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!

T8 in a Field

Saturday, June 4, my ambition got the better of me and I landed in a field at North Umberland, NH shortly after 6pm, 59 air miles from Post Mills.

I was flying with Greg near Morrisville and I got suckered by some clouds to the Northeast and the six knot thermal I found there.  Concluding that the day still had some life, I set off for Burke.  Greg, sensibly, headed for Post Mills, it was after 5pm.  My plan was to get a climb at Burke under good looking clouds, hit the high ground on the far side of the Connecticut river valley (more good clouds), then glide to Twin Mountain and figure it out from there.  The wind was 310-ish at 12, I knew I could expect it to be stronger on the White Mountains, there would be ridge lift and a few isolated thermals on the high ground.  I'd get home.  It was going to be epic.  500K on a difficult day. Well, not quite.

Arriving at Burke, I flew under what were now tired looking clouds with  no lift to speak of.  The only decent prospects were to the North.  So North I went.  Unfortunately, those clouds didn't work much better, so after a brief climb, I took a hard look at the bear country to the East.  I could see bits & pieces of the CT river valley between mountains, it looked doable.  The flight computer agreed. There were some clouds on the near side of the CT valley I knew I could reach, but I was getting less hopeful about making it all work.  Clouds over the higher ground on the far side of the CT valley looked very good.  Those slopes were baking in late afternoon sun, but I didn't have the altitude to get there.

Contingency time!  I've still got an easy glide to West Burke and Caledonia Co airports, but I'll definitely be landing when I get there.  I know the CT river valley has numerous landable fields and heading that way at least offers a chance of continuing the flight.  Good enough.  Off we go... with only about 4500'.

The rest of the flight was simple enough.  I made the West side of the CT and the clouds there gave me a couple hundred feet.  Still not enough to get on the high ground across the valley.  It's time to re-order the priorities.  Time to stop soaring & start landing.  I'm well within range of the (abandoned?) airport at Groveton, condition unknown.  There aren't any clouds or any other reason to go that way (North) and the airport doesn't have any secondary landing option close by in case the airport for some reason proves unsuitable.  The valley in my immediate vicinity has a bunch of decent fields, including some really big, really flat corn fields (newly sprouted, very landable) and this absolute gem of a newly cut hay field.  It's airport sized and flat, no obvious obstacles, the approach will be over tall trees (just like home, er just like home used to be!), but no issues at all.  

Decision made, I fly across the valley in the rapidly fading hope of getting sucked up those Western facing slopes.  I'm too low with about 80% certainty, but no harm in exploring as long as I don't get carried away.  I press in next to the mountains and I can feel the air bubbling... it's still working up there alright, but I'm not going to connect -- at least without a little more time to explore -- and I am out of time. I'm right at my comfort limit for altitude and it's time to go.

Back to my field... I set up a high left base, turn final, clear the trees, pick a nice smooth spot.

Retrieve logistics are always a little anxiety inducing.  The actual tale is a little tedious. Here are some key words -- you can connect the dots: cell phone, low battery, poor service, text messaging, charger pack, Spot tracker, GPS gibberish (decimal degrees vs decimal minutes vs deg / min / sec), sunset time.

Retrieve arranged, I have some time to amuse myself, so I walk off the landing roll (70 paces), walk the access road (no issues), take some pictures, make friends with the farmer, his wife and kids.  I'm told this field is popular in Winter months with ski plane pilots, and I can see why.  The kids are eyeballing the cockpit and I don't have to be a mind reader to figure it out.  "Would you like to try on the cockpit for size?"

Future Glider Pilots

Lane and Anne played fetch and arrived just after sunset (it's a two hour drive) and we had just enough twilight to get everything in the box.  Afterward, we had a nice dinner in Lancaster.  It sure is nice having friends willing to drop what they are doing to pitch in and help with a retrieve (I'll promise not to make a habit of it)!

-Evan

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.

Weekend report June 16 - 17

On Saturday two unexpected things happened. We had cumulus clouds and Lane showed up. In case you haven't been flying with us for 20 years, Lane Cobb was the first person to join the club after it was founded in 1988. He was quite active until 2005 when he took a short break from flying that lasted till this weekend. It's great to have him back.

In addition to being a superb pilot, Lane is an excellent source of flying stories. We reviewed some of them at the cookout Saturday night. If you haven't heard the one about his final glide into Post Mills in the 1-23, or the one about holding his breath at 18000 feet in the 1-26, or hopping over the road in the 2-33, or re-installing his instrument panel in mid-flight, or being infested with bird lice, be sure to ask him.

The first three people to arrive at the field were towpilots. Not sure what that's about. Evan found a detached spring in the L19 exhaust system, fixed it, and towed all day, including a long cross-country tow at the end of the day when he could have been drinking beer. Thanks, Evan!

The best round-trip flight of the day was turned in by Moshe (RU), who took a 225 km tour of Vermont. He crossed over to the Green Mountains at Stockbridge, went north almost to Morrisville, then home. He made his last climb at Spruce Mountain where he elected not to divert over to New Hampshire to join Paul. That turned out to be a good call. Here's a picture he took somewhere over Hancock.

Paul (S1) set out on an ambitious trip with turnpoints in northern Vermont and at Mount Washington. Things were going well until he flew into a stable airmass at Whitefield and plummeted to the ground, thereby demonstrating the wisdom of the old adage, "If you find yourself flying over the cumulus clouds, it's best to turn around."

Paul's cell phone battery had just enough juice in it to make two calls, one to Marsha to let her know that he'd be late for dinner, and the one that got to Evan in time to organize an aeroretrieve.

Tim (PM) had a nice two hour flight early in the day, but it wasn't recorded properly for some reason. After a quick turnaround on the ground, Andy (PM) took off and flew up to Mount Moosilauke, a 109 km flight that included an escape from Dean.

The Schleicher team of Skip (JS) and Thomas (ZP) weren't able to come to the cookout, so we didn't get to hear their stories. Skip flew 81 km. As Thomas was landing, he did a good job of keeping his eye on the towplane taking off in the opposite direction. It wasn't close, but we should all be more alert for this situation on no-wind days.

For the third day in a row, local flying was more difficult than cross-country flying. The thermals were widely spaced, and if you found yourself between two of them without the option of pressing on straight ahead, then you probably were faced with a short flight. The successful local pilots were the ones who found a lucky thermal and loitered at the top. These included Greg (3J, new type), Tim (PI), and Dennis (67, PI). Lane and Rick tried to leap between two thermals in the 2-33, and paid the price.

All in all, a good day at the airport. The happiest moment was when Rick found his wallet on the runway after it had fallen out of the 2-33.

The cookout started right on time, which was before Paul and Evan returned home, and before Moshe was finished preserving a few yards of gap tape. Eventually, the party included

Andrew, Andy, Christopher, Dennis, Ella, Evan, Gordon, Jane, Judy, Keith, Lane, Marsha, Mary, Mike, Moshe, Nancy, Paul, Peter, Petey, Rick, Sherry, and Sue.

Thanks go to Mary for her cooking and organizing and to all the contributors. Special mention to Dennis, who elevated the PMSC cookout experience by bringing a platter of shrimp!

The airmass was getting a little stale by Sunday, our fourth flying day in a row. But it was another fine day to be outdoors in a beautiful setting, never mind the haze. Eleven club members turned up, and eight of them flew. It was a good old fashioned local soaring day, with all the racing gliders remaining in their boxes. The best two hours of the day were between 2pm and 4pm, and Greg (3J) and Nancy (PI) took full advantage. The rest of us sat around in the screenhouse and watched the next generation of glider pilots (Sawyer and Andrew) fly a really weird RC glider that seemed to be immune to damage.

The day ended on a high note when Bill Swartz gave his Dad a ride in the Blanik.

Happy Father's Day!