My Mt Underwood Wave Day

I am so lucky the HRS self launchers, Russ Read, Kelly Cooper and Tim O’Donnell have taken me under their wings so to speak.  Late last year I bought a Silent 2 Electro with the FES system (Front Electric Sustainer/Self-launcher) - same ship as Russ and Kelly have. I was worried I couldn’t fit in the cockpit but I took all the cushions out of Russ’s Silent and was able to fit in it so I went ahead and bought one.

I got my rating at Warner Springs in So CA in 1991, a long time ago, when I lived in LA and kept relatively current through ’97 then moved to No CA where I rarely flew gliders but always wanted to get back. In the mean while I flew Pitts S2’s and Extra 300’s out of LVK Livermore which was a lot of fun but then I moved to Portland in 2021.

I decided to try out Willamette Valley but once I saw Hood River I was instantly hooked - it reminded me of Warner Springs with the ridge just downwind of the airport but a lot windier.

I’ve got about 260 glider flights with most of that from Warner Springs so I am still learning and really appreciate being able to fly at HRS with such experienced and nice guys.  A couple weeks ago all 4 of us launched on a typical real windy summer day. I take off last and followed the 3 guys south who were headed to Parkdale looking for the wave they expected to find above the hiway 35 S turns. I made it to the vineyard which had been booming with thermals all week and got up to 7000 feet listening to the 3 guys on 123.3. They were saying the wave wasn’t there even though it was pretty windy. So I thought OK I’ll fly back up the ridge and try up towards the river to see what I could find. I remembered getting to 9000 feet in the L33 over the river on the way to the junkyard late one afternoon so I crossed the river at about 5000 feet and found some good lift over the north shore of the river and got up to 9000 feet. I headed North to the junkyard to see about wave off Mt Underwood and sure enough there was a very localized wave going up literally right over the junkyard.  I stayed in the wave almost stationary going up through 10, 11, 12 and finally 13,000 calling this out on 123.3 so the 3 guys following me North out of Parkdale could get into this wave.  I topped out at 13,200 feet and told Russ to go over the spot on the river where I found good lift to get into the wave.  By the time they got there they were low from the flight back up the ridge and had to go back to the ridge to get more altitude to cross over and get into the wave.  Russ did and got to 14,000 feet  but Kelly and Tim decided to go south and try that down there.  They both had long flights and landed after me – my flight was about 3 hours.

My takeaways from this great flight were:

• I need to monitor my ground position better as I was pushed out of the wave and had to fly back upwind to get back into it. Looking out the canopy to see where you are will help this. I don’t know how to put my track up on my LX9000 yet but seeing your position over the ground is easy and simple
• It’s great to fly in a group and talk on 123.3 and see who is gaining and where.  Everyone works together and calls out traffic and position which is super important when you can’t always see everybody even with FLARM.