Summertime, and the living is easy

Happy Solstice!

Today is the longest day of the year, but it isn't the day with the latest sunset.  That day will be Wednesday, June 27.  The sunset will occur on that day at 8:36pm, almost two minutes later than today.  Tonight will last only 8 hours and 32 minutes.

And Happy Birthday to the Solstice Babies: Lane, Andy, Tony, and Sherry!

Solstice babies

Happy Birthday to Andy, Tony, Sherry, and Lane, all of whom were born on this date, roughly.

Did I miss any?

Whatever you do, don't put your speculations about who's the oldest in the comments.

Places to land

Also from Andy:

A project of mine is to map landable fields and little known airports on Google Maps so everyone can peruse them from the comfort of their favorite web surfing chair.

Check out PMSC Landpoints.

If you'd like to add ones you know about, log in with the same info as XCSkies (ask Andy how to do this -Ed.), hit the Edit button and enter a waypoint or address in the searchbar. Drop a marker, name it, and enter the appropriate comments.

I have Rick's landpoint database and will continue to add from that list, but again please feel free to help out.

Also there's a Google Earth plug-in for your browser. If you need it, click on the map icon in the upper right. You should see the Google Earth icon. Click that and you'll get a prompt to install the plug-in.

Weekend report August 13 - 14

From Andy:

Saturday turned out to be a very busy day and despite the overcast some flights managed to stay up for a while.

Andy Lawrence finally decided it was time to get back in the air so he got a check ride with Tim and then flew the 1-23 at least once, maybe twice. Alexander is back in the area for a few weeks and his last flight in the 1-23 was for one hour. Nice job Alexander!

Tim gave a ride to a friend from California and I gave 4 introductory rides to a family from Hartland VT and one of them is seriously interested in joining.

Thanks to Sonny for saving the day by making yet another gas run and no, there were no other volunteers for this job which is a serious problem for which we need a solution!

Sunday was a no-fly day.

Stowe report July 2 - 4

From Andy:

The Stowe encampment was a great success on all accounts with excellent flying conditions (for most) on both Saturday and Monday.

To name a few accomplishments:

• Paul flew 5.75 hours on Saturday
• Steve, Tim and Andy all had great flights in the 304
• We finally got to fly with Moshe again, and this time he was in his new Russia
• I served up a zillion hamburgers, hot dogs, sausages and veggie burgers at the Ski Inn without completely burning my fingers off (must have a longer spatula), and a good time was had by all
• There were many flights made. It would be interesting to to know the total number of hours/miles flown, etc. Maybe we can get those numbers together^*.

Sunday was mostly cloudy so some headed to the airshow at Sugarbush, others went hiking or biking, and our man Pete got to polishing the 1-23 which is now looking fantastic.

We decamped on Monday afternoon and all equipment is back at 2B9 safe and sound. Great Time!

*OK, here are most of them:
Tom  TH  0:29  35 km
Skip  JS  0:12  16 km
Tom  TH  1:58  50 km
Steve  PM  1:02  60 km
Andy  PM  1:33  74 km
Tim  PM  1:39  86 km
Sonny  LT  2:22  103 km
Moshe  RU  2:06  102 km
Rick  6Q  2:01  121 km
Paul  S1  5:30  217 km
Tom  TH  0:34  26 km
Skip  JS  1:42  51 km
Sonny  LT  2:48  58 km
Tim  PM  1:32  81 km
Andy  PM  1:02  84 km
Moshe  RU  4:15  125 km

Trailer restoration

Nice job, Andy.

Weekend report May 7 - 8

Saturday:

Today was a reminder that spring gives us the best thermals of the year, and despite the mediocre forecast, conditions today were excellent.

Skip (JS) made a nice 143 km flight, and Steve and Tim each flew PM for over an hour. The 1-23 was assembled and Keith, who has come back to fly with us, flew 3J until after I left the field. I'll bet he was smiling the whole time.

Thermals were 8kts to cloudbase, and tomorrow looks to be more of the same. We made a new towrope today.

Two fuel runs were made this week and, ouch, a tow to 3K costs us $10 just for the gas.

We're looking for a towpilot for tomorrow.

Airport scales

What is it about eccentric museum owners and dinosaurs?

Here's the latest on the growing pile of lumber at the airport, courtesy of the Valley News (click to enlarge):


Obviously, the museum owner was not influenced very much by our poll.

Mount Washington Video

As I promised in my previous post, here are 2 very nice videos from the L-19 on our flight around the observatory.





Video credit: Bill Swartz.

Mount Washington Observatory

Bill and I had a fine ride around the top of Mt. Washington after towing Jason this past encampment and this shot proves what a spectacular day it was.

We took the scenic route back to Gorham airport, video to follow.

See full size image here.

-Andy

Awesome flight

For those of you who stayed home to watch TV rather than come to the field yesterday, and know about being in the right place at the right time..... read on.

Bill and Thomas helped me work on the 2-33 for a few hours and I then noticed that the while the wind was strong the sky was quite clear so Tim and I towed them up-wind though moderate to heavy turbulence (almost like rotor but not) leaving them in an area that seemed like it had lift, but I wasn't expecting them to stay up for long. I landed (twice) and we got the golf cart to retrieve them, and we waited and waited but no sign of them until about 20 minutes later I spotted them over 91 and quite high which turned out to be about 7000'.

Thomas wrote:

"The tow was rougher than anything I have ever experienced at Post Mills. But off tow we went to 7k over Rt 91, and then picked up a cloud street which took us almost to exit 2 on 89. Into the wind, no circling, and we climbed up to 8.5k. I have never experienced such a cloud street. I told Bill that he will probably not experience anything like that in the next 5 years........"

-Andy

Standing Wave

Speaking of standing wave, here is a shot of wave taken from a high point in Sanbornton NH today, Sunday at 5:35 pm looking north. Winds were from the west, left in the photo, I think Mt Washington was reporting 40 to 45 mph. I'm not sure which mountain was generating this wave cloud.

Andy

Weekend Report April 26 - 27

We're back in business, despite some bad luck. On Saturday, about 10 eager volunteers showed up to assemble and wash aircraft. Unfortunately, we discovered that felled trees and power lines were blocking Bob's driveway, preventing access to the 1-23 and the Blanik. All that was accomplished was the washing and test-flying of the towplane. Thanks to everyone who showed up, anyway. The driveway was cleared Saturday night.

On Sunday, after the rain quit, a small band of diehards returned to the field, and actually managed to fetch and assemble the two gliders.

Andy wrote:

Many thanks to Donn, Tom, Sonny and Gregg for retrieving and assembling both the Blanik and 1-23 today (Sunday). Next job is to get them both washed although I did see Tom working with a large bottle of water on the 1-23 so maybe that's done? The Blanik is definetely pretty yucky but has been completely lubricated and is otherwise ready to fly. The 1-23 does need lubrication btw.

The 1-23, Blanik and 304 are ready-to-fly so all you'll need is your annual check ride with Rick or designated instructor and we're off and running in our 20th year of operations!

Andy also worked on the 2-33, and has issued a call for volunteers to finish up the prep work before the recovering of the fuselage. In case you didn't know, there is another blog dedicated to this project.

It finally looks like an airport again, with three planes at their tiedowns. Let's go flying!

Sunday November 11th 2007

Yep, we're flying today and very likely to be the last flying day of the season so get off the couch and head to the field.

Mid weekend update

Was quite windy in Post Mills on Saturday and most folks decided to stay on the ground but Tom Hopper wanted to fly the Blanik and needed me to go with him so Keith was summoned to tow and we had a wonderful flight following cloud streets to the north.

We are flying on Sunday, see you there.

-Andy

Weekend update, 9/15 & 16

Saturday was rain all morning and the sky cleared at about 1:30 right behind the cold front but really too late to get things started and was pretty windy anyway.

Sunday was a great day for the Tunbridge Worlds Fair so I didn't arrive to tow till about 2:30 and then Tom, Skip, Pete and Steve all had 4 hour flights to round off a perfect day.

Skip took this photo:

Website updates

The PMSC members only website has been updated to include a link to this blog as well as a few other minor updates.

Note that all members are encouraged to update information on the web by collecting and revising those documents and then sending to me, and I will do the actual upload.

Thanks and feedback is welcome.

Testing

Hello?  Is this thing on?