pilot, I might figure it’s “OK” to fly near a big cell that’s dropping out and what not.  Just for the record, I took my decision to fly near this stuff very seriously and wouldn’t want my less experienced self to do it.  I only did it based on some of these things… being super current and watchful, I was able to position myself away from the foothills at high altitude, past days gust fronts were mild, this day was developing relatively slowly, the East wind that held back previous days’ fronts was stronger and had a good chance at holding the gust back again, and I have a lot of confidence in thermaling up and away from these things if I had to get ahead of the front.  The chances of a gust front coming under me were relatively high and watching every lake and flag between me and the cell was an important back-up plan.  I used to be too busy just concentrating on the wonderful art of coring thermal or where LZ’s were.  Leaving more vulnerability that the gust front could have pinned me in a bad place, or gone under me without my knowledge.  So there it is.  As the air dries and the gust fronts generate from higher/drier conditions, the potential velocities will be more dramatic.  Ain’t saying I have it all figured out either… just that I was ok with my risk and had a fair guess what kinda crap-storm could have developed.  And to avoid spreading complacency about flying near big developing cells.

Forecast was dismal, chances of success were cloudy but more than 50 pilots showed up for Tiff’n’Larry’s legendary hospitality.  And they really put up a 1st class party. 

Larry’s son jammed on the stage(cool), other great performances were on each night, and the food was like what Mom makes and my Mom can really cook.  Leif and I arrived at 3am Friday evening and set up camp in the rain.

The next 2 mornings needed time for the mud to dry.  The first, Leif drove me up until we hit slime and Dean (smiling above) helped me start hiking my glider up to launch from there.  He’s a newly minted H2, and looks just crazy enough to be an outstanding pilot, not to mention he’s already a national champion in endurance Mtn biking.  😉

Above picture is the 3 of us plus my glider motoring up to launch via 4wheeler courtesy of Tony S, the man.  One of these mornings was a top 10 flight for me and made doable by these guys’ great spirit. 

The cool morning air with near 100% humidity looked ridge lift soarable from 8am till maybe 11 on Sunday.  Cloudbase raised and lifted over me as I set up at 10am by my lonesome.  I’ve seen this before here when Fred and I had one of the most memorable flights ever, and it’s just a buffet of superman flying at, around, and through cloudbase.  Turned out to be just that.  Cloudbase immersion.  I was happier than a pig in poo.

See the gliders on launch above.

The cloud/fog would form below cloudbase in the trees and roll up the hillsides at 8-10 mph.  Also, helping show the ridge lifts’ continuing and then waning strength.

Saturday night we had a great bonfire style party with a guy melting aluminum cans in it and pouring it out for artistic shapes.  One night the rain just pounded us for hours but the outdoor party went on and on till 3am. 

The Lookout crew represented by Jobin (flying PG), and Leif (setting up HG).  Jobin really impressed everyone with his scratching ability. 

Is that Baloo under my wing?  The best dog ever.

The abundant moisture changed all the rules.  Flying near huge looking virga/rain drop outs became common.  At one point, a couple PG’s got caught getting blown N from a gust front that originated 15-20 miles south of us.  That particular gust front caught everyone by surprise but other than getting dragged thru cactus, they were fine thank goodness. 

Sunday, a group of us got off and up and ran South almost immediately to get some distance from a wall of low cloud fallout.  Most gust fronts this w/e would max out with 15mph wind so the HG’s weren’t as worried as typical, but this line of rain began to engulf everything we could see to the N and West so I eventually lost confidence in my understanding of what it might produce.  As I ran South, I climbed 1500 ft in the rain and was thankful Leif bought us cheapo rain coats for the w/e.  Rich and Brett caught up to me and we made good time in the ridge lift created by a smaller gust front.  No video, but it was epic getting up to the clouds and cruising in the Sport 2.  As things closed in, I opted to glide to Valley View Hotsprings (8 miles from launch) and wing-over my altitude down to the ground. 

Rich landed with me shortly thereafter and the gust front hit 15 minutes later with nothing more than 15mph.  Amazing how the overly humid conditions create such tame gust fronts..  GOOD VIRGA lives on.  JJ picked us up with amazing liquor and a great beer I’d never heard of and drove us to Joyful Journey Hotsprings to soak the day away.

Monday brought a little drier conditions and an opportunity to bring out my Atos.  The above picture shows cloudbase around 13.2, super low for typical Sangre flying.  Also untypical for me was a flight that was entirely over the San Luis Valley instead of against the Sangre De Christo’s.  It was fantastic cloud flying!  EPIC doesn’t do it justice.  Getting off the hill was tricky.  Waited for some sunlight to come, walked to launch in a crosswind and waited for something to change.  Eventually, a thermal block created no-wind, and then a skosch of a puff up the face.  I took it and headed N to where I thought the thermal was and sure enough, it worked till I lost it.  I headed out to a cloud in the valley and spent the next 30 minutes low trying to stay off the ground and find something that would get me up to the clouds.  After many disappointing climbs to just 10k, a boomer got me to the white room and 13k. 

I wanted to hussle for the New Mexico border but some of these clouds were too good to pass up so I boated around and beside some of them for a while just to take it all in.  Smooth, gentle lift and phat conditions made this kind of a zen flight.  Anyway, cruising downvalley, I played it conservative in some super slow climbs and then had to poke around to find at least a cloudbase climb over Crestone because the next 20 miles were pretty much unretrievable should I have to land. 

Because of the situation, I milked a climb up above cloudbase (magical) for about 400ft making passes with one wing in the side of the cloud and one wing out making big rectangles.  Then across the abyss of roads with as full a tank as possible.  Sure enough, the worst sink of the day took me down to 9k or so and I had only made 6 of the 20 miles.  Doh!  Came across a better than avg climb just then and all was well.  It ended up taking 3 thermals to cross the 20 miles as I hit headwind.

A long convergence line set up E to West over the dunes and I climbed under it wondering if I should try to cruise E for 10 miles.  Looked AWESOME! 

See the long shadow and nice flat bottoms above.  From this convergence, heading back N, or continuing S would result in a headwind.  Look at the thermal drifts below!

So, I had a SSW headwind from the dunes as I headed due S. towards Blanca peak, a massive 14’er.  By the way, that convergence line was still evident with clouds after breaking down, having a steak dinner and some driving!  Pretty cool.

Anyway, another 5 miles to get to the S side of these dunes and I’d be across the no-landing area’s. 

30 miles ahead there had been a long line of overcast and rain that I was sure would stop my progress.  It didn’t fizzle out and clear up like the other clouds and I was pretty sure making NM was out of the question.  See it in the background of the below picture?

Video went dead so I can’t show the low cloud punching done along the foothills of Blanca peak but it was another moment I’ll remember forever.  What happened was as I got along the hills behind the dunes and Blanca, the headwind was crossing the mtns and didn’t provide any ridge lift.  The further I got, the worse the headwind and it became evident that the gust front from the upwind rain line had approached.  The best part was that it’s colder air manifested itself as little low puffies around 10.5k rolling over each windward spine.  I got to just connect them via punching through, over and around them to get me the final 4 miles upwind to the windward side of Blanca w/o loosing more altitude.  Then I thought I’d be able to catch something but the shade and lack of cummies upwind proved too much for the day to give me much more.  With my eyes turning yellow, I couldn’t imagine another several hours till landing so I gave up on the NM border goal.  It was a super boaty glide out to the flat lands south of Blanca and some usable lift was out there. 

The top of the peaks and later the sand dunes caught the sun as most of the land became shaded making for some spectacular views.  The clouds gave so much information as to what the air was doing and it was super fun trying to problem-solve the best courses to take.  There were cloud streets, but they would move fast from West to East.  There was convergence, there was cold-front like gust fronts, there was good virga and some bad.  It will be hard to pass up Villa flying when conditions look super wet again!

Oh yeah, Leif was nice enough to chase me downrange and give great wind info.  Once we got back to Larry’s, we had to run to launch to retrieve my Sport2 and I challenged him to beat the drive-to-launch record of 10 minutes (which he holds)….  Although we were on a record pace, we missed it by about 18 hours since we blew 2 tires and had to camp another night to fix that little problem by the light of day!  Here’s our pellet gun project from that night (video at link)….

http://gallery.me.com/leifcasey/100070

And here’s the rock… with aluminum on it and all….

What an epic weekend. 

Flights:  5

Airtime:  6 hrs

Miles:  4+5+13+19+63 (says flychart, but it’s making turnpoints all over the place)

Max Altitude:  13.5kft

This is a screenshot of the NREL station at Eldorado canyon which is something around 10 miles (N) upwind of the Lookout.  That pulse that hit NREL around 9:30-45 is what I think hit us around 10:20ish when we launched. 

We felt the temp drop and the NE wind picked up to 8-10ish.  I have a thorn in my mind that it was soarable since 7am. 

Fred got the ultimate birthday present!  Watching cloudbase lower when our pulse came through and another time or 2 while we were flying was pretty cool! 

The first 30 minutes had brainless climbs to cloudbase on demand.  It slowly weakened until the drizzle came and Fred and I landed.  Kiernan did some North wind toplandings and I tried again, missing the mark…

See the wind direction above as I’m diving into my landing bowl.

I probably shoulda flared here b/c I floated over this hill onto the shallow brushy slope behind it without any airspeed margin.  Live and learn, baby steps!  I think maybe I’ll give up on the N landing like this and instead just go up the launch hill fast and flare with a crossing tailwind.  At least I’ll be going uphill and will hit it.  Even if I have to be scraped off the hill with a backhoe. 

Today truly fed the rat.  It was like coastal soaring with thermals and a low cloudbase.  We’ve had a glut of super hot, almost record setting days.  This front came in without dumping a bunch of water overnight, which I think would dampen heat release from the ground, and since the front came in just before dawn, the ground lost minimal heat via the cool night air!  It’s the perfect storm for soaring without sunlight!  Happy 42nd Fred!

Airtime:  1:15

Flights:  1