July 6th, Getting hotter and lots of blue sky. Occasionally Q’s would pop in the distance to give inspiration to the perspiration. I teamed up with Michael to run the rig with Mia, Jorge, Mike and last nights late arrival Randy pilots for the day.
Mia gets ready to fly her new ATOS VQ12
The day required a bit more work but winds were light. Noon and Mia was up for her first tow on her new VQ, pinned off and started scratching up from the tow site. Mike was next, followed by Randy and Jorge took the last tow. Everybody up and away with no re-launches (now that’s the way you should treat your ground crew!). It was a mish-mash of plans, Mia, Mike and Jorge all wandered off in the direction of Waterville, Randy on the other hand pressed straight south down the tow road. With everybody spread out we decided to head out in two chase vehicles. After some early struggles, most of the crew started getting pretty high (10-11,000ft asl) with the exception of Jorge who unfortunately got caught out near Withrow and landed. Randy put together a nice little 100km FAI triangle, Mia a 90km OR (her first VQ XC) and as usual the “Air Pig” Mike with a 127km FAI triangle, all landing back at L-Road in light SE breeze. We pushed a quick trip down to Park Lake for a swim and some beverages then back to Mansfield for dinner… and yes an evening night cap.
July 7th, More blue… more heat and light East winds but today also had some sort of upper system with very high cumulous clouds (based at 15-16,000?). This was to be a hard work day. For Mike, he was going to serve his first full day on the rig (and not in the air!) With Michael has his instructor/observer Mike got to find out just what it would be like to run the other end of the towline…. which btw is a requirement if your towing with us.
There was some haze in the air and the upper air instability so it was anybody’s guess as to what was to be expected (all of the soaring forecasts could not agree). My call was to attempt to head SE, quartering into the light East winds. With a bit of a slow start, I soon found myself busting 10,000ft asl near Saint Andrews (the patron saint of sink?) and pushed south to Wilson creek. The upper clouds proved interesting but I was not sure there was any connection to the lift below. Randy had a wonderful climb out from tow and decided to push straight east to Sims corner where he spent a bunch of time moaning about being low…(and based on his trace, he got freaking low!) but after some persistent grovelling punched a nice climb back up over 10,000… then got low… then climbed out and finally was east bound across Banks Lake (where his faint radio transmission continued with complaints about struggling… come to think of it Randy only seems to use his radio when he’s getting low and having to think about landing… which is usually followed by an epic climb 
). Mia, on the other hand dispensed with the dramatics and after two climbs also crossed Banks. Jorge followed up the rear with close to an hour of low level grinding and was eventually rewarded with a couple good climbs to cross Banks to the east.
By this time, I found myself cautiously trying to pick my way into my southern declared turn point called the “MicrowaveNE” south east of Wilson Creek. Early high altitudes were gone, the upper Q’s where producing nothing and the east wind was getting stronger. I tagged the turn point and started pushing north to Irby. There I got real, real…. real low. I called Mike on the radio and suggested that if he did not hear from me in the next while I would be down on the Irby plateau (north of the town of Irby). I got a confirmation that was none to confident… obviously had no idea where Irby was! Next I hear Randy is landing in Wilbur, Mia was turning around north of Hartline and Jorge was flailing around North of Almira. Michael in the second chase vehicle was heading back to Mansfield for Mia, for sure if I sunk out I was going to sitting in the dirt and heat for quite some time (as Mike searched out Irby on his smart phone). I dug deep, gave up on heading north and just let the bug farts that where keeping me up send me back toward Wilson Creek and hopefully into an area much easier for pickup. With some hard work I was able to drift and search and keep my ass off the ground. Up north Jorge was doing much the same, in fact he was sure he was going to land but managed to make another save. Meanwhile, back in Mansfield Mia managed a nice no-wind, tail wind landing and was walking her glider back to the front lawn.
Just East of the Wilson Creek coulee, at 6500 ft asl, I watched a Cessna Citation jet fly south below me at what I estimated to be 5000ft asl (I suspect heading direct to Ephrata?). At least now I was starting to gain some altitude and I went to work on heading NW to Mansfield. Randy was picked up by Mike, Jorge was now working his way to Hartline, looked like we might actually find our way back to Mansfield to join Mia. North of Wilson Creek I took a nice slow climb up over 11,000 ft asl and made for a crossing south of Coulee City back up to Saint Andrews and on my way back home. Arriving in Mansfield winds where light out of the north, making for a tricky (but perfect) landing…. even I was surprised
Unfortunately, it was getting late and Jorge ran out of time to get home. He did manage to cross over Dry Falls but was unable to re-establish any height on the west side. Apparently in a rather unique landing spot that later required me vacuuming my radiator to clear off a good thick coat of wheat chaff and scrub brush that some how made it through the grill… still Jorge’s flight was a real hard days work and brought him back to the house with a big smile! Of course Mike also came back with an appreciation of the hard work that goes into crewing for a bunch of knuckleheads!
My 157km out and return, Mia's 70km out and return, Randy's 65km trip to Wilbur AP and Jorges, 85km FAI "almost" Triangle.
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