Weekend report July 19 - 20

Seven flights on Saturday, including Shawn getting back into the 1-26 and two solo achievements.  Jeff flew the 1-26 for the first time, and Zach had his first solo.

Congratulations to Zach LaRochelle for his first solo!

And congratulations to CFI Moshe for the signoff and to Tim for the bucket work.

Seven by Five

Yesterday was a hot and hazy summer day with a maximum temperature of 90F, a dewpoint of 66F, and negligible wind.  The air was hot, but the ground was even hotter and thus we had a soaring day.  There were cumulus clouds, thankfully.

Five Slackers made seven remarkable flights yesterday in the heat.

With care, everyone took off safely out of Post Mills, despite the 3400 foot density altitude at the beginning of the launches.  Jeff was the first to go in the 2-33, and we joked about getting his 5 hours on his second solo.  He took off at 11:30 and found nothing but sink, the only short flight of the day.

Jeff getting ready to go

He was also the last to take off, at 12:21 (more about that later).

Greg (JR), Peter (HG), Dave (NT), and Kari (2C) took off in rapid succession.  One of these days Peter will learn how to record his flights.

Greg had the longest flight of the day, a tour of the White Mountain peaks (Moosilauke, Lafayette, Washington (twice), Speck, followed by an excursion out to Catamount airfield and a return via the Knox Mountains, for a total of 339 km.

Greg visits several peaks

And here's another picture of Greg's knees:

The other three had nice flights as well.  Peter tried to chase Greg into the Whites, but wound up making a perfect landing at Dean, his first sailplane landing away from Post Mills.

Dave had the longest flight of the day, over five and a half hours, with a high point of 6000 feet, where it must have been a little bit cooler.

Kari made a counterclockwise tour of our task area, visiting Dean, Montpelier, Sugarbush and Brandon before returning to Post Mills.  Then, at the end of the flight, he headed back out toward Wentworth and didn't find any climbs.  He turned around and made a slightly uncomfortable final glide home.

Meanwhile, Jeff vanished on his third solo.  Just when we were beginning to wonder where he might have gone, he showed up in the pattern and made a perfect landing shortly after 5pm, only 11 minutes short of his five hours!  If only he had stayed up on his first flight!

Andy did all the towing (thanks, Andy!)  Seven tows in total, including one at Dean.

Jeff Solos

It was a hot summer day yesterday - a perfect day for getting a bucket of water dumped on your head. 

Congratulations to Jeff Bernard on his first solo in a sailplane!

And congratulations to CFI Greg Hanlon for kicking Jeff out of the nest!

Memorable Day

 Wow.  Evan (T8) flew 750 OLC kilometers today.

Weekday report May 20

It was the best day in a long time:  low clouds, a crosswind breeze, and cold.  But at least it wasn't raining!

Tim and Greg, heroes both, decided to force the issue and put on a day of training, daring any student to show up for some pattern tows in the 2-33.  Two took the bait, new member Jeff Bernard and Erzo.  The two of them got some great flight and ground instruction from Greg, while Tim did the towing.

Here's a picture of Jeff getting ready for his third flight.  Note the winter hat and down jacket.

The forecast is for more of the same weather for several more days.

Together, then apart

 The soaring weather has been so crummy so far that we've begun grasping at straws.  Perhaps we should do that more often.

Last night the forecast for today was "mostly cloudy," which sounds a whole lot better than "rain all day."  Indeed, the sky was grey all morning.  But that didn't prevent the four desperados from showing up and rigging their gliders.

Here's a nice view of a completely unpromising sky:

Tim (BU), Greg (JR), Peter (HG), and DaveB (NT) launched in rapid succession (4 takeoffs in 21 minutes), and even though there were no shadows on the ground, they were able to stay up!

It is interesting to compare the flights of JR (red) and BU (cyan):

For the first half of the flight, they flew together, advising each other of climb rates and trying to stay out of each other's way in the haze.  They wandered across the river and found their first good climb over Mount Cube.  Then they split up and went their separate ways.

Tim eventually went back to Vermont and found a good thermal to 6000 feet.  He landed just after it started to get sunny on the ground.  A three hour flight, not bad!

Lightweight report

Peter K writes: 

This is for anyone who is interested in the Hang Gliding world. Maybe just Rick…. 

I just got home from the Bobby Bailey Hang Gliding Nationals in Groveland, Florida.

First thing to state is that I do hang gliding competitions for pure fun. Like-minded pilots, a formal task and a dedicated retrieve driver make it very fun. I try not to come in last, but often I am close.

I had three practice days to try to remember how to fly after not flying since last Spring down there. Just like in my Discus at Post Mills.

First Comp task was a 135 km box around the Green Swamp, finishing by flying over Seminole-Lake Gliderport and back to our takeoff. Very difficult in a hang glider. I made it to within 12 km of the goal. I flew 5 hrs 15 mins. In addition to not making it, I missed the first turnpoint due to my well-documented technology issues… Great day. Would've been 7th…. Near zero score. OOPS.

I won’t go into details about every day. On the second to last day, I was too slow and decided not to fly over the city of Groveland to get home. I flew 93 km.

The task on the last day was a 106 km bow tie. I had a very bad Start, behind everyone else. I flew the entire Task alone, which is hard. And that made me think a lot. It was a very good day with 7000 foot cloudbase and light wind. I made it home with 900 feet and 4 hrs15 mins. A great way to finish.

All in all, including short practice flights, I flew 20 hours and nine days in a row. That might be my record.

I hope I brought some better wx back with me…

Milestone

This is the 1000th PMSC News blog post.

Andy wrote the first one on June 18, 2007. I wished him luck and said that blogging would never catch on.

Here are some other posts I remember:

Five days in Franconia

Greg's Private Pilot checkride

Control disconnect at Bermuda High

Introduction to Mifflin

Introduction to New Castle

Introduction to Perry

Lafayette Noda

Charlie Spratt

Peter Betts

Eric's first trip to Mount Washington

Pete and Mike's aerobatic video

Wave flight out of Post Mills by Andy Kozak

Night flight

600 flights in 2014

Getting a motel room in Gorham

Two new CFIs

Don't let this happen to you

Sonny's outlanding

Moshe's outanding

Moshe's other outlanding

Late season flight by Lane

Tim's outlanding

The reddest tree in Vermont

Sam's first solo

Jason's first solo

Don's new glider

Dan showing off

L19 trailer retrieve

Seven days in a row

Best day ever

Coldest day of the year

Best dressed pilot

Tim's altitude record

Rick's introduction to hang glider pilots

Double outlanding

Henry's first solo

Karl's Private Pilot checkride

Two guys discussing the hazards of Post Mills

John Good's first water landing

Three handsome guys

Relentlessly bad

Today:

Tomorrow:

This week:

In spite of the weather

Even though the weather has not been cooperative so far this year (especially on the weekends!), members have been squeezing in their checkrides when they can.  Full credit to the members for taking this annual requirement seriously.

Here's a photo of Greg and DaveB inspecting the Blanik yesterday:

And here's a trivia question: What procedural mistake is illustrated by this photo? Leave your answer in the comments.

Spiffy

Everyone knew it as Perry

 The Region 5N contest in Wagener, South Carolina has just ended.  Everyone calls it "Perry," after another town nearby, but nobody knows why.

The Perry contest is one of the largest on the US calendar, certainly the largest Regional contest.  This year there were 62 entries in 4 classes (Open, 18m, 15m/Std, and Sports).  Evan was there in the 18m Class.

Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate, and half the days were scrubbed.  On the three valid racing days, Evan came in 3rd, 14th, and 5th for an overall finish in 10th place.  It was a good showing on his part, and his successful use of his powerplant on the second valid day indicates that we'll probably never have to retrieve him again out of Post Mills.

The contest results are here, and all of his flight log files are here.