TT 1000 km attmept

On May 3, 10:31*am, Tony wrote:
Yesterday I was alerted that Tim Taylor was going to make a 1000 km
attempt out of Logan, UT today. *Well it looks like he is up and
running. Should be fun to watch.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/f...glId=0taQlL3JA....

Thanks for all the support and more interest in my flight than I ever
imagined. I am attempting to make a 1000K FAI three point flight
using primarily ridge lift that will require nearly 1250 km to
complete. That is the reason for the early morning start; actually
this was a late start because a minor repair that needed to be
completed on the tow plane Monday morning and the forecast was for
weaker winds in the early morning with conditions getting better as
the day went on.

The forecast a few days ahead of the flight showed we should have a
window for Monday and Tuesday, with Monday likely to have more
sunshine and less likely to have rain. Tuesday was showing that it
should be nearly overcast and rain likely. I was committed to being
at work on Tuesday so that left only Monday for the attempt.

The conditions were weaker than forecast but still flyable. I found
that the winds below 8000 feet MSL (about 3500 feet AGL) were not very
strong and needed to be careful to not drop too low on the ridges. If
you look at my IGC file you will see I got low just after turning
north from Salt Lake City.

We have about 905 KM of ridge available for a FAI three point flight
so you must push the ends of the ridge to make a full 1000 K flight.
This will require either a little bit of thermals or wave on the end
of one leg to accomplish the flight.

I pushed too hard and should have slowed and taken some weaker lift at
Elkhorn Mountain and ended up flying into what I believe was the down
area of some wave from the upwind ridge west of me. I had just had a
good climb from 7200 feet only about 20 miles before so was expecting
the next ridge to work as well.

The weather was not up to the forecast with limited visibility and low
cloudbases when I launched. Many of the peaks were cloud capped to
the north as I started south on the first leg. The forecast was for
nearly 2000 feet higher bases than I was seeing at 8:00 am. I was
limited to less than 10,000 feet on the first two climbs due to clouds
and virga. This made my first leg south slower than normal and
required tentative flying. Fortunately the visibility improved as I
got near Ogden and when I turned north the bases were well above the
ridge. The northern half of the area was still covered in a low
cirrus deck that limited any thermal activity. Even with the
improvements in forecasting hitting the correct window of weather is
still not a very exact science.

On Tuesday the weather was almost perfect and matched what had been
forecast for Monday. I was sitting in final presentations for my
students and could see blue skies, west winds and widely scattered Cu
across the entire task area out the window.

I highly recommend watching the IGC file with IGC Flight Replay and
Google Earth. The low save about 16:00 zulu is worth watching and not
skipping. Remember that this is over a major metropolitan area.

I would like to do this flight first in ridge, then do it a second
time primarily in wave to prove that it can be done. Hope others will
come join us for the ridge running in Utah and Idaho.

Tim (TT)

On May 6, 3:27*am, Tim Taylor wrote:
On May 3, 10:31*am, Tony wrote:

Yesterday I was alerted that Tim Taylor was going to make a 1000 km
attempt out of Logan, UT today. *Well it looks like he is up and
running. Should be fun to watch.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/f...glId=0taQlL3JA....

Tim,
The link gives me a "Feed not found Feed with Id: 0taQlL3JA not
found" msg, what up?

Wayne Walker

On May 6, 3:17*pm, Free Flight 107 wrote:
On May 6, 3:27*am, Tim Taylor wrote: On May 3, 10:31*am, Tony wrote:

Yesterday I was alerted that Tim Taylor was going to make a 1000 km
attempt out of Logan, UT today. *Well it looks like he is up and
running. Should be fun to watch.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/f...glId=0taQlL3JA...

Tim,
The link gives me a "Feed not found *Feed with Id: 0taQlL3JA not
found" msg, what up?

Wayne Walker

Looks like the link has been truncated. Best to go off the SSA tracker
page 7.