Weekday selfie

First responder

When Greg sent out the call for towpilot volunteers last week, Susan Simpson was the first to respond.

She said she could probably do some towing on Sunday, but she wanted to take some time off on Saturday to rest up after pulling a driver out of a burning race car the day before.

However, instead of resting on Saturday, she spent the afternoon extracting passengers from a wreck on I-93.  At least that one wasn't burning.

So, she didn't show up at the airfield on Sunday.  What's it take to get a reliable towpilot around here?

Weekend report May 9 - 10

The weather has been so good recently that we almost didn't feel like complaining this weekend when overcast skies limited our flying to instructional flights only.

Almost.  We complained anyway.

The good news is that we had two days of high quality flight and ground instruction, and some good self-imposed practice flying.  The other good news is that a bunch of us learned from our mistakes, both as pilots and as instructors.

At the end of last year, our club made the commitment to support the certification of new flight instructors.  This weekend, it was gratifying to see how dedicated to this initiative the instructor candidates, Andy, Evan, Lane, Bill, and Keith, are.  The people they fly with are lucky.

A line in the sand

Here's a picture Moshe took on his ambitious flight on Thursday, showing him about to cross the finish line. You'd think that from that height, he would have made it!

RU ambitious?

The latest fad in this club seems to be getting a glider to Old Speck Mountain and back.  Old Speck is about 80 miles away, in Maine.  Tim did it yesterday, a fine accomplishment in the PIK.

Today, for reasons unknown, Moshe tried it in the 12-meter Russia, and he came very close to making it! He landed on the way back in a farm in Fairlee, after a flight of 272 kilometers.

The farm is the one across the street from the Fairlee Drive-In.  His crew got there as the light was fading and the movie was just getting started.

Congratulations to Moshe for choosing such an ambitious task and for proving that you don't need a 17.4 meter wingspan to do the White Mountain run.

Five gentlemen in blue

We had a very civilized soaring day on Wednesday.  Five gentlemen of distinction helped each other assemble their gliders and stroll with them down to the south end of the field. No one appeared to be in a hurry, as there was no indication of lift in the deep blue sky.

Finally, Tim (AT) took off and soon reported 8 knots right over the field. The remaining gentlemen hurried to get into the air, taking lowish tows as a courtesy to those still waiting. Dan (EA) nearly regretted his decision to release low, but he was eventually able to get up to join the others.

Dennis (DC) was able to achieve his goal of summiting Mount Moosilauke and really enjoyed his long glide back home from there. Greg (JD), Tom (2W), and Dan (EA) chased each other up to Gorham and back.  All five pilots reported variable conditions, with good climbs interspersed with uncenterable thermals and sink.

Without clouds, it was not a day you wanted to be caught out when the lift quit.  The gentlemen were all back home by 5pm, and they took their time disassembling, telling their stories, and watching the sun set on another beautiful day in Post Mills.

Very civilized.

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.

Advice to other clubs

It's always a good idea to have at least one club member who understands internal combustion engines.

Weekend report April 25 - 26

Andy follows his Assembly Day writeup with this report for Sunday:

We had a good day for training. Dennis flew the Blanik, (and was first!) then later in the day a little sun started to hit the ground, and the air went right up to 6000 feet with Tim and Dakai going up with it. Karl and I took the third flight, and we averaged at least 5 knots to cloudbase for another
hour in the air.

I can report that the new Blanik flies well, and the only anomaly is that the brake sticks (on) so we'll be looking into that ASAP. In the meantime we'll avoid using it.

In other news the green golf cart is dead. Karl had planned to bring the white cart home for maintenance and we had it all loaded before the green machine died - so we switched them out and Karl will work on the green one first. Note that the left rear tire of the white cart doesn't hold air very well. It's on the list to be fixed.

My first flight of 2015

My season opener didn't occur until I got to Perry, South Carolina, for the Region 5 North contest that I am fond of attending in April.  Unfortunately, due to a rained out practice period, I didn't even get a chance to fly until the flag dropped for the opening race!  Even "better", it was a windy blue day and I ended up flying all by myself after a late start.  Predictably, it ended early.

Here's the whole flight in SeeYou:

Here's the overhead of the end of the flight, North is up:

I thought I might have been flying  between streets of better air, hence the 90 degree jog.  It didn't work, but it was a good thing to try.

Wind was 280 at 10 - 15 knots on the ground, about 23 knots at soaring height.

Cross country flying is all about decision making and "gear changes" or transitions in your thought process.  The 270 left turn at lower right marks the gear change from "I'm racing" to "survival" and "I might need a place to park" mode.   The last two circles are more about field selection than they are trying to climb.  The point that I quit circling and over fly my eventual landing site marks the transition from "I'm trying to soar" to "I'm landing, right now". Making these transitions in a decisive manner at appropriate times is one key to safe cross country soaring.

By the way, be sure to fly a normal size/shape pattern despite the fact that your intended field might be pretty small!  SeeYou says that field is 860 feet long and I'd guess that the trees on the approach end are about 50 feet high.

Here's the landing site:

Thanks to Marshall McClung for retrieving me and sharing soaring stories over Mexican food and margaritas.

-T8

Assembly Day

Andy Lumley writes:

We had a good turnout, (I hope I remember everyone). Willy, Matt, Dennis, Tim, Sonny, Lane, Greg, Mark, Andy L., Bill Swartz, Henry, Steve and Dakai arrived early and we got the tow plane, a golf cart, the 2-33 and 1-23 assembled. The Blanik is ready to go but we didn't fly it today.

Here's a picture of the assembly crew standing in front of the only aircraft they did not assemble today.

Despite a very dead battery in the towplane we managed to get it started and did 7 or 8 flights to get Bill, Greg, Mark and Lane checked out. Others waited patiently, but by 3pm we were all pretty cold so we called it a day.

Tomorrow we'll continue with checkrides and when it gets a little warmer (and the water gets turned on) we'll get everything washed and polished.

Bill Swartz re-covered his Citabria fuselage and painted the entire plane this winter. Luckily he gave us a nice fly-by before heading back to Maine.

PAGC Opening Ceremony

The weather was beautiful as we raised the flags at the 1^st FAI Pan American Gliding Championships yesterday.

Before

During

After

And then the first contest day was rained out.