Weekend report June 26 - 27

I don't know what happened on Saturday, but on Sunday Thomas made nine instructional flights (Thanks, Thomas).

Blogshift

I've been asked to officiate at another gliding contest, and I'm headed to New Mexico tomorrow.

You'll just have to talk amongst yourselves until I get back, on July 12.

I have started another blog, in case you want to read about the contest.

Night flight

Every year the President of the club and the chief flight instructor contend for the honor of claiming the latest daylight landing of the year in the Champ and the Cub, respectively.

As I sit here typing at 8:40 pm, Andy is doing his touch-and-goes, circling the house, thumbing his nose at me, knowing full well that I forgot this year and had a beer, which takes me out of contention. Rats!

Wait till next year.

Half a dozen slackers

It was a nice day today, with cloudbases reaching almost 7000 feet before it was over.

Tony (7H) took off first and flew to Cabot, then over to Dean, then...nowhere. It was another one of those missed photo opportunities. If his crew had remembered to bring a camera, we would have had another picture of a glider on the ground with a fantastic looking sky as the backdrop.

Despite his landout, Tony beat Tim (PM) on the OLC by a couple of kilometers. Tim did a double out-and-return to Cookeville and Mount Moosilauke.

Tom (TH) and Matt (89) flew locally, and Evan (T8) limped home after almost landing out at Twin Mountain (288 km, not bad).

Thomas (ZP) had a nice flight (as usual), made a textbook approach and landing (as usual), and, as usual, refused to publish his flight log. What a spoilsport.

Meanwhile, Christopher made a fuel run, endured a fuel transfer, ran wings, and generally helped out on the ground (Thanks, Christopher!)

Two flights

Tony (7H) needed only a few more feet of altitude to make the pylon turn around the Mount Washington summit yesterday. He had to settle for peering into the Observatory windows as he flew by on the west side. Tony reports that there is still some snow in the north facing cols.

Meanwhile, S2, who would like to claim a long flight, cheated...twice. At the end, I didn't have enough height to fly across Lake Fairlee.

Solstice

Today will be 15 hours 28 minutes long. I hope you enjoy it.

I'm going flying.

Weekend report June 18 - 20

Well, it wasn't an official long weekend, but the Slackers made it into one.

On Friday we divided our forces and flew at Sugarbush and Post Mills. It was the first time in memory that PMSC members talked to each other in the air while flying from two different places. Tim (PM), Evan (T8), Matt (89), and Kevin (6Q) took off at Post Mills and enjoyed some nice flights in variable conditions. Evan made it to Mount Washington and announced that he expected trouble getting back. His crew didn't get too excited, and sure enough, Evan got home in time to do some towing.

Meanwhile, Tom (TH), Rick (S2), Thomas (ZP), and Tony (7H) got three tows for the price of four at Sugarbush. We ran up and down the Mad River valley, which seems to be the thing you do there.

On Saturday, back at Post Mills, we found the summerlike conditions were sufficient for local flying and lessons, but not quite good enough to go anywhere. Evan and Bill (3J) gave it a shot but elected to stay local. Our new students - Chris, Paul K, Alexander - got two flights each and all made good progress. All 14 flights were made possible by our new towpilot, Kent (Thanks, Kent).

Saturday ended with a great cookout, attended by

Andrew, Andy, Anne, Bill, Creighton, Dirk, Ella, Elinor, Evan, Gretta, Ian, Jill, Jill, Judy, Kent, Kevin, Marsha, Mary, Mike, Nathan, Olivia, Paul, Paul, Peter, Petey, Sonny, Sue, Sue, Thomas, Tom, Rich, Rick

and the food and beverage providers deserve special emphasis.

The three-day warming trend continued through Sunday. We made seven flights on a pleasant but windy day. Thanks to Thomas and Doug for instructing and towing.

Dr. Jack

This may be old news but I didn't know... Dr. Jack's BLIP soaring forecasts are now free (the whole site). All you have to do is register. After you register look at the NAM blipmaps for the northeast (I find these the most useful). To get started look at the maps for thermal updraft velocity (how fast the thermals are going up), buoyancy/shear ratio (if the wind will break up the thermals, above 5 is good), critical height (how high a glider will top out) and Cu Cloudbase (where the bottom of the clouds are). Then don't trust anything you've seen.

http://www.drjack.info/

Tim

Statistics for April/May

Here are the totals for the club ships so far this season:

Total tows - 97

L-13 42 flts 21:51 hrs

2-33 14 flts 5:49 hrs

304 8 flts 12:37 hrs

1-23 8 flts 10:15 hrs

total for club gliders 72 flts 50:32 hours

Thanks for filling out the log sheets. They have been pretty complete.

Tim

Rumors

There has been a fair amount of news recently, but none of it has been published. A possible explanation is that your PMSC News editor has been out of town, and nobody has volunteered to write it up (that's a hint).

Consequently, the following can be considered rumor, not news:

1. Tony had a good flight in 7H at Sugarbush at the end of May. We look forward to seeing him back at Post Mills.

2. Tom has been busy practicing in TH, and is getting more comfortable in his new plane.

3. In an effort to avoid this weekend's weather, Kevin, Tim, Christopher, and Evan flew on Friday. Kevin had the best results, but you know how he can tell stories.

4. A sculpture is underway on the field.

5. Rick is dodging thunderstorms in South Carolina