midtoad's blog

Big wind, big thermals, big height

With the jet stream sitting right over Invermere on the weekend, there were some strong winds aloft: SW at 45 kts at 12000', and over 50 kts at 18000'. On the ground, the wind was over 30 km/h all day Saturday. But around 17:00 it suddenly began to lighten off, and pilots began to take an interest in flying. I prepared my rented PW-5 glider and was second off, at just before 18:00. Then the fun began.

I released lower than ever before, at 5000' (2000' AGL) right over the airport, as the tow plane and I were climbing at over 5 m/s (1000 ft/min) for more than 10 seconds. I banked into a right turn, and climbed at an average rate of 5 m/s all the way up to 13000' while drifting a long way to the NE (see the image below) . Pushing forward into the wind a little, I continued to climb up to near cloudbase, reaching 14600' (see barogram below), my highest altitude in the past 5 years (I previously reached 15500' in wave over Edgewater). The title of the barogram says 'pilot: Mike Boulton' because that's who the flight logger instrument is registered to.

At this point I was in close proximity to Mark Schostek flying a Lark (picture above). All I had for a camera was my cellphone so the pictures are low-resolution.

Cruising south to Fairmont Hot Springs, I crossed the valley to see if I could find any wave on the west side. I hit strong sink of up to 9 m/s (1800 ft/min) and retreated rapidly with my tail between my legs. I spent the rest of the flight working light lift along the range, working my way slowly northward, and just hanging out enjoying the evening.

But it wasn't too enjoyable. I was wearing only a T-shirt and shorts, and finding the cockpit to be mighty cool, even with all of the vents closed. After only a short while, I resorted to pulling my canopy cover out from behind the seat, and draping it over my legs to try to keep warm. In spite of this, my toes went numb after only an hour or so. After 2-1/2 hours, I was beginning to shake from the cold - I had to get down to a warmer altitude now! .

I turned around above the hot pools at Radium Hot Springs, at an elevation of 10000'. I decided to just fly into the strong southerly wind as far as I could, and not slow up for lift or make any turns. I ended up flying to the peak south of Mt. Tegart, and could easily have landed at Fairmont Hot Springs. Even with the strong headwind, I went 20 km and only lost 2000' or 600m, i.e. I glided at 30:1 into that wind. Then I turned downwind toward home.

This is the sky I saw from near Mt. Tegart while on final glide back to the Invermere airport at 200 km/h. To the north, there was a large mass of cirrostratus, and below that a lot of smoke from a forest fire to the west, giving the distant sky a very red look. In the circuit I found some of the most turbulent air of the flight, but the wind at ground level was smooth and light, and I had a smooth landing. Slowly extricating my frozen body from the cockpit, I helped push the glider back to its hangar, then wandered over to the dining area and immediately sat down to a wonderful BBQ dinner. What a great evening.

Here's my OLC contest entry for the flight, and below is an image of the tracklog superimposed on a topo map.