US midwest soaring

What is the soaring like in the US Midwest? From the SSA state records
I see that the distances covered and the speeds over standard courses
seem less than impressive.

Are there significant weather, airspace or other factors that limit
the soaring in Minnessota, Illinois, Indiana and the central midwest?

I also notice that the club fleets in these areas seem to revolve
around a couple of 2-32's and a 40 or more year old two seater with
very few glass ships in evidence, not promising for someone facing an
international assignment in the area

Ian M

On Jul 31, 9:52 am, nimbusgb wrote:
What is the soaring like in the US Midwest? From the SSA state records
I see that the distances covered and the speeds over standard courses
seem less than impressive.

Are there significant weather, airspace or other factors that limit
the soaring in Minnessota, Illinois, Indiana and the central midwest?

I also notice that the club fleets in these areas seem to revolve
around a couple of 2-32's and a 40 or more year old two seater with
very few glass ships in evidence, not promising for someone facing an
international assignment in the area

Ian M

Ian,

where in the midwest will you be working? the soaring in Iowa can be
very good. there is usually a span of excellent cross country soaring
in the spring and fall. If you look at the records for Iowa you will
note that Matt Michael flew a 400 km handicapped triangle in his
Woodstock in 2003! That was an unusually good weekend of flying but
the conditions can be good for nice cross country tasks. Part of the
lack of highly impressive records is that the cross country scene is
not well developed (at least in Iowa). There is a handful of us
getting out there in our vintage wood gliders, but we are working on
getting more pilots away from the airport. If you look to the north,
Minnesota has a well developed cross country culture. Jim Hard is
pretty well known for doing many Diamond Distance flights in his 1-26!

Cross Country through the middle of the summer can be dicey. the
humidity is usually higher so cloudbase is lower and lift is often
weaker than in the spring and fall. this combined with 10 feet tall
Corn and fully grown soybeans eliminate a lot of land out options.
With my lousy glide performance i really have to fly carefully during
this time of year.

But the nice thing is that in the spring and fall all of those fields
are open. In general the whole state is just a big flat runway. lift
is strong and cloudbase is usually higher. on my silver duration
flight in April i made it to 7700 AGL at 4:50 in the afternoon.

so no, you wont find 1000 fpm thermals to 18000 feet, but if you can
hang out in the weak lift and keep your land out options open you can
have a lot of fun.

check out some of our clubs flight reports at www.knightglider.com/flightreports.htm

"nimbusgb" wrote in message
oups.com...
What is the soaring like in the US Midwest? From the SSA state records
I see that the distances covered and the speeds over standard courses
seem less than impressive.

Are there significant weather, airspace or other factors that limit
the soaring in Minnessota, Illinois, Indiana and the central midwest?

I also notice that the club fleets in these areas seem to revolve
around a couple of 2-32's and a 40 or more year old two seater with
very few glass ships in evidence, not promising for someone facing an
international assignment in the area

Ian M


You seem to have a good handle on it.

There are no special airspace limitations. Good soaring weather happens on
occasion but the midwest weather does not generally lend itself to
spectacular flilghts. High humidity, low cloud bases and frequent
thunderstorms are the summer norm. Horace Greeley must have had glider
pilots in mind when he said. "go west, young man".

As for the prevalence of old 2-33's, I don't understand that either.

I know some of our forign guests who buy a 1st or 2nd generation glass
glider and leave it at a western soaring site. They grab inexpensive
airline flights whenever they can to get in some spectacular western US
soarning.

Bill Daniels

On 31 Jul, 16:28, "Bill Daniels" bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote:
"nimbusgb" wrote in message

oups.com...

What is the soaring like in the US Midwest? From the SSA state records
I see that the distances covered and the speeds over standard courses
seem less than impressive.

Are there significant weather, airspace or other factors that limit
the soaring in Minnessota, Illinois, Indiana and the central midwest?

I also notice that the club fleets in these areas seem to revolve
around a couple of 2-32's and a 40 or more year old two seater with
very few glass ships in evidence, not promising for someone facing an
international assignment in the area

Ian M

You seem to have a good handle on it.

There are no special airspace limitations. Good soaring weather happens on
occasion but the midwest weather does not generally lend itself to
spectacular flilghts. High humidity, low cloud bases and frequent
thunderstorms are the summer norm. Horace Greeley must have had glider
pilots in mind when he said. "go west, young man".

As for the prevalence of old 2-33's, I don't understand that either.

I know some of our forign guests who buy a 1st or 2nd generation glass
glider and leave it at a western soaring site. They grab inexpensive
airline flights whenever they can to get in some spectacular western US
soarning.

Bill Daniels

St Louis and Indianapolis is the likely location.

I was out over the last week and would like to know what you guys call
'low cloudbase'. My estimate was at least 8000' agl of scattered Cu
with a possible inversion at perhaps 10k, a real luxury for a UK
pilot. Of course I have no idea of the expected thermal strength but 2
to 3m would have made for a couple of 4 or 500 k days in my book!

On Jul 31, 9:52 am, nimbusgb wrote:
What is the soaring like in the US Midwest? From the SSA state records
I see that the distances covered and the speeds over standard courses
seem less than impressive.

Are there significant weather, airspace or other factors that limit
the soaring in Minnessota, Illinois, Indiana and the central midwest?

I also notice that the club fleets in these areas seem to revolve
around a couple of 2-32's and a 40 or more year old two seater with
very few glass ships in evidence, not promising for someone facing an
international assignment in the area

Ian M

Serious cross country soaring is very possible in the midwest. Yes, we
don't get booming conditions like they have out west, nor ridges like
they have in the east, but you can land anywhere so you can do a lot
of flying in medium weather. In the northern illinois area we do a
serious racing task at least one day of each weekend from early April
to mid October. And the airports are a pleasant places to be, located
conveniently near major metropolitan areas.

We have gotten out of the habit of turning in state records, and OLC
participation is low because it's discouraging to turn in our typical
300k 50-60 mph flights, so you may not get a good idea of what's
possible from these sources. For a better idea of what we do on a
regular basis, take a look at the season-long northern illinois
soaring contest results

http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/john.c...ntest_2007.mht

Our club produces serious pilots, including 2nd, 3d and 6th at sports
nationals and 3d at 15 meter this year.

Some clubs are marginal operations with old equipment. Others are not.
My club, the Chicago Glider Club,

www.chicagogliderclub.org

has two towplanes, ASK21, Blanik, Duo Discus, Pegasus and soon an
ASW24, plus many glass private gliders. Cross country and contest
flying in club gliders is encouraged. The other operations near
Chicago (Windy city at HInckley, Sky Soaring, and Beloit) also have
good facilities, equipment and pilots.

And we're centrally located a 1 day drive from the ridges, and 2 days
from texas (Uvalde, Hobbs) or Utah (Parowan, Ely), so trips to
contests in these superb locations are relatively convenient.

No, don't move to the midwest because of the soaring. But if other
things take you here, your life as a soaring pilot will continue just
fine, and your skills in weak weather cross country will definitely
improve!

John Cochrane

On Jul 31, 12:04 pm, nimbusgb wrote:
On 31 Jul, 16:28, "Bill Daniels" bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote:





"nimbusgb" wrote in message

roups.com...

What is the soaring like in the US Midwest? From the SSA state records
I see that the distances covered and the speeds over standard courses
seem less than impressive.

Are there significant weather, airspace or other factors that limit
the soaring in Minnessota, Illinois, Indiana and the central midwest?

I also notice that the club fleets in these areas seem to revolve
around a couple of 2-32's and a 40 or more year old two seater with
very few glass ships in evidence, not promising for someone facing an
international assignment in the area

Ian M

You seem to have a good handle on it.

There are no special airspace limitations. Good soaring weather happens on
occasion but the midwest weather does not generally lend itself to
spectacular flilghts. High humidity, low cloud bases and frequent
thunderstorms are the summer norm. Horace Greeley must have had glider
pilots in mind when he said. "go west, young man".

As for the prevalence of old 2-33's, I don't understand that either.

I know some of our forign guests who buy a 1st or 2nd generation glass
glider and leave it at a western soaring site. They grab inexpensive
airline flights whenever they can to get in some spectacular western US
soarning.

Bill Daniels

St Louis and Indianapolis is the likely location.

I was out over the last week and would like to know what you guys call
'low cloudbase'. My estimate was at least 8000' agl of scattered Cu
with a possible inversion at perhaps 10k, a real luxury for a UK
pilot. Of course I have no idea of the expected thermal strength but 2
to 3m would have made for a couple of 4 or 500 k days in my book!- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

8000 agl is pretty good for this part of the country. the low days
are down around 3 or 4000. it can get really dicey haveing landout
options down that low. tread carefully...

On Jul 31, 11:07 am, BB wrote:
We have gotten out of the habit of turning in state records, and OLC
participation is low because it's discouraging to turn in our typical
300k 50-60 mph flights, so you may not get a good idea of what's
possible from these sources.

That's really too bad, as these are the metrics that I and apparently
Ian, would use to judge a location. Instead of being discouraged by
your club's standings on the OLC, why not encourage all your members
to submit flight then celebrate each time you move up a placing or
beat one of the clubs from a 'good' location.

Perhaps with enough participation, the OLC or some individual will be
inclined to come up with a regional handicapping scheme to bring the
scores closer together. But please, don't not post due to
embarrassment. I enjoy looking at flights from the more difficult
parts of our country, and I am ever forced to move to one of these
locations, I'd love to know that XC is actually possible.

-Tom

Ian,

It can actually be pretty good on occasions. I currently fly an LS6
with the Saint Louis Soaring Association, from our own field just East
of St Louis - you can check my OLC flights for the past three years to
get an idea of the variety of conditions.

Our club is just getting it's feet wet in XC, although we have a
pretty good fleet of older private glass. Club has a G-102, G-103,
and a Blanik, along with the usual Schweizers (which don't get flown a
lot). Tows via Pawnee and SuperCub.

2005 was an excellent year, with many 300k days. 06 was OK, but this
year has been a bit weak, with a lot of low cloudbase (3000' agl) days
that make XC challenging. On the bright side, there is an airport
every 15 miles, it seems, so even on those low days XC can be
attempted safely.

There is also an active XC club in the Indianapolis area.

So stop in and check us out the next time you are in the STL area!

Kirk
66

On Jul 31, 9:52 am, nimbusgb wrote:
What is the soaring like in the US Midwest?

Are there significant weather, airspace or other factors that limit
the soaring in Minnessota, Illinois, Indiana and the central midwest?

Dear Ian,

There are fundamentally 3 different types of airmasses interacting to
create weather in the midwest. The proportion of time each influences
local soaring is different in the various areas, of course. (Caveat:
this is written from memory -- others, living in different regions,
may have different impressions of what's important or dominant.)

1: Continental Polar: The great soaring days in the midwest typically
are in the continental polar airmass that cyclically washes down from
the Canadian plains once or twice a week; if there's enough humidity
to create cu (about 40% of the time, I'd say), the bases are usually
at least 4k agl to 7k agl, rarely 9k -- the land is mostly about 1k
msl. The winds in this airmass are usually 20-25 kt just after the
front passes, and cus street up on the first day. Rarely there's
sustained winds of 30-40 kt with long streets. Long downwind flights
are possible if you have time and crew. Talk to Jim Hard.

Soon after 1 September each year, a semipermanent low tends to set up
over Hudson's Bay, causing cold fronts to sweep across the upper
Mississippi Valley every 2 or three days for 3-6 weeks. When this
happens, the air is unstable and the winds more than 20 kt behind each
front. These days are pretty challenging.

2: Pacific: The blue days in the northern Mississippi Valley are often
due to the Pacific airmass that has been adiabatically dried crossing
the Rocky Mountains. This airmass may dominate the northern tier of
states for 1-3 weeks when the polar jet crosses Canada without dipping
south, which happens 3 or 4 times a year. The top of the usable lift
is relatively high, but it's all blue; winds tend to be light. Our
Indian Summer occurs if this happens in September-October, and some
years brings weeks of warm, sunny conditions.

3 Gulf: The difficult days are dominated by the humid gulf airmass.
This brings lower bases, 2k to 4k agl, haze, southerly winds, and
challenging xc conditions. I live in Wisconsin; up here, the gulf
airmass shows up cyclically ahead of the intruding continental polar
airmass, so these days tend to have strong southerly winds and low
cloudbase. Further south, the gulf airmass dominates more, and the
winds are not so strong, and I think the bases are a little higher.
Afternoon popcorn thunderstorms are common.

4: Occlusions. Sometimes the cyclicic rhythm of frontal movement
slows down, and these airmasses simply slop around over each other,
creating occluded fronts, which, especially in the late fall (mostly
after soaring is long over), can create 2-3 weeks of continually
overcast weather. Traditionally these don't happen between the middle
of June and the middle of September.

Your Midwest soaring career will be most satisfying if you have a job
that allows you to skip off to the gliderport for 2-3 days after each
cold front comes through, and stay at work otherwise.

And a benefit of soaring around here is that nearly every bean field
or hayfield is fairly flat and landable...

DJ

On Aug 1, 9:13 am, danlj wrote:
On Jul 31, 9:52 am, nimbusgb wrote:

What is the soaring like in the US Midwest?

Are there significant weather, airspace or other factors that limit
the soaring in Minnessota, Illinois, Indiana and the central midwest?

Dear Ian,

There are fundamentally 3 different types of airmasses interacting to
create weather in the midwest. The proportion of time each influences
local soaring is different in the various areas, of course. (Caveat:
this is written from memory -- others, living in different regions,
may have different impressions of what's important or dominant.)

1: Continental Polar: The great soaring days in the midwest typically
are in the continental polar airmass that cyclically washes down from
the Canadian plains once or twice a week; if there's enough humidity
to create cu (about 40% of the time, I'd say), the bases are usually
at least 4k agl to 7k agl, rarely 9k -- the land is mostly about 1k
msl. The winds in this airmass are usually 20-25 kt just after the
front passes, and cus street up on the first day. Rarely there's
sustained winds of 30-40 kt with long streets. Long downwind flights
are possible if you have time and crew. Talk to Jim Hard.

Soon after 1 September each year, a semipermanent low tends to set up
over Hudson's Bay, causing cold fronts to sweep across the upper
Mississippi Valley every 2 or three days for 3-6 weeks. When this
happens, the air is unstable and the winds more than 20 kt behind each
front. These days are pretty challenging.

2: Pacific: The blue days in the northern Mississippi Valley are often
due to the Pacific airmass that has been adiabatically dried crossing
the Rocky Mountains. This airmass may dominate the northern tier of
states for 1-3 weeks when the polar jet crosses Canada without dipping
south, which happens 3 or 4 times a year. The top of the usable lift
is relatively high, but it's all blue; winds tend to be light. Our
Indian Summer occurs if this happens in September-October, and some
years brings weeks of warm, sunny conditions.

3 Gulf: The difficult days are dominated by the humid gulf airmass.
This brings lower bases, 2k to 4k agl, haze, southerly winds, and
challenging xc conditions. I live in Wisconsin; up here, the gulf
airmass shows up cyclically ahead of the intruding continental polar
airmass, so these days tend to have strong southerly winds and low
cloudbase. Further south, the gulf airmass dominates more, and the
winds are not so strong, and I think the bases are a little higher.
Afternoon popcorn thunderstorms are common.

4: Occlusions. Sometimes the cyclicic rhythm of frontal movement
slows down, and these airmasses simply slop around over each other,
creating occluded fronts, which, especially in the late fall (mostly
after soaring is long over), can create 2-3 weeks of continually
overcast weather. Traditionally these don't happen between the middle
of June and the middle of September.

Your Midwest soaring career will be most satisfying if you have a job
that allows you to skip off to the gliderport for 2-3 days after each
cold front comes through, and stay at work otherwise.

And a benefit of soaring around here is that nearly every bean field
or hayfield is fairly flat and landable...

DJ

Check out OLC for Caesar Creek Soaring Club. We have had some very
good soaring conditions this year including 8 days at Sports Class
Nationals.

Jim Price

77