Flight information - Omri Kalinsky (US) - 07.03.2020

Comment

Weak and frigid cold wave day but still a lot of fun. Not terribly strong with SW winds 20-30 knots aloft and the strong spots in the wave were maybe 5 knots of the netto, but mostly 2-3 knots everywhere else and I spent a lot of the flight below 60 knots just to sustain altitude. Not a terribly strong wing gradient either as winds were 10-15 knots at the surface and about 20 knots by 7,000'. Day started with broken cu with bases around 9k (there was convection working today also) and lots of showers and virga around. Clouds gradually dissipated but not altogether disappeared throughout the day. I did my usual tow to the W side of the Dogskins and it took me about an hour to find the wave around 12k in an opening in the clouds between the Dogskins and State Line Peak. Once I got up to about 16k there was a nicely formed foehn gap between visible rotors heading up NW so headed that way. I turned over Honey Lake as it really wasn't looking good further NW and I was having trouble maintaining altitude anyway. Heading back S around Constantia the foehn gap split into W and E of the Petersen Ridge. I decided on the W side which really wasn't working well at all and I was just gradually losing altitude in lift so weak it wasn't enough to hold altitude. I ended up wave jumping to the next downwind bar which was working quite a bit better. Next I did a leg all the way to Susanville which had mediocre lift but was overall well marked and easier than the initial NW leg, but man was it cold. Although there was plenty of sun above the clouds which helped tremendously it was so cold ice crystals started forming on the inside of my canopy and the Air Glide was saying it was minus 6 degrees Fahrenheit. I then turned back S and started speeding up to start descending and turned a few miles W of Pond Peak to go into my last leg home. The lift upwind of the Virginias actually seemed to be the strongest I had all day, it would have been interesting to know how the flight would have went if I ended up going S. I landed a bit earlier than usual as I wanted to refill the oxygen bottle and do a few other housekeeping items before going home.

Pilot

- noComment -

Autocomment: Automatically determined proposal of OLC (07.03.2020 19:25:15 UTC till 07.03.2020 23:49:32 UTC) was changed manually.

OLC-Team