[Martin]

Mansfield August 6th

Looks like there is a minor change in the weather arround here. The Tripod fire near Winthrop has grown but the local visibility has improved. Forecasts indicated that there would be some upper level “monsoonal” conditions (high level, upper moisture) passing through on Monday through Tuesday. Keep in mind, monsoonal conditions in the dry wheat country of central Washington usually means high cumulous cloud bases with possible imbedded thunderstorms near the Cascades. (just what they need…. A few more lightning strikes to char up some more forest!)

Anytime you get a change in the weather on the Basin, you tend to get the classic shift from light N, NW (imbedded high pressure) to SE-SW ( changing weather). One plus for Sunday was the upper level South winds helped push the Tripod fire smoke North. The negative was it tends to temporally scrub off the local instability. Fortunatly for us we were right in the middle of the change. Improved visability and continued soarable conditions. Sunday also had one extra bonus going for it….. Jeff announced his willingness to run the tow rig…. So both Mia and I were going flying!

I took a 2000 ft tow, releasing into light 200 up. It quickly became obvious that there was a pretty stiff south wind aloft. The instruments indicated 10-12 kms out of the sse (later both Mia and I would read winds as high as 20-24 kms out of the south). As I reached 6000 ft agl, Mia was following me up on tow. She showed me up with only 700 ft tow…. Into a dust devil and up up and away.

To the east, no sign of any lift (no dust devils), to the north smoke, to the west Chelan Bute (uuuuuhg we never go there ;-) and to the south a headwind. Out of necessity we decided that a local flight was the only thing in the cards so ending up back at the house was the best plan of action.

At first the lift was topping out just over 7000 asl. As we wandered back to Mansfield, I climbed managed a gain to 8500 asl. Not to be outdone Mia got to 8700 on her U2. Soon after that I climbed through 9000 to top out at 9600.

For the next few hours the both of us explored the lift over Mansfield looking for the possibility of the finding the downwind bounce of a wave that occasionally sets up in the area. There were a few very high lenticular’s to the west. What we were not getting was the classic surface to altitude veering of wind direction (usually veering from SE on the ground to W aloft).

Mia decided to land in Mansfield after 2 hours of getting bounced arround looking for the “Wave”. I continued the search but with no luck.

After Mia had carried her glider back to our front lawn to break down her glider (and get a cold beer out of the fridge), I got a call on the radio warning me that the place was dead calm... with the wind shifting arround from every direction. This was at the same time I had dropped down to 4500, and was looking to land. Every wind indicator in town showed a different direction… it was looking like I was setting up for a whack and not a landing. Even less inviting was the idea that I would have witnesses to my impending whack!

I stumbled into some lift, climbed back up over 8000 and decided that the wide open LZ back at the tow site was a better bet for smooth landing conditions. I ended my 3.5 hour local tour with a perfect two step landing next to the highway at “L” road.

Within minutes Jeff and Mia arrived with the truck and after breaking the VR down we were off to Sun Lakes for a beers and a swim (life is hard). Later, back to the house for steaks, more beer and watching Jockey Sandersons “Performance Flying” DVD on the laptop. (BTW, I would highly recommend this DVD to all PG pilots out there. The best instructional video out there!)

Our driver/tow-mister for the day Jeff got off pretty easy. Two tows, then back to the house to empty my fridge and sit in the shade.

Hopefully the change in the weather is bringing better soaring conditions and some extra OLC XC points.

Cheers.


Martin and Mia