A Stolen Afternoon to Yosemite

I took the afternoon off work today to fly my old Libelle. I left work at
1245, assembled my glider, and took off from the Bishop Airport behind
Hangar One's Husky at 1330. There was strong lift on tow and I released in
a good thermal that took me to over 13,000 feet. I flew north up the Whites
approaching 16,000 feet near White Mountain Peak. There were a few scraps
of cloud along the Whites.

I left the north end of the Whites at about 15,000 feet at Montgomery Peak
and flew on toward the east shore of Mono Lake toward some scraps of clouds
there. At the north end of Adobe Valley I was down to about 12,000 feet but
climbed back to about 15,000 feet and headed west toward Tuolumne Meadows.
Near Bloody Pass I neared cloudbase and my highpoint of the flight.

From high over the crest of the Sierra I had good radio reception and
listening on 123.3 megahertz noted that many around central California
seemed to be having fun this day. On pilot flying south along the White
Mountains at about this time had it right when he said he could hear his
flying partner but between the pilots flying at 13,000 feet on the
California coast and those flying in Colorado he had a hard time picking out
his partner's voice. The flying on the coast sounded especially intriguing
to me because I almost only fly over deserts and mountains.

I flew northwest over Yosemite from good cloud to good cloud and got to what
felt like near Hechy Hechy reservoir though it was certainly several miles
short. Right at 1530 I turned back toward Bishop and only circled once the
whole way back to Bishop flying down the west side of the Sierra Crest. I
landed at 1630, put the glider back in the trailer, and double parked in
time to pick up my kids from day care at 1700 on the nose.

Thanks for the post. Sounds like a great flight and a dream come true.

I fly a motor glider out of Hayward, just south of Oakland and I've
had a few "dream come true" flights in the area also. The first was
making it across the Sierras at Yosemite without the engine. I'd
soared across the Sierras at Tahoe many times, but the mountains are
much higher and wider at Yosemite, and I play it cautious in terms of
having the engine on whenever I'm not within safe gliding distance of
an airport (for various reasons an off-field landing is not an option
in my ship).

The second dream flight was soaring over Yosemite Valley itself --
really going up. That happened when I found mild wave at the east end
of the valley and got to almost 18k. The two remaining dream flights
(at least that I've thought of) would be

a) making it all the way back from the Sierras to Hayward without the
engine. I had hoped that might happen the same day as the wave flight,
since a 50:1 glide ratio should have almost allowed me to make the
roughly 150 nm from my altitude of almost 18k feet. But reality as
well as a head wind left that as a dream yet to be realized.

b) making it all the way from Hayward to the Sierras with just a short
engine run to launch. Brian Choate did the equivalent last year when
he launched from Hollister, got real high down by Panoche and made it
all the way to Truckee via Yosemit-- in a pure glider.

Anyone make any of these dream flights or have others to share?

Martin Hellman wrote:
b) making it all the way from Hayward to the Sierras with just a short
engine run to launch. Brian Choate did the equivalent last year when
he launched from Hollister, got real high down by Panoche and made it
all the way to Truckee via Yosemit-- in a pure glider.

Anyone make any of these dream flights or have others to share?

A dream flight would be to duplicate Brian's *and* make it back home
(Hollister, in my case) the next day. He got close on the return
flight, but not quite all the way home.

But it's gonna be a while before I have the experice to try going *that*
far.
--
Jeremy
N304GT