1800km Sierra Wave XC Flight Today

[Kemp]

Today Gordon Boettger flew his Kestrel on a 3TP flight of about 1800km
out of Minden, Nevada. A sunrise takeoff lead to the first turn near
Chilcoot, then South to near Inyokern, back North to Susanville, then
down to Palmdale. This flight handily beats my flight of last year on
a similar route. Gordon had clearances to 23,000 and sometimes 28,000
feet and was mostly screaming along. Ah, just another day in the
Sierra Nevada wave.....

Congrats to Gordon, more details to come soon.


Kemp

[F.L. Whiteley]

"Kemp" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Today Gordon Boettger flew his Kestrel on a 3TP flight of about 1800km
> out of Minden, Nevada. A sunrise takeoff lead to the first turn near
> Chilcoot, then South to near Inyokern, back North to Susanville, then
> down to Palmdale. This flight handily beats my flight of last year on
> a similar route. Gordon had clearances to 23,000 and sometimes 28,000
> feet and was mostly screaming along. Ah, just another day in the
> Sierra Nevada wave.....
>
> Congrats to Gordon, more details to come soon.
>
>
> Kemp
>
Kestrel 17. I'm impressed.

Frank

[Eric Greenwell]

Kemp wrote:

> Today Gordon Boettger flew his Kestrel on a 3TP flight of about 1800km
> out of Minden, Nevada. A sunrise takeoff lead to the first turn near
> Chilcoot, then South to near Inyokern, back North to Susanville, then
> down to Palmdale. This flight handily beats my flight of last year on
> a similar route. Gordon had clearances to 23,000 and sometimes 28,000
> feet and was mostly screaming along. Ah, just another day in the
> Sierra Nevada wave.....

Several years ago, when I was in Minden for some wave flying, a local
glider pilot looked up at the lennies and said scornfully, "Another
parade day!". Of course, he was just thinking of pilots zipping back and
forth inside the "wave window" and not going beyond it's limited
extents. I'm sure he knows better now!

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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

[5Z]

Congratulation to Gordon! An excellent flight.

-Tom

[Bill Hoadley]

It would be interesting to hear about his coordination with Air Traffic
control to get use of the Class A airspace. Using the higher altitudes
must have been a big plus for this flight. B. Hoadley

[Eric Greenwell]

Bill Hoadley wrote:
> It would be interesting to hear about his coordination with Air Traffic
> control to get use of the Class A airspace. Using the higher altitudes
> must have been a big plus for this flight. B. Hoadley

I'd like to be in the room when Gordon and Kempton discuss the value of
higher altitudes for these cross wind flights. Summarizing what Kempton
said in a recent lecture in Seattle:

"Above 10,000', my ASH 26 is limited (redline) to 162 knots true
airspeed, so flying above 18,000' doesn't provide a speed advantage on
strong days. In fact, the higher winds at higher altitudes may work
against you as the crab into the wind reduces your speed along the wave
system. A glider with a higher redline would make longer flights easier."

The higher altitudes do give you more opportunity to deal with weak
patches, but these are likely not important on the kind of day needed
for these very long flights. The greatest advantage of the Class A
flight is for downwind attempts because the extra altitude is needed to
get to the next wave source. We'll have to hear from Gordon and Kemp
about it's value for crosswind flights!


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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

[[email protected]]

He must have burned alot of O2 at those altitudes. Did he complete the
flight on a 22 Cu ft bottle?

[[email protected]]

Eric Greenwell wrote:
> >
> "Above 10,000', my ASH 26 is limited (redline) to 162 knots true


That seems high. Do you mean 162 mph?

Mike

[5Z]

That's TRUE airspeed. About 120 KIAS at 20,000'.

The redline is 146 KIAS up to 3,000m - which works out to around 163
true, then stay there as you go higher.

-Tom

[Luke Roberts]

Congratulations.

What a fantastic flight...!

Luke
U.K and Omarama

[Jack Glendening]

Anyone interested in plots showing model wave predictions for this day
for the northern half of Gordon's flight can check out the plan view
at 500 mb (around 18,000 ft MSL) for 1300 PST at

http://www.drjack.info/RASP/MINDEN/p500.1600lst.d2.png

and a corresponding vertical cross-section along the diagonal dashed
line in the above plot (parallel to the wind) at

http://www.drjack.info/RASP/MINDEN/boxwmax.1300lst.d2.png

These are for a horizontal resolution of 4km, about the largest
possible grid size to show such waves. Plots at other times, heights,
etc. -- including plots at 1.3km resolution over a smaller domain at
1300 PST -- can use links at

http://www.drjack.info/RASP/MINDEN/index.html

(BTW the "RAS" in the RASP acronym has nothing to do with this
newsgroup!)

Jack

[Bill Hoadley]

Eric, we see the same thing out here at the Colorado Front range.
Having the ability to go higher would be a great help with some of the
weak patches and discontinuities in our ranges. For a long (crosswind)
flight in our location those gaps can be significant. Even being able
to go up to 20-22K would be a big help, and you would not incur a big
TAS penalty.
Speaking of downwind wave dashes, Dr. Joachim Kuettner is sponsoring a
new prize for the first person to complete a 2000km downwind wave
flight. I believe details on this prize will be coming soon from the
SSA.
Nice to see these long flights being done without logging frequent
flyer miles on
Aerolineas Aregentina.
Bill Hoadley

[Mike Koerner]

What a fantastic flight!
Way to go Gordon!

Mike Koerner

[Andy Blackburn]

At 00:00 29 March 2005, Jack Glendening wrote:
>Anyone interested in plots showing model wave predictions
>for this day
>for the northern half of Gordon's flight can check
>out the plan view
>at 500 mb (around 18,000 ft MSL) for 1300 PST at
>
> http://www.drjack.info/RASP/MINDEN/p500.1600lst.d2.png
>
>and a corresponding vertical cross-section along the
>diagonal dashed
>line in the above plot (parallel to the wind) at
>
> http://www.drjack.info/RASP/MINDEN/boxwmax.1300lst.d2.png
>

That is really cool!

9B

[[email protected]]

Has he posted on OLC?


Kemp wrote:
> Today Gordon Boettger flew his Kestrel on a 3TP flight of about
1800km
> out of Minden, Nevada. A sunrise takeoff lead to the first turn near
> Chilcoot, then South to near Inyokern, back North to Susanville, then
> down to Palmdale. This flight handily beats my flight of last year
on
> a similar route. Gordon had clearances to 23,000 and sometimes
28,000
> feet and was mostly screaming along. Ah, just another day in the
> Sierra Nevada wave.....
>
> Congrats to Gordon, more details to come soon.
>
>
> Kemp

[[email protected]]

wrote:
> Has he posted on OLC?
>
>
> Kemp wrote:
> > Today Gordon Boettger flew his Kestrel on a 3TP flight of about
> 1800km
> > out of Minden, Nevada. A sunrise takeoff lead to the first turn
near
> > Chilcoot, then South to near Inyokern, back North to Susanville,
then
> > down to Palmdale. This flight handily beats my flight of last year
> on
> > a similar route. Gordon had clearances to 23,000 and sometimes
> 28,000
> > feet and was mostly screaming along. Ah, just another day in the
> > Sierra Nevada wave.....
> >
> > Congrats to Gordon, more details to come soon.
> >
> >
> > Kemp

[[email protected]]

My friend Gordo doesn't fly often....but when he flies....he flies
GOOD!!

Before this, his previous flight was last year in the fall.....that was
the Hilton Cup winner.....few flights before that was the 2004
Barringer Trophy, then a couple of Nevada State Speed records...oh...
hum....

GREAT job Gordo!

Erik / XL

[Greg Arnold]

On the OLC, Gordon made this comment:

"At 1615L near Owens Dry Lake, I was required by ATC to make an eastward
deviation of 10 miles due to opposing glider traffic operating under IFR
clearance like me. The trace shows a required departure from wave
conditions and a track southbound until clear of traffic. I then
proceeded westbound near Inyokern and in the process lost 16,000 feet
before contacting wave again and making a climb to FL280 for final glide."

I wonder what other glider was flying IFR, and why ATC made Gordon go so
far to the east?


wrote:
> My friend Gordo doesn't fly often....but when he flies....he flies
> GOOD!!
>
> Before this, his previous flight was last year in the fall.....that was
> the Hilton Cup winner.....few flights before that was the 2004
> Barringer Trophy, then a couple of Nevada State Speed records...oh...
> hum....
>
> GREAT job Gordo!
>
> Erik / XL
>

[Kemp]

More details:
- Gordon's flight is now on the OLC for March 27. Stated distance is
1824km or 1133sm, a new longest soaring flight in the US.
- The eastward deviation was to clear the IFR block allocated to the
Perlan project, with Steve Fossett and Einar in the 30-35K range. ATC
wouldn't allow two IFR flights to have intersecting airspace blocks, so
Gordon had to go around, regardless of the fact that both are gliders.
- Landing was at Fox Field, not at Palmdale as earlier stated.
- The winds had quite a southerly component, with the wave ending near
Inyokern. Although he had 28,000ft starting his final glide, the
headwind chewed into his glide such that by Fox Field he had only 1,500
AGL!
- Clearances were up to 31-32K, not 28K as stated earlier.
Bob Speilman was flying his 1-26 out of Minden that day and flew the
wave for a 300+km flight.

Kemp

[[email protected]]

Good glider. Great flight. Interesting weather.

OC

[Jack Glendening]

I've created an image loop (760KB) showing how the model thinks the
wave changed between 0800 and 1600 PST for this day, with images at 1
hour intervals (the first image is displayed for a longer interval to
indicate the start of the loop) at

http://www.drjack.info/RASP/MINDEN/p500.loop.d2.gif

It shows the wave falling apart at the end of the day.

Jack

PS in my last post the first link given was actually for 1600 PST
not 1300 PST as stated, so showed the wave when it was less coherent
than earlier in the day

[For Example John Smith]

It looks like the secondary/tertiary/5th6thary waves got more organized as
the primary weakened. A flatlander asks "is this common?"

"Jack Glendening" > wrote in message
ink.net...
> I've created an image loop (760KB) showing how the model thinks the
> wave changed between 0800 and 1600 PST for this day, with images at 1
> hour intervals (the first image is displayed for a longer interval to
> indicate the start of the loop) at
>
> http://www.drjack.info/RASP/MINDEN/p500.loop.d2.gif
>
> It shows the wave falling apart at the end of the day.
>
> Jack
>
> PS in my last post the first link given was actually for 1600 PST
> not 1300 PST as stated, so showed the wave when it was less coherent
> than earlier in the day
>

[Eric Greenwell]

"Jack Glendening" > wrote in message
ink.net...

>>I've created an image loop (760KB) showing how the model thinks the
>>wave changed between 0800 and 1600 PST for this day, with images at 1
>>hour intervals (the first image is displayed for a longer interval to
>>indicate the start of the loop) at
>>
>> http://www.drjack.info/RASP/MINDEN/p500.loop.d2.gif
>>
>>It shows the wave falling apart at the end of the day.
>>
>> Jack
>>
>>PS in my last post the first link given was actually for 1600 PST
>>not 1300 PST as stated, so showed the wave when it was less coherent
>>than earlier in the day

You can see a high resolution, true color image of the same area here:

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA1/2005086/USA1.2005086.aqua

The 250 meter resolution image is large and may provide too much detail,
but the 1 km is about the same scale as the image Dr. Jack presents.
They look similar, but keep in mind the satellite image is a composite
using images spread over a couple hours.

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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

[Jack Glendening]

Actually the 2km satellite resolution is most comparable since model
resolution (for the loop at least) is 4km. BTW, one thing to note is
that with complex terrain wave updrafts are not always simple parallel
lines as in ideal cases - see for example the updraft "Y" near Lake
Tahoe (lat=39,lon=-120) at 0800 PST.