On Wednesday, April 23, 2014 3:47:58 PM UTC-4, Soartech wrote:
At Pocono Mountains airport, about 5-10 miles upwind of the ridge, the wind is NW at 18 gusting to 30! Plenty of ridge lift I would guess.

Temp is 44 and it is overcast.

The limiting factor in most long distance flights from Blairstown is the Hawk Mountain transition. One has to go from Hawk Mountain upwind to Sharp/Second mountains. Neither of these is an especially good ridge, and the landing option are either a) the unused part of a cemetery (fitting) or b) a couple of reclaimed open-pit coalmines (you might survive, the ship probably wouldn't). While it's certainly doable with low bases and 30kt headwinds in a 40:1 uber-segler, it's no picnic. In a 1-26, it's an even taller order.

Yesterday was just another example of how many factors have to come together for truly long ridge flights. The northeast quadrant of the Appalachians was plagued by overcast conditions until late in the day, even though the winds were pretty close to ideal.

P3