Franconia Encampment July 3 - 7

You can tell how much we were looking forward to our Franconia encampment this year by the level of activity during the week leading up to the 4th of July weekend. Charlie and Rick dragged the 1-23 and the Silent to Franconia Tuesday morning. On Wednesday, Pete showed up at Post Mills to help pack up and work on trailers. Andy and Rich aerotowed the Blanik on Thursday afternoon, and Tim towed the golf cart. We were completely ready to fly on Friday morning, and a good thing, too. We had three perfect weather days, and we used them all.

FRIDAY FLYING
Rick was the first to launch in the Silent, humbly accepting an aerotow from Bob D. John Good followed and the two had an interesting struggle together on the lower slopes of Cannon Mountain. Eventually the day heated up, and John was able to complete a grand tour of Northern New Hampshire and Vermont (Colebrook, Newport, Jay Peak, Mansfield, Moosilauke) in the Discus 2. Respectable XC performances were also turned in by T8, who visited Post Mills, and ZP, who wasn't carrying a flight recorder. Thomas also wasn't carrying a checklist to remind him to retract the undercarriage following release. I think that everyone who spotted him in the air that day mentioned it to him that evening.

Back home, local flights were enjoyed by Skip (JS), Andy (PM), Mike (PM), Paul (S1), and Tim (PM), all of whom had flight recorders. For some reason, none of the Blanik, 1-23, 1-35, or Silent pilots seemed to care about recording their flights. We made 23 flights in all.

FRIDAY NIGHT
The annual cookout-meeting at Arethusa started shortly after flying and lasted till the wee hours. The culinary volunteers, led by Judy, outdid themselves once again. The performance of her husband the grillmeister was slightly above average once again as well. There were 40 celebrants, including Herb Weiss and Jim David from the Franconia club.

Tony called a club meeting to order around 8pm. The only agenda item was the presentation of our annual awards. The Most Enthusiastic New Member of 2007 was Jason Cohen, whose parents were there to congratulate him. The Babs Nutt award, given for the highest altitude achieved in the previous year, went to Steve Voigt, who made it to 25574 feet on October 21.

And while the David Shapiro Trophy is not a club award, we were happy to present it to Evan Ludeman, the 2008 New England Gliding Champion. The trophy also makes a good mount for a 4th of July sparkler.


SATURDAY FLYING
On Saturday, Paul, Evan, Tim, Skip, and Rich were able to prove where they went on a day that was consistently good. You can see Mount Washington in the photo on the left (click to enlarge). It is hard to complain about lift of 5 knots to 7300 feet. A few of us made the pylon turn around the MW Observatory, and Tony did it for the first time. We don't know where Thomas went, but from all accounts, he had his wheel retracted during the flight. Sonny proved that he has what it takes to get his Silver Duration leg by flying for 4 hours and 58 minutes in KX. Tom, Jason, and Pete had nice flights in 3J, with Tom demonstrating that you don't really need a 3000 foot tow at Franconia.

I wish I could say that we were just as careful on the ground as we were flying. We managed to poke a hole in the screen house with a wingtip, and we gave a scare to a FSA pilot by deciding to launch while their 2-33 was in the pattern.

The Saturday night cookout was an informal reprise of the night before. Mary emptied out her refrigerator, and leftovers were collected by all hands. The party was at Arethusa, of course, and someone calculated that Judy and Andy presided over about 80 meals during the course of the weekend.

There was a debate about whether to attend the fireworks at the Mount Washington Hotel, as tradition would dictate, or to roll down the hill to the newly-established and much more convenient display in downtown Franconia. In the end it turned out that the Hotel fireworks were not actually at the Hotel, and the Franconia show was at least as good. We may have established a new tradition.

SUNDAY FLYING
Overall, Sunday's weather was excellent, but the soaring conditions were inconsistent. I saw 7 knots on the averager once, and Skip reported 10 (I think he was hypoxic at the time). There were also significant quiet periods, when you were happy to be climbing at all. Tim, Rich, Steve, and Evan all earned OLC points, but Rick did not. Jason soloed the Blanik (twice). The usual suspects flew 3J for a total of about 5 hours, which is a pretty good accomplishment in a shared glider. Thomas made a 4-hour XC flight, still without a flight recorder. It was nice to see Andy Lawrence getting back into flying shape on a 1.5 hour flight with John Good in the Blanik. It was also nice to say hello to a strangely familar looking fellow named Lane.

Tony tried to repeat his summiting of Mount Washington, but wound up landing at Twin Mountain airport. His aeroretrieve was so efficiently performed that he hardly missed any flying that day.

Flying lasted until fairly late, which meant that packing up required a lot of volunteer effort. Thanks to Charlie, Tim, and Andy Lawrence for doing the ground hauling, and to Rich and the other Andy for air hauling the Blanik back to Post Mills.

MONDAY
A pleasantly warm summer day, perfect for picnicking, but lousy for soaring. Our timing this year was perfect. We retrieved the last two trailers, and Thomas went out and bought a flight recorder, in plenty of time for next year's encampment.

SUMMARY
We made 61 flights in 11 gliders. Our total time in the air must have been about 100 hours. The L-19 climbed something like 150000 feet hauling us up, with most of the tows provided by one guy (Thanks, Bob!) We were able to give rides to family members Elizabeth, Sam, Jeff, Renee, Zack, and Kelly. We had a first-solo-in-type, a first summiter, and enough OLC points to allow us to pass NESA in the standings. We renewed our relationship with FSA. The instructor got to fly (Thanks, Andy and John!) We had outstanding parties (Thanks, non-pilots!), and we were even considerate of the wildlife.


I can't wait till next year!