Open Cockpit Regatta - New Years Day 2007

The ninth annual "Open Cockpit Regatta" provided much fun today. Of
the 37 glider tows (thanks, Ken) in Tehachapi California, 15 of them
were open cockpit.
I left the Schleicher 26 at home and instead flew a Schweizer 26 with
sport canopy. Ian Cant allowed several of us to fly his newly aquired
26, the first Schweizer I've seen with airspeed in Knots. Jeff Byard's
Bowlus Baby Albatross and Schweizer TG-2 also made multiple flights.
Unfortunately, Doug Fronius and his LK-11 couldn't make it, Raul
Blacksten couldn't rig his T-31, and Jeff's T-21 "Rhone Moose" is still
being refurbished. The lift was decent, going to about 8200' (4000 feet
AGL).
There were also four open-doors rides given by Jeff Byard in the
Legend Cub, a Piper Cub clone.
We've had every imaginable type of weather on New Year's, ranging
from snow and wind to nearly 80 degrees F. This has caused us not to
fly and other days when people would rather climb high and cruise
around with the canopy closed. Today was just sunny and in the 50s.
A sun- and wind- burned group retired to the Chinese restaurant for
more laughs.
Perhaps other soaring sites let people out of the loony bin on New
Year's too?
Jim

Sounds like great fun. We missed out on NYD winching for the first
time in many years as we couldn't clear the access road of snow despite
a couple of members spending five hours with the tractor and blade
Saturday.

Frank

JS wrote:
The ninth annual "Open Cockpit Regatta" provided much fun today. Of
the 37 glider tows (thanks, Ken) in Tehachapi California, 15 of them
were open cockpit.
I left the Schleicher 26 at home and instead flew a Schweizer 26 with
sport canopy. Ian Cant allowed several of us to fly his newly aquired
26, the first Schweizer I've seen with airspeed in Knots. Jeff Byard's
Bowlus Baby Albatross and Schweizer TG-2 also made multiple flights.
Unfortunately, Doug Fronius and his LK-11 couldn't make it, Raul
Blacksten couldn't rig his T-31, and Jeff's T-21 "Rhone Moose" is still
being refurbished. The lift was decent, going to about 8200' (4000 feet
AGL).
There were also four open-doors rides given by Jeff Byard in the
Legend Cub, a Piper Cub clone.
We've had every imaginable type of weather on New Year's, ranging
from snow and wind to nearly 80 degrees F. This has caused us not to
fly and other days when people would rather climb high and cruise
around with the canopy closed. Today was just sunny and in the 50s.
A sun- and wind- burned group retired to the Chinese restaurant for
more laughs.
Perhaps other soaring sites let people out of the loony bin on New
Year's too?
Jim

NYD Flying complete.. light north winds provided some soarable ridge lift on
the north slope of our "training ridge".
Twenty-Two tows.. also a couple of very high tows for some acro rides..
Lennies appeared to the north of the valley.. but did not work their way
south to reach us.

LVVSA, Jean NV
BT

"JS" wrote in message
ps.com...
The ninth annual "Open Cockpit Regatta" provided much fun today. Of
the 37 glider tows (thanks, Ken) in Tehachapi California, 15 of them
were open cockpit.
I left the Schleicher 26 at home and instead flew a Schweizer 26 with
sport canopy. Ian Cant allowed several of us to fly his newly aquired
26, the first Schweizer I've seen with airspeed in Knots. Jeff Byard's
Bowlus Baby Albatross and Schweizer TG-2 also made multiple flights.
Unfortunately, Doug Fronius and his LK-11 couldn't make it, Raul
Blacksten couldn't rig his T-31, and Jeff's T-21 "Rhone Moose" is still
being refurbished. The lift was decent, going to about 8200' (4000 feet
AGL).
There were also four open-doors rides given by Jeff Byard in the
Legend Cub, a Piper Cub clone.
We've had every imaginable type of weather on New Year's, ranging
from snow and wind to nearly 80 degrees F. This has caused us not to
fly and other days when people would rather climb high and cruise
around with the canopy closed. Today was just sunny and in the 50s.
A sun- and wind- burned group retired to the Chinese restaurant for
more laughs.
Perhaps other soaring sites let people out of the loony bin on New
Year's too?
Jim

Here's the New Year's Day report from NCSA in Byron, CA.

January 1, 2007 was a beautifully clear day, relatively calm on the
surface but with strong winds aloft, ~35 knots from the North at 4000'.
The theme of the day became "quest for the elusive wave". Several long,
high tows in the direction of Diablo found rotor-like turbulence over
the reservior, lots of sink, even some laminar-like sink, but none of
the tows found the sought after ride to the Flight Levels. Buzz and
Yuli went up in their self-launching gliders and were gone for hours.
Buzz did find wave over by Mt. Diablo, radioing in from over 12K a
couple of times, fanning the enthusiasm on the ground.

Late in the afternoon, just north of the forebay, there was a broad
area of reduced sink that Dmitry found that led to a couple of long,
slow drifts back down to the ground.

Mike counted 14 tows. About half of them were long ones.

Thanks to Monique for organizing this and to Mike for doing the tows. A
great way to start the New Year!

Larry
--------------------
To which Yuliy replied:

Indeed, a good day. I don't think I have ever been above 15K flying
from Byron before. (And no, I did not motor all the way up there
either . ) The wind at that altitude was from the north at 50
knots. Amazingly, the wind on the ground at Byron stayed pleasantly
calm.

Thanks to Buzz for calling the wave and showing the way, and to
everybody who came to fly today for making it happen.

Happy New Year!
-----
And Buzz wrote:
The wind was nearly directly out of the north as predicted and actually
got stronger as the day progressed. Early on I was climbing on 1-2
knots
and later in the day I saw up to 3-4 in the same location. The best
wave
was in the vicinity of Wave1 Hol waypoint, basically 2 miles to the
south
of Diablo Mtn right on the edge of the class Bravo airspace. Thanks to
Ramy for marking this spot in his Hollister Waypoint file on the World
Turnpoint exchange.

I contacted the wave around 7.5k behind Diablo but also found that it
extended down to the reservoir, just weaker. You really needed to be
in
the Livermore valley to find the lift and down wind of the
mountains. Probably a uncomfortable position unless you are really
confident and high enough. Getting to Livermore Airport or Meadow Lark
would have been a piece of cake

I topped out around 13.3k and stayed up over 3 hours. When I decided I
was
cold enough and needed to do you know what really badI I head down, I
decided to explore some more. There is some additional plumbing I need
to
do in my plane real soon. I flew out to Rio VIsta into a stiff head
wind,
OK I was gliding at a 15-20:1 glide ratio with a GSP of 25 knots, but
when
I turned around I had a 85:1 glide with a GSP of over a 100 knots.
Given
more time I would have tried to reach the mountains just to the south
of
Lake Berryessa, they looked high enough and the right shape for wave.
If
any one has experience in wave locations in this area I'd love to hear
about it. What a fun day!!! Dreams of what maybe possible and how
far
one could go in these conditions is addictive to think about.