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.

Another wave flight

Moshe writes about April 23:

Wild spring day. Thermals were higher than expected, so I headed out cross-country to the northeast, across the wind. But I found rather poor thermals from near Moosilauke to the Franconia area.  I chose not to go to the mountains which were even farther downwind.

Instead I headed upwind (northwest) to try to get within range of Dean - and stumbled into wave!

I climbed to 13000 feet, but with a 50-knot wind across my course line, the 32 miles glide back home was still a challenge - and the arrival altitude promised by the glide computer was completely meaningless.

I tried to make way crabbing sideways within the up-wave.  But that was very slow, and it also wasn't leading in quite the right direction.  So I plunged upwind through wave sink to the next wave cycle.  In my low-performance glider that cost a lot of altitude!

Back in the Post Mills area, it was very turbulent below 3000 feet, so the landing was "interesting" too. 

Visibility was great, The Whites were "right there," and I could see Lake Champlain through the Waterbury gap in the Greens.

In retrospect, I think the Franconia area was in down-wave, thus the bad thermals. Had I gone downwind closer to the mountains then maybe I could have found up-wave - or not, as the wind would interact with the mountains.  The few clouds I saw in the area with bad thermals looked curly, so they must have been roll clouds. The thermal that threw me into the wave increased to 10 knots up high near the upwind edge. The wave lift was about 4 knots, weaker at 13000 feet, but I was reluctant to go higher without oxygen.

Flight log here.

Three in the Wave

Another cool, clear and windy day on Tuesday.

It was Andy's last day of availability as a tow pilot for a while, and three members took advantage. All three had good wave flights.

Greg (JR) worked his way upwind in thermals until he contacted the wave a few miles east of Breadloaf Mountain. That took him all the way up to 17000 feet. Then he worked the wave crosswind to Mount Mansfield. From there he made a long glide back to Post Mills.

Tim (BU) made a similar flight to the northwest.  He didn't get as high as Greg, but he made three separate climbs to 13000 feet as he made his way upwind to Sugarbush.

Finally, AndyK (2R) headed west at first and got relatively low near Tunbridge, but was able to find the best climb of the day (5 knots) and reached 14000 feet over Carrier.

So far this season it's been all about wave.

Andy headed to the flight line

Inactive member

 

Inventing the Wheel

 Every 15 years or so, I take apart the mainwheel of a 2-33.  It happens so seldom that I have no memory of how the glider's undercarriage is designed when I attempt to do it again.

A few of us showed up yesterday, with the hope of flying, but the weather did not cooperate.  Instead, we did some maintenance.  Don and Greg worked on the Blanik interior, which is much improved, thanks to their efforts.  Tim decided to inspect the mainwheel bearings of the 2-33, and DaveB, Andy, and I helped on that project.

The first step is to place a log under the skid and hoist the tail onto a sawhorse perch.  This raises the wheel off the ground and allows it to be removed.  Once the wheel is out, the fun begins.

The wheel/brake assembly consists of at least 50 individual parts, all of which must be accounted for during the disassembly.  Tim and I tried hard to memorize how it came apart, so we could put it back together properly.  My concern for reversibility prevented me from properly appreciating the engineering that went into this wheel.  Until today.

 Most of those 50 parts were custom designed and manufactured by hand in limited batches.  No wonder gliders are expensive!  I can picture Ernie Schweizer spending a few weeks in 1966 with his engineering drawings, lathe and calipers - to come up with all those shafts, spacers, covers, housings and seals that comprise the wheel.  The bearings, shoes, and pads are probably from automotive stock, but designing a glider wheel around those parts must have been challenging, as well.  I'm sure the wheel was derived from the 2-22 wheel, vintage 1946.  I wonder what improvements were made twenty years later.

 Anyway, Tim and I greased the bearings and put it all back together (unsuccessfully, on the first attempt, oh well), and reinstalled the wheel just as it started to rain.

Glider maintenance, like flying, is challenging and satisfying.  Both give you an appreciation for those who made it possible in the first place.

Wave Flight

 Tim writes about April 17:

Actually, it was a rotor/wave flight.

It was a tough start.  There were few clouds to start and those quickly evaporated.  I took a high tow (5K) to the west because if I didn't connect off tow I would have a second chance downwind of the airport.  Sure enough, I couldn't find wave lift near Miller Pond so I headed downwind before I got too low.  I was able to work rotor while drifting downwind.  I guess the wind was about 30 knots.  The lift was sometimes 14 knots in half a turn and minus 14 knots in the other half.  I was able to climb to about 8500 feet as I drifted almost to Mt. Cube.  Was able to work scraps of wave to about 9500 feet but was never well established.  Wind was now about 45 knots.

Moosilauke, Franconia Ridge and Mt. Washington from 9,500 feet

After 2.5 hours I had enough and was going to "declare victory" and land.  Pushing upwind northwest of the airport I found a spot of well-organized rotor lift that turned into wave and went up to 11,000 feet.  This was real wave lift - smooth, consistent and spread over a large area.  Even though there were no cloud markers you could fly carefully and stay in lift (the sink wasn't bad either).  I was able to explore a little and got up to 14,000 feet in the 60 knot wind.  The high winds made it slow to get around but the view was spectacular.  There wasn't a cloud from Canada to Massachusetts.

Below is the SkySight wave prediction and a satellite image from early morning.  And check out this flight to Mt. Washington in a motor glider.

First Slacker Day

 The weather pattern so far this season has been disappointing.  We seem to get a beautiful day about once per week.  The six intervening days are usually quite horrible, with grey skies and every possible mix of precipitation.  Here's hoping the pattern ends soon.

Yesterday was the one beautiful day.  A Slacker Day was hastily arranged the day before, and Andy agreed to be the towpilot.  The day began with no clouds at all and very little wind.  The forecast was for moderate lift to 4500 feet.  They got the altitude right, but not the lift strength.  It was a struggle to stay in the air, giving us some good early season practice.

Tim (BU), who is the only pilot logging his flights on OLC so far this year managed 75 kilometers.  Greg (JR) headed out to Dean but got low most of the way there, nearly landing in a field.  He got back up and came home.

Local flights were made by Paul and Moshe in the Blanik and by Rick and Shawn in the 2-33.  Shawn then had a short flight in the 1-26.

A modest but definite start to the soaring season.  It is fair to say that we haven't missed a good day yet.

Assembly Day

 After a bit of confusion on the Forum about whether the weather would be suitable for assembling gliders, and a last minute decision to go for it, we gathered at the airfield yesterday and got to work.

The ground was just barely firm enough, and the air was just barely warm enough to get things done.

It was a fine turnout.  Andy, Dave, Dennis, Greg, Henry, Kari, Klaus, Leslie, Moshe, Paul, Peter, Rick, Shawn, and Tim pitched in and assembled two gliders and fetched several others from storage.  It looks like a gliderport again, with two gliders tied down and about 10 trailers parked in the assembly area.

And we flew!  The instructors bootstrapped themselves into currency and proceeded to give field checks to a few members.

Welcome to the 2025 season!