Dust Devil Dash - September 10

(From SSA calendar)
September 10, 2016,
Annual Dust Devil Dash - Mountain Valley Airport (L94), Tehachapi, CA.
This is a one day straight out handicapped distance event. All sailplanes and sailplane pilots welcome. 2 place sailplane.........no problem. Pilots are responsible for paying for their own tow, flight, and bringing their own crew.
Camping facilities, and tows available through Skylark North. Hotels and other amenities available nearby. Potluck BBQ on the Friday evening (9-9-16) prior the Dust Devil Dash. Bring your own meat to grill, your own beverage, and a dish to share. Grill, plates, utensils and other necessities provided.
For more information contact Rob Morgan 858-442-6194.

Everyone lands out. Go for that 1000k straight out! Flights have been made into Oregon and Idaho.
Thanks to John Leibacher, current waypoint and airspace files are now on the Soaring Turnpoint Exchange.
http://soaringweb.org/TP/Tehachapi
Airspace files will be updated on the 9th. This Dropbox link will have airspace in TXT and CUB format and already includes a CUPX waypoint file with landing point satellite imagery that works well in LX9000 series.
http://tinyurl.com/DustDevilDash
Jim

I would love, absolutely love to do this event someday!!!!!!

You should make sure everyone has trackers and promote this so we can all watch the flights play out!

WX says the forecast is improving. TFRs are updated as of this evening and will be updated again tomorrow evening.
Looks good.
http://tinyurl.com/DustDevilDash
The NOTAM of most interest is the main Tonopah runway being paved. Action in DOON!
TPH 08/005 (KTPH A0061/16) TPH RWY 15/33 CLSD 1608031900-1610010100
The other runway is 50' wide but in awful shape. The ramp is something like 5000' x 600'. Also a bit rough but well used for landing gliders.
Whatever the Baron tells you... The Tonopah Stsrbucks, Nordstrom and REI never opened and even the McDonalds closed.
Jim

Here's my announcement of a Dropbox Weather Board today for the DDD:

OK, guys... !

It's looking really good, perhaps outstanding for this late in the season. I've posted a Dropbox Weather Board at:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8r23khynu...a965P2W9a?dl=0

In here you will find a folder containing forecasts all targeted at around 21Z - 2pm PDT or thereabouts Saturday 09/10/2016. Each folder contains what the forecasts were saying on those days... Thur, Fri and Saturday.

Notice that there are snapshots of XCSkies, DrJack and TopMeteo. XCSkies shows it most clearly. The best route is north up the Sierras into Northeastern California and perhaps... into SE Oregon. That route shows the best cu markers... 17-18k mst at the best in the Central Sierra. Another possible route is to cross over to the Inyos or Whites and then turn ENE into Central NV. But, this path is not favored... because of the lack of cu cloud coverage.

You can look at model soundings in that folder for several sites. I've added KRNO (Reno), Alturas (KAAT), and Susanville (KSVE). A reminder... BDG is Bridgeport... an excellent thermal profile!

Stay tuned .. Friday morning, I'll update the graphics and model forecasts.

Plans are to prepare most of the briefing early Saturday morning from my home in Palmdale... then drive my trailer to Inyokern where JS and I will fly our mini-Safari O&R to Minden over two days.

I will deliver a remote phone briefing to the Raven's Nest at MVA Saturday morning.

Walt Rogers WX

If you dive into my Dropbox Weather Briefing folders, you will see one with ModelSoundings. These are bufkit soundings using the RAOB.com program to make time height cross sections of thermal heights (Thermal index TI=0 is the white band), surface temp, Surface wind and Lifted Condensation Level (LCL) or cu cloud base.

KMHV is Mojave, CA the closest site to Tehachapi although much lower
KNID is China Lake, not too far away from Inyokern
TBM is a virtual point in the high Sierra between Mt Whitney and Bishop
BDG is Bridgeport, a high mountain valley location between Bishop and Minden

Most of the model soundings are not representative of the best soaring on ridge tops, except for BDG, KTVL (Tahoe) and KTRK Truckee

Walt Rogers WX

The other runway at Tonopah is fine. We used it multiple times during the Tonopah camp this year. A bit rough but no big deal and should work even for 18m.
It is in better shape than the ramp.

Ramy

Everyone lands out. Go for that 1000k straight out! Flights have been made into Oregon and Idaho.

Jim

Love it! Just like XC hang gliding and paragliding but with much higher performance. We need an east coast event like this.

It's looking like Oregon will be the direction. Essentially, follow the Pacific Crest Trail.
Bend? 1026.4km.
Jim

Looking forward to following along tomorrow

Cross-posting for WX.
Jim

.... Update...

Weather still looks on track the same as discussed in an earlier email.

A minor cut off low 500mb moving NW along coast from LA area will help
to destabilize airmass over Sierras. But, with the dry airmass that
means just lots of high based cu 15-17k msl based from the Tehachapi
Mtns north to Lake Tahoe and Truckee. Best route is into S or SE
Oregon... probably along Cascades north of Klamath Falls. it will be
"blue" north of about Susanville.

Take a look at DrJack, XCSkies and Topmeteo... also modelsoundings in
the folder:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jcamnkf7d...-SmfgYwka?dl=0

Launch time at Mt Valley will probably be around 1130am... perhaps a tad
earlier.... to about 8500msl. Winds at Ridge Top Level will probably be
SE 10kts. Surface winds either light W or SE... perhaps switching during
launch.

Overall... an outstanding day for flights north.

Walt Rogers WX