Maine

I'm not certain who started it.

A few years ago, the Post Mills XC milk run to Mt Washington started getting stretched routinely to Old Speck Mountain, the highest point in the Mahoosuc Range.  Subsequent trips to the Mahoosucs have shown that they can produce good soaring, albeit a long ways off from Post Mills and surrounded by a whole lot of... not very much.  To the West is a lot of water and trees and bears.  To the East is, well, even further away from Post Mills.

After a particularly lousy, rainy stretch of weather in a persistently wet and rainy Spring, Wed June 7 was mostly dry and Thurs June 8 finally offered the prospect of decent soaring.  Club enthusiasm was high. Spring loaded.  Turn out was probably a PM weekday record.

Grid Time!  First Cu peaking over the hills.  What's all that uninvited cirrus doing there?

Clouds just beyond the copper mine -- time to go!

Wind Dummy on tow.

Nine pilots, mostly shirking work.  Nine sailplanes.  Hopes for an extra early launch were dashed by slow starting convection.  This wasn't too surprising given 3" of  recent rainfall.  Finally, about 1130, the launch begins.  I'm the wind dummy. The ride is pretty smooth so I hang on for 3000.  Good thing too -- I had to glide about 5 miles West of PM airport to connect.  A slow climb of a few hundred feet gave enough extra margin to move a little further West under some early clouds.  I soon got up to 6000.

While climbing, I watched clouds form like stepping stones to the North, ending around Spruce Mtn. I'd checked the accumulated precip maps, and straight North was a good (well, less soaking wet) direction.  I thought the Connecticut river valley would start slower and although Cu were forming on the high ground East of the River, the quick start was to take this line North.  I expected most of the fleet to head towards the Presidential range and the more ambitious guys to head on up the Mahoosucs.  I resolved to meet them after going the long way around via the Canadian border.  By the time I got to the high ground near Spruce Mtn, my stepping stones had extended Northward and conditions were strengthening.

Moving along well and about 20 miles short of Newport, VT, I reach the edge of the field of Cu and start bearing right.  I end up right on the border skirting large areas of  overdevelopment(OD) and then over the boonies between Colebrook and Rangely.  I fly extra conservative through here, and it goes well.

I get on the Mahoosuc range at Saddleback Mtn and call EA and JD.  They are just a couple of miles behind, also Northbound.  We don't make visual contact until somewhere NE of Sugarloaf airport. Sugarloaf is about 130 straight line miles from Post Mills and about as far as I ever dreamed I might go today.  Now, the real silliness begins,  it becomes apparent (we hadn't discussed plans before flying) that EA and JD are on an out and return record attempt.  Today!?!  Ugh.  I know better.  My gut told me this morning that this day was apt to shut off early.  No sign of that right now though.

Conditions are fantastic.  Bases are 10 grand, the OD has simply vanished (when does that ever happen?). Visibility at cloudbase is limited, which conveniently hides the cirrus that must still be lurking overhead to the South.  Out of sight... out of our minds!  Dan and Greg have water ballast on board.  I'm dry, and I have to scramble.  Greenville comes and goes... we should really turn around!  I'm unwilling to do so on my own.  If I bail early, these two loons actually make it around, I'll kick myself for a month.  So I continue to scramble, Northeast.

Greenville, ME.  Not too many glider pilots have seen this place!

Moosehead Lake.  WTH are we doing here...?

About the time we get to Moosehead Lake, Dan asks if I know the VT state free O&R record.

"It's about 500K."

"We've got it then."

"You get it when you get home..."

We press Eastward over Yogi and Booboo country.  You can't really fly here except on an amazing 10,000 foot day because there is nowhere to land except widely spaced airports.  Mt Katahdin is about 25 miles ahead now, easily visible, massive even at this distance.  It's 3pm.

Greg: "Hey Tango, I thought you were going to turn at 3."

Me: "I'm waiting on Echo!"

We're over 180 miles out of Post Mills!  Finally we all turn together.  My guess is that we might get back to Franconia, unless it's really good, or all goes to hell.

Thermaling up somewhere East of Moosehead Lake.  That's T8 at left.

Cruising at cloudbase.  Good for the moment.

EA off my right wing near Indian Pond, Westbound, 159 miles out of Post Mills.
View from 8700'.

The first 40 or so miles on the return go well.  Fast & efficient, we're really enjoying this ride.  Past Greenville, it starts to look like trouble.  Sugarloaf Mtn is 100% shaded in OD.  Worse, the only sun on the ground leads off into Canada.  We can't see much further down the Mahoosucs, maybe it's localized.  Later: nope.  We get right down on the rocks at Bigelow Mtn, crawl around on Sugarloaf until we all climb out when the sun peeks through, a little.  But we're slow and the OD is solid to the Presidentials.  The wind shifts from SW to South, and that's even worse news.  That's marine air coming in now and it not only kills convection, it's creating the convergence that sustains the OD, even in the absence of convection.  Somewhere up on top of the OD is the cirrus deck we ignored earlier.  That's three strikes.

Now the real fun begins... where did the sun go?

We struggle to get decent final glides to Bethel.  I get a marginal glide, and lose it.  Dan gets a marginal glide and squeaks it in, Greg fell off on the first attempt, got what must have been the last thermal of the day to make it. I end up ridge soaring some little spurs, waiting on a miracle or a final decision on where to land.  I've been eyeballing a private strip in Roxbury that looks like a great little place, nice house right on the runway.  "I bet I'll get a great reception there".  Lacking a better idea, I give up and land, roll up into the driveway of the house on the runway.  Good call.  Minutes later I have a cold beer in hand and some new friends: Douten and Donna Thomas.  They'd never had a glider drop in before and thought it was pretty neat.

Once on the ground, it's time to start sorting out this mess we've made -- and it's a pretty big mess by Post Mills standards!  I'm 98 air miles from Post Mills, but for a whole bunch of reasons, this retrieve has to be by ground.  I guesstimate a 3 hour drive one way, which turns out to be unfortunately accurate.  Bethel is about 2.5.  It gets crazier: it turns out we've put 6 gliders on the ground away from Post Mills today. DC and NT ended up at Dean, DG in a good field near Bradford in the CT river valley.  So some of our ground crew are pressed into service for the second time today.  Thanks Pete, Tim, Mark & Sonny.  Tim,  Mark and Karl (no flight log) are the heros who got home so they could start tidying up

Long way from home...

Tim and I had T8 in the box and on the road at 10pm.  We got home... when we got home (it wasn't quite light yet...).

Triangles

July 5 was a good day for FAI triangles**.  Thanks for towing, Rick!

Dan & Greg join the New England 500K FAI triangle club, which I reckon numbers about 8 pilots and fewer than 20 such flights.  These guys have it figured out.  Superb flying.  Well done!

Evan had a good day, as well.  Most of the flight was too involved for sight seeing, but the Green Mtns offered "hero conditions" that allowed a moment of relaxation and a few quick photos.

T8 Northbound on the Green Mtns.  Mt Snow at center.

Same location as photo above, looking NE.

Same location, looking East.

EA approaching NH's lakes region.

Lake Winnipesaukee as seen from EA.

**For courses under 750km, the definition of an FAI triangle is a course defined by three waypoints, with the shortest of three legs being at least 28% of the total distance.  The start & finish points must be co-located, and may be either on one leg or at a vertex.  If more than 750K, the definition isn't quite that restrictive, but nothing we've needed to worry about in New England.  Yet.

First XC by Mark Hopkins

I flew my first x-country flight on Saturday with Greg Hanlon (JD). I took a 3K tow and parked under a dark cloud to the south of Tug. The lift was weak, but I managed to work up to 4100’ or so. The cloud base was probably 4500’, but couldn’t make it. Our task was to head NE so I flew a few miles to a spot on the north side of the airport to wait for Greg. He joined me soon and we headed to the ridge between PM and the river and tried to gain as much altitude as possible for crossing the desert between PM and the first clouds over near Cube. I circled awhile under a decent cloud and got up to 4500’ or so. At this point Greg said there was nothing to be gained by waiting. He pointed out that we had Dean by 2000’ or so, although there was a substantial disagreement between JD’s glide computer and mine - mine said Dean by 1500’ (Greg had put my polar into his computer, which was really thoughtful of him). I definitely would not have made the jump if I were by myself, but having Greg’s experience and coaching made all the difference. I was very surprised that once I committed to Dean I didn’t think about PM again. We worked our way towards the first mountains and found enough scratchy thermals to maintain our altitude WRT Dean, although my MSL was decreasing. Eventually, we reached the NW shoulder of Moosilauke. At this point I was showing 1200’ to Dean although Greg had me somewhat higher. I almost pulled the plug here and headed for Dean (I think I was down to 3500’). Just when things looked bleak (to me) we found a decent thermal that took me to 4500’ and put us in glide for Franconia. We headed for the ridge at the back side of Cannon and found plenty of good lift to take us over the north end. The thermals here were topping out about 5500’. So things were starting to work. Listening to the radio of the goings on at Post Mills where folks were falling out added to the excitement of having made our getaway. Greg was making things pretty easy for me, looking ahead, coaching constantly, and patiently circling overhead while I thermaled slowly upward. All I had to do was fly my plane and try not to do anything stupid. Over the mountains it was a beautiful soaring day with plenty of nicely spaced cumuli. We still stopped at almost every cloud to tank up, which I suspect Greg might not have done without me. But perhaps it wasn’t the easiest day either. So we flew over Franconia ridge at 5500’ or so and then continued over to Garfield and on to Twin Mt. I think I reached 6000’, my high point for the day, at one point. The scenery over the mountains was awesome. I really enjoyed flying along the ridges and taking a little time to watch the scenery below. Our goal was the Mt Washington Hotel, but the clouds there had a different character. The cloud base was lower, the bases were wispy and the area looked overdeveloped. At some point Dan Mac (EA) passed us on his way to Washington after escaping PM. Greg probably would have continued, but he thought things might get a little bit exciting and that I had had about as much stress as I could take. So we turned around and headed back along the ridge to Garfield, over Cannon and on to Moosilauke. The flight home was as easy as the flight out was hard. There was plenty of lift and we passed Moosilauke at almost 5000’ with PM in comfortable, fast glide. We got to Post Mills at 1800’ (just as the glide computer predicted). 

Looking back on the flight, I think that it has given me the confidence to venture out on my own. I know that Greg was balancing a lot of variables that I was just dimly aware of that made our flight possible, but the essential parts of the experience are to make the psychological leap to leave PM behind and make Dean (or Warren) your airport and then to maintain a sufficient reserve altitude to glide to each successive airport as you move away from PM and again when you return.  Having done that once, I hope I can do it again.

First Land Out

Greg (JD) and Dan (EA) landed out in Claremont yesterday.  In the 5 years that they have been flying sailplanes Dan has landed out a couple of times but Greg had never landed out before.  The infrequency of land outs is remarkable for both pilots but especially for Greg.  According to OLC in his 5 year career he has 115 XC flights covering 20,199 km (12,551 miles).  This is definitely a PMSC record and probably some sort of world record.  His long streak was finally brought down by bugs.

Drones are Cool

Here's what Greg does in his off time:

- tim

Weekday selfie

Silver and Gold

Congratulations to Greg Hanlon for completing both his Silver and Gold Badges following his 6.5 hour flight to Berlin NH and back last month.

This qualifies Greg to enter a National Championships.  The next one is conveniently located in Hobbs, New Mexico.  Evan is going. Perhaps they can travel together.

Slacker makes good

Congratulations to Greg Hanlon on his Private Pilot Certificate!

Greg took the day off from work, and Bill Stinson made the trip from Sugarbush to administer the test today. Christopher and Rick served as ground crew. It was a beautiful day for a flight test, and Greg made two perfect flights. That was enough for Bill, and Greg became our newest Private Pilot.

When asked who would be his first passenger, Greg was unsure. He was more interested in talking about the club rule that requires a Private Certificate before flying the 304.

The day was still young, so why not? During his cockpit checkout, Janet Frank showed up on her bike and agreed to run the wing. Greg took a high tow, found some wave, and kept PM in the air for about an hour. So congratulations again!

Lightweights

I think we should have a new membership category.

I was a student pilot when hang gliders first became popular. In those days, their safety record wasn't very good, and I was told by my instructor that I was smart to stay away from that thrill-seeking cult of daredevils.

I have to admit that it was easy to adopt the prejudice that those guys weren't real pilots, and that they were just an aerial version of a motorcycle gang. I had never met one, and they were easy to ignore.

I was already totally immersed in gliding when paragliders came around, so they were easy to ignore, too.

Over the years I have become vaguely aware of the advances made by hang glider pilots, both in the capabilities of their aircraft and in their attitude toward safety. The USHPA is a mainstream organization with over 10000 members - they can't all be outlaw bikers, right? Also, I began to meet sailplane pilots (Rick Roelke, Steve Arndt, Tim Donovan, Tim Chow) who had a background in foot-launching, and they didn't seem crazy at all.

At the beginning of this season I was comfortable in my belief that there are two different sports, and that I am interested in only one of them. That suddenly changed when I met Greg Hanlon, Dan MacMonagle, and Dennis Cavagnaro, cult members all, who joined our club all at once.

I have to say that these guys know a lot about micro-meteorology and its application to soaring. And they really know how to fly. Here's a picture of Greg outclimbing a sailplane (which one, anybody know?) at Newport, NH.

It has been a real eye-opener for me as the person tasked with introducing these guys to sailplanes. Learning, in this case, has definitely been a two-way street.

Here's what I have learned:

They are really good at thermaling and knowing when to stay and when to go. They are really bad at using the rudder properly. They are really good at looking where they're going. They are really bad at aerotow (at least at first). They are just mediocre at keeping the home field within range. They are really good at helping other people fly, fixing things that are broken, and partying after flying.

For their part, they have learned (I hope) not to dive or do S-turns on final, not to pay too much attention to 200-foot fields, and not to throw their bodies around the cockpit when we hit a bump.

These guys are in a class by themselves, and we need a new membership category for them. They aren't Students, Private Owners, or 304 pilots, and, so far, only one of them is a Weekday Slacker.

All we need is a name for their sub-group. ("Hell's Angels" is already taken). Hey, I know...

Lightweights

First something

You can't call it a first solo, because it wasn't his first solo. You can't call it a first solo in a glider, because a hang glider is a glider. But it was definitely an accomplishment. Congratulations to Greg Hanlon on his first flight as sole occupant of a heavy metal unpowered aircraft with an FAA registration! Or something like that.

We didn't dump a bucket of water on him, because technically, it wasn't his first solo. But that decision may be reversed upon appeal. I'm thinking it would be fun to do that at Franconia.