Wave Flight to the Pacific Ocean

In my last post I stated "But nothing can compare to what I experienced there (Williams) on Sunday, September 29, with Kempton Izuno". Well, that is no longer a true statement. What could compare to that flight? Answer: Another phenomenal wave flight with Kempton at Williams! This one occurred on Friday, November 22.

Kempton started a thread on the Williams Today Forum on Sunday, October 17, entitled "Wave Alert: Nov 21-22 (Thu-Fri)". In his post he announced an approaching "backside slider low" that was forecast to arrive Thursday night and persist all day Friday. He explained that this is a type of cutoff low that produces strong ENE winds because of its location on the "backside" (east side) of the coastal mountains as it "slides" south. The forecasted wind strength for this particular event was up to 50 knots at 18,000'. Kempton speculated that if the forecast was correct, it might be possible to fly west from Williams to the Napa Valley, then fly south and cross the Delta near Suisun Bay or the Carquinez Straight, fly to Mount Diablo or other points in the San Francisco Bay Area, and then return to Williams.

I was out of town and not scheduled to return until Saturday, so I read the posts to the thread with nothing more than great interest since I would not be able to fly Friday. But then my plans changed and I returned home on Wednesday! I immediately contacted Kempton to see if he had already made arrangements to fly with someone else since his ASH-25 (FNX) was in the shop. As I suspected, he was already tentatively planning to fly with Pete Alexander in Pete's Arcus (98). But Pete had a schedule conflict that he was trying to resolve. So Kempton agreed to fly with me in Williams Soaring Center's Duo Discus X (MG) as a backup plan.

You may have guessed, since I am writing this post, that Pete couldn't make it. On Wednesday night, the forecast winds were not looking too good for wave at Mount Diablo. So Kempton postulated that instead of the earlier plan, a flight to the north and west following subsequent downwind ranges and arriving at the Pacific Ocean might be possible. Additionally, Ramy Yanetz would be flying his ASW-27 (TG) out of Byron and attempting to fly north. So we would keep our options open and not rule out the original plan.

The potential fly in the ointment was that the surface winds at Williams were predicted to be from the north at 20-25 knots and gusting to 40 knots. Winds that strong could prevent us from even taking off! We arrived at Williams Friday morning and the winds were as predicted. But thankfully, Rex and Noelle agreed to tow us anyway. Noelle performed the tow and took us to the wave on the west side of Goat Mountain. We released at about 8,100'.

We contacted Ramy while we were still on tow. He had already climbed in the Mount Diablo wave and crossed the Delta to the Napa Valley and was heading north. Having an actual data point from Ramy tipped the scales in favor of the original plan to fly to Mount Diablo and return.

Here we are on our initial climb behind Goat Mountain at about 11,000'. Goat Mountain is to the left and not in the photo. The shot is looking to the south. The southeast portion of Clear Lake can be seen at the right in the photo. Kempton noted that the lift was farther downwind than normal, but this was not unexpected since the winds were so strong. (Wind is L to R)

Once we got above 17,000' we started heading southwest to Mount Saint Helena and the Napa Valley. The north and west shores of Clear Lake, Mount Konocti, Mount Saint Helena, and a large fire can be seen in this photo.

Several times during this flight we noticed very short-lived rotor clouds at high altitudes, like this one near the fire.

The fire became named the McCabe fire. It started that morning near a series of geothermal power plants in Sonoma County. As I write this (Monday night, November 25) the fire is 75% contained and has grown to 3,500 acres.

We contacted Noelle to find out if a TFR had been established near the fire. She informed us that none had and that she would monitor the situation and let us know if one was established.

As expected, we found great lift near Mount Saint Helena and climbed back up to our cruising altitude of 17,000' as we headed south in the Napa Valley. The views of the Pacific Ocean to the west of us were magnificent! Point Reyes can be seen in this photo. It is the promontory that the sun rays from the reflection of the sun on the canopy appear to be shining down upon.

And here is the San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay, and the Carquinez Straight. The Marin Headlands, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the city of San Francisco are also visible in the distance.

We struggled to find good, solid lift at the south end of the Napa Valley in order to climb high enough to make the crossing. We finally decided not to cross and instead return to the north. Ramy had reported that he had made it up to Ukiah in solid lift, so we set that as our new goal before returning to Williams.

I took several photos out the vent window as we turned back to the north. Suisun Bay, Grizzly Bay, and Mount Diablo can be seen in this photo.

Another shot of the San Francisco Bay Area.

I zoomed in for this photo to capture the Golden Gate Bride and the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.

Here is the city of Napa.

As we continued north in the Napa Valley, we could see that the smoke from the McCabe fire was now clearly showing the contour of the wave as it streamed toward the ocean.

We found really strong lift as we approached Ukiah and had to fly fast and upwind out of the lift in order to avoid going above 18,000'. With a known good source of lift marked, we decided to try flying west towards the ocean and see if we could connect with the next wave crest. Success! We found the next wave near Boonville and climbed again. We could now fly farther downwind while keeping the two previous sources of lift within glide.

This shot is looking northwest as we left Boonville. Point Arena is on the left and we were heading for the coastline just south of it.

This is looking south as we approached the coastline. The San Andreas Fault is clearly evident.

The smoke from the McCabe fire extended out into the Pacific Ocean as far as our eyes could see.

Here is Point Arena as we neared the coast.

We stopped and circled once in good lift to gain a little more altitude before making the crossing.

Looking out at the Pacific Ocean.

Looking down at the coast.

And looking north as we went out over the ocean.

You can see in this photo that the ClearNav display is showing our position across the coastline. We were officially out over the Pacific Ocean! Now all we had to do was get back to Williams, a mere 85 miles away. Sounds easy enough until you turn into the 45 knot headwind and it appears that you have become stationary!

Kempton took this short video as we turned around.

I took a few more shots from over the ocean as we began our return journey. This is looking north up the coast.

This is zoomed in on Point Arena.

And this is looking south.

This jet was climbing out of SFO. We saw quite a few jets on this flight as the Napa Valley is a major corridor for SFO arrivals and departures. A Mode C transponder is a must for flying in this area!

We retraced our path out to the ocean back to Boonville and the wave was still working at all of the previous locations. But the going was slow as we progressed against the strong headwind. We used the terrain contours on the ClearNav to predict where the lift would be based on our earlier experiences in order to find a more expeditious path back home. We worked our way to 41 nm away from Williams and allowed our altitude to climb to 17,900' for the final glide home.

While we were making good progress and it appeared that we would make it back, we were now racing against the impending darkness. When we were still 25 miles out from Williams, we assessed our situation. We were just below glide to Williams, but in slight lift. In addition, we expected that the winds would decrease as we got lower and that we would get back to a solid positive glide. The problem was that we were only achieving a groundspeed of about 30 mph and it would take us almost another hour to get back. It would be completely dark by then. So we made the decision to return to Lampson Field near Clear Lake and await a ground retrieve.

Here we are at the decision point.

We flew back to Lampson Field at 120 knots. With a 45 knot tailwind we were traveling at close to 200 mph over the ground! We were on the ground in a little over 5 minutes.


Here we are crossing Clear Lake on our way back to Lampson Field.

Kempton took this photo just after we landed as I was preparing to get out so we could push off the runway.

Here is our GPS flight trace from SeeYou.

What an incredible experience this was! Thanks to Williams Soaring Center for making this flight possible, and especially to Nick and Danny for retrieving us! Kempton and I definitely owe you a nice dinner soon!

Extreme Wave Flight in FNX

I have been having a lot of fun flying at Williams Soaring Center this year. I've had quite a few solo flights in their ASW-24, ASW-27, and even a few in their Duo Discus. But nothing can compare to what I experienced there on Sunday, September 29, with Kempton Izuno.

Kempton is a renowned glider pilot known for his long cross country flights. His accomplishments include having twice flown from Williams to Crater Lake and back! Kempton is also an extraordinary weather forecaster. So much so that SoaringNV enlists his services to forecast wave conditions for them at Minden, NV!

Kempton and I had been trying  for several months to get our schedules in sync to go on a long flight in his ASH-25. The contest letters on his ASH-25 are FNX (pronounced Phoenix, after the mythological bird that rises from the ashes - but that's another story).

The ASH-25 is a high performance open class glider. I had flown a different one (25H) at Williams with Kenny Price on a half dozen or so occasions. Several of those flights were the subjects of earlier posts on this blog. See First Flight in the ASH-25, Third Flight in the ASH-25, and In-Flight Shots of 25H From 98.

On Friday night Kempton inquired about my availability to fly together on Sunday. He was predicting that an extremely long cross country wave flight could be possible out of Williams. I eagerly accepted his invitation and agreed to meet him at Williams Sunday morning.

We took off at 09:30. (Note: All times are given in local military time and all altitude references are MSL.) We had just taken off and I was still getting situated in the cockpit when we contacted the first bit of lift. Kempton immediately released us at just 2,000'. He figured we were in the secondary wave and that we would gain some altitude and then push into the primary wave. Here we are at 8,700' just before heading west to search for the primary. (We later realized that we had actually released in the tertiary wave.) (10:04)

Ramy Yanetz, another accomplished glider pilot, took off just after us in his ASW-27 (TG). Here he is below us as we began to push west into the wind in search of the stronger lift we expected to find in the primary wave. (10:04)

The day started off with a high shelf of clouds void of the classic lenticular clouds, or lennies, that typically mark the presence of the wave. We expected to find the best lift just in front of the leading edge of the cloud shelf. (10:05)

We continued west until we contacted about 2 knots of lift and then began our first southbound leg. We had traveled about 20 miles south and had climbed to about 12,000' when we encountered slightly stronger lift. So we halted our southbound progression to climb higher. We pushed a little more west, flew north and south a little, and climbed to 16,000' before continuing the first southbound leg. (10:49)

We noticed that a distinct lenticular cloud had formed below the cloud shelf and ahead of us on our course, so we headed for the leading edge of it. (Wind is R to L) (11:01)

As we approached the leading edge of the lennie, another started to develop right in front of us. We had to alter our course to avoid flying through it. (11:04)

Before the flight, I had asked Kempton what my role in this flight would be. My primary role would be that of Chief Winds Reporter! I would periodically give him wind readings from the ClearNav display. I would also adjust the radio volume, report battery voltage, report our position relative to landmarks, take control of the glider periodically to free him to do other things, and of course I would also be ballast!

Here we have just made our first turnpoint near near the Lake Berryessa Dam and are proceeding on our first northbound leg. The winds were 258 degrees at 43 knots (lower left corner of the ClearNav display). (11:19)

Ramy was still beneath us at this point and nearly matching our flight path.(11:21)

This is looking back to the east (downwind) as we progressed north. The parallel rows of clouds are commonly referred to as wave bars and they form in the rotor area underneath the wave crests. They are aligned parallel to the upwind obstruction triggering the wave, the Mendocino Range in this case. You can tell from the right wing in the photo how much we have to crab into the wind to maintain our northerly track and not be blown downwind. Our flight path is actually parallel to the clouds! (11:44)

It was really easy to be drifted downwind on this day. Partly because of how strong the winds were, but more so because we were flying in relatively clear air in our immediate vicinity for a good portion of the flight. Therefore, we didn't have a nearby reference point to maintain our flight track against. Ground references are almost useless at the altitudes we were flying at because you could easily drift several miles before noticing any appreciable change in the picture below. And as the day progressed, the cloud cover beneath us was pretty much obscuring the ground anyway. We were really relying heavily on the ClearNav display to monitor how our flight track was progressing. FNX is only fitted with a ClearNav display in the front seat. Kempton has a Garmin GPS tracking display in the rear seat. But it doesn't display wind data or as many landmarks. This became an issue later in the flight.

More lenticulars started to form ahead of us to the north. In this series of photos we are maintaining our flight path to arrive in front of the clouds. Kempton pointed out that we needed to vary our crab angle depending on our airspeed in order to maintain a constant flight path. Notice in the first photo how our nose is almost pointed at the front of the lennies (faster airspeed) and notice in the third photo how our nose is pointed more into the wind (slower airspeed). (Wind is L to R) (12:02, 12:06, 12:15)

The ClearNav display is now warning us that we are approaching 18,000', the highest we can legally go without clearance from Air Traffic Control. In order to remain below 18,000' we had to fly progressively faster in areas where the lift was stronger (and remember to change our crab angle accordingly). The winds here are now showing 272 degrees at 47 knots. The farther north we progressed, the faster the winds became. They maxed out at about 65 knots and we sometimes had to fly as fast as 110 knots (Kempton established this as our Vne (never exceed speed) for our altitude) in order to maintain a constant altitude and flight path. (12:21)

The view outside the cockpit was in a constant state of flux as the day progressed. Lennies would form, change size, shape and color, and disappear right before us. The constantly evolving sky was a feast for the eyes. This series of photos depicts my favorite views of the day. In my opinion, an artist couldn't have painted more awesome pictures! (12:27, 12:33, 12:43, 12:45, 12:45, 12:46, 12:48, 13:00)

The last photo above was taken just about the time we made our second turnpoint, just east of Eagle Peak. At some point during our ensuing southbound leg my ClearNav display suddenly went blank. Kempton asked me to reach around the back of the display and try to make sure that the connections were firm. They were. Damn! In an instant I had been battlefield demoted from Chief Winds Reporter to Chief Ballast Provider!

Subsequent troubleshooting isolated the problem to a short in the connector at the remote control. If I wiggled it just right and power cycled the ClearNav it would sometimes power back up, but more often not. And if it did power up and the cord was moved at all, it would power back down. So we were pretty much without wind data the rest of the flight. I say "pretty much" because we were getting reports from other pilots of the winds they were experiencing. Besides Ramy, Buzz Graves (BG), and Luke Ashcraft (SD) were also flying long distance flights in the wave. In addition, Kempton's Garmin displays ground speed data. So we could roughly calculate the wind speed from our ground speed versus our airspeed.

Here we are at our third turnpoint, near Guinda. You can see that the clouds below us and to the east have almost completely filled in at this point. (13:50)

The next northbound leg started off a little rough. We were having a tough time relocating the sweet spot in the wave. We ended up losing about 5,000' of altitude as we progressed north before getting back into the good lift northeast of St. Johns Mountain. But once we did, it was like getting on the freeway. Kempton realized that our track was now back on top of our previous southbound track, which we had said we would try to do when we passed through an hour and a half earlier.

As we approached the north for the final time, the lennies were getting fatter, with less defined edges. They kind of reminded me of the heated globs of wax inside of a lava lamp! (14:44, 14:54, 14:55)

The next photo is about as far north as we progressed.  The lennies in front of us were creating canyon like formations. We were monitoring the cloud situation to the east of us closely in case we had to dive out into the valley. We knew we were getting close to our goal of T-16, but without the ClearNav display we couldn't know for sure where it was. We had our maps out but there was so much moisture in the air that the whole sky beneath us was covered in clouds which prevented us from getting any visual reference to our location. We heard Ramy report that he had turned T-16 and a few minutes later he passed underneath us as he headed southbound. Based on that information, Kempton said we would fly north for a few more minutes and then make our turn. He practically nailed it! (Wind is L to R) (15:19)

We were southbound here when we saw this stack of lenticulars. Kempton had me take control of the glider just after I took this photo so he could take a short video of it. (Wind is R to L) (15:41)

Here is Kempton's video. Notice how much the lennies have grown together in the short time between my photo and his video (~20 seconds). If you watch closely, you can even see them growing!

In this photo, we witnessed the white streaks at the bottom of the lenticular forming. They first appeared at the leading edge and nearly instantaneously extended the entire length of the lenticular and then got brighter. It was like a special effect in a movie! (15:46)

Looking back to the north one more time. (15:49)

We progressed south to Williams uneventfully. But then we encountered 2-5 knots of sink. We still intended to fly down to Vacaville for our final turnpoint, so we needed to find some lift if we were going to make it. We altered our course east into the valley as Buzz was reporting that the secondary and tertiary waves were working quite well. Then we altered back to the west in the hopes of finding the "kind air" that Luke had reported on the way into the Capay Valley. Finally we worked our way to this lennie near Esparto. Notice how the lenticular cloud bends as it extends to the south. If you look at our flight trace you can see how our track followed this curvature. (Wind is R to L) (16:36)

The lift was mostly zero sink. But Kempton worked it with such finesse that we only lost 300 feet in the next 10 miles. We were achieving a 175:1 glide ratio! Some quick mental calculations confirmed that we should be OK as long as we could arrive at Vacaville at 11,000' or higher.

Here we are arriving at the Nut Tree airport in Vacaville. We were still at 12,600' so we progressed a little further south to the edge of the Travis AFB airspace before turning and heading back to Williams. (16:57)

As we returned to the north we were descending to the top of the clouds that had filled in beneath us. We needed to find a hole to descend through. (17:26)

We decided on a hole that we could see north of us near the Rumsy Gap. The plan was to descend through the hole and then run the Cortina ridge back north to the Highway 20 gap abeam of Williams and then head east for home. I took this video as we got onto the Cortina ridge. I apologize for the shakiness, but we were flying at 120 knots in turbulent air! (17:50)

As we approached Williams we could see evidence that the tertiary and subsequent waves were still working. (17:59)

We arrived at Williams and were preparing for a high speed pass down Runway 16 when we noticed shafts of sun rays emanating from the clouds above Three Sisters. It was the final spectacular sight that Mother Nature conjured up for us on this flight. (18:02)

Kempton and me. (18:21)

The FNX tied down at the end of a long day! (18:55)

What an incredible once in a lifetime flight! Total flight time was 8.6 hours and we covered 859 km (534 miles). This flight was the second longest flight in the world posted to the Online Contest (OLC) website for the day. Here's the OLC link.

http://www.onlinecontest.org - Kempton Izuno 9-29-13

And here's our flight trace.

The main lessons I learned, re-learned, or had emphasized  from participating in this flight are:

1. Managing your flight path on wave days is difficult.

2. Judging distances on wave days is difficult.

3. Try to plan three lift sources ahead of your current position.

4. You must adapt to changing conditions (have a Plan B, and ideally a Plan C as well!).

5. You must be prepared to respond to in flight equipment malfunctions (again, have a Plan B).

6. Use all information available.

7. Fly an open class glider at all times!

In short, in order to achieve this type of flight you better bring your A-game. Fortunately for me, Kempton Izuno doesn't have a B-game!

A very special thanks to Kempton for sharing this wonderful experience with me! And thanks also to Williams Soaring Center for making the flight possible!