Flight trace video of my wave flight

I sometimes record traces of my flights with the SeeYou Mobile program running on an iPaq. I then play them back on the SeeYou PC program to study how things went. I've recorded a playback of my April 2 wave flight and posted it on YouTube - first time I've figured out how to do that. It's played back at 10 times the actual speed, so my 2 hour and 20 minute flight plays back in 14 minutes. Here's the link.

If you just want to see the time when I really connected with the lift and started climbing at a good rate, go to 8:05 through 11:42 in the movie (which is about 13:42 to 14:18 on the flight clock).

Blanik L13 Testing and Modification Plan Completed

Great news! A plan is now in place for inspecting and altering the Blanik L13 structure to determine which aircraft can be returned to service. The proposal has been submitted to the EASA and FAA, and the first few gliders have returned to the air in Europe. Details are available here and here. No info yet on the cost of the program.

Great First Solo Wave Flight

Today a weak front was causing a southwest-to-northeast flow, which made for mountain wave conditions at Crystalaire - the first day it's actually been working since the day of my site intro flight. There were monster wave clouds, closer to the airport than I had seen before, probably too high to be of use to us, but indicating good wave action. As I was prepping the PW5, Dale (very experienced instructor) came over to give me some advice on how to fly the wave today. That was nice - I was going to seek him out! He thought it was weakening today and not likely to go over about 8,000 to 9,000 feet, with maybe some thermal lift later in the day if the cloud cover was not too thick.

I took off at 12:20 and we towed through rotor on the way to wave lift. A high tow was necessary to get there, and I let off at about 8,500 MSL when the rotor abruptly quit. I was immediately in weak to moderate wave lift. I worked it for a while, trying the areas where people had said it had been working a little while ago. I found up to about 3.3 knots of lift in the beginning. I gained some, lost some, in it sometimes, in sink sometimes - worked between 6,700 and 8,800 for quite a while, feeling it out and trying to figure out exactly where it was. Every time I got back into a little rotor, I headed back upwind and found wave lift. It wasn't very wide, so I had to go back and forth in a fairly narrow "sweet spot". A couple times I found *heavy* sink as I got too close to the mountain, as expected (since the wind was "spilling" downslope before it bounced back up again).

A couple times I decided to head back to the flatlands, and when I went over the "second ridge" I contacted even stronger lift. At times it was up to 7.7 knots! (Later I was reminded that the waves tend to move downwind over time.) I finally got smart and realized I needed to turn back sharply when the lift started to weaken, so I could get right back to the good stuff. This worked really well, and I worked it up... and up... topping out at 10,200 feet. Another pilot worked it from 10 up to 11 while I was there, and Dale got to 14!

In this flight trace, the later part is in the upper left, and you can see how much tighter I was making my back-and-forth passes.

(Click on the image to see the full-sized picture.)

As many people have said, the lift in the wave is incredibly smooth. At times there's almost no sensation of motion if you're headed into the wind. In this next trace, the line color shows groundspeed. There were times when my GS was as little as 17 knots.

After about two hours I decided to come down. On the way back to the airport I continued to find lift up to 10,200, but also some pretty hard rotor. I eventually pulled 1/3 spoilers and turned lots of circles to get down. The lift was so strong and easy to find I could have stayed up a long time.

Approach and landing were challenging. I called in for a wind report, and was told it was from the southeast at 15 with stronger gusts, so I chose to land on runway 7 (to the east). On the way into the pattern I continued to get battered by turbulence, a couple of those big bumps that knock everything around in the cockpit and lift you out of the seat even with the belts tight. On short final I got a couple more fairly hard bumps. I carried some extra speed due to the expected headwind component, so I was able to control it pretty well, but once I got down low I put it down as soon as I could - no floating in ground effect - I wanted to be on the ground! Once I started to slow down a bit, I found out how strong that crosswind really was. It turned me about 45 degrees to the right and off the runway. (The PW5 has a decent sized tail but a tiny rudder, so crosswinds really push it around.) I applied full spoilers and wheel brake and stopped just a few feet to the side of the runway.My wings were level, or I should say right wing down a bit because of the crosswind, so I don't think I even came close to touching a wing. But it sure turned me!

Later the fellow who gave me the wind check said that although the wind sock showed it to be from the southeast, when he stepped outside a few minutes later he saw how cross it was. By that time I was committed to 7. Some other folks pointed out that there is a dirt crosswind runway which would have been much more into the wind, and in fact someone landed on it moments later.

So although I landed safely, I learned two big lessons:

1. Even with a wind report from the ground, make sure to look at the wind socks or tetrahedron for confirmation. I was approaching the field perpendicularly, so I knew by the time I could see the socks I would be really close and need to commit to a direction, so I relied on the report. And I was dealing with a lot of turbulence and a strong headwind, so I really didn't plan for or have enough altitude to overfly the field.
   
2. Know all of the resources available. Even if I had known how cross the wind was, I really had not thought about the value of that other dirt runway. I chose between 7 and 25 based on the wind direction, but I did have another option which would have been better.

My flight was 2 hours and 20 minutes, and up to 10,200 feet MSL. Not bad for my first day of surfing the mountain wave.

Progress Toward Hemet-Ryan

This week the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, on the advice of their counsel, declined to appeal the ruling of the FAA to allow gliders to operate at Hemet-Ryan Airport. One more obstacle out of the way! It will take a few months to work out arrangements (leasing space, filing operating plans, etc.). But it looks like it will happen!

Sunglasses for Soaring

A reader asked me about sunglasses. Here's what I know and what I think.

• Aviator sunglasses are designed to prevent light from coming from a wide range of angles, so they all tend to have a large teardrop shape. They don't change much to follow fashion. I happen to like mine, so I wear them for general use as well, not just for flying. A long time ago, I used to get headaches from bright sunlight, so I tend to wear sunglasses most of the time I'm outdoors or driving.
  
  
• Polarized sunglasses generally should NOT be used for aviation. Two reasons - one pretty obvious, one more subtle:
  
  Cockpit glass and canopy (or plastics) may have some unintentional polarization, and when combined with polarized sunglasses can show dark spots, distracting color patterns, and even large dark areas which can greatly interfere with vision. Some instrument glass windows, devices such as handheld GPS units and PDA's, and digital watches can also be partly polarized and difficult to read. We need to reduce problems in the cockpit, not create them.
  
  Polarized sunglasses are designed to cut glare. But sometimes a little glare is a good thing! When we're flying, we're always looking for other air traffic, sometimes at great distances. Depending on light conditions, sometimes a "glint" off a distant aircraft's canopy is all you ever get to see - but that may be enough to catch your eye and distinguish the aircraft from a plain background or from ground clutter. Polarized sunglasses tend to filter out that "glint" and make it harder to see small, distant aircraft. Glare from our own aircraft tends to be not so much of a problem, due to the design and colors of dashboards, cowlings, etc., so I've never felt that losing the polarization caused me any local problems.
  
  
• I started out using American Optical's FG-58 sunglasses. They were advertised as kind of the "standard" aviator sunglasses used by the military. They were OK, but due to the straight and kind of heavy design of the temple, I found them a little uncomfortable. They're pretty rugged. Although I've switched away from them, I still keep them in my gear bag as a backup, or in case I ever have a passenger who needs sunglasses.
  
  
• When I started using a PDA for soaring navigation, I found the AO's to be too dark. I couldn't see my iPAQ's screen. I switched to "gradient" sunglasses in which the lower part is not as dark as the upper part. That way when I glance down I can see the PDA screen, but when I'm looking out the cockpit I get more protection.

All that could apply to any kind of aviation. But for soaring, there's one other feature that I learned to love. Yellow lenses help you see cloud structure better than other colors. It sounds like a trick, but seeing is believing. There's something about the colors of light that water transmits, and the fact that yellow lenses filter out more blue light, that enhances the contrast of clouds, especially the thin wispy parts.

When we're soaring on a day when cumulus clouds exist, we look for clouds that are just starting to form - they have the strongest lift. If you look at the bottom of a "young" CU, it may look flat or slightly concave. That's where the rising moist air cools to the dew point and the cloud forms. But look carefully below the bottom of the cloud. Sometimes you can see that it is not a definite line, you can see wispy trails leading up to the base. You're actually seeing the water vapor starting to condense, and you'll see it more in some places under the cloud than others. Those are the areas of strongest lift. Try this (even from the ground) with and without yellow sunglasses. Huge difference! With lenses of other colors you may not see those wisps at all and with the yellow lenses they pop out at you. Sometimes you can spot the wisps a few minutes before you can see the CU at all - and when you're hunting lift, sometimes that makes all the difference.

So I'm now using Serengeti Aviators Drivers Gradient glasses. I like them a lot. Only two things I would improve about them:

1. The lenses are not as hard as some other sunglasses. I scratched my first pair after a year or two, right in front of my pupil. I got another pair and am much more careful with them. I always keep them in a semi-rigid case with a soft lining.
   
   
2. The temples are a pretty thin wire. They're strong, that's not a problem. But I have a radio earpiece that I clip on when flying some gliders, and the temple is so narrow the clip slides around a bit. Not a big problem - I much prefer the smaller and lighter temple compared to the AO's.