Mansfield Encampment, “The first session” (part 2)….

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.

My landing at the end of a long, hard day ;-)

Mansfield Encampment, “The first session” (part 1)….

For a variety of reason, this years encampment is being broken down into two session. The first session ran from June 29th to July 16th. This posting is not intended to be a daily flight log but more of a summary of some of the highlights from this first half of the encampment.

In a casual way, the summer objectives usually revolves around flying FAI triangles. The bigger the better. Often if conditions look exceptional or the weather forecast fools us into believing that something exceptional could happen…. we like to declare a record attempt. Mia is looking for her first 200km FAI triangle, I’m hoping for my first 300km.  If all else fails, the secondary objective is to log as many km’s as possible (racking up points for our OLC fun…) and if at all possible, as many of those km’s ending on the front lawn in Mansfield with a cold Beck’s from the fridge!

First day (Friday June 29th) in Mansfield was spent getting the place in shape, cutting the never ending forest of lawn, stocking the fridge and getting the rig in order. Not really prime towing conditions anyway with lots of wind and plenty of weather action (overdevelopment in the area).  Later that evening, Mia caught me sleeping in the living room listening to NPR… well sort of… I had dozed off with a glass of Scotch in my hand… Bliss….

Saturday June 30th, weather. Randy Pankew (proud owner of Mia’s “Old” ATOS VS) showed up but decided that the weather was a little on the industrial side so it was off to Park Lake for swim, and back to the shack for dinner.  Big thunderstorm pounded the banks lake region late in the day as we watched the spectacular display from Mansfield. (posted earlier on July 13th). The next day there was an amazing amount of moister still hanging in the air but Randy had to head home the next day so I got him inspired to join me for some flying (posted about the flights in an earlier post). After that, with poor weather in the forecast (not unusual for late June, early July) Mia decided to head back for a few extra days of work and Randy headed home, leaving me to take on various tasks around the shack including hard wiring our web cams that we hope to put up for public viewing. 

On July 4th, early AM,  Mike Bomstad from Spokane pulled into town with his tongue dragging on the ground desperate for some airtime so I agreed I would yank the big baby up. Of course it only because he is always good for video footage : (Mikes 07/04 flight ).  (Mike's landing from a different angle ).  After a little power gloating,  Mike and I where joined my Jorge and Michael (also from Spokane with Jorge being our token “Flex” pilot ) Later that night Mia returned to find us all over indulging in Scotch… after a few tsk tsk tsk’s… she joined us.

July 5th was the kind of day that makes us smile. Mia teamed up with Michael (Jorge’s guardian and baby sitter) to get all three of the children into the air. Lots of blue sky with just the occasional Q popping south of the tow site. Both Mike and I plunged off to the south. Jorge headed off to the west toward Waterville. Down south toward the Beezly hills Mike and I where struggling to stay up (or at least making any headway toward our planned turn point and seldom getting over 7500asl ) so both of us bailed on our task and headed West over Rim Rock (a bizarre little red neck camp ground on the east side of Jameson coulee and off to the flats south of Farmer. From this point, things started getting good. Back up over 12,000 where a rigid wing really belongs   Mike agreed to a little recon flight into the mountains on the west side of the Columbia river… this was going to be a first for both of us. Despite the 15-18 mph headwind the crossing was pretty encouraging, with beautiful clouds up ahead we pressed on.

Unfortunately, the great looking clouds where not producing any of the great lift we had left behind. NE of Cashmere and getting down below 9000asl and nothing that looked like a suitable emergency LZ… and we were both turning into cowards, I announced I had enough of these stinking mountains and declared it was time to head home. (no protest from Mike!)…. so with a good tail wind we plunged on back to our familiar flats just west of Waterville. Arriving back below 5000 asl we were promptly given a good slapping around for being unfaithful! By the time I had made my apologies for having been unfaithful I was digging myself out of Pine Canyon from 3900ft (600agl). With a little “I’m sorry” the broken ratty lift surged into 1200-1400 straight up over 10,000 and a wonderful set of clouds had formed a well marked street back to Mansfield (Clouds that Jorge had spent his whole flight enjoying…. pays to be faithful). Mike also got spanked, and with a similar prayer was also blessed with a nice climb and ended up a little behind but chasing me home.

Jorge announced that  he had gone from Waterville, out north of Sim’s to Leahy and was making for the beer fridge in Mansfield.  Clouds were still great so Mike and I headed off toward Leahy as there was plenty of sky to be enjoyed.  Mike was starting to snivel about getting cold hands (we were now easily getting up to 11,000+ ft asl)  so he called his turn just prior to Leahy and headed home. I took a more northern line and decided to explore Pearl Hill (NW of Leahy) and after bumping around the cloud base at 12,500+ I decided to pull the pin with nearly a 30km final glide home to the front lawn in Mansfield. I think we all duffed our landings (in a minor way)… I was late with my flair and skidded on… no tubes bent,. Our “near the house” LZ is a little rough and the wild grass makes for a tricky landing spot. I had tried to buzz cut a clear spot but I have to admit… allot of work yielded only a small clearing, that I promptly missed in the light switching conditions. Oh well, no bruises and the beer was cold! Our flights:

(Jorge's 120km Flexi flight) (Mikes "little" 184km triangle flight) (My "massive" 197km FAI triangle ;-) )

More to come…… Cheers

Mike’s Lightning Video….

Mike sent me an edited Iphone video of lightning storm under the power-lines looking east toward Mansfield. Sound track… well not my choice (perhaps the Door’s “Riders on the Storm”?)… Nice job Mike!

 

“On the Rim, Lightning storm”

3 hours later…..

Like I said, this place can be very big. This photo was taken three hours later (after the photo in the previous post) looking back at Mansfield from 25km’s away. At the end of the day this thing laid down numerous lightning strikes and caused at least two fires.

Strange things said and done…..

The Columbia basin produces big air. You need to respect the place or it can kick your ass big time. Why just the other day while flying near Withrow and monitoring 146.415 (our local op frequency) we had some familiar “no call sign” Russian PG’ers (and others) talking their way onto the flats from the Butte when there was a brief strange transmission ……. “Throw your Chute ! “ ….. (brief silence)…. “Nice save!”.

Not sure what the whole storey was but undeniably somebody just got schooled.

Over the last few days, there has been a local Chelan Butte PG comp underway, they have done well with reasonably good comp conditions with some very respectable performances. In the last two days, tasks where pushed with very high chances of thunderstorms. I’m not chastising anybody ( I’m sure they are all big boys and girls) but the second of these two days did “blow up” and had some serious potential . The task was called and it rained PG’s in Mansfield, later even a tandem sailplane from Twisp was forced to seek shelter at the Mansfield airport. I guess all I’m saying is you can “poke the bear” but remember…. the “bear does bite”.

Mia and I tend to seldom want to challenge the place when the forecast includes overdevelopment. Something about dragging 4000ft of towlines through statically charge atmosphere with a “kite” on the end of the line?

If I were to offer some advice to PG pilots who want to fly the Columbia Basin (Chelan and surrounding area), Unless stable, you should have at least 500+hours of experience. You should try to team up with pilots who know the area. Expect to encounter air far beyond anything you have ever experienced (even in an SIV). This is not a place to fly for the timid. Pilots who do not have a masterful grasp of controlling and recovering their wings should not be out here. I fully admit, as a PG pilot this place is way beyond my skills and comfort zone. I have close to 150 hours on the PG and would never dream of flying this place on anything but the quietest of days, preferably well into the calmer days of August and September.

Todays morning weather (11am) with severe thunderstorms in the forecast….

(Think we will go bird watching… Fly safe)

2012 Mansfield Encampment…. first day

Arriving at in Mansfield on June 29th, the weather was less then promising. As usual the weather proved entertaining (to watch) but not suitable for grinding out any airtime. Thunderstorms passing through made for some impressive photography.

 

Perhaps we could have pulled up for a little airtime on the days prior to July 1st but waiting for better air seemed to be the right thing to do. On July 1st, and very much to my surprise, what appeared to be a washed out day that I fully expected to overdevelop and explode into thunderstorms…. did the the complete opposite! It all started with a very low cloud base of very unstable dark cumulous (I estimated base to be a mere 5000ft asl, only 3000ft about the local terrain). The only incentive was a much brighter, dryer, group of Q’s to the south.  The best I had hoped for was to get Randy (now the proud owner of Mia’s “old” ATOS VS)  a flight before he had to head home and perhaps get a chance for a little airtime before we would have to dive for shelter down south in the dryer air.

I towed first, immediately connecting with some soft light climbs that brought me up to a now rising cloud base. Lift seemed pretty reliable so I pressed south to try and stay in the blue (some rain had started to the north of the tow site at L+13). As I pushed a few Km’s south when Randy got towed up by Mia and was “hanging in there” so I continued to push south.  At this point in time it was pretty obvious the day was not going to go as expected. In fact it was rapidly drying and cloud base had lifted quickly to 7500asl.  Within a few hours the area had turned into a pretty respectable day with a typical cloud base reaching over 8000ft asl. 

Randy’s first flight of scratching around in the light air, ended a few miles south on L-Road with a good landing. Mia was right on scene and re-loaded Randy on the rig and at which point began a slow 3km back trek backup the tow road to get Randy a re-launch. This time Randy was up in the better air and worked on some nice local XC landing just west of Mansfield after a few more hours airtime.

(Down south the Day dries out…..)

I finished up the day with a 135km FAI Triangle, back at the tow site then a nice cruise back into Mansfield for a breakdown on the clean green grass at the shack. Ah, its good to be “home”!

July 1st’s flight

Rotten Spring….

It’s been a rotten spring in so many ways. For Mia and I the flying season never really took off. A few nice days here and there (for the lucky ones) but no real trend setting up for some classic Fraser Valley spring conditions. Not saying that all the flying was bad, but it seemed that every time we thought we could count on a “great day”…. somehow mother nature would schedule a new weather event to put the damper on our plans.

Adding to the dark spring, a number of tragic flying accidents shook our local Fraser Valley community. 

Here’s the thing about these accidents, they act as a wakeup call, they remind us that flying is a very demanding pursuit and as the expression goes, “a very harsh task master”. Even the simplest of mistakes can compound to deadly circumstances. If these accidents serve any purpose I would hope it would be to remind us that we have to bring our “A” game everyday.

I’m late writing anything in my blog, always seemed to have other stuff to do. Right now I’m enjoying time off in Mansfield and I’m pleased to say enjoying some wonderful airtime. It may have been a “Rotten Spring” but things are looking up. More to come…..