Thermal to Wave contact!

Last weekend was the first time I've ever been able to thermal up to a
wave -- what an experience!

The whole flight was bizarre. The weather conditions were scattered to
broken stratus clouds at about 4,000 feet AGL, with weak instability below
the clouds and calm surface winds.

I hadn't flown our club's Grob 103 for months, and I rarely get to 'fly' it
at all since I'm usually teaching in it. I was planning to just do pattern
tows, and I invited my good friend Hal to sit in the front seat. During our
third tow, the runway got busy with other aircraft, so we took the tow up to
2,000 feet AGL so we could give them time to make room for us on the runway.
On the 'sled ride' down, I found a little lift off of the house thermal, and
decided to practice my scratching skills in weak lift.

After fiddling around for a while, I was slowly able to climb another 2,000
feet. Hal was impressed, as was I because I'm so rusty in the Grob. Soon
the thermal died, and we started another sled ride down. Just for giggles,
I decided to fly over to an area about 10 miles away that always has strong
lift in the summer, and found another weak thermal. But suddenly this
thermal got strong -- real strong! The vario said 8 kts, and I clocked the
climb at 500 ft/min... In January! I looked up and was surprised not to
see any clouds above us, even though we were close to the overall cloudbase.
The vario pegged a full-scale 10 kt climb passing cloudbase, and the ride
was rough. In hind-sight, I can only guess we were on the upside of a
cloudless rotor. About 800 feet above cloudbase, the ride got smooth, and I
lost the lift. The clouds were mostly east of us, so I turned west, which
coincidentally was into the wind. Soon the vario indicated a small climb,
but I couldn't center the lift. It took a few turns with weak lift on one
side and strong sink on the other before I figured it out -- wave. While
looking at the ground, I pointed the nose into the wind and slowed down
until our groundspeed was zero, and viola! A slow and continuous climb!
8,000 feet, 9, 10, 11! Hal and I weren't prepared for this, just jeans and
jackets. No oxygen, no gloves, no pee bags. We were getting cold, so with
a disappointing nod, we decided to turn to the south and start our way back
down.

Only a few club members were at the airport, but on Sunday the sun was
shining and several people came out to fly. They were so jealous when they
found out what we did the day before!

What an experience! I can't wait to do it again! Hopefully next time I'll
have my long-john's on!

Chris Fleming
El Paso, Texas