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Saturday, 10 AM
I am driving across the sagebrush cutoff from I-15 to Milford. It's a wonderfully fast road, but I'm taking it with a bit of extra speed today to ensure that my passengers (the adventurous kids of my driver/real estate agent) have fun. This is the first time over the road this year, and there are some new holes. At 75 MPH, we suddenly have a bit TOO much fun. Stan reports a missing skid plate bolt when we get to the gas station in Milford. The wind is out of the SW at 7 to 10 - clearing skies after a line of thunderstorms the night before allow maximum sun to hit all the parts of the XC chessboard. It's gonna be an Epic Day!
11:55 AM
I get to the top of Frisco. It's good to be back again - like renewing an old friendship. The wind is straight up the ramp at 10-15 with gusts to 25 or so. You gotta watch out for those "or so" thingies. The tower was occasionally whistling, but the wind wasn't anywhere near the velocity normally needed to do this, so I filed it away in my "I don't know, but I might need to know later" file and set up quickly.
12:20 PM
We muscle the glider to launch, I spend about three minutes feeling it out, and decide that waiting on launch is a stupid idea. Between gusts, we step to the edge (Stan on the left wing, two chunky kids on the right wing) I pick it up, it doesn't feel TOO bad, so I grab my two newly installed Attack Tubes, yell clear, and run like hell. I always have a healthy respect for this launch, and I use all the ramp and hold with the inside grip of death (or maybe it was an outside grip - I can never remember anything about my Frisco launches except the pure, unbridled panic acceleration) Now for you aviation types, I need some help. Both me and Stan said I pitched almost straight up about 20 feet off launch, and I started peeling off to the right a little. This took some doing by the wind, as I was pulling in with easily over 150 pounds of force and grabbing on for all I was worth. I never felt stalled,but I was 200 over faster than I could imagine! After wrenching back control of the glider and pointing it SW into the wind, I noted that the drift was about 30-35. Eeeek! What have I launched into?!?! How could I have remained in control with that attitude and sudden gust factor? It was extreme.
12:35 PM (mile 0)
I HATE high wind days here - it's a lot of effort, and a good amount of risk, and I never make it past the initial Frisco thermal. Oh well - I'm committed, and there are cumies popping downwind, so here we go! I gradually gain in the laminar flow, and a cloud drags through with a thermal attached. I feel very uncomfortable staying here, so I commit to that thermal and get to 11400 (1800 over) before drifting over the back. Good riddance!
12:50 PM (mile 15)
Coming up on Black Rock Road already! Once I got away from the peak, the air got supremely mellow and the thermals got fat and flat. I just connected the dots between the clouds behind me and the building clouds west of the Crickets, and I seemed to get enough to maintain and even go up a little. No real turning to speak of, just lots of Gary lift. I let it pull me from heading to heading, following threads that made no sense, until I got to a good cloud at Black Rock and got to cloudbase at 13800. Freezing level was 13000. Ummmm. Icewater. Gooood. Best glide is 70. Gooood.
1:20 PM (mile 40)
The Black Rock hole has me in its clutches! I haven't found lift for about 15 miles now, and I'm getting down to my last 1500 feet on the dreaded West Side of the Crickets, exactly halfway between BRR and Clear Lake. I start thinking about how many hours it will take me to walk to the north end of the range and I push out every time the vario goes above 200 down. There's a really juicy looking complex of cumies on the north edge of the hole, and I really hope I haven't pushed it too far. Finally, I get some of the dragging thermals, which turn into really nice and fat lift. The cumies are starting to virga, unfortunately, and development is cascading to the north at double the wind speed. The race is on - I have to get around the building storm before it goes nuclear. I begin to fly straight.
2:05 PM (mile 70)
I cross over the center of Delta, my second earliest time ever. This is beginning to get serious! I've done my first 70 miles in 90 minutes! I have passed the main body of the developing wave that has catapulted me to this position, but the intensity of the storm is increasing. At one point, I had to pull the bar to my knees for three solid minutes to maintain a safe distance from the attendant clouds. My GPS doesn't go over 90, but I did.... I was still going up a little, too. The complex has gotten to the point that I am in a must land situation unless I can maintain a 20 mile lead on it. Since the development is moving at almost 50 MPH along my course line, this does not look likely. No other major development was in the area.
2:30 PM (mile 91)
I was holding on to it until mile 85, but the air suddenly got perfectly still and heavy, even though it was still drifting 30. This is one of those Bad Signs that means the storm has sucked all the energy out of the sky and is about to deliver it back in one nasty blast, so I pulled in and followed the road, looking for my LZ. The automated terrain sensors in my Attack Tubes gave me the usual perfect landing. I had just finished packing the glider when the gust front hit with giant raindrops and lightning. Yee hah!
The highlight of the whole flight was being able to watch a thnderstorm slowly develop and to actually be part of that. It was like getting a backstage pass to the best concert you can imagine, only better. I did the math, and if I would have had the ability to stay ahead of the storm until 7:30, I would have had 332 miles!
I want my Stealth!!!
dct