Sunday 11/18/12 rides on a beautiful day!

Rain Friday and some showers Saturday brought a nice day on Sunday.  Some cancelled reservations still thinking rain but not these folks!

Yasmina & Igor chose the right day for a Monterey Bay Adventure ride above the scattered clouds on a day with great visibility:

Crossing 101 below, looking north towards San Jose on the way west to the bay:

Monterey peninsula in the distance while still on tow over Prunedale:

On tow behind our Pawnee: 72 mph at 6450' climbing 400' fpm.  Moss Landing and Elkhorn Slough just over the red yaw string on the nose of the glider:

Andrea & Brian chose the Mountain High Ride over Fremont Peak.  Clouds over the San Joaquin Valley are visible behind us on the east side of the Diablo Mountain Range.

Last flight of the day was with Yuning & Jeff into the sunset for a Silver Hawk ride over San Juan Bautista:

Interesting reflection in Jeff's sunglasses shows reverse image, Yuning on his right and me in the front seat holding the camera backwards to take their picture:

A ride with my son Lincoln!

I was very lucky to have my son come from New York State to use his contractor skills in preparing my house for rental so that I could join my wife in our new OR life.  Lincoln had flown with me once before in my Cessna 152 over northern MA back in '90 but had never been in a glider.  The Schweizer 2-32 is perfect for two good-sized American men!
Rear seat with full controls was very comfortable and off we went behind Charlie Hayes in the Pawnee.

 Here's the before pic:



On tow and all is copacetic!

 There is the Monterey peninsula off in the distance as we get ready to release over Fremont Peak at a mile above the ocean.

After we released Charlie came around and flew formation with us:

 On the way back to the airport Linc handled the controls until I asked if he wanted to do some fun turns and a good wing-over.  He was game and discovered that he really liked that maneuvering!  After landing he tried on the front cockpit:

I think I know were he'll be for the next ride!

Sunday 11/11

My wife has taken a job in OR so I'll be moving up there soon and won't be giving many more rides in Hollister.  I was pleased and humbled to have received two awards from my fellow glider pilots to end my career at Hollister:

There are very few airports that have a hangar like this one:

Or active toys such as these:

When I was called and asked to fill in for an "under the weather" ride-pilot I jumped at the chance to get "high in the sky" again.

My first passenger was Gene an ex USAF "missileman".  He flew the glider very well!

After landing I got a nice pic with Gene and his son who had taken his ride in another of our Schweizer 2-32s with our flight instructor/manager Quest.

Here's a nice pic of a family outing where the men took individual flights with our flight instructor Charlie in the high performance Duo Discus and the gals had paired flights in our 2-32s.

It sure looks as if the pair I had with me were enjoying the ride!