Thursday, July 1, 2010

Another no contest day

At the morning briefing, our meteorologist, Walt Rogers, advised us to hold out for a break in the weather in the late afternoon. Glider pilots are an optimistic lot, so we took him at his word.

Sure enough, the sky opened up for the first time in three days at around 2pm. The sniffer was able to sustain on his second flight, so we launched the Standard Class, starting at 1523 MDT. The Open Class was second to launch, and there was very little hope of getting them out the door before we ran out of time. Their Task was cancelled on the grid.

Standard Class gliders were able to stay in the air, but they were not able to get high enough for a safe trip across the mesquite, oil wells, rilles, and rocks around here. Their Task was cancelled at 1559 MDT.

The next couple of days look pretty grim, as the mess of moisture formerly known as Tropical Storm Alex moves into the area.

But we remain optimists, nevertheless.

Here is today's Task (click to enlarge):



1 comment:

Cyrus said...

Thanks for the info, love the blog. Hate the moisture blow out from the tropical storm. Lets hope for a quick recovery.

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?subset=NewMexico.2010182.aqua.1km