Maybe my last flight for a while!

I had a marvelous few days of nice CA weather, a flight over the Sierra, visits with friends while inspecting their nice ships and a comfortable stay a friend's nice house.  Gee what could one add to that?  Well how about a BFR(biennial flight review) with my favorite flight instructor, Charlie Hayes!  Every two years a pilot must have one of these and it is said to be more an opportunity to learn and/or improve skills rather than a test.  If I had my way all road vehicle drivers would have the same type of operating review.

Here's Charlie "running" the wing of the BASA DG-505 while I'm in the rear cockpit(my preference as I like my passengers up front for the better view)!

 And here's looking forward while I'm holding the canopy open with my left hand as the golf-cart tows us to the runway:

On the runway, Bill is going to get the rope with the ring from the "stinger" of the Pawnee tow-plane that is being piloted by Quest.  There is 200' of rope reeled up inside the fuselage.  Charlie will get in the front seat and off we will go:

We towed off rwy 6 straight to that cloud just over the top cowl of the Pawnee.  All through the takeoff I was ready for Charlie to release us to test my ability to handle a rope-break/uncommanded release event.  After releasing a 5000' over Henrietta we thermaled SE along the East ridge of the Quien Sabe Valley while Charlie was refreshing my knowledge of airspace classifications and rules.  We then headed SW out across the upper Santa Clara Valley over Bikle's airport south of Tres Pinos towards the Gabilans.   

Here the gauges say we are flying at ~50knots with a sink rate of ~150'/min 12.7 miles SE of the airport.  The altimeter reading of 3650' was making me feel low and uncomfortable!  Charlie said, "do the math".  Then I knew we had plenty of altitude to safely return to the runway.  He was "stretching" me!

The Hollister airport seems a long way away!  It is that area between the two sets of white appearing buildings just below the horizon forward of the wingtip.  Nice looking cloud over the Santa Cruz Mtns.  That must be my finger in the lower right!

 Now we are "recreating" above the Hollister Hills State Vehicular Recreational Area looking ESE along Cienega Rd and the San Andreas Fault Line:

We were finding no lift and it was time to return.  At this position we are closer to the airport than the point at which we released and I know I can make it back to the airport with altitude to spare, a very comforting thought.

And of course we did return for a smooth landing to end a very "instructional" and fun flight.  A most pleasant way to end the visit to my "Old Soaring/Gliding Airspace"!

Here are some pics of the high-performance two-seat DG-505 owned by the Bay Area Soaring Associates.  My 14 yr-old grandson Henry stands next to 5KM tied down with its covers on.

Henry is in the front seat with his parachute on ready to go!

This is a typical launch procedure where Caleb, the line-boy(could be line-person) has attached the rope to a hook in the nose and he is signaling the towplane to take up the slack.  When the rope is tight and the pilot gives the "thumbs-up", Caleb will lift the wing; the pilot will wiggle his rudder; Caleb will rotate his arm signaling the towplane to start the take-off roll; the tow-plane pilot will wiggle his "tail feathers", announce the take-off, throttle up and Caleb will run with the wing until it is pulled from his very light grasp!  A few seconds later the glider will lift off and stay in position waiting for the tow-plane to fly as well.  After that it is just follow the leader!

I don't know when I'll next return to Hollister. When I do so,  I hope to find the same quality of management, equipment, and operations that I was a part of for the last fifteen  years