Annual PASCO Safety Seminar and Awards Banquet

It was a nice time to meet with the area glider/sailplane community.  One of the members who represented our country in the World Championship played a nice video for us:
        
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTu7KxfaiCA

Wednesday rides

Our tow-pilot Paul, retired UAL Captain, brought his family out for a "field day" to let them see what he was playing at in retirement and to have his son-in-law experience an acro ride.
Paul is watching his granddaughter look into his cockpit:

Somebody wants to go with Daddy!

Grandmother Eva gets ready to remove the little one while Grandfather Paul is coming with the stroller in the background:

After Chris's ride the family had a picnic and Quest came out to tow me with Tracey and Chito to 8000 ft over Watsonville for a Monterey Bay Adventure ride.  

Most of the bay was covered with fog but we could see Santa Cruz quite well:

It is always a different view and ever-changing!

pics from Epic day

Ramy took this blurry pic of Hearst Castle after flying his glider all the way from Byron!
You can see his trace in the previous post.

Matt has the hot setup for navigation and recording to augment the glider's built in LNAV, GPS and data recorder:

Here is a link to the pics Matt took that day:

 http://picasaweb. google.com/ MattmanG3/ 101410KCVHBigSur SCMtnsDiablos1CH #

Epic Oct. Day from Hollister 10/14/10!

The guys who follow the weather said we'd have some good days and Thur was The One!
About 30 gliders from Williams, Hollister and Avenal enjoyed the energy in the air to make long, easy and scenic cross-country flights on the Central Coast. After launching all our Hollister guys, I just decided to play hookey from my maintenance tasks and take a BASA Pegasus to play.
5W,UV and U2 rigging:

 GJ pushes out to the runway:

 VN on runway 24:

On tow in 9JH behind Charlie Hayes in the Pawnee:

After Charlie took me to the lift and I started to thermal, he came over and thermaled with me in the towplane! (I didn't have camera out at the time so this pic is from another occasion)

We don't get to see this view on the instrument panel very often, going up at 400 feet/min at 12K!

 Ramy came down from Byron and got up under this great cloud south of Fremont Peak:

1CH, 5KM, VN, GJ, U2, UV, BG, TG and 8L were all down over the Santa Lucias and some of the guys flew out over the Pacific south of Big Sur while TG turned Hearst Castle and VN flew over his house in the Carmel Valley!  I headed down that way past the Pinnacles and got half-way across the Salinas Valley when I decided to return to the Gabilans and follow Yuliy up to Loma Prieta in the Santa Cruz Mts.  Here are some of the flight traces as recorded on the On Line Contest run by a German Glider Club:

Monterey is off in the distance over the Salinas Valley from the Gabilans.  The fog is covering Prunedale.  Yuliy is in a DG-800, that little dot in the middle of the picture:  

I left the Gabilans at 12.5K and got to Loma Prieta at 6K where Yuliy was already climbing in a good thermal.  

Here's a zoomed shot of Yuliy porpoising on the way to Loma Prieta:

It was comforting to get back up to 12K again looking out over the Santa Clara Valley and San Jose:

ER and 1CH came in low under us, finally got up and followed 8L over the Santa Clara Valley to "Tiger Country" in the Diablos but I retreated to Hollister.  Here you can just see two gliders circling down low: 

Back over Hollister Charlie Hays and John Little were flying in 87R and I got some nice pics of them before landing after 3.5 hours of fun and frolic!

Saturday 10/16/10

Lauren said she had a pilot's license but had never flown in a glider.  She and Tim took a Mile High Mountain Ride for a new experience:

Bruce and Cherie were flown to Hollister by a friend who was scheduled for an introductory lesson towards a glider add-on to his private pilot's license.  Cherie said she could see much more from the glider and both enjoyed the slower pace without the engine noise.

 

Friday 10/15/10

Terry put on the "chute" and we went for a Mile High Mountain Ride-acro:

And this was the view we had towards the Monterey Bay with fog over Prunedale:

A fellow glider pilot from Austin, TX wanted to see the sights while visiting:

Grace and KJ were next for a Silver Hawk ride:

Monterey Bay Adventure acro ride for Eric

Eric put on a parachute, "just in case", got in the front seat and we went for a nice ride!
On tow behind the Pawnee towards Monterey Bay:

After some acro maneuvers Eric flew the plane as if he'd done it before!

I get to fly with some great people!

Eric sent me an email with a link to a video of our landing:

An out-of-sequence late post!

Last Friday after the Fresno party left I had to make a maintenance/test flight in the BASA DG-1000, the two-place Ferrari of sailplanes.  This gave me an opportunity to take our airport facilities mechanic, Randy, for his first airplane ride!  He was excited and ready to go.  We towed over Henrietta, off to the the east and thermalled with 5 young golden eagles before doing some maneuvers including a loop which he enjoyed.  After some time playing in the lift we glided over to his house in Hollister so he could call his daughter on the cell phone and have her look up to see him!  Some more cruising around was followed by a nice smooth landing on runway 6.

Sunday rides from Hollister

Another beautiful day brought out more folks wanting to get "high in the sky"!

Dharti and her uncle Girish were first:

Danny and his brother James were intending to go together but it was just too tight a squeeze as their women friends observed:

We split the ride into two separate shorter ones giving Danny the front seat alone to fly the glider on his birthday.  Here we are on tow at 3300 feet above the San Benito Valley flying towards Fremont Peak with  the Salinas Valley and the fog over the southern Monterey Bay visible in the distance:

Allison and Danny's brother James fit together quite nicely!  At first she was hesitant but later found she really enjoyed "moving around in the air"!

Randa and Sanjeev were next.  Somehow I "spaced" the in-the-air photo op and just got this pic after we landed:

Jennifer and Chris were the last passengers of the day and enjoyed their ride.  Those beautiful smiles are our best advertising!

Saturday's commercial rides

After the Young Eagle rides I took Vance and Mary up to celebrate Vance's 60th birthday.  Mary sure knows how to please her man!

Terry and Rick Endo enjoyed the sight, sounds and experience next:

These two volleyball players, Eden and Ross, fit their tall bodies in together for their ride:

At first Ashnita didn't like the idea of going up in a plane without an engine.  Dave said she had flown many times with him in his Piper airplane!  Once in the air and released from the towplane, she relaxed and enjoyed the peace and tranquility as can be seen from that beautiful smile.

Young Eagle rides at Hollister

The Hollister Soaring Center volunteered its equipment, a tow-pilot and ride-pilot volunteered their time and three lucky boys got to fly a sailplane!

 All the lucky kids had rides given by other Hollister Airmen and Airwomen:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=20292&id=106664976049807&fbid=133519496697688