Great Winter Thermal

[east6008]

I dug out this old photo from 1974, note the 67' Pontiac down on the road.
This was taken east of Calgary
I was slope flying a 2 meter glider here at a temperature -2 C, when all of
a sudden the wind died and the glider levitated as if gravity had been cancelled. The glider must have been over 1500 ft for almost and hour, and
it was so quiet and still that I could hear it whistle.
There was a high cloud cover, so there couldnt have been a lot of ground
convection, I wonder if it was some sort of wave lift, but the mountains are
over 150 miles away.

[Lavawing]

Karl, the Predator is a Paraglider pilot and knows more about lift than I do. I once described a similar lift phemomenon and he suggested that I was flying in a "convergence event". Two masses of air are moving toward each other, and in the middle the whole sky goes up!

I was on a high pass. The upslope wind died, but the lift became great and the plane sounded sweet in the quiet. Later the wind picked up from the other side of the pass. Super nice flying in those conditions!

--Greg