Flying Thursday

[eggzkitz]

Waiting for a report from the crew that went to Woodstock today, but Peter and I are up for an outing tomorrow.

Uppers are better tomorrow, especially further to the south. The instability forecast looks better too, and looks like the inversion might be quite a bit higher as well based on the soundings.

Anyone else thinking of WS?

[mingram]

I'm thinking about it. Can you give me some pointers on reading soundings? Which site do you use?

[eggzkitz]

Sure. I like this one, below. It interpolates the real soundings to create "virtual" soundings anywhere you want one, or you can enter the three digit code for a real sounding. Dulles is our closest (IAD). Or you can enter the lat/long (degrees.decimal) to get any other site in between.

The nice part with this skew-t plot is that it is java-coded so that you can scroll over any part and see what the numbers are. But even at a glance you can see whether we have an inversion and what the winds aloft look like. With some studying, a "good" skew-t for a strong thermal, high cloud base day will be easy to spot. It is a powerful forecasting tool, and perhaps the most important tool for evaluating instability and lapse rates. Or we can use xcskies

Here's the java skew-t link:

http://www-frd.fsl.noaa.gov/mab/soundings/java/

There are lots of sites that can teach you how to read a skew-t. Below is one, kind of academic:

http://www.atmos.millersville.edu/~lead ... HowTo.html

Here's another one, geared toward soaring:

http://mike-the-strike.net/Soaring_Fore ... asting.htm

Finally, here is a great ppt file, but it takes some time and studying to get through:

www.pas.rochester.edu/~cline/FLSC%20XC% ... manWX.ppt

[uplandann]

Would like to know if an HG observer is going/ willing to go Woodstock?
Also considering Pulpit if I can get out by 10am + getting childcare. Bacil, or anyone else willing to observe me if I can get up there to Pulpit? May consider HR also...

5four0-4one4-45five0h

~Ann

[mingram]

Ann, you didn't miss much at Woodstock unless you could have gotten there early. It clouded over and everyone got sledders later in the afternoon. The Pulpit turned out much better.

Matt

[XCanytime]

The Pulpit statistically is the most soarable site we have, simply because it's the windiest site we have. It should be no mystery why I go there the majority of the time when the winds are WSW to NW . Bacil

[Ward Odenwald]

As Bacil indicated on the “Flying Wednesday” thread, the Pulpit was rather demanding on Thursday. The north-cross appeared to be just strong enough to permit extended ridge scratching and if no thermal activity was encountered – down you’d go. After watching Bacil cling to the ridge for as long as possible at ~1 PM, Mark Gardner and I were in no hurry to launch so the waiting game began. Around 3 the velocity increased to ~15 plus mph and Mark and I decided that we at least had a “fighting chance” at staying up. Mark was off next and after ~5 minutes of working small pockets of lift low over route 16, he worked his way to a mile above takeoff! Although conditions at launch hadn’t changed, I now had a much easier time of convincing myself that it was time to get in the air. I spent about 15 minutes working small bursts of lift until I was able to look down on launch. The higher I got, the more organized the lift became and the thermal that I rode over the back at ~4,800 msl was big (at least a half dozen 360s in consistent 300 – 500 fpm up). Mark and I landed in a really big grass field next to the Mercersburg Academy. Thanks to Bacil and his friend Tony for helping us launch and seeing that we had a ride back! Here are some photos of the flight.

[Ward Odenwald]

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