Thursday, May 7, 2015

Weekend report May 2 - 3

We had two great days of flying this past weekend, the first one of the year in which the club turned out in full force.

On Saturday it looked like the launch grid of a competition at the north end of the runway.  Nine high-performance single seaters came out and kept Evan and Andy busy in the towplane starting at 11 am.

The first one to take off was Tim (AT), and the second one was Dan (EA).  If you measure by time instead of kilometers, they had the shortest and longest cross-country flights of the day.  Tim declared a long Task and made good time up to Mount Madison, where the rug got pulled out from under him, proving yet again that Gorham is a sinkhole in the thermal soaring season.  He landed in the mud at the still-closed airfield, and Rick retrieved him before anyone noticed.  In the meantime, Dan, Greg (JD), and Tom (2W) team-flew a terrific flight that went right over Tim and encompassed all of northern Vermont.

This is what team flying looks like:

JD in red, EA in blue, 2W in green
Dennis (DC) flew out toward Moosilauke a couple of times and made another nice landing at home base.

Moshe (RU) had a late start, but was able to fly a big quadrilateral around Post Mills for 200 kilometers.

Paul (S1), Mark (HG), and Jim (US) probably had a good time on Saturday, but they weren't brave enough to post their flights on OLC, so we'll never know.

When they weren't towing, Andy and Evan joined Lane to give some flight instruction.  They flew with Nancy, Sonny, Henry, and a new prospective member, Tommy.  All of them took the opportunity to shake off the rust on this beautiful day.  Tommy is already a glider pilot. We hope he joins.

Sunday was interesting, with only seven flights, as compared with the nineteen the day before.

It was mostly overcast the entire day at Post Mills, with very little lift. Occasionally, the sun would break through, and as soon as it did, a thermal formed immediately.  Nancy figured this out and timed her flight to coincide with a patch of sun, getting an hour in the Blanik.

Meanwhile, the Three Musketeers followed the good weather south to Mount Greylock, then followed it back north and made it home with plenty to spare (JD, EA, 2W). Those of us who were standing around in the shade all day long were very impressed.

The best news of all is that the green golf cart is back in service and running like a Swiss watch.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've never seen a Swiss watch that was worth a darned for towing a glider. But it's great that our golf cart is back in service!

Tim said...

Rick,

Thank you very much for coming to get me at Gorham. Your willingness to sacrifice most of your Saturday and retrieve me with a smile, and your encouragement for me to try the same flight path 4 days latter is one of the reasons this club is definitely above average :)