Saturday 2/18/12 rides

The morning started off completely overcast but good enough for practice pattern tows for students and private owners.  Monica gifted Mitch, a power pilot, with a birthday Monterey Bay Adventure glider-ride so off we went when the sky began to clear.  We followed the towplane up through a "blue hole" to get on top to see the Monterey Bay:

(not from this flight but similar site pic!)

I got a nice pic of the happy couple but neglected to get a forward pic of the view which we had of the whole bay.  But it did look something like this one showing the Monterey peninsula in the distance:

On the way back to Hollister from the coast we did some maneuvering so they could experience the nice handling and viewing perspectives offered by glider flight compared to their experiences in a small powered airplane.  We might see both of them again as student glider pilots transitioning from power!

My next ride was with James who said he soloed an Aeronca, small two-place powered airplane, on Cape Cod, MA in 1963.  He got in the front seat and I put the control stick in the rear and off we went on a Mile High ride.  After release from the tow-plane, James took the controls and flew the glider very well for the next twenty minutes.  He told me of a ride he experienced in a military jet during a formation flight.  We did a wing-over and a couple of tight turns before landing.  Here are two nice pics of James with some family members:

James is ready in the front:

After landing we put Scott and his little one in the front seat for our taxi-tow to parking: