January Flying at Wilotree Park
PG|triangle|Wilotree Park
John Simon|PG|triangle|Wilotree Park
John Simon|PG|Robin Hamilton|triangle|Wilotree Park
John Simon|PG|Robin Hamilton|triangle|Wilotree Park
Robin Hamilton and Rich Reinauer showed up from Texas very early Tuesday morning. John Simon was already here. Add Mick Howard, Pedro Garcia (who had to go to the airport) and I and we had a crew willing to take on a short (34 km) triangle task. Here was my forecast:
After a somewhat windy MLK day with the high pressure now centered south of New Orleans, which is the perfect place for southeast winds up through Texas:
With the high pressure also over us the winds die down here over night. Looks like it's going to be 6 mph out of the east on Tuesday (NWS). Maybe as low as 2 mph at 1 PM (RAP forecast).
NWS says:
Tuesday
Sunny, with a high near 69. Calm wind becoming east northeast around 5 mph.
Light winds up at top of "usable" lift also with RAP saying 3 mph and HRRR 3 saying 7.mph all basically east. (RAP and HRRR 3 both show very light east winds at 4,000' at 1 PM.)
460 fpm lift at 1 PM (HRRR 3). Looks good through 4 PM. (All other models show higher updraft velocities.)
TOL 3,600' at 1 PM climbing to 4,300' at 4 PM (HRRR 3, but pretty consistent through out all the models).
No lift at 5 PM, of course.
No cu's (Both Skew-T and the models show no cu's).
Maybe a two hour task from 2 PM to 4 PM. Launching starting at 1 PM.
Task:
Quest 1 km
Livoak 1 km
Baylk 1 km
Quest 400 m
34 km
A shorter task, but maybe a warm up for longer ones starting on Wednesday, also, no cu's so more difficult.
The rest of the week looks great with temperatures in the 70's (up to 80 on Monday) and light winds.
Kasey pulled me up a few minutes before 2 PM. I was waiting for the TOL is rise up a bit. I was the first of our cohort to get going.
Despite the fact that she took me to 2,500' I don't find any lift until I was down to below 1,200'. With a northeast flow one does not find lift to the northeast of Wilotree Park due to winds coming off the lakes in that direction. Of course, tug pilots normally pull you up upwind, but that is not the ticket here on northeast wind days.
I turned around after I remembered this and caught lift west of Wilotree Park climbing to 2,600' over Osborn field. John radioed that he was about to launch and as I headed back toward Wilotree to the east having topped out, I was soon down to below 1,000' at the western edge of Wilotree. Four minutes of hanging there in net zero lift finally allowed for an average 200 fpm climb to 3,200' with John, Robin, and Rich coming in under me as I drifted west at 6 mph and waited for them to climb up to the TOL with me.
We headed out, despite not being especially high, toward the south east and the first turnpoint a mere 14 km away. The lift continued to improve even as we headed into a light headwind. I was able to climb to 3,600'just west of Pine Island.
The wind was coming from the south east over the lake around Pine Island so I headed in that direction to get past the lake. I found light lift and continued flying straight as it was weak. John and Robin were behind me to the south and stopped to turn in some weak lift behind me. I didn't bother going back toward them as the land out in front looked like it would produce.
It didn't and as John and Robin slowly climbed out I was forced to land in a huge field later to be joined by Rich. A couple of neighbors came by and one of them helped us break down the gliders. They said come back any time.
John didn't catch the next thermal and landed near Rich and I a bit further up the first leg. We never heard from Mick. Robin was able to make it around the course.
https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/19.1.2021/18:55
https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/2706672
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3 topics in this article: PG, triangle, Wilotree Park
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