Thermal to Wave contact!

[C.Fleming]

Last weekend was the first time I've ever been able to thermal up to a
wave -- what an experience!

The whole flight was bizarre. The weather conditions were scattered to
broken stratus clouds at about 4,000 feet AGL, with weak instability below
the clouds and calm surface winds.

I hadn't flown our club's Grob 103 for months, and I rarely get to 'fly' it
at all since I'm usually teaching in it. I was planning to just do pattern
tows, and I invited my good friend Hal to sit in the front seat. During our
third tow, the runway got busy with other aircraft, so we took the tow up to
2,000 feet AGL so we could give them time to make room for us on the runway.
On the 'sled ride' down, I found a little lift off of the house thermal, and
decided to practice my scratching skills in weak lift.

After fiddling around for a while, I was slowly able to climb another 2,000
feet. Hal was impressed, as was I because I'm so rusty in the Grob. Soon
the thermal died, and we started another sled ride down. Just for giggles,
I decided to fly over to an area about 10 miles away that always has strong
lift in the summer, and found another weak thermal. But suddenly this
thermal got strong -- real strong! The vario said 8 kts, and I clocked the
climb at 500 ft/min... In January! I looked up and was surprised not to
see any clouds above us, even though we were close to the overall cloudbase.
The vario pegged a full-scale 10 kt climb passing cloudbase, and the ride
was rough. In hind-sight, I can only guess we were on the upside of a
cloudless rotor. About 800 feet above cloudbase, the ride got smooth, and I
lost the lift. The clouds were mostly east of us, so I turned west, which
coincidentally was into the wind. Soon the vario indicated a small climb,
but I couldn't center the lift. It took a few turns with weak lift on one
side and strong sink on the other before I figured it out -- wave. While
looking at the ground, I pointed the nose into the wind and slowed down
until our groundspeed was zero, and viola! A slow and continuous climb!
8,000 feet, 9, 10, 11! Hal and I weren't prepared for this, just jeans and
jackets. No oxygen, no gloves, no pee bags. We were getting cold, so with
a disappointing nod, we decided to turn to the south and start our way back
down.

Only a few club members were at the airport, but on Sunday the sun was
shining and several people came out to fly. They were so jealous when they
found out what we did the day before!

What an experience! I can't wait to do it again! Hopefully next time I'll
have my long-john's on!

Chris Fleming
El Paso, Texas

[Chris OCallaghan]

Chris,

Climbing from a normal release in thermal and transitioning to wave is
a challenging and a very satisfying accomplishment. While it's
something we do in the east with some regularity, we just as regularly
fail to make the transition. It is frustrating to hear a couple of
your buddies climbing in the wave while you are stuck several hundred
feet shy of the height you need to get upwind into the bottom of the
stable layer. But the work makes the achievement that much more
enjoyable.

I was on a ridge mission out of Ridge Soaring one morning. While
passing Tyron, PA, the ridge lift strengthened dramatically. Cloud
base was low (<3000 msl) and I found myself pushing into the valley to
keep from getting sucked into the cloud. As I reached its edge, I
transitioned into the bottom of the wave and increased my climb rate
to over 10 knots. I went from moderate turbulence on the ridge at 2000
msl to 12000 msl in less than 10 minutes, without changing my heading
more than 30 degrees. No skill involved. But very enjoyable
nonetheless. The face of the wave cloud that day was 6000 feet high
and nearly vertical. The wave window was only a mile wide, with an
equally impressive cap clound upwind. A real treat.