Saturday at Pupit or WS (11/28/2020)

[wmelo]

High 53F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph.

thoughts? Volunteers?

Walt

Ps... change subject to include WS...

[markc]

If the G20 from 11:00 until 2:00 that's currently forecast for the Pulpit comes to pass, it might have to be a very early, or very late, flight on Saturday. Possibly one of those too-strong Pulpit, too-light WStock days.... But I sure hope not, we need a good one!!

At the risk of going off-topic: Friday at the Pulpit might be possible too? Looks like W@6 on the sfc forecasts all day.

[1otIII2007]

I would say if the air is unstable than Woodstock would be the best bet. If it is stable than the Pulpit.

Allan B

[XCanytime]

In South Carolina at the moment visiting my parents. But planning on returning back home late Friday night cuz Saturday looks too good to pass up. Most likely the last "warm" day for a while at the mountains. I am looking at getting to the Pulpit early to get a flight in and helping w/ launches in the 2nd wave later in the afternoon. Charley and Walt are interested. Test flights are also "safer" at the Pulpit. Bacil.

[markc]

The gust factor is now gone from the NWS surface forecast up at the Pulpit on Saturday. Encouraging! Will look more closely Friday PM.

[XCanytime]

There is a TFR in effect from Friday 1330 thru Sunday 1500. 10nm radius from the center of P40. Big thanks to Pete Lehmann for the heads up. Bacil

[markc]

G20 is now back in the NWS sfc hourly at the Pulpit, midAM to midPM. Hmmmm..... Might be one of those days where you stage somewhere on 66 or 70, and wait for the morning updates

[Danny Brotto]

TFR up tomorrow and Sunday for an expanded P40. Keep that in mind if considering an OTB tomorrow.

Danny Brotto

[RichH]

Thanks for the update Danny..

[XCanytime]

4 pilots have committed to early launches at the Pulpit. Charley, Walt, Johander, and I. Duplicity on flagging the TFR. Too much turkey ? Bacil

[1otIII2007]

Anyone planing on flying on Saturday? Looks like the Pulpit might be blown out and Woodstock border line too much west. Any comments?

Allan B.

[XCanytime]

Check the previous post. Too much turkey again ? Bacil

[mcgowantk]

I am on the fence but am leaning towards Woodstock.

Tom McGowan

[markc]

Woodstock was *awesome* today!!! Details later, hoping that Pulpit worked out too!

[XCanytime]

Only one pilot made it into the air today at the Pulpit. Arrived just before 9A to already strong conditions and an overcast sky upwind. Set up and waited for wire crew, due by 10A. Charley, Rich, and Nick arrived and at 10A the meter was showing 22 MPH. Decided to take a look for myself on the ramp and deemed it doable but with extreme caution and everybody being on point. Big credit to Rich, Charley, and Nick for a great job of wire crewing. Had a 2 step clean elevator launch up, up, and away. Charley said it was one of the coolest launches he'd ever seen. In the air broken lift. Tried to head north but a headwind stopped me short of the SW/W corner. Made it back to launch quickly and headed south. Found some lift that was not as broken and climbed up to somewhere in the neighborhood of 2800' MSL before it quit. Headed back to launch to see what I could find. I then experienced something I'd never experienced in 27 years of mountain flying. There was a huge area of very strong lift and turbulence that spooked even me. It was very uncomfortable, so I turned south to fly out of it. Problem was, this boiling cauldron of lift and turbulence was over a mile wide. I didn't escape the bad air until I was in front of the main LZ. At this point I bagged it; no point in flying if the discomfort negates the fun factor. Strong on the ground too, so a fast final with 2 separate ballooning up 10' episodes ensued, resulting in a nice landing in the main. Thanks to Charley for the ride back to launch. Johander Navas had arrived in the main LZ putting up a streamer just as I took off, and Allan arrived sometime after I launched. I purposely committed to the Pulpit in order for Johander to fly there; it is a 5 hour drive for him to Woodstock. Allan came to the Pulpit, not knowing pilots were going to Woodstock. It was blown out, and had been 15 minutes after I launched. We waited around for the forecasted throttleback, but it never materialized. So breaking down in earnest began at 4P, and everybody (Charley, Johander, Allan) was pretty much packed up by sunset. Bacil
https://ayvri.com/scene/z15y60z0jx/cki2 ... 6b6jixx8jw

[silverwings]

4 HG soared WS with Mark being the first sometime after 12 pm, followed by John McAlister, Gary, Tom McGowan. He was in the air when I arrived at the field at 12:40. Thought I might have screwed up not bringing my HG but ended with a nice 1.5 hour PG flight starting about 3PM. I think about 10 PG pilots soared starting around 2 PM.

[markc]

Apologies for the lack of a post this morning. The Pulpiteers seemed very motivated, and I didn't want to throw wrenches around, ya know?

Hit the road by 8:30am and was camped at the Starbucks north of Front Royal (just shy of the 66/81 interchange) at 10am. Could hit either site from that point. Checked the forecasts.... And didn't like what I saw, pretty much anywhere. The NWS surface hourly was calling for a max of **six** mph at WStock, all afternoon. What??? And at the Pulpit, G20-22 was forecast, from at least 10am to 3pm.

So... What are you gonna do? Head to the Pulpit, where there DEFINITELY will be wind, and hope that it will back off by the end of the day?

Or head to Woodstock, and hope that there will be a bit more wind than they are forecasting?

Tom called while I was on my second coffee, and we talked ourselves into Woodstock. (A) : Add 10-15 at the Pulpit. (B) It was a "day-of" frontal passage. (C) The ADDS 3k map showed a decent amount of color in northern VA. (D) If your gamble *does* pay off, where would you rather be flying today?

So, Woodstock it was!

I was totally prepared for conditions to be super light, PG-only. And if so, so be it: Just enjoy a nice sunny day.

But as it turned out, the winds up top were singin' when we unloaded, and they stayed that way long enough to get us all into the air: myself, John McA, Gary, Tom McG. Not easy, mind you. There was lots of turb and sink down low, bullet thermals, and I was working hard. I'm guessing that we all did. But eventually.... At 2k over.... At 3k over.... Conditions really started to improve!

I topped out at 6956MSL, two river-loops north of launch. That was after multiple tries both south and north, and I have to thank John for showing the way: He was crankin/bankin, which got me motivated to do the same. It is *SO* helpful to have other pilots in the air! I didn't go anywhere, just enjoyed being high for the first time in what seems like forever, and punched out upwind to Route 11. Toured around, flew in some zero-sink and light thermals, flew over the northern edge of Woodstock, then mosied back to the LZ. Nailed the landing, felt DAMN good!

Major thanks to John McA for making it possible for both HG and PG pilots to land in his field. What a pleasure!

[XCanytime]

Glad it worked out for you guys at Woodstock. Musta been quite cold at ~ 7K' MSL . The windmeter on the tower told the tale pretty accurately. There is a 3rd option to trying to decide where to go between the 2 sites, since they are pretty much the primary choices now locally on a WNW/NW day. Make the decision the night before. It works. I've been doing that for 24 years. The forecasts are not going to change significantly between the evening before and the morning of the flying day. And if the Pulpit is the choice, get there at the crack of dawn. Always. Don't hope for it to back off at the end of the day (sometimes it does). Go for the sure thing; get in the air early before it blows out on launch. The majority of the time the air aloft is just fine. Of course you need wire crew (3). We have a great guy in Rich Bloomfield. He is always willing to help wire on launch. And Nick Brown is another great guy who is willing to help out. Get enough pilots to commit and are willing to get there early too; unfortunately the last guy will only have 2 wire crew vs. the desired 3. I've been employing this strategy successfully for 24 years. And I credit Dennis Pagen's Performance Flying book written in 1994 for it. In the book Dennis states that it is the most efficient policy to get to a site early. That way you have the maximum # of options. If it's good early only, you get the good conditions, and the latecomers miss the boat. If it blows out, you get in the air before that happens, and unfortunately the others will be groundbound until late in the day (or all day), like what happened yesterday. Dennis states in the book that he missed a lot of big XC days because the slot in the trees sites he was at were blown out by the time he was set up. Been logging this phenomena at the Pulpit since 1995, and thanks to Dennis' book quickly figured it out and how to efficiently spend the time on a flying day at the Pulpit: Flying . Bacil

[theflyingdude]

Glad it worked out for you guys at Woodstock. Musta been quite cold at ~ 7K' MSL . The windmeter on the tower told the tale pretty accurately. There is a 3rd option to trying to decide where to go between the 2 sites, since they are pretty much the primary choices now locally on a WNW/NW day. Make the decision the night before. It works. I've been doing that for 24 years. The forecasts are not going to change significantly between the evening before and the morning of the flying day. And if the Pulpit is the choice, get there at the crack of dawn. Always. Don't hope for it to back off at the end of the day (sometimes it does). Go for the sure thing; get in the air early before it blows out on launch. The majority of the time the air aloft is just fine. Of course you need wire crew (3). We have a great guy in Rich Bloomfield. He is always willing to help wire on launch. And Nick Brown is another great guy who is willing to help out. Get enough pilots to commit and are willing to get there early too; unfortunately the last guy will only have 2 wire crew vs. the desired 3. I've been employing this strategy successfully for 24 years. And I credit Dennis Pagen's Performance Flying book written in 1994 for it. In the book Dennis states that it is the most efficient policy to get to a site early. That way you have the maximum # of options. If it's good early only, you get the good conditions, and the latecomers miss the boat. If it blows out, you get in the air before that happens, and unfortunately the others will be groundbound until late in the day (or all day), like what happened yesterday. Dennis states in the book that he missed a lot of big XC days because the slot in the trees sites he was at were blown out by the time he was set up. Been logging this phenomena at the Pulpit since 1995, and thanks to Dennis' book quickly figured it out and how to efficiently spend the time on a flying day at the Pulpit: Flying . Bacil

Apparently, you’re unfamiliar with the expression that it’s always better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than to be in the air wishing you were on the ground! After all, the object of the game is to play again and launching early on an otherwise blown out day when you might find yourself landing in extreme, or even sub-optimal, conditions might be the best way to maximize the day, but it isn’t going to be the best way to maximize longevity in a sport that’s already fraught with risk, IMO.

JR

[XCanytime]

No I am not unfamiliar w/ the expression. The late Bill Bennett pointed it out to me early in my flying career, in May 1995, when there were 4 accidents within a 6 week period, from mid March to the end of April 1995. So I got into a rough patch of air up in the sky. Didn't think it would be that rough at that time in the morning (10:30A), but it was. So I cut the flight short and landed right after I exited that mess. Just because it's strong or blown out on launch at the Pulpit does not always mean necessarily that the air aloft is the same. The local topography causes the high winds at the Pulpit. 3 groups of pilots flew at 3 separate sites yesterday. Heck, your forecast at High Point you said was 15 to 25 in the afternoon. So you waited until 2P to launch. But you took off just like I did, just at different times at 2 different sites, but pretty much the same airmass. What happened yesterday was an isolated incident, not a habitual pattern of behavior. I've been flying the Pulpit year round since 1995. I know the site like the back of my hand. This isn't arrogance talking, it's experience talking. I appreciate your concern, but I ran into a patch of air that spooked me, and I made the prudent IMO decision to land right after exiting it, that's all. Bacil

[Danny Brotto]

The outside air temperature yesterday (OAT) at 11K MSL was -2 Centigrade. At altitude it was blowing 40 knots from 310.

Conversing on the radio with the sailplane folks flying the Massanutten they noted getting to 15K MSL. They mentioned the hang gliders "lined up" on the ridge.

I suspect that from Mark C.'s description that he worked the rotor and then accessed the wave to get to his high altitude.

The turbulence described by Bacil was likely rotor from the wave.

Danny Brotto

[markc]

Out in the valley, looking north

Topped out, looking toward Skyline Drive

Nearing the end of the flight, looking south

Drifting toward the LZ in a thermal

Boxing the field

[markc]

A last look around before starting my approach

Downwind leg

Turning base

Turning final

Touchdown

[markc]

I was definitely in some wavy-lift at WStock yesterday.... But not the typical "point-and-shoot", elevator-up wave. I treated it more like thermal lift, trying to maximize my climb rate, drifting back and then punching forward for a repeat. Didn't encounter any rotor, and the roughest air was more like 1k above the ridge. Very benign conditions, maybe I just got lucky.

Bacil, I agree that arriving early is a good rule of thumb for maximizing flight opportunities! But yesterday, hmmm... So let's say that everyone was on the road by 6:45am (or earlier), and all were on-site by 8:30am. Set up and ready to go by by 9:30am. Study conditions for a bit, and the first pilot is in the air by maybe 9:45.

If the weather station readings are to be believed, the gust factor was already 29mph at 10:00am. Base winds were still below 20, and I'm sure that there were ok launch cycles. But ya know what? 18G29 is pretty much *already* at my own personal limit for what I'm willing to launch in at the Pulpit. So *bam*, the morning window was already pretty much over at 10am, at least for me.

There was a 16G24 window from 7am to 9am, and I imagine that several pilots could have taken advantage of that if everyone was on-site by 7am. But wow, that's early, especially on a cold near-winter morning. I'm not sure my hunger for airtime is great enough at this point to get me on the road by 5:15

[XCanytime]

Mark I agree. The fact that I get up at 4:50A 4 days a week makes it easier now to rise and shine early. Yep ya gotta get there early; the earlier the better. Convincing others to do the same is a tough assignment. Also, the weather station is to the right of the ramp around the corner of the rock outcropping, so it's in a venturi around the corner. IMO the readings are a few MPH greater than the actual conditions on the ramp. Hence me reporting the 22 MPH base wind on the windmeter, and the fact I went up on the ramp and saw for myself what the actual conditions were at that discrete moment in time. And the wind speeds seemed a bit less than 22 MPH, based upon feel. Thanks for posting the pics. Whatta view . Bacil