Flew in a wave for 4.5 hours. After climbing up to 12,000 ft over Mt. Rose, went down to Carson Valley where Yuliy reported 5 to 7 knots of wave between Washoe lake and Mt. Rose. But the wind wasn't too strong (around 16 kts), and it wasn't until I lost to 10,500 ft when I finally caught the wave Yuliy reported. Once in a stable spot, the wave (more like a wavelet) consistently gave me a lift to 18,000 ft. Then I cruised south to Feele Peak. This was the best part of this flight. I was flying at 100 kts at 17,900 ft without loosing any altitude. Then I headed to Topaz Lake where Yuliy again reported another wave. Between Feel Peak and Topaz Lake, the air was unpleasantly quiet, but there was surely a wave over Topaz Lake. This one was very weak, and gave me only 1 to 1.5 knots, so I decided to dump some water.

However, when I operated the dump lever, there was a cracking sound, and the water didn't dump. I suspected that either cables in the water dumping mechanism or the water in wings froze up, or both. The glider was flying fine otherwise, and Yuliy was further south then, so I was tempted to keep flying, but the cracking sound clearly indicated that something broke inside the glider. So, I decided to head back to Truckee while there is still daylight left to do any troubleshooting. Except for using a wavelet 5 miles north east of Feel Peak, I almost headed straight back to Truckee. I arrived near the airport, and operated the dumping water again, but it wasn't still working. I wasn't sure what was happening, but the water freeze in the wings was still a possibility, so I stayed between 9,000 ft and 10,000 ft for about 1.5 hour to melt it as much as possible. I tried slow flights and stalls a few times to see if there is any uneven load on the wings. Finally, I felt comfortable with landing with the situation I was given, so I landed on rwy 19 as usual. The landing was pretty normal, and I thought I was able to dump all water in the air after all the troubles. But when my left wing gently dropped on the ground, I learned that I wasn't. In fact, I still had all water I loaded before the take-off. I was glad that I didn't have too much water today (I had 24 gallons on wings and 3.5 litter in the tail).

After landing, Mike Mayo helped me to figure out what went wrong. It turned out that a tiny plastic clamp that attached the dumping cable to the wall came off. The cracking sound was from the plastic clamp. Without the clamp, the cable loosely hanged in the cockpit, and couldn't sustain enough tension to open the dump holes. If I knew, I could have pulled the cables by hand to open the dump holes. I was glad that it wasn't anything more serious that broke! I think this is what happened; the water around dump holes under the wings froze, and locked in the valve. When I pulled the levers forward, the cables couldn't move the valves, got too tight, and released themselves from the cockpit wall by breaking the clamp.


Flying higher than clouds. The cloudbase was around 13,000 ft, and I was at 17,700 ft in this picture.

Flew 234km
More pictures can be found here.