Another great day at Bellyache. Unfortunately for the monsoon the sky is quickly developing with Cu-nims, but is making for excellent instability and great morning thermal conditions.
I launched about 10:30 a.m. this morning and went over to the west ridge. I was skeptical to get up because we did not see many soaring birds this morning and the ones we did see were flapping away. Once over to the west ridge, I worked some scappy thermals that were poorly organized and managed to get about 100 fpm on the vario. After a few figure 8's I got above the ridge and was able to core a broken thermal with 400 fpm to about 9,300 msl. It seemed there was a low ceiling that hadn't broken yet and was boating around for about 5 minutes not finding anything more.
At this point I decided to go over to Prouty point and managed to find more broken thermals to about 10,800 msl. Damn another ceiling and by now it was blowing over the back at launch and the thermal drift was definitely going toward the east. I decided to make it over to the Wolcott launch site and arrived there at about 9,350 msl. It's really a little early for Wolcott to work but was able to find some light thermals back to 9,800 msl. By now the winds were definitely coming from the southwest, and at Bellyache out of the northwest. I then made my way back to the bellyache LZ and landed after a nice hour flight.
It's great to get these soaring flights even though the valley inversion doesn't allow huge heights, but never the less the air has a sporty feel to it with alot of mixing which really helps dialing in the glider. Let's hope it keeps being this good.
Cheers, Greg
I launched about 10:30 a.m. this morning and went over to the west ridge. I was skeptical to get up because we did not see many soaring birds this morning and the ones we did see were flapping away. Once over to the west ridge, I worked some scappy thermals that were poorly organized and managed to get about 100 fpm on the vario. After a few figure 8's I got above the ridge and was able to core a broken thermal with 400 fpm to about 9,300 msl. It seemed there was a low ceiling that hadn't broken yet and was boating around for about 5 minutes not finding anything more.
At this point I decided to go over to Prouty point and managed to find more broken thermals to about 10,800 msl. Damn another ceiling and by now it was blowing over the back at launch and the thermal drift was definitely going toward the east. I decided to make it over to the Wolcott launch site and arrived there at about 9,350 msl. It's really a little early for Wolcott to work but was able to find some light thermals back to 9,800 msl. By now the winds were definitely coming from the southwest, and at Bellyache out of the northwest. I then made my way back to the bellyache LZ and landed after a nice hour flight.
It's great to get these soaring flights even though the valley inversion doesn't allow huge heights, but never the less the air has a sporty feel to it with alot of mixing which really helps dialing in the glider. Let's hope it keeps being this good.
Cheers, Greg
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