Sunday the 13th April 2003

The sky was clear. The temp was pretty warm, something like 15 Celsius and it was to go higher latter. Thing where on the slow this morning as there was no wind and therefore no ridge day. I got my glider ready and I took off at around 14:00h. I got a 2000' tow agl and release. I looked for a thermal and found a small one. By moment it was good but very difficult to stay in. After a half hour I climb to 5000 asl. Then I went on to Milesburg gap. This time I had brought my DEM (Digital Elevation Map) maps. These map are excellent to understand terrain variation and this was the time to put them to the test. On the way to Milesburg I took Picture of University Park AP and Bellefonte AP.

Once at Milesburg I compared the map with the real thing to understand it in and out. I got another difficult thermal and went to Horward. Got one more thermal up to 6000', and headed south more or less on the ridge. It was one of those days where everything appeared difficult. Tricky blue thermal, no ridge relatively low thermal compared to yesterday. Nevertheless I manage to go up to Tyron and at 5000' decided to go back and land.

3 hours of difficult work had past and I was a little tired of the hard work to stay in the thermals. I decide to go along the ridge and let the altitude drop progressively. On my way I past over Eagle Field and there where 2 gliders being derigged. Then a 3rd one made a low pass above them to land right after. It was a nice spectacle to look at. Around 17:30h I was at 4000 rolling at 70kts outside temp was ok 8 degrees Celsius. The lower I got the more difficult it was to loose height.

At some point I reached 3000' and then I realized that even late in the day it appeared that there was ridge lift. At least a little amount of it. well why not. I was thinking that I would pass once the club and come back to land. So I got to Milesburg gap at 2500 and went back to the field. But at that altitude the ridge was working. It was barely sustaining me at 2100-2300 at 50-65kts but it was there! At one point I got stuck at 2000-2100 near the field And tough that this was it for me, but the later it got the better the ridge, and I eventually climbed a little higher.

Circuit

Circuit altitude is between 600-800 feet agl. 600 for the calm days and about 800 for the windy day, this being on the downwind leg. Remember if you are at the tree top in front of the Ridge Soaring Club, you are at approximately 800-900 feet agl and therefore almost at circuit altitude.

Monday the 14th of April

There was no Ridge flying in the forecast. The sky was blue just like the past two days. The temp was warm and things started slowly. Around 9:45 some pilots arrived. They very slowly rigged there glider as this was to be only a thermal day. It was the appropriate day to do all those little things you have always wanted to fix but never had the time for, witch apparently a few guys did.

I had left my glider rigged outside with waterproof covers. To put these cover on and to remove them is pretty time consuming. Sometime I wonder if it is not faster to simply derigge the glider. I made my preparation for what appeared to be a day similar to yesterday. I got up around 1:30pm. I had a hard time finding and climbing in my first blue thermal. The varios were good part of the time and minus part of the time. Not so many guys went up. To be on the safe side I flew mostly between Port Matilda & the field. the thermal got to 4000, but latter I went up to 5000 asl. Every thermal needed all of my attention to stay in. After 4h of flying I finally landed, derigged packed my things up and stated the trip back to Montreal. I left the glider there, I was to come back in one week for a further week of flying. This first half of my trip at Ridge Soaring had bin very instructive. I had done so much more that what I had expected, I was looking forward for the second half.