Chelan US PG Nats July 13

July 13 task.

Really nice looking skies today and not too much wind, so the task committee decided to mix things up a bit and send us north. First we had to fly partway up Lake Chelan to 4th of July peak, then head to Omak via the Chelan airport. This would allow pilots the choice of flying the mountains or the flats.

Heading up past Manson.

Flying up the lake was fantastic with a nice gaggle to share the thermals with, and things were going well until the airport. I got a bit low and was in the south wind, so I had to slow down.  Scunging along in weak broken lift I got myself to Pateros where I was able to semi-establish myself at 1300m and continue scraping along the foothills.

Approaching 4th of July peak.

I had company for a lot of the flight and my gaggle of mostly Peak 4's made our way along the foothills until about 20 km from goal. There I lost them as they got a climb I missed, then I was solo for the last bit of the flight. I could see Omak but didn't have a visual on goal, so I made sure to top up before flying over the river and city before I could see goal in the far side.

Goal in Omak was the baseball diamonds to the left.

Time on task was just over 4 hours, quite slow, but I was glad to have been slow and steady as it looked like a lot of pilots landed short tafte getting low in the valleys north of the Methiw valley.  Those that took the flatland route were a bit quicker but it looks like the majority of pilots took the mountain route!

Lots of pilots in goal!

Results, when available, should be here. And tracking can be found here here.

Chelan US PG Nats July 12

The forecast was calling for some big clouds and possible precipitation, but we were hoping to get a quick task in.  So a short 53km task along the main roads to Mansfield and Farmer was called.

How much $$ sitting in the back?

The clouds were building so it was going to be marginal as to whether the task would even run or not.  As I started my climb out over launch I kept an eye on the clouds over the flats...they were building fast.

The skies around 10:30am

When I finally had a chance to get on the radio to alert the organization that it was starting to drop out along the course line and it may be a good idea to cancel things, Matt got on the radio and announced that the task was cancelled due to rain on the course line. I was glad, as the clouds were building at an incredible rate and flying into that building mass of clouds did not sound like a good idea.

The skies at 12:45. Task cancelled!

About 20 minutes after landing, it started thunder and lightening from the cell sitting directly on the rim over Farnham Canyon. Everyone in the vicinity was down safely, and those still in the air ran either east towards Mansfield and then north to Bridgeport, or straight north to Brewster.

The skies at 1:15, everyone is landing ahead of the incoming storm from the south!

Chelan US PG Nats July 11

A much better-looking sky today!  The task committee gave us a 162 km task to Davenport, via a TP to the south of Dry Falls. Cloudbase was around 2800m on the Butte, and with the WNW wind it was an easy crossing.

Today's task to Davenport.

Flying south was initially easy, but as we kept heading SE the wind direction changed to a strong SE, 25 kph, so our progress slowed to a crawl. Single digits on ¾ bar!

As we neared the TP there were 2 reserve depliyments.  The first glider was in a spin when he tossed, and he landed safely under reserve in a moon dust field. But it was so windy he was getting dragged by his reserve and couldn't pull it in. The second reserve ended much the same way, except the pilot managed to cut his reserve away after a shorter dragging session.  

Meanwhile we had finally gotten the TP and it was time to turnaround for Coulee City. Unfortunately it was still a crosswind flight, and I was kinda low. Another pilot and myself were forced to ridge soar the cliffs at Dry Falls until a thermal came through...at one point I was below the ridgetop and fully inside the Coulee!

Yummy skies!

I finally got out of there and was flying over Coulee City but couldn't find enough lift low down in the wind-swept thermals, and landed just outside Coulee City. Many other pilots landed on the way to Davenport, and I believe there were about 6 pilots in goal.

I think the strong SE was unexpected to the task committee, we certainly didn't expect it in the air!

Chelan US PG Nats July 10

More unsettled weather with more clouds and rain than yesterday, but less wind. The models were showing a drying trend so even though it wasn't taskable initially, we stayed on the Butte in case this happened sooner rather than later.

Setting up one of the sun and rain shades.

Cells came and went, the wind picked up and then dropped off, over and over again. Things kept changing every 20 minutes!  A few pilots flew while we waited for taskable conditions, launching Lakeside and flying a mixture of ridge and thermic lift, then top landing to wait out the next approaching cell.

Watching cells up the Lake.

Eventually the task and safety committees decided it wasn't worth staying on the Butte any longer, taskable and safe-for-all-pilots conditions simply weren't happening, and the day was called.

Line of cells on the flats.

A few pilots stayed behind to free-fly but the vast majority of pilots opted to drive down with the thought to perhaps go back up later in the evening if/when things had calmed down. I ended up driving Brett back up for a late evening flight and several others were already in the air, it looked strong but doable. But apparently it wasn't that nice over the Chelan Falls LZ, ad a new cell had formed over Lake Chelan and was dumping rain and wind, and wrapping around to make Chelan Falls a nice washing machine of air. A few going-backwards landings later and everyone was safely on the ground in the LZ, maybe a change of underwear required for some ;)

Brett getting ready for an evening flight.

A few pilots made it to the flats and even Mansfield but I was glad to be on the ground. It's tough on these maybe/maybe not days...if it was raining steadily that would be an easy decision, and if it was sunny with ok winds that would be easy too. But it's days like these where the task and safety committees have their work cut out for them ;)

For those interested in watching the live action, the tracking is available here.  Look for the tracks starting around noon (Pacific time zone) each day.

Chelan July 9

It’s been unsettled weather the past few days, and today was a bit on the windy side. But since it was the practice day we went up, just in case the wind dropped.

I finally went back down the mountain but lots stayed up, and a half dozen eventually flew. Tough scratching on the rim and the south wind was drifting then towards McNeil canyon and the rotor. But they managed to keep out and get to Lone Pine, before flying back as a band of shade moved through.

Tomorrow is the first task day and hopefully the wind will back off and it's not too cloudy!

Grouse Mountain June 26

My first flight of the season at Grouse; I suspected it would be average but it was convenient on a day where I was stuck in the city until late.  Punchy and scrappy thermals and east wind made for a shortish flight.  But it's Grouse, so it was extremely scenic!

Pemberton June 20-21

With the summer solstice coming up and a full moon to boot, Alex and I decided to get out of the city and fly Pemberton, and then camp out on launch to celebrate the shortest night of the year.  The weather wasn't forecast to be that great, but it looked there would be a few-hour window before the thunderstorms arrived which would allow us time to get a flight in.

Upper launch, before the storms arrived

Cloudbase was nice and high over launch, 2300m or so, and downrange it was more like 2700m.  I could see a large area of darkness down south past Lilloet Lake, and the Interior was showing Marge-Simpson-like clouds, so I suspected the storms were on their way.  The darkness got closer and closer, and soon we got a report from the community centre LZ that it was starting to pick up and get gusty.

Judd LZ, just before the storms arrived

So we all decided to play it safe and landed down the Meadows at the Judd LZ, where it was still nice landing conditions, although picking up wind-wise as the minutes went by.  About 30 minutes after the last pilot landed, we heard the first booms of thunder over Ipsoot as the storms from Lilloet Lake merged with the storms coming up from Whistler/Callaghan.  A quite impressive gust front accompanied the storms so we were all glad to be on the ground!

Back up at Upper launch to watch the storms

Back up at launch with Alex and Paddy it was an impressive sight to watch the cells come in and dump their rain over Mt. Currie or Ipsoot.  Not much actual rain over launch but nice and windy to keep the blackflies and mosquitoes off!  The storms died off around 8pm and blue skies again by sunset.  It never really got dark since the sun set so late, the full moon rose, and the sun rose again early!

Upper launch next day

Next morning was definitely blown-out, clouds whizzing by at 30+ kph overhead and the trees were whipping around on launch.  After a leisurely morning and some exploration of the nearby fallen logs (Paddy is planning on building a second bench from one of the left-behind logs behind launch) it was back down the valley bottom to a nice Whistler Express and definitely no flying going on!

June 20 flight.

Blanchard May 29

Heading north with Peter.

The forecast for pretty much everywhere else looked bad with low clouds, rain, and wind, but Blanchard was looking the best of the lot.  Lots of Canucks there today taking advantage of the light winds and thermic conditions.

Long glide back to Blanchard from the north!

Cloudbase was quite low, less than 1000m initially, but it (slowly) rose throughout the day to 1200m at the very end of the day.  Big development over the back but the coast stayed nice, so near the end of the flight Peter, Martin, Dave, and I flew south to connect with the cloudstreet which was stretching to just south of the Skajit Regional Airport.  The first glide away from the mountain was the toughest, as it was a long way and we couldn't get very high (1100m), but once we connected to the first cloud it was 3/4 bar all the way south to the airport, staying in the smooth cloudsuck the entire time.

Playing in the clouds to the south.

We turned around at the airport since there was lots of air traffic near the runway; later on we saw 8-10 stunt planes doing barrel rolls and other synchro acro, presumably practicing for the US's Memorial Day celebrations tomorrow.

Heading back to Blanchard and the LZ.

Other pilots ventured inland to the Sedro-Wooley and north towards Acme, while most others stayed in the vicinity of Blanchard.  Probably 20-25 PG pilots out today!

May 29 flight.

Woodside May 10

After yesterday's cu-nims and thunderstorms in the Fraser Valley as we drove back from Cranbrook, today was looking quite nice.  So back out we went to try the 100 km Al Thielmann triangle.

Cloudbase was way up there, above the legal airspace limit of 1981m on the Woodside side, but it wasn't the nicest air.  The west wind came in a bit stronger than we expected which got me as I was trying to punch west to tag the Dewdney TP.  Pattison wasn't working either, and after getting flushed at both Pattison and Dewdney, and hearing the reports about how nasty the corner of Dewdney was, I decided to get out while I still could, and flew back to Woodside.

Heading back to Woodside after an unsuccessful attempt at the Benedict triangle.

Over the back to Agassiz Mountain and then Bear, but I couldn't get high enough at Bear to make the jump to Ludwig with any comfort.  Norm had tried the Green Hill route and no luck, but was able to find a flatland thermal over the freshly-plowed fields downwind, and made it across.  However I was unable to find a similar climb, and ended up landing at Seabird Island.

Alex managed to make it across to Ludwig and did the Ludwig-Elk run, while Igor flew north up Harrison Lake a bit before landing in Laidlaw.  Al Thielmann did some bear-country-flying through the Norrish Creek valley before popping out behind Bear and then doing the Ludwig-Elk run as well.  And lots of pilots made the jump to Sasquatch and beyond before the west wind shut them down.

An easy hitchhike over to Bridal, just in time to watch the Bridal pilots coming in to land in the late afternoon wind.  The schmoo was coming in too, but earlier in the day the Bridal pilots had gotten above Cheam and 2400+ m, since the airspace limit is much higher on the Bridal side.  Too bad we were forced to stay below 1981m on the Woodside side; the air may have been much nicer, higher up!

Woodside flight.

Wasa May 5

Wasa launch at dusk

Alex and I are in Cranbrook for Brett Yeates' wedding and we took the opportunity to fly one of the local sites, Wasa.

Parm and Will from Smithers joined us for a 4x4 adventure and we discovered the road is clear of snow all the way to launch at 1800m!  Unfortunately it was still quite windy (it had been blown-out all day) even at 7pm but it looked to be dying a bit as the shmoo came in.

A nice soaring flight in the SW winds until it got close to dark and then landed at the large LZ's on the way to Lazy Lake.  That was the last (and only) flying of the trip as it was a windy period pretty much all over the entire province.

Lazy Lake and the LZ.