This Monday the air smelled right, the sky was clear, and the forecast looked good. All indicators suggested that this day could be a record-breaking one, except for the winds. Over twenty knots were blowing from the south above five thousand feet, and increasing with altitude.
The glider was already assembled so I could get an early start. Larry Tobiska said he could give me a tow at ten, after his 8 to 10 IFR lesson. Shortly after 9 I loaded the glider with the freshly charged battery, GPS, cell phone, camera, food, drinking water and warm clothing. I washed its wings, fuselage, and tail, and checked all controls.
Then I opened the hangar and pulled out the towplane, filled in the tow card, and pushed the glider close to Runway 25 threashold. In the meantime cu's started popping up and I started to get impatient. The planned 10 o'clock launch deadline passed; Larry still was not back from his lesson. I consoled myself by evaluating the shape of the cu's; they were ragged, not the nice round puffy ones as on windless days.
Finally Larry showed up and we towed off at 10:56 am. I told Larry to take me to the closest grouping of cu's. We headed over the plateau east of the Pocket. I made sure I had a solid thermal locked in before I released at 4,400', seven minutes after take off. Eight minutes later I was at 6,700'. Lift averaged three knots already; I likely would have been able to get that early start after all.
During the initial climb I was surveying the cloud development in all directions; at that time I had no route in mind nor a task declared, where to go. Clouds appeared to be evenly developing both over the plateau as well as over the mountains; the bases initially appeared to be 7,000' everywhere. I looked north and then I looked east; both directions looked good. Initially I striked out to the northeast; mindful of the OLC rules,
I
decided to continue on that course for as long as the
thermals allowed, to make the first legs of my task as
long as possible. Clouds looked good and worked well over
the Mansfield plateau, so I carried on to the Nilles
Corner turnpoint, and there crossed the Colombia and
continued in the general direction of Moses Mountain.
After a while it became apparent that over the mountains
thermals got thrashed, and so I changed direction and
decided to head for Davenport. Until then, I covered over
70 miles in just under one hour, a very good cross
country speed (for me), of course, thanks to the strong
tail wind. I used eight thermals.The next leg went fairly well, the route was across and slightly into the headwind. I extened past Davenport; so the second leg was 72 miles. That distance was covered in an hour and a half; I needed thirteen thermals, so my x-cy speed dropped down considerably. All along I worked in a rather narrow band between 7 and 8 thousand feet, mindful of an obvious inversion below.
For the third leg I decided to head directly west, back towards Pangborn, hoping to get past it and hopefully all the way to Mt. Stuart. I heard on the radio someone heading there from Richland in "7Y", making fairly good progress. My third leg turned out to be 117 miles long; in two and a half hours and nineteen thermals, I did not get farther west than about three miles past the Mission Ridge ski area. I allowed myself three times to drop down to 5,500' - and each time climbing back up slowed me down; overcoming the inversion barrier.
I gave up on my interim plan to go all the way to Stuart and then head north over the mountains - the cu's over the mountains, while esthetically looking good, were not as good producers this day as those over the plateau. Reluctantly I terminated my third leg, and decided to head northeast again, basically duplicating my first leg. By this time it was already quarter past four in the afternoon; and the clouds started to clog. The gaps between them grew bigger.
I really had to talk myself into persevering and heading again farther and farther from the secure proximity of Pangborn. I realized that I could not afford to drop below the inversion layer; all telltale signs of strong thermals forming close to the ground vanished, there was not a dust devil in sight any more. It appeared as though the only strong thermals were those generated by suction from inside the cumulus clouds. Staying above 8,500' enabled me to cruise well, sometimes reaching in straight flight up to 10,000' as the cloud bases of the cu's varied. Finally, about 10 miles northwest from Mansfield I chickened out - possibly I could have made it to Bridgeport and then reconnect, but I didn't dare to chance it. This fourth leg was only 54 miles long; and I covered it in an hour. It was a quarter past five. I turned around and decided to head back basically along the same course, hoping to be able to extend the fifth leg as far south of Pangborn as possible before turning around for the final glide to it.
Going back proved to be far more difficult than coasting with the wind; I had to detour several times to regain altitude. Everytime I circled I was drifted back swiftly. The last good thermal I worked 4 miles southwest of Waterville took me to 9,500'. Then I started a long glide across the city of Wenatchee to some shreds of clouds (which could be rotors I thought), above Wenatchee Heights. I arrived there at 5,500', and the time was twenty past six. I started a series of very patient attempts at regaining altitude; on the seventh try, 25 minutes later, it worked and I climbed over Squilchuck to over 9,100'. That was plenty to cross to the southern, upwind side of Mission Ridge, where I worked two last disappearing clouds. From the southernmost one, at ten past seven and 8,900' I started the final glide - first, away from Pangborn. I could not believe what the computer was telling me... that I could glide over 48 miles?? Furthermore, going on the upwind side of the Mission Ridge meant that I was in ridge lift; initially, I hardly was losing any altitude. In thirteen miles I dropped just 1,500'. At that time I was down to 7,200' and 22 miles from Pangborn. Over flat terrain I certainly could have gone farther away, and then drift on in on tailwind. But I had a mountain range in the way; I was on the Ellensburg side, already farther south than George is, and had to cross the range into the Wenatchee side. So, I turned around and carefully drifted back first on the upwind side, and then crossed over the flat top plateau, all along going straight. For about ten miles I was skimming the top of the range at a mere five hundered feet above the surface. This part of the final glide was exhillirating. Then, suddenly, I was home free, clearing the cliffs of Jumpoff near the Lookout tower, at treetops, and still at 5,400'. I stretched the glide all the way past the Obadashian bridge, and from 3,300' there, at a quarter to eight, comfortably headed for a soft landing in the grass of runway 07, touching down at eight minutes to eight...for a total flight duration of eight hours and fifty five minutes. The total distance flown according to OLC rules was 402 miles (or 646 kilometers, my second longest flight ever).
I briefly pondered what the one hour lost in the beginning have would meant on distance and speed; one will never know.
Only the future will tell on future flights.
I was pleased to close my spring-early-summer season with a bang. The next day was a blue day. Karly helped me to put the glider away. The following day we packed, and the day after that we departed for three weeks in Europe. I am finishing this write up-in Vilnius, in Lithuania, during a break while visiting the LAK glider factory.