Tuesday soaring

Weather forecast tempted the private guys to try for the west to east crossing of the Sierras from Hollister to Truckee.

 BG, TG and ER set off on that goal but "mother nature" didn't provide the necessary conditions!  BG & ER came back after 4-5 hours while TG landed in the Sierra foothills 

and his wife drove the trailer over to retrieve him.

        http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightsOfClub.html?cc=1323&st=olc&rt=olc&c=C0&sc=&sp=2010

Meanwhile, Kurt and a friend flew 5KM to the Panoche Valley where they landed and were aero-retrieved.  Christian flew 1LV for two local flights and I flew with a US Navy helicopter pilot in 64E for Monterey Bay Adventure Acro Ride.

This was Phil's first ride in a glider and he flew on tow behind the Cherokee as if he'd done it many times!

After we released over the shoreline we flew to the aerobatic area and did a spin followed by a loop and some 0g.  I think Phil enjoyed flying the plane and getting its "feel".  We did another loop and a nice hammerhead/wingover where we came to a stop in the air and all was quiet until gravity took hold of us again.  

While we were playing, Matt was trying to fly the BASA Pegasus 9JH from Truckee over the Sierras to Hollister.  He crossed over Yosemite but couldn't get lift over the central valley so he landed and got aero-retrieved to Hollister landing just as the sun set!

Here is his SPOT trace:

He launched from Truckee, tried the western shore, then Donner but had to go around the eastern shore and down 395 until he could "make the jump"! 38 is where he landed at the Merced airport and it looks like he kept his SPOT on after landing in Hollister(47) and driving home to Santa Cruz!

Saturday 9/25/10 at Hollister

I had to work the line helping to launch gliders while I waited for someone, anyone, to come in for a glider ride as we had no reservations!

Ron and Buzz got their self-launching gliders together but didn't need my help or a tow:

Steve put his Pegasus together and I helped him get launched.

After his flight and relight from Panoche, We had to blow out his pitot line to remove the insect pupa that had made his airspeed indicator read incorrectly.  He said he used the data from his GPS flight computer to figure his airspeed.  Ah that's the way to adapt to the situation! We then took the glider apart and stowed it in the trailer.

Rajat had five flights during his lesson with Jonathan:

Gabriel and a friend took a Panoche tow in the BASA DG-505:

And look what a great flight they had:

Meanwhile Ramy launched from Byron and came south to join the Hollister guys.  He had a 400k flight but couldn't make it back to Byron so he landed in Hollister.

I got this off Ramy's facebook page.  What a beautiful picture to show where he had been!

Saturday Monterey Bay Adventure ride

Peter and son, Patrick came down from the SF bay where they said it was raining.  We were covered in overcast waiting for the breakup.  After "launching" when we had some blue sky we towed over the fog covering Monterey Bay.

There was plenty of enjoyment being "high in the sky" even though the fog obscured the normal Monterey view:

The view back towards the airport with Fremont Peak just visible and the San Benito valley below was excellent and we managed to find some weak lift over the edge of the fog:

Sandy's flight

After returning from the Sierras to Hollister it was a change for me to sit in the rear seat of the Schweizer 2-32 while my passenger, Sandy, enjoyed her flight over the Quien Sabe Valley and Henrietta in the Diablos.  She liked the "loop" experience and thermaling under the immature golden eagle.  She is a gardener and will enjoy coming back next season in the spring to see the hills green and speckled with wildflowers.
Doug stayed on the ground to let Sandy ride in the front:

The Quien Sabe Valley from atop Henrietta in the "wet" season:

Sandy after the landing:

Flying with friends at Truckee

Stan, Sven and I motored to the Sierras in Stan's Jaguar for two days of end-of-season flying from one of the best soaring sites, Soar Truckee.  Sven is still "thermaling" at 92:

We were flying in the BASA DG-1000 at 12000' over the Truckee valley with the beautiful Lake Tahoe to our southeast:

Stan flew in the single-place Pegasus.  After our flights we drove to town for some Chinese food returning to sleep in our bags and awakening to a clear 27°F morning.  

Here's Sven coming down the steps from the bunkhouse with his sleeping bag:

Check out the frost on the horizontal stabilizer of the Pegasus:

We had a nice breakfast of "microwaved" left-over Chinese food while we waited for ice to melt, temperature to rise and thermals to develop:

On this day I would fly solo in the Pegasus:

My relaxing 3 hour flight provided views such as this one of the north shore of Lake Tahoe:

It is not just young boys who love going to camp!  Here are Sven(92), Stan(77) and Haven(64), after their last flights:

Nice day/Nice ride

Herb and Marion from Roseville were vacationing in Monterey staying at the Naval Postgraduate School and drove over to Hollister to see the area from the air.

The beach at Santa Cruz is just above the right tip of the glider's stabilator in this pic taken at 7500' over Watsonville and the Pajaro River Valley .  The fog had burned off the northern part of the bay and it was a great ride with friendly people!
The Swank Farms corn maze is growing but my camera mastery is lacking in this pic:

Saturday 9/11/10

A beautiful overflight of the Stearman "Eagle Flight" started the day:

Robert's 50th birthday flight was an MBA acro and he enjoyed flying the glider after stowing his camera for our loop.

Back on the ground we got the woman responsible for his birthday present to pose for a nice pic with the birthday "boy"!

Seale and Herbert chose a Mile High ride over the Diablos to the east of the airport where we thought we'd find some lift(convective air) to play in:

These pics were taken when it was still green!  Looking SW from atop Henrietta across the San Benito valley over Hollister with Fremont Peak in the near distance and the Santa Lucias on the coast in the far distance separated by the Salinas Valley:

The above pic is of the Quien Sabe valley from atop Henrietta looking East.

The last ride of the day was an MBA with Hannah and Niels:

They liked the "roller-coaster" action and the nice view of Swank Farm's Corn Maze:

Friday birthday ride

Anne Marie brought Tracy over from Aptos for his 60th birthday ride.  We put on the "chutes" and went up for an MBA acro ride.  Tracy liked being able to view Aptos from 8000' over Watsonville.  This pic was taken on the next day but the view was almost the same with the fog and Watsonville airport below.  The towplane was a Cherokee for us, not the Pawnee in this pic!

Here's Tracy looking out on the way back to the Hollister airport at 2200' with the Diablos in the distance:

Nice X/C flights on Saturday

While I was giving my two rides, two friends in the Bay Area Soaring Associates club flew the DG-505 down to Center Peak about 65 miles south in the Diablo Range and back for a nice 2hr45min flight covering 140 miles at an average speed of 50mph.  They were accompanied by two privately owned single-place sailplanes.
Here is how their flights are recorded on the OLC(On Line Contest) site:

 http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/index.html?c=C0&sc=&st=olc&rt=olc

This site is operated by a club in Germany for the world's soaring community

the standard view w/stats

Here is the flight of one of the solo gliders that was an hour longer and covered more distance for a faster average speed.  There are races all over the world that very few people know about except those in our small soaring community!

At the end of a good soaring day the ramp activity will look like this pic from last spring:

Pilots are debriefing each other, securing the gliders on the ramp or disassembling and stowing them in the trailers.

Saturday flying

First to launch were the private gliders for cross country flying south of Hollister.  Two self launched and the rest were aero-towed.  Here is Eric being hooked up by Jim:

Mike, a private pilot in powered airplanes, wanted to expose his wife, Young mee, to gliders with a Monterey Bay Adventure:

  

We saw the smoke trails from the Watsonville airshow:

And the fog over the southern Monterey Bay:

Dave and Michelle's Mile High Ride allowed them to be at 3000 feet over Fremont Peak which stands 3000 feet over the Salinas Valley(left center above).  They could look in the distance to see where their area of Pacific Grove was probably covered in fog on the back side of the Monterey peninsula:

Dave enjoyed the idea of learning to fly himself and tried out the front pilot's seat supervised by the most important person in his prospective future sport-flying career!

Dave and Michelle met Eric as he was disassembling his glider for trailer stowage.  Eric showed them his iPhone-version(small screen) video of his Golden Eagle encounter:

http://www.soarhollister.com/video.htm

Another nice day of flying and the potential for two more soaring/glider pilots!