Woodstock for Saturday

[silverwings]

A cold front passes through on Friday night and Saturday is looking flyable there and not to extreme. Several of us are interested, how about you?

[flymiller8]

I'm in.
Josh
703-615-8359

[wmelo]

I am inclined to go to WS. Based on the weather forecasting today morning, WS is "waltable."

[mcgowantk]

I am likely to go too but will confirm in the morning.

Tom McGowan

[A.Lloyd]

I'm interested.

[Ward Odenwald]

If the forecasts don't collapse, ETA @ launch 10:30 to 11 AM.

Ward

[krryerson]

Still in SC on a beach vacation, but will be back home Saturday evening.
Can't make it for Saturday mountain flying, but looks like aero towing for me on Sunday, if forecast holds.
Knut

[Blaine]

Unfortunately I can not make it.

[mcgowantk]

I am going to Woodstock with a likely eta around 11:00.

Tom McGowan

[rlweber]

Woodstock eta 1:45

Randy

[silverwings]

According to the weather station on the tower there, the winds have ramped up at 9 am and gusting to almost 27 mph. I am probably going to arrive at the bridge field about 1PM.

[rlweber]

Flight Stats: Max MSL 6614, went over the back for max distance from launch- 9.5 miles, landed just outside Bentonville. Cruised at cloudbase for a bit putting on the speed to not get sucked up and ran to the edge but where there is up there is down. I hit a vicious down cycle. All the working clouds seemed to be to the south or north . Need to work on my planning skills. On 7/15 I had a low save in the pg over Bentonville, some lift today in same spot but could not capitalize. Not a spectacular xc, but fun. If you are interested the Doarama URL is below:

http://doarama.com/view/1530352

Randy

[silverwings]

Nice day there and approximately 10+ hg flew, 0 pg.

[Ward Odenwald]

Remarkable day! An early August post-frontal that felt more like a September one. Really enjoyed it and will have more to say tomorrow.

[mcgowantk]

I believe there were smiles all around yesterday. I flew for over 3 hours with a max alt of 6700 msl. I pretty much stayed on the main ridge. I jumped the gap to Short Mountain but didn't go far, then up past signal knob where I hit some especially strong lift - over 700 up with strong cloud suck. I landed in a field near Woodstock and hiked to the main LZ where I promptly got a ride to the top with a passerby.

Tom McGowan

[XCanytime]

A great day at Woodstock was had by all. On the way to launch I stopped by my airline pilot buddy Paul Kos's house on 40 acres in Fort Valley to inform him that I may be landing on his property again. He was excited again about the prospect. Arriving at launch at 11:15A I found Ward and his driver Rich Heigel and Tom already there. The three of us set up with moderate to strong conditions at launch and plenty of clouds upwind. Around 12:15P I noticed the noise in the trees had abated somewhat, signaling to me that the atmosphere was taking a deep breath. I promptly launched at 12:30P in moderate conditions and turned left into a stiff west cross. Fought the cross all the way down. The clouds were drying up just before getting to the ridge. Flew out into the valley under some clouds to try to get high, but could only climb to 3600' MSL max. Just shy of Waonaze Peak I fell below the ridge. Turned around and almost sunk out, but luckily found pops of lift to stair step my way back up above the ridge in the strong west cross. Got back to launch and shouted down at the pilots to come on up. Tom took off and he and I shared some lift above launch. Tom climbed up higher, drifting behind the ridge, while I stayed out in front in weaker lift. Tom then flew out into the valley as I climbed at every bowl facing west at each U-bend of the river. A beautiful mature bald eagle flew by me over one of the bowls. The highest I got was 3800' MSL. At this point I had my buddy's landing strip by Passage Creek made, so I headed OTB to land there. Arrived over his property and spied nearly 10 people on horseback plodding up the road to his house. Did NOT want to spook the horses and potentially throw riders to the ground, so I landed in a large field adjacent to Fort Valley Road. With no cell service to contact Paul at his house on the hill, it was adventure time . Ended up hiking the gear over 2 fences over 2 fields and across Passage Creek up a deer trail to Paul's landing strip by the creek. Then a long hike up his driveway. The ride to launch was much appreciated. By this time (4P+) the sky over the ridge had filled in with lots of puffy cumulus clouds. It would have been an easy downwind run to the Front Royal Airport. Walt, his wife Kaila, Josh, and I enjoyed good food and drink at the Woodstock Brew House. Driving home excitedly to load the track up to the Doarama site, I mistakenly left the GPS on while renaming the track file. So another track got generated the whole way home. When I uploaded the file, the drive track got loaded at the front end of the view and the flight track was at the end and didn't have the prettiness of a normal track file upload . Also, noticed the altitude that the GPS is set at is decreased by ~ 190' in the parameter list on the left side of the view. So I compensated by adding that to the 1900' that Woodstock launch is. Watching the goobered up track last night I noticed when I came into land at the field by Fort Valley Road I was suspended 190' in the air . Oh well, live and learn. Looking forward to seeing Ward's track after watching Randy's nice track from yesterday. Bacil

[thermalup]

Thx gents for the reports and Doarama tracks. The season here in Michigan is very slow to start this year so reading about your adventures is much needed therapy! ..::Jim G.

[Ward Odenwald]

Here are ordered images from yesterday’s flight that start at approx. 1.5 hrs after takeoff. The first image shows what happens when you chase a dying thermal behind the ridge and lose the opportunity to return to the front of the ridge. I basically dawdled in zero lift drifting away from where I intended to fly back to (the Waonaze Peak) while never considering the possibility of sinking air behind the thermal could limit my chance of clearing the ridge. Once I realized that I was trapped in Fort Valley, my only option was to search for a suitable landing field (pic#1). The next four images show what happens when you get lucky while searching for that less than ideal field. The flight track indicates that this thermal took me from 2,700 ft MSL to close to 5900 feet in just under seven minutes. The next five images were taken while crossing the Shenandoah Valley and the last five are landing photos. My goal for the day (second to a safe takeoff and landing) was to cross the valley, soar Stony Man and then head over the back. Realizing that my chances of finding another thermal like the one that yanked me out of Fort Valley was remote and not wanting to risk a tree landing, I settled for a very large clean/newly harvested field just north of Luray.

http://doarama.com/view/1530331

Thanks for the ride back Rich.

Ward

[Ward Odenwald]

Next set of five.

[Ward Odenwald]

Last set of five.