Thursday, May 24, 2012

Annular Eclipse Soaring

I had been eagerly awaiting the availability of the "new" Schempp-Hirth Duo Discus X at Williams Soaring Center for several months. I say "new" because it is a rebuilt salvaged glider that the insurance company totaled after the previous owner put it through a fence during landing. It took its maiden flight on May 5, 2012 and I got on the schedule at the first opportunity, which for Kenny Price and me ended up being Sunday, May 20, 2012.

What I didn't know at the time I scheduled the flight was that it was also the same day as the annular eclipse. As the day approached and the eclipse started to get mentioned in the news, Kenny and I discussed it and the fact that we would have to be mindful of the eclipse during our flight. After all, we were going to be partaking in an activity that relies heavily on the sun's ability to heat the surface of the earth. Any blockage of the sun's rays, whether it be by clouds or the moon, would in theory have an effect on the lift. This is evident on classic thermal days that "OD" (over develop) as the clouds become so large that they block the sun's rays from reaching the ground and effectively shut down the thermal activity locally.

We weren't too concerned though as the eclipse wasn't scheduled to begin until around 5:15 pm when the day is typically winding down anyways. But regardless, if we were still flying we would want to make sure we were poised for a safe return to Williams. The more I thought about this as the day approached, the more I realized what a wonderful opportunity this was to create a laboratory experiment in a real-world environment. I felt that if we could be flying in lift when the eclipse began, we would be able to observe how it effected the lift, if there still was any. And if we were lucky enough, there would be clouds to filter the sun so that we could look at it, albeit briefly, and see the moon crossing in front of the sun. I decided that we would take off later in the afternoon to maximize the probability that we would still be flying when the eclipse began. The plan was set. The only question was, would Mother Nature cooperate?

The day arrived and I felt like a kid on Christmas morning! I arrived at Williams to find the beautiful ship ready to go.


Its cockpit is outfitted with all the latest avionics equipment that I have become familiar with in the previous Duo Discus at Williams (GPS, flight computer, transponder, ClearNav display) and the layout is almost identical. No surprises here.


The surprises began when we took off. This is without a doubt the nicest flying glider I have ever flown! Its controls are light and the glider is quick to respond to pilot inputs. But what really sets this gilder apart from the others I've flown is how quiet it is! It is the closest I have come to experiencing the "silent" flight everyone thinks that soaring must be.

We towed out to the Mendocino mountain range and got off at the Tree Farm in a nice area of lift. I was in heaven flying this glider (literally and figuratively)! In no time we were above the crest of the Mendocinos and we progressed north. He we are thermalling with another glider from Williams, an ASW-27, which I hope to become acquainted with soon!


Before I knew it, we had progressed to Black Butte Mountain, the farthest north I had been. Kenny wanted to go to Yolla Bolla Peak, something we had wanted to do for a long time but the conditions never cooperated. But between us and Yolla Bolla was a big blue hole. And since we started late, we knew we would be taking a chance to get to Yolla Bolla and connect with the lift we could see there and still get back. We decided it was a risk worth taking. Here we are almost to Yolla Bolla Peak.


You can see it on the ClearNav display (129 Yola P). Also note the relationship to Mount Anthony (9 Antny) on the display.


Mount Anthony is the closest of the two peaks with a little snow still on them.


We turned Yolla Bolla Peak and started our return to the south. Here we are looking across the Sacramento Valley and the lift line on the Sierras is evident. The snow capped peak in the center of the picture is Mount Lassen, which I visited last summer out of Minden with Rick Walters. See my post of that flight on my Blog chronicling my Minden flights at: Minden to Mount Lassen Flight


We arrived back in the vicinity of Black Butte Mountain and there was still good lift there. And there was evidence of good lift at Alder Springs just to the southeast of us. But beyond that, nothing but blue all the way back to Williams. Hmmm, what to do? The start of the eclipse was still more than 40 minutes off. If we continued south, the flight would be essentially over and we would have to return to Williams. So we decided to see how long we could just "hang-out" at the Black Butte gas station and see if we could make it until the eclipse began.

This flying was incredibly fun. We explored the entire area of lift trying to stay as close to cloud base as possible. It was good practice to try and read the ever changing clouds and to repeatedly climb back up to cloud base. But the day was getting weaker, would we be able to last until the start of the eclipse?

The answer, of course, was yes! I was so engrossed in the flying that I lost track of time when all of a sudden Kenny said "look, it's starting". The next series of photos were the best I got in the first half hour of the eclipse. The sun is very small in the photos, but the bite taken out by the moon gets larger as time goes on.












Whenever I take photos while flying, I never know for sure what I have captured until after the flight and I have downloaded the pictures to my computer. It is truly a point and shoot and hope endeavour. Knowing this, I took about 30 pictures of the eclipse. Timing was crucial. Wait until the cloud cover was enough, but not too much and shoot. I knew that many would not turn out. But I was quite surprised by how visually striking some of the "bad" photos were. Here are the best of the worst!






After a half hour into the eclipse there was still no appreciable degradation to the weak late afternoon lift. I was flying and noticed some roiling wispy clouds just beyond the clouds that had been serving as our eclipse observation base. I went out to explore them to see if they would develop into full blown lift. Nothing. I turned 180 degrees to return to our safe zone and.... uh oh! It was obvious that the lift was shutting down. We could actually see the clouds disappearing right before our eyes! They had turned from beautiful milky white to a darkening grey and they were collapsing in on themselves. We knew it was time to go!

At this point we were still near Black Butte Mountain, more than 50 miles away from Williams! We made our way over to the Alder Springs gas station and put the last few drops of gas in the tank that that station was dispensing as they were turning off the lights and locking up. From there we began our 46 mile final glide back home.

We couldn't just fly back to Williams as the proverbial crow flies. We knew we had to stay as high in the mountains as we could where the sink was minimal. Here we are passing Saint Johns Mountain. At this point we were at about 7,000 feet MSL and still about 35 miles out. But with a glide ratio approaching 50:1, we knew we were home free at this point.




Once we entered the Sacramento Valley, we started increasing our speed to set up for a high speed pass at the airport before landing. It was amazing! We were doing 120 knots and Kenny and I could communicate in normal conversational tones without having to yell at each other. We performed the high speed pass and landed just as the eclipse was reaching its maximum, a little more than four hours after we took off. Much to my surprise, Noelle had videotaped us!


What a great first flight this turned out to be. A special thanks to Rex and the rest of the crew at Williams Soaring Center for making this glider better than new! I look forward to many more great flights in it.