July 13, 2000
Flyday #30 

There was a goodly number of pilots at Stanley on Thursday 
(July 13). All 5 private gliders were assembled and flew 
with RCE and WCP.

Allison Scott had phoned with a good lapse rate and we 
waited to see what happened. It had been a cool night 
and there was dew on the ground in the morning; the two 
together are good signs of a high day. Another good sign 
was that the CU did not begin appearing until nearly noon. 
It they develop too soon generally it is a lower day or 
they over develop.  There was a 5-10 kt west wind at the 
surface.

BVS, UIL, XGU, BEQ then VKA were launched in that order 
and got away. There had been flights of WCP earlier 
with a passenger and test flight. More on the latter, 
later. 

As usually seems to be the case, CU's developed 
around Stanley and not over it. Slowly, a few puffs 
appeared nearby. However, they disappeared as quickly 
as they appeared, and this quick cycling was evident 
when I (and others) tried to get away. I was lucky 
and caught a thermal right off launch and quickly 
climbed to 3000 feet. However, the thermal quit or 
I lost it and had to fly upwind (toward the airport) 
to find another. In the process I lost 1000 feet 
before hitting lift in the blue, but a CU developed 
over me and I quickly went up. The thermals were 
violent and small - so steep turns, slow speeds and 
strong resistance to being thrown out was needed. 
It took me a half hour to find the thermal that 
got me away.

On my way up BVS (Charles) called and let me know 
he was above me at 7000 feet - so WOW I knew how 
high I could get. Charles wanted to know if anyone 
was still on the field. RCE had taken off and was 
thermalling earlier but now I noticed that there 
was a glider in the field behind Lenny Barkhouse's 
farm. There was not response from glider base but 
Charles went down to investigate and possible 
lend a hand. (More later)

All the CU's were just east and and far south of 
Stanley so there was only one choice - Go east ... 
as  everyother glider had. I got past Gore hopping 
between CU's and flying downwind. As I turned 
around to see the development behind me, I looked 
for thermals and found they were not as abundant 
or organized as I would like. Things were cycling 
down. Whereas everyone else had been over to the 
Shubenacadie, I headed back finding only small, 
weak lift in a couple of spots. Meanwhile I 
drifted downwind. Boy at 7700 feet the Halifax 
airport looked close and the air traffic controllers 
were keeping track of all of us during our time 
aloft. On my way back toward Stanley, I was warned 
there was a Dash8 20 miles north at 7500 feet 
planning to fly east of Gore - and so kept a 
sharp eye out - but never saw it.

The cloud base kept getting higher and all the 
gliders had returned to the Stanley area. Tom 
report a climb to 8000 feet. Because of all the 
position-height request by Halifax terminal we 
knew where each of us were. The cloud street 
east-west disappeared and big CU's were aligned 
north-south (or NW). So Tom and Doug went south 
as I did later. I met them just north of Mount 
Uniack at 8300 feet. Amazing how low the other 
gliders' looked despite the fact they were 
6000-7000 feet above the ground. For me, this 
was the most scenic part of the day, because I 
had never been this far south. Beautiful Long Lake 
was just below with the Lakeland's lakes nearby. 
Rt 101 snaked south with Haifax seemingly within 
easy reach. Actually, it was for Tom who had just 
returned from flying over his house in Dartmouth. 
I could stayed and enjoyed for the rest of the day 
but I had a time limit this day. 
 
After the three of us climbed to our highest 
allowed (8600 feet for me),  I headed northwest 
(into a 10 kt headwind) out from underneath the 
clouds into the blue heading toward Hantsport.  
From here it was down all the way as was my 
intention, I had to be down by 5:30 pm.  In 
the next 37 minutes I dropped from 8400 to 
2400 feet while travelling 24 nm at about 55 kts. 
(note that a quick calculation shows a 34:1 L/D 
but this flight was both into (with some lift) 
and down wind).

I measured the temperature of the air at 
8600 feet and found 1.7 C.  That agrees indicates 
a laps rate of about 3 C per 1000 ft. (8000 feet 
and about 24 C difference). It is amazing that we 
stay comfortable  during our flights, especially 
under the cloud where we have no sun to warm us.  

Larry