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Warm Waloop by Maurice Sheldon
Well, this morning's PPGing was interesting, to say the least. Wind on the ground ranged from 0-4mph, with a few small, cumulus clouds in the surrounding sky.
Bill was in the air before me with a nice forward launch and take-off. I had a nice forward launch as well. But, once in the air, I noticed a fairly large tangle in my right risers. Although I noticed little in the way of any performance degradation of my wing, looking up at my wing was a frightful experience: it was all contorted. I circled around and landed. I tried to find the tangle to no avail, so I started my engine, clipped back in, and another successful forward launch. Again, the risers were all twisted just as before! So I circled aroung (again) came in for a second landing.
At that point I noticed Bill coming in for a landing. As I approached him, he mentioned that the air seemed very rowdy for him. I suspected it might have something to do with the inversion layers, so I decided to give it a third shot.
With Bill's help, I discovered the problem with my risers: one line of the C branches was crossed over. We quickly remedied the tangle, started the engine, clipped in, and did a reverse launch (the wind had just picked up enough for this) and was off the ground. Aprehensive, I looked up at my wing and everything checked out as it should.
I noticed the air was bumpy as Bill had confirmed right about 50' agl, but I was ok with it. Then the air smoothed out some till about 250', where I noticed a good bit of bumps and then... a waloop of warm, smooth air. Suddenly, the air above 250' feet was at least 10 degrees warmer than the air closer to the ground. this was the biggest temperature difference I had experienced in all my flying and it was a bit surprising. Curious of this phenomenon, I must have decended and climbed this border between the air masses half a dozen times.
I really didn't get much airtime (maybe 25 minutes) due to the repeating tangled lines syndrome. Also, I was able to get only one picture. But, I'll confess, some airtime is better than no airtime.
