EAGER for BEAVER

Dave Raspet made this year's first Diamond Distance soaring flight last Saturday, nearly 400 miles to Beaver, Utah. Here is Dave's description of that flight:Mike Koerner had alerted us that Saturday would be good towards Las Vegas but, while Dr Jack showed good lift out that way and winds predicted Southwest at 20, Dr Jack also showed some low Buoyancy to Shear, beginning south of the Utah border. I launched at 1130, climbed to about 10.5k and headed out down the ridges to the east. At Wrightwood I got hammered with choppy, rough lift I could not work, so I put my tail between my legs and scooted back to the second ridge. By then the lift there was spotty and I was struggling at about 8.5k when Papa Victor (Sean Eckstein) called to say the desert was working great so I left and headed out into the desert and found the good lift.I followed Sean's advice and stayed away from the hills and the trip to Las Vegas was as easy as any I remember. At Las Vegas I was only getting about 10k so I had to go around the southern extreme of the new Class B. Got to the river too low to make Temple Bar so I turned tail for Boulder City. While not yet under the Class B veil, I got a good thermal that carried to 12k and let me cut over the corner of the Class B and continue. Even though I was avoiding the hills I could not resist Virgin Mountain and from 8k it worked to about 12k. On up into Utah the lift was great.Just north of Cedar City I could not get enough altitude to get to Parowan so I headed for a west facing ridge, again choppy, rough lift I could not work down close to the ridges. I finally gave up and headed out of the hills for Cedar City and quickly hit good, smooth lift that carried to about 13k. One more good thermal and I arrived at Beaver with plenty of altitude to spare and landed into the wind on the dirt runway.Averaged 47 knots with average climb rate of 2.9 knots. The Ventus should make 46 knots on 2.9 knots of lift so with the tailwind SeeYou showed of 16 knots, I lost 15 knots due to sloppy, inefficient flying. Something to work on next flight.My crude analysis of the thermal conditions says that down close to the hills and ridges the wind was swirling and breaking up the thermals making them rough and spotty, like a buoyancy to shear below 5. At greater heights above the flat, smooth desert there was little turbulence to break up the thermals and it all worked great.One other lesson was that next time Las Vegas is showing only 10-12k critical heights I'm turning east at Clark Mountain and heading for Williams.Dave