Wharton Pre-Memorial Day Weekend - Saturday

Flight and/or trip reports
Post Reply
Tiki
Posts: 196
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 2:54 pm

Wharton Pre-Memorial Day Weekend - Saturday

Post by Tiki »

ROBIN HAMILTON FLIES TO HEARNE FROM WHARTON
(kicking off the Texas XC flying season)

Indeed it was a good day. Pretty much exactly as forecast though it was later starting and slow and low (~3200 TOL) getting away from the airport and the first 20-30 miles. Lift was a little chopped up in the breeze (>20mph at TOL) but the abundant clouds were pretty much always marking something. Ave climb was probably 300fpm and best I saw was 550fpm. Base rose gradually heading north to a high of 5000’ north of Brenham. Was a pretty fast ave speed over the ground due to the drift. Always good to at least be making decent distance even if you are not climbing so fast in the chop.

Btw the buoyancy/shear ratio for the day was 2-3 (crappy) It’s still amazing to see what you can get done down on the Gulf coast even with these conditions. And some patience.. My guess is the common streeting we see down here helps with the B/S challenge. 🙂

Big thanks to Tiki and Matt who picked me up from Hearne. 🙏🏼

And btw #2 where were you all yesterday ? We now have T-storms rolling in and unsettled pattern for next 7-10 days 😬. Yesterday may have been the last we get for a while... so next time get yourselves out there !
Attachments
Screen Shot 2020-05-24 at 5.12.07 PM.png
Screen Shot 2020-05-24 at 5.12.07 PM.png (129.35 KiB) Viewed 10907 times
Last edited by Tiki on Fri May 29, 2020 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

nuclear
Site Admin
Posts: 53
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 12:20 pm

Re: Wharton Memorial Day Weekend - Saturday

Post by nuclear »

Conditions: winds SSE at 12 kts on the ground, around 16 kts aloft. Cloudbase was around 3500 late afternoon.

I made it down to Wharton around noon and after a few minutes fiddling with the webcam, went to setting up the glider. We had Henry, Read, Mike, Robin, and of course Tiki. Winds were gusting to 18, most of the time around 12 kts or so. Gliders set up, there was some discussion of who would go first and soon it became clear that a wind dummy was desired. No straws were drawn, as I nobly volunteered. Or Tiki volunteered me. Or something like that. Anyhow, on the cart I went. First tow was short and exciting, with a pop up and a wink link break at around 30 feet. With the higher winds, I probably hung on to the cart a bit longer than I should have and popped up. Since I was pulling in to correct that when the link broke it was a non-event and I landed safely (if not entirely gracefully- what's another grass stain on the old harness?), and walked the glider backwards the short distance to the starting point. Wink link replaced, next try went off without problem and Tiki dropped be off under a nice looking cloud. Unfortunately not much was happening under this cloud and the clouds upwind and down wind didn't look much better. Given the high winds aloft, going for the cloud downwind would have been an act of total commitment and I suspected would have led to an epic XC to Juniors. My deep fear of commitment won out over the siren song of bbq sandwiches and up wind I went. As anticipated, that little wispy upwind wasn't doing much either (and certainly not at the low altitude I was at when I got there) and it was back to the airport with a few minor bumps on the way but nothing that I could make work.

After landing my rush to relight diminished as the sky over the airport blued out. Read and Mike flew and then after some more waiting for conditions to improve, Robin launched around 3. Things were looking better as Robin faded out of sight to the north, soon reporting to be over Glen Flora. I launched for my second flight a little before 4, and conditions were much better than earlier with clear cloud streets and active clouds with good lift. The 6030 was giving the wind aloft at 19 mph and very quickly I was north of 59 and on my way. On previous XC attempts I tended to hang out in whatever lift I had and mostly drift along, but on this flight with the clear street I made a conscious effort to go downwind towards the next promising cloud once I made it near cloudbase. Around Egypt I had a close encounter with a sailplane going upwind along the cloud street I was following. The progress he was making upwind was quite impressive. Around this time things are starting to look a bit shaky... There is quite the blue gap to the next cloud in the street and given my altitude (maxing out around 3500), it doesn't look likely that I can jump to another street. At this point I'm in lift maintaining near cloudbase and eyeing the gap. Given the hour (it's approaching 5pm) I'm doubtful that a nice cu is going to pop up downwind and I opt to take off downwind with the most altitude possible as opposed to dithering about sucking the last bits out of this thermal and letting my altitude decay before going for it. Predictably, this has me soon looking for a good landing spot. Wow, so many planted fields! That corn looks high! That's not a road that's a pipeline being installed... could be a long walk there! Spotting a good looking field in glide I redoubled my efforts to optimize my speed and streamline as best I can (hmm... cocoon harness. dacron sport 2. was a 2x4 really the best vario mount option?). I make it with decent height. Noticing the access to the field is in the upwind corner I play the game of how close do I dare get to the upwind side lined with an overgrown ditch to greet me if I overshoot. It all works out and I have a great landing not too far from the access to the field. While I would have loved to have made a few more miles, it was a fantastic first XC for the year, hopefully one of many more to follow.

Big thanks to Read for helping on launch. He clearly took to heart the safety moment from the last meeting and did a great job of helping to double check things and ensure accurate communication. Thank you Tiki for the great tows and for driving for us.
map_05_25.jpg
map_05_25.jpg (73.03 KiB) Viewed 10902 times
20200523_165145_sm.jpg
20200523_165145_sm.jpg (33.88 KiB) Viewed 10902 times
Matthew McCleskey

hmwise
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 9:02 pm

Re: Wharton Memorial Day Weekend - Saturday

Post by hmwise »

Nice flight Matthew. Did you get extra points for landing at Bonus?! :D

thermalcowboy
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 2:59 pm

Re: Wharton Pre-Memorial Day Weekend - Saturday

Post by thermalcowboy »

Nice flight and great write up Matt...I've landed out there many times!

Post Reply