1800km Sierra Wave XC Flight Today

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

"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

Good glider. Great flight. Interesting weather.

OC

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

Congratulation to Gordon! An excellent flight.

-Tom

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

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

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

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

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