First Soaring Report - Jan. 17th
The soaring conditions are not like any I have ever seen. For example,this morning, the wind was out of the North. That is not a good thing when the ridges all run north/south. I went up in the DG 1000 with an instructor to learn how to capitalize on the channeled lift that would get caught between the ridges and explore the ridge lift itself, as it arose (literaly). We had some successs and I enjoyed the flight. The next time the DG launched, the wind had moved around to the north/northwest and some wave developed. Now this is not what I know as wave. The island off the coast (about 1,500' high) created the lift. The wave reached a height of 2,000'. Considering the fact that the altitude limits over the field are 2,000', that was OK. If one can skim the ridges at 50' ,one can have a nice flight. Altitude restcitions over the ridge east of the field are 5,000' and a few ridges back, 7500'. This is not a place to do cross country based on nice altitude bands. But it is a place to do ridge soaring.
Jan. 30- Soaring on the west coast of the North Island is an ever-changing adventure. The cloud bases are often very low. Then the higher hills, above 4,000’ are obscured. So the pilots work a narrow altitude band along the first or second ridge line.
But what fun they have. The sky washes intoTasman Sea, a vibrant blue that is just a bit more turquoise than the cold blue of a Texas winter day. The mountains, with their green, rugged lines, make a challenging landscape.
Some days the soaring is easy. While I was flying the PW 5 today, the winds turned 180 degrees without warning. The clouds stayed in place but the lift migrated. The meandering pockets of lift gave me every challenge I could want. Was the lift to the right or the left of the pinnacle? What fun it was to find the really intense lift-6up- and dig a wing into the lift and fight back to cloud base. Having only a thousand feet to work, everything came in short bursts.Yes, this is an engaging terrain.
An Island off the Auckland Coast
