First Flight at Moir's Hill

The weather looked good.
Post frontal instability, SSW winds averaging around 10 knots and its not raining.
Arrived at launch and there are 4 or 5 keen looking guys all kitted up about to launch. By the time I have laid out my glider they have launched, a couple after a few interesting attempts. Maybe its too strong, but I'm keen to try. I think its is within my capabilities.
After one fizzle and one "pickup and dump on your back" launch attempt, I'm away. Looking for the "guns" I spot them at cloud base rapidly disappearing North toward Mangawhai. Can't seem to find their escalator so I'm going to muck around the hill and practice thermalling.
I fly for almost an hour and a half, and reach 513 m (approx. 1700 ft) above launch almost at cloud base, a personal best. I can stay up longer but I'm starting to feel the cold.
Attempting to top land I find the lift too much and push out in front to circle down and land in the LZ paddock. Its my first flight for 10 months so I'm pretty pleased.
I later find out those "guns" flew around 30 km.

Comments

Better at Walking Than Flying?

The sacrifices I make for the greater good. The forecast was pretty good regarding the usual parameters. But a couple of indicators weren't that great. First, the wind was expected to be more westerly than wanted and, a new one of interest, was that on the Skew-T Plot (the vertical X-section of the atmosphere) the gap between the Blue (dew-point Temperature) and Red (air Temperature) lines was unusually large and grew bigger as the day progressed. In simple terms, "no clouds". And this turned out to be the case. Andy was the only one at the turnoff, so he lept into the car and we proceeded to the end of the road. Out at launch conditions looked perfect, nice back-ground breeze with good, but not strong cycles coming up the hill from the SW. The wind already had a Westerly tilt. But in hind-sight the main indicator was already there. Very few clouds, and what there was were small and not well formed. As we prepared to launch a couple of nice clouds did form out ...

Season Start

Roll Call: Anand Andy Brendan Cameron Chris Don Greg Jeff Lisa Stefan Tony My " predictorater " was indicating a good day, and based on the RASP forecast my plan was to get set and go by Noon. But with what is now becoming a bit of a habit, I hesitated, and as we know "he who hesitates, is lost". Jeff and Don launched just after Noon, and we watched them for far too long, climbing out - over the back. Then Andy checked out the small landing paddock (not) just behind launch, and a couple of us went down to help him untangle his glider. Of course by the time I made the decision to launch the leading "lemmings" were already sinking down to the bomb-out and as much as I tried I couldn't avoid the ground-suck of the landing paddock, joining them after a measly 12 minutes. Bugger! (again) But it was nice to be out there with a great crowd, and to get a flight, short though it was. Leonardo Flight Track

Don't Climb The Hill

Forecast was good, and it pulled quite a few pilots to the hill. I was the last to launch, while most were climbing out and the rest were sinking out. What was initially a good launch into lift quickly turned into a coulpe of quick passes across the face while gradually sinking below the ridge, finally landing short in the paddock across the road from the Bomb-out. A decision was made to climb the hill (fool) in the hope of a late launch, and after about an hour I was back on top keen to go. But after time to cool down and reassess I walked out to car park, and that was that. Leonardo Flight Link The Climb - Google Earth

Mission From Moir's

Search This Blog