CAVU Friday!

Clear or Clean Air with Visibility Unlimited!  Actually it means: Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited.  It was a beautiful day for a glider ride:

Monterey Bay and peninsula from over Aromas

Steve taking pics on his acro ride.  Notice the towplane just above his left hand:

zoom view of Aptos and Santa Cruz:

zoom view of Monterey peninsula:

downtown San Jose was clearly visible:

the snow-capped Sierras visible over the Diablos and San Joaquin Valley:

Steve's wife liked sitting in the front seat:

Veteran's Day rides

First a picture of my father who is gone now like many of the WWII veterans:

As we know Veteran's Day was once called Armistice Day to commemorate the end of the "War To End All Wars" (WWI).  Needless to say mankind hasn't succeeded in ending war and we have many veterans.

I took my wife's friend Alis for a private ride in the BASA DG-1000 over the Quien Sabe Valley on a day with great visibility where we could see the snow on top of the Sierras and the clear air over the Monterey peninsula and bay:

Scott came from Santa Cruz to celebrate his birthday with a Mile High Acro Ride.  We went over the Quien Sabe Valley for a loop and some wingovers.  After the acro he flew the glider and took some pictures.  I was remiss and didn't get my little camera out to take his picture while we were in the air but got this pic with the beautiful light of the evening after our landing: 

Friday scenic and acro rides

Mimi was vacationing from NYC with a friend who was having an introductory lesson/ride from an instructor.  We had a nice scenic ride to the east hills and released over the Quien Sabe Valley.  The atmosphere is changing and there is the promise of rain which the dry hills are expecting!
Looking down the Santa Clara Valley from atop Henrietta Pk. we can see the fog over Monterey Bay, Loma Prieta Mtn. and the dismal haze over San Jose:

Trevor's parents brought him by for his birthday acro ride.  He liked the spin, loop, hammerhead, tight turns and wing-overs.  He understood the lift events and flew the glider very well for his first time!

Here we have returned to the airport environment and are surveying the area in preparation for landing:

The "east hills" of the Diablos over which we flew are in the background and that's one happy birthday person in the cockpit after our landing:

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!