I don't know Dan - when you have 9m/s lift in a sky like that and the variometer is wailing , "fucking hell" and "fucking awesome" seem like completely appropriate language to me! Thanks for posting and keep an eye on the mountainsides.

Got to 14,500ft and then went sight seeing. At that time of day I'm not sure the wave actually went any heigher, but we managed to get back into it later, not very high, but the lenticulars were then probably 20k. Thanks, Dan

what a incredible sport, right next on my wish list...thnks for sharing

Wow ! What a ride. Brings back memories of 1000 fpm climbs over Mt. Washington in 1980-81 during our Thanksgiving weekend. Many days of frustration interspersed with brief moments of sheer exhilaration, followed by a lobsterfest in Maine to celebrate the few hard earned diamond climbs. And the rotor was always lurking around to punish the unwary. What FUN !

That was a very beautiful sky that day ! Giving high mountain Himalaya feelings, somewhere in between. You were very lucky. I flew one day in waves (vol d'onde) in France south of Auvergne, it was magical, I was 15, had flown less than 20 flights so mainly a passenger, had an old experienced instructor, a very lucky day too, I wish I had a video cam with fisheye to share, we flew between like huges cliffs of clouds, sort of giant labyrynth hidden from the ground, and all of this in that very calm air you meet in waves (above the rotors zone... :-( ), no turbulence, while you see the vario on +6, the altimeter constantly spinning... But we had no oxygen. It was like living à dream , it made worthy all the time spent for learning theory, pushing gliders on the terrain... I had begun glider in order to become à "true" commercial pilot later... on that precise flight only now and then mattered, and If ever I could have regrets this was so close from my best dreams it remains like an achievement. I wish to every pilots to look for that wave's flight even as passenger. Also I had some very basic and smooth accroflight on a twin astir with a very peaceful 70 years pilot old school, very good memories too. By the way If you intend to learn search for your own best instructor, do not hesitate to fly with several and choose who you prefer to fly with. Keep cool, it's allowed to forget career, perfection, performance.. enjoy ! Thanks a lot for keeping filming and sharing.

Nice flight, my only experience of wave was out of Nympsfield, pre solo, in a K13 without Oxygen, the instructor called it a day at about 8500'. It was a club glider so the decison was partly 'fair usage' but the flight was a little over an hour, not bad, from memory (25+ years later) Nympsfield is around 700' AGL, the winch launch took us to about 1200+' above the air field, roughly 2000' AGL from the surrounding terrain, We ran the ridge to about 2500-3000' and the picked up wave of the Welsh mountains, rode the rollercoaster to to about 8.5K' and put in some spin practice on the way back (Serious Shits & Giggle) I love that shit.

What a spectacular experience!! In my club here in Chile we have just received our DG-200 and hope to be getting some wave flying in this year. Regards from the home of the ANDES. Dave

That was great fun, thanks for sharing. Loved watching the reflection of you getting out the O2. Awesome !!

Waves are amazing!!

Gotta love that wave. We were at 15,000' over Lake Pukaki in the Mackenzie Basin in November 2013: just glorious! Thanks for sharing.

Must be a blast to be cloudsurfing like that! I've climbed up to 4700m in a wave last year in France, it's fantastic!

Fantastic video! Wow, what scenery, and what a RIDE! Excellent video.

Nice! Our club do have an event every year here in Norway called "Vågå Wave camp" where we do experience some of the same conditions. This is a video from a pilot friend soaring among the mountains in Norway! Bjorli Mountain Soaring

That was mental! If only I could get wave climb like that around Cambridge (the flattest place on Earth, probably) well done that was EPIC!

Great climb! Great plane! Always happy landings!

Hi Dan, Great Video! I've been to 18,000 at Aboyne...1989...

Now that you are above the clouds...bit scary going back into them to come back down eeh?, My instructor always told me: Dont go in there... there are monsters in there...

Et même plus ! Est spectaculaire la longue période avec le vario en butée et l'alti qui s'enballe ! Merci aux pilotes pour ce partage.

Bloody 'ell mate, good show! Simply brilliant!

Just amazing. Thanks for the ride!

What a stonking bit of footage. Wave just doesn't get any better than that. Cracking stuff.

Great Video Dan, when you are next to the clouds @ 02:40 it really helps visualise how much height you are gaining while in the turn... and looks really really cool!

Like a rocket for a while. Thanks for the upload.

Scenery is beautiful.

OK where's part 2??? he he. Seriously good video guys and good wave. Thoroughly enjoyed watching it as I learnt to fly in mountain terrain and it can be interesting flying and good comment near the start when you mention watching the mountain. Many forget.

Thanks man, was an absolute joy to film. It's a shame that the video doesn't show it, but at around 4:10 it was the only time I have ever seen myself moving vertically upwards relative to a mountain more than 10km away, in this case the mountains shown on the right of the video.

Realy nut seeing your vario stuck ! Thanks for sharing.

amazing flight! (and thanks for not adding music)

Really a great video !! Supposedly you met an approaching cold front (upcoming mid- and high altitude clouds). Soaring above the Arizona desert (even at October) we tend to center thermals not by the vertical speed indicator (continuously at full-scale) but by the altimeter.

great Video and nice instruction how to handle the transition between rotor cloud and laminar part.

Going up? Climb rate indicator pinned. Are you guys back yet?

Thanks for watching and please share the link! Will be back there in about 6 weeks time so hoping for another few cllimbs like this....

Thanks man, hope to go back next year for more :)

Looks like a blast!

that is awesome views folks.. would like to fly that scenery..cool guys

impressionnant l'altimètre !

That's bloody awesome, I so miss gliding but can't afford it in civy street :o(

pedals, mate, pedaaaals!! hahaha ;) beaaautiful video though. My greatest climb in a glider has been at 4.8m/s.. Once in a lifetime I wanna have more then 7m/s - that's a goal of mine. Cheers, and happy landings

awesome video...thx for sharing and greetings from germany

Hi Dan, What a brilliant video thanks; watching it I almost felt I was there! I have no experience of gliding above the clouds or in IMC, so I'd like to ask a question please. There seem to be only a couple of small gaps in the cloud to descend back through and those might not have been near your home airstrip, Would that be a source of concern for you on such flights or is there a way of descending through the cloud on instruments while reliably avoiding the mountainous terrain? Perhaps the gaps are bigger than they appear?

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing..

Great Video & Flight! Thank You Very Much For Using Live Audio Only! Use Of "Music" Is Completely Unrelated!

Pekny , este ze ste se nesrazili se sputnikem :-)

Brrrr....Looked cold!

beautiful!

Great work.

Wow! beautiful video. Great flying! How do you predict the decent from above the clouds knowing that are mountains below? Blessings .

Great stuff. This is the best gliding video I've seen on KZfaq. Am I right in thinking that you won the National Juniors' comp at Tibenham last year?

Santa is an amazing place to Soar ;-) I go there every year with our Clubs Janus CT but never had the luck to get in to the wave. What was the date of filming?

Great stuff !!

The numbers I call out from about 4:15 onwards are the variometer averages in knots, peaking at 17.5 knots.

Wonderful! Thank you very much!

I miss gliding to...spins...soo exhilarating :)

1976. godine iznad Novog mesta (Slovenija), u zoni letjelišta me uhvatilo strujanje altokumulusa u nastajanju. S 300 m sam za nepune 3 minute bio sam 4.200 m, bez leda na krilima i u tih nekoliko zaokreta 30 km sjeveroistočnije.

I watch a glider do loop the loop about 10 times in 5 minutes just now. My girlfriend thought it must be an aeroplane but turned out it was a indeed a glider. couldn't believe what I was seeing.

stunning

My nose started bleeding at around 7:30 . Man talk about an updraft...you guys started to sound like you were breathing helium! Great video. Can a person have any more fun with their pants on?

How do you maintain awareness of where the landing strip is? This seems disorienting to me.

Wow... you hit 1000ft/m between 4:20 and 5:20 mins. on the video. How cool is that.!!

GUTEN ABEND ZUSAMMEN SEHR GUTES VIDEO SUPPER @@@

I see your variometer is in m/s but is your altimeter calibrated in feet or meters?

beautiful

Tank you vidéo magnifique

In the futur I will too my dear friend ! :)

Gosh that was beautiful. I have a question, and I hope you won't take it as trolling or negative criticism. Do you have much experience and/or knowledge of wave soaring? I ask because I have more than a fair amount of experience, and I've gained mine with a LOTof low (1200 AGL) tow releases transitioning with thermals/ridge into wave. So from your video, I was curious why you circled in the wave as if it were a thermal (were you exploring the wave boundaries?), when it appeared that steady flight and/or S-turns into the wind would have found and maintained the strongest wave lift much faster than you did? I would have also positioned (or at least explored) my flight farther up-wind from the wave cloud front to find more consistent lift. In any case, I'm curious about your decisions, and not trying to back-seat pilot. Spectacular day and video. Thanks!

Sick!

Chuffing great video

Hello. What was the highest height? Thanks for the info.

What was your max altitude?

The altimeter was rising the way it does in a winch launch

Nice ride!

Please tell me you can turn off the beeping on the VSI.

what was the maximum height do you reach??'

So how high did you get?

how high did you fly, at what altitude did you put your oxygen mask on? I think I saw it in the reflection.

Respect!

fantastic

Some say they are still climbing there today

Ohhh my gooooodness ! That's amazing ! How can you get 9m/s with a rotor thermals ?! And how do you realised to continue to get higher and higher whereas you're above the clouds ?! In any case this is an amazing and fantastic video thanks to the vue !

Hi Folks, where were you flying? NZ or Alpine Mountains in France/Switzerland?

Someone has a heavy left foot! Looks like slipping most of the flight. Was the lift that great? ie. flow from the turn center?

is there a problem with lack of oxygen if you go too high?

I heard him ask about the temperature. Since there is no engine how do you keep the cabin warm at such low temperatures?

Great video ! 9 m/s (2000'/ mte) constant wave up to almost 13300 ft ! lucky you ))... Hope you haven't be cought in a Foehn hole !!

34,000 ft on a sailplane. Temperature, -15 degrees.

What was your final altitude reached?

question: in the confines of the small cabin why does no condensation or frost form at the high altitudes to obscure vision?

Why dont they put the instruments to the left and right so you can see the nose and not have your view blocked?

Look at that Variometer dance

Hi Dan, Stonking video. I need to give a talk to some newbie pilots can I use some excerpts from this please (full acknowledgements)

Vario went above my audible range at times, there...

Damn Cn clouds are dangerous if you get caught in a strong updraft. There was a story of a man who got caught in such an updraft and got up to 30,000 feet and lost consciousness because of lack of oxygen. Lucky for him the glider cruised down on his own and he was able to regain his mind and land, but not everyone is so lucky. For anyone wondering, couldn't he just point down? - No, gliders have a VNE - never exceed speed so pointing the plane down could literally rip the plane apart.

Hey Dan, i dont know a lot about aviation or gliding. Was curious what the changing tone is for? Great video btw.

It sounds like you have a broken R2-D2 unit. 😊

Very nice video! For me it seems like it is thermals under the clouds, but the minute you get over the clouds the wave starts. Am I wrong? I'm a paraglider pilot and I'm a bit worried that I don't see any lenticularis in the video, which I always use as reference myself in my calculations of safe flying.

Nice!

when i was flying gliders they were only T21 they came along way now

Why didn't the pilot stay in the 17m/sec lift?

why does this aircraft has a sweptback wingtips (raked) like the 787, How does the sweep play a role in reducing induced drag??

Wow.. What lift