34 Soaring • August 2019 • http://www.ssa.org
(OLC referenced traces and data will
be found at the following websites:)
https://www.onlinecontest.
org/olc-3.0/gliding/flightinfo.
html?dsId=7336946 (Bill Hill)
https://www.onlinecontest.
org/olc-3.0/gliding/flightinfo.
html?dsId=7337053 (Gary Osoba)
https://www.onlinecontest.
org/olc-3.0/gliding/flightinfo.
html?dsId=7336882 (Steve Hill)T
he day started a bit later than
forecast and those who chose to
launch shortly after noon found it a bit
scratchy. Initially I thought that 12:30
would be an ideal time to take off, but
was not towed up until 1 o’clock. Got
off in decent lift, but made the mis-
take of allowing myself to be lured
north with only 5,000 ft AGL inhand by the siren-sounds clouds that
beckoned. It was clear that once one
got to the southern end of the Sangre
de Christo mountains, there would
be cloud streets which overlaid the
western side of the ridges as well as
the intermountain portions and even
the east side. Winds aloft were, for the
most part, from the southwest at about
10 kt. It was also clear that overdevel-
opment and virga would mark a good
deal of the intermountain region, but
if one chose one’s course carefully, ad-
verse conditions could be avoided.
I couldn’t seem to connect with
that really good thermal which I had
hoped would get me up to cloud base
quickly, so had to hobble along using
helper thermals in order to connect
with a strong one for a fast climb and
a run to the north. We were almostto the south end of the Sangre de
Christos when the Discus and I made
it up to just under 18 kft. Cloud base
was somewhat above 18 kft and,
virga notwithstanding, went well
north. Wheeler Peak was certainly
doable, but I chose to turn back to
the south a few miles shy of Taos in
order to avoid making circles and los-
ing valuable time. By day’s end my
average time spent climbing during
the 5+ hr airborne was 12.82% of
my total time aloft. I would not have
guessed by virtue of the first half an
hour or so on course that I would do
that well.
Gary Osoba flew 30 minutes longer
than I, and thermaled 15.75% of the
time. Steve Hill flew for 3.2 hr and
thermaled 23.29% of the time. When
looking at Steve’s time flown divided
by time spent circling, it should be
remembered that his goal was to fly
as fast as he could, not for as long
or far as he could. If one looks at his
120 km leg six, one sees that he aver-
aged over 207 kph with an impres-
sive 39:1 L/D. This says a good deal
for his fully ballasted ASW 29, the
conditions, and, most importantly, his
decision to fly a line of lift in which
he was able to maintain a high indi-
cated airspeed. Gary’s third longest
leg, 160 km, was flown at an achieved
L/D of 191.26 and a speed of 215.98
kph, which speaks volumes about his
choice of energy lines flown.
Comparing time spent circling is
really not a function of OLC scoring,
although OLC provides the informa-
tion. A low percentage of time spent
circling is because the pilot had the
good fortune to choose and remain on
lines of lift which required little or no
time climbing and, in Steve’s case, is
more a function of the relatively short
time he spent flying.
Getting back to my own sojourn,
from the point where I reversed course
southeast of Taos, I worked the same
cloud street back down the Sangres
and then across the Galasteo Valley,
which connected with a line of cu just
east of both the Sandia and ManzanoJune 22: Moriarty (NM)
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