Grounded..

..No, not for staying out past curfew (although I probably did), but because of the weather.

It looked discouraging again this morning when I got up, but then it looked more so the day before and it turned out to be a beautiful day. We had our pilot's meeting and headed for Sugar again. Upon arrival, the rainclouds to the northeast continued on their merry way in that direction and the friendly cumulus clouds checkered the sky to the southwest, working their way in our direction. All looked great for an epic soaring day, except for one thing - IT WAS BLOWING LIKE STINK!

Nonetheless (and always the optomist), Mike eventually posted the route that the task committe worked long and hard deliberating over. It was basically a long, downwind flight to the south end of Summer Lake. The sticking point was a canyon between the first and second waypoints which could potentially contain some dangerous rotors in the high winds. Eventually, a second task was proposed as a backup, which turned upwind before the dangerous canyon and ended at headquarters.

We all assembled our wings, hoping for the winds to subside sufficiently for us to safely fly. I checked the velocity with my wind meter and recorded the peak gusts at around 28 mph - pretty strong for many of us. We waited..and waited..and waited. I checked again, and this time it peaked around 32 mph. Worse yet, there were high cirrus clouds with imbedded lenticulars - sure signs of screaming winds - working their way in our direction. Even if there were sufficient heating to create lift, chances were good that it would be blown horizontal not far above the ridge. This would create a hazardous situation for anyone flying a wing with insufficient penetration to get back ahead of the ridge, and landing behind a ridge in high winds is not a good idea due to a dangerous condition called rotor.

After watching Dave Scott do aerobatics with his Zagi (a small radio-controlled wing) for awhile, it was agreed to make some changes to the task. Mike agreed to move the window back awhile to see if conditions would improve, and to also open the start window rather than have it set at predetermined times. Basically, the clock would start when one left the start cylinder rather than at 15 minute intervals, which is customary.

Eventually, a couple of pilots left the hill, one in a high-performance wing and one in a lower-performance glider. Within a few minutes of their launch, Mike announced that the task was closed, which raised a loud applause from the pilots. Most pilots commenced to disassemble their wings while a brave few decided to fly the conditions and see what happened. No one who launched got very high, but at least one made it to Lakeview in the strong tailwind. I watched a couple of them launch and decided that the benefits fell short of the risks, so I too disassembled my wing.

The forecast for the remainder of the week calls for more of the same - high winds and iffy conditions. I sure hope the weather service is being pessimistic...