Friday and Saturday - Gearing Up for the Big Finish.....
Well, this weekend was not comparable to last. No Army jumpers, no torrential downpour on Friday. Friday we spent the day in class and putting ships together. We covered more speed to fly, deeper into gaggle etiquette, etc. If you want to learn about this stuff, attend an XC Camp!
First let me get the thanks going. Thanks to all of you who weren’t at the XC camp for giving up your Chief Tow Pilot, Chief Instructor, and Tow Plane. Eric did his standard level amazing flying the Grob with a number of foreigners. The nice thing about the camp was that you didn’t fly with your home folks. It was good to get a different viewpoint on your flying. Flying the past weekend with Jim and Mamad was very helpful and I got some good tips from both of them. But I really appreciate Eric’s style of instruction. We are truly blessed in that regard! Michael was a stalwart tow pilot this weekend, and it was good to see, and be towed by, Wally last weekend. I got a couple of tows from the TSS Citabria, it worked fine on the single seat ships, but there was a lot of appreciation for a mile long concrete runway when the little tail dragger was pulling up the heavy two seaters!
And the mentors. Jim, our Region 4 (and 2) director for the SSA and gracious Duo host (that ship, mein Gott, that ship), Eric, Piet whom I didn’t get to fly with so I can’t sing his praises, other than to say he was a good guy to talk with (also another Duo driver – and his Duo is Karl Striedieck’s old ship so there was a lot of stories about how everyone Piet ever meets has flown or ridden in his glider), JP Stewart, and Mamad and his ability to thermal a ship with lying varios (Eric brought my heat gun down this weekend and we put that to rights). Good folks all, and it speaks well of them that they dedicated their time and patience to us folks looking to break the airport strings.
But the biggest thanks of all have to go to Jenn and Tom. They signed up for the worst possible job of event coordinator. No matter how well you plan a first time event, there’s always something that you didn’t foresee and for every decision you make, someone will be unhappy with it. They did an admirable job and have given VASA a good foundation to build on. I hope we continue to do so. The selection of Emporia is probably perfect for a base of operations. Lots of thermal generators, lots of landable fields, lots of options for running tasks. Speaking of tasks, that’s what we were here to do…
Saturday. I don’t have anything to say about Saturday other than my head hurt. A one bump tow is a pretty strong day at Merlin. I hit my head on the canopy three times, one of which was a slammer, before I got off tow. Winds on the ground weren’t awful, but once you cleared the trees, Katy bar the door. The higher we went, the worse it got. Horrific tows, only think I can say is that I was grateful it was 094 in front of me. I trust our little work horse and Michael. That said, lift was about unworkable below 3K and I got off into lift, but we were a bit close to the airport and I’m trying to use these ‘new techniques’ so my thermalling sucked a bit worse than normal, there were ships to pay attention to and try to gaggle with etiquette, and I ended up washing out and having to head back to base. If the tow and crosswind landing hadn’t been so gnarly, I would have opted in, but they were and I didn’t. For those with glider Viagra, they stayed up and had a good day. You can check the traces and see… that they didn’t get out far. That’s because they weren’t supposed to. Jim created what I call a stop sign set of tasks around Emporia. It’s like eight or so points centered around the airport with most points being around 7 miles, I think the farthest point was Southampton Correctional at 14 miles, but it has a 2’K grass strip, so serves as an alternate. Jim picked 7 miles because that’s about the standard distance for a reasonable cross country ship to do in 1,000’ of altitude, so with 2K’, you can return to base with safety margin for landing. Stefan and I liked this idea, so after Saturday’s flying, we pulled out a sectional and made a similar set of points for Merlin. We’ll create a turn point file and put it up on our G-Drive. This is a great way to start setting tasks and working on them. With the stop sign approach, it doesn’t matter where the wind is from, you always have a task at hand that is workable.
All that said, some of our pilots were out playing until they had to come home. Why did they have to come home? The 40-50mph front that was coming through that was going to make Sunday the ‘best day ever’. We got everyone down and put away just as the rain came through, and…, non-event. Tail end of the front, kind of passed through quick and then gone. But then, while we were in class reviewing the day’s traces, rain! And what comes after rain? Rainbows! It has been a long time since I have seen a rainbow this vivid. I attached two pics, one panorama of the stunning double rainbow – notice that the rainbow is in front of the trees! I know where there’s some gold, y’all! And one where the rainbow, and the reflection of it on the pavement, goes right through 8B’s trailer. Only fitting. Once people got to see 8B in the flesh (glass??), they were much more complimentary. ;-)
First let me get the thanks going. Thanks to all of you who weren’t at the XC camp for giving up your Chief Tow Pilot, Chief Instructor, and Tow Plane. Eric did his standard level amazing flying the Grob with a number of foreigners. The nice thing about the camp was that you didn’t fly with your home folks. It was good to get a different viewpoint on your flying. Flying the past weekend with Jim and Mamad was very helpful and I got some good tips from both of them. But I really appreciate Eric’s style of instruction. We are truly blessed in that regard! Michael was a stalwart tow pilot this weekend, and it was good to see, and be towed by, Wally last weekend. I got a couple of tows from the TSS Citabria, it worked fine on the single seat ships, but there was a lot of appreciation for a mile long concrete runway when the little tail dragger was pulling up the heavy two seaters!
And the mentors. Jim, our Region 4 (and 2) director for the SSA and gracious Duo host (that ship, mein Gott, that ship), Eric, Piet whom I didn’t get to fly with so I can’t sing his praises, other than to say he was a good guy to talk with (also another Duo driver – and his Duo is Karl Striedieck’s old ship so there was a lot of stories about how everyone Piet ever meets has flown or ridden in his glider), JP Stewart, and Mamad and his ability to thermal a ship with lying varios (Eric brought my heat gun down this weekend and we put that to rights). Good folks all, and it speaks well of them that they dedicated their time and patience to us folks looking to break the airport strings.
But the biggest thanks of all have to go to Jenn and Tom. They signed up for the worst possible job of event coordinator. No matter how well you plan a first time event, there’s always something that you didn’t foresee and for every decision you make, someone will be unhappy with it. They did an admirable job and have given VASA a good foundation to build on. I hope we continue to do so. The selection of Emporia is probably perfect for a base of operations. Lots of thermal generators, lots of landable fields, lots of options for running tasks. Speaking of tasks, that’s what we were here to do…
Saturday. I don’t have anything to say about Saturday other than my head hurt. A one bump tow is a pretty strong day at Merlin. I hit my head on the canopy three times, one of which was a slammer, before I got off tow. Winds on the ground weren’t awful, but once you cleared the trees, Katy bar the door. The higher we went, the worse it got. Horrific tows, only think I can say is that I was grateful it was 094 in front of me. I trust our little work horse and Michael. That said, lift was about unworkable below 3K and I got off into lift, but we were a bit close to the airport and I’m trying to use these ‘new techniques’ so my thermalling sucked a bit worse than normal, there were ships to pay attention to and try to gaggle with etiquette, and I ended up washing out and having to head back to base. If the tow and crosswind landing hadn’t been so gnarly, I would have opted in, but they were and I didn’t. For those with glider Viagra, they stayed up and had a good day. You can check the traces and see… that they didn’t get out far. That’s because they weren’t supposed to. Jim created what I call a stop sign set of tasks around Emporia. It’s like eight or so points centered around the airport with most points being around 7 miles, I think the farthest point was Southampton Correctional at 14 miles, but it has a 2’K grass strip, so serves as an alternate. Jim picked 7 miles because that’s about the standard distance for a reasonable cross country ship to do in 1,000’ of altitude, so with 2K’, you can return to base with safety margin for landing. Stefan and I liked this idea, so after Saturday’s flying, we pulled out a sectional and made a similar set of points for Merlin. We’ll create a turn point file and put it up on our G-Drive. This is a great way to start setting tasks and working on them. With the stop sign approach, it doesn’t matter where the wind is from, you always have a task at hand that is workable.
All that said, some of our pilots were out playing until they had to come home. Why did they have to come home? The 40-50mph front that was coming through that was going to make Sunday the ‘best day ever’. We got everyone down and put away just as the rain came through, and…, non-event. Tail end of the front, kind of passed through quick and then gone. But then, while we were in class reviewing the day’s traces, rain! And what comes after rain? Rainbows! It has been a long time since I have seen a rainbow this vivid. I attached two pics, one panorama of the stunning double rainbow – notice that the rainbow is in front of the trees! I know where there’s some gold, y’all! And one where the rainbow, and the reflection of it on the pavement, goes right through 8B’s trailer. Only fitting. Once people got to see 8B in the flesh (glass??), they were much more complimentary. ;-)
Sunday - 200Ks and A Silver Badge!
I have to say I was nervous about Sunday. Having gotten beat like a red headed step child the previous day, and the winds looking awfully similar to me, I didn’t know what to make of it. Excited, yes, optimistic, yes, trepidatious, also yes. I called a task Emporia, upwind to Lawrenceville, turn downwind and run the 50Km leg to Southampton Correctional, then back upwind to Emporia and then futz for the rest of the five hours. Lots of suggestion to go on a downwind dash, but I didn’t really want to do a retrieve and I thought, given that I wasn’t sure about the winds, it would be a good idea to be upwind of the airport in case the day wasn’t for me.
I think I was #3 for takeoff, Piet Barber in QQ was #1, not sure who was #2, but I dropped off tow from behind the Citabria at 2,800’ as we flew under Piet and Mystery Glider in a thermal. Slight bank right to clear the rope and then left around and into the thermal I go. Pretty soon I’m fully fueled at 5K and off to my start gate. I managed to think ahead and put in a start gate over Emporia, upwind of the airport. So headed there, and through that and got the ‘Task Started!’ message on my Kobo. Caught more lift out side of the start gate and topped off, I have nothing but time since I’m going for duration as well. No reason not to get high and stay high! Thermal again outside of town, again over some kind of clay pit. I think that when I started the first thermal outside of town, I heard Tango (Jim) call that he was on his way to Lawrenceville. Silly me, I was all excited to have someone to fly with! By the time I was ½ way to Lville, Tango called and was 13 miles beyond it. Ha! Those wascally Duo pilots!
The thing that kept coming back to me on the way to Lville was how similar the first real task flight is to the first solo. You’re really out of reach of an airport, it’s you, your skills, and a good decision that stands between airport and dirt as your landing options. Once I got about ½ way to Lville, I was getting pretty comfortable. Fields were plenty, as was the lift. So approaching Lville turn point, I see the airport off to my right, and switch to the local freq for traffic monitoring. I’m higher than I want to be for the turn point, in case I need to declare a free distance, so I’m flying fast. Pushing 75 knots indicated and hitting the occasional 2kt up. Crazy lift. Until there’s none and I’m in sink all the way around the turn point. From fighting to get down to 3,500 to worried about getting back out from 2K. I knew I had just passed through all that lift, but that was higher, and the lift low isn’t always so dependable. Not much for it but to push on. Airport off to my left if I need it, but it looks kind of low. I remind myself that I have a tail wind now, and relax. Thirteen minutes later, I exit the thermal at 4.7K and am pushing downwind for Southamption, 50+km away! I tune back to 123.5 and start listening to the Intrepid Crew heading to Merlin. My ground speed heading to Southampton is averaging 75-77mph, with 55-60 indicated. Winds were nuts!
I top up just before the prison to almost 6K and pass through the turn point around 5K. Clearly above the 1% rule on the free distance! Life is good. It was such a quick trip (50min) out to the prison that I thought, hey, day’s over! Piece of cake! But now I’m 14 miles from Emporia, and downwind (que sinister music). Cloud to clould with some good distance runs between them back to about 2-3 miles from KEMV and the blue hole opens up. I try to go direct KEMV, no dice. Thermal and back a mile. So I turned North to some clouds up that way, thermalled and back a mile. Back toward KEMV, thermal, back two miles. I just couldn’t get back to the airport, and winds ar e20-24 at this point. Shit. Finally managed to find a street running along the street (VA 58) and got upwind of the airport. What a pain! While this is going on, the Intrepid Crew (JP, Pete, Piet, Brandon) have hit Merlin, and a blue hole with sink, and are digging out. Then they’re on their way to the SW. Listening to them was like old tyme radio serials. They’re down to 2,500 and scratching hard, looking at local airports out west. But wait! They find lift! They’re good! Oh no, sink! Back to scratching, where’s the next airport, how much alt do we need? Ain’t got that much! Scratch like a flea bitten dog and back up again! While I’m trying to finish my duration flight, this was highly interesting and very entertaining!
So while they are trying to dig out, and doing sliver distance glides, I find this weird wave like air mass. Exiting a thermal, I point downwind and start climbing. 5,200’ to 5,700’, u-turned and went through it again, up to 6,100’, turned again and ran a couple of miles, 8kt up at times, up to 6,700’, turned again, speed is below the stall arc, and I’m climbing at 7kts up to 7K! Ground speed is about 30-35. No idea where it came from or what it was. At this point, QQ Piet is back, it looks like the rest of the Intrepid Crew are also going to make it home. Talk of many full pee bags. If I didn’t have direct line out the bottom, I’m sure I would have had to come down sooner. As it was, the tube stopped draining so I was a bit uncomfortable for the last bit of the flight. But not enough to come down before I crossed 5 hours and some margin for safety. Then Jenn had to pull me off the runway by hand while Piet was on downwind because I needed some off runway area to figure out what was up with the tube. That was special!
So I landed, Piet behind me, then some mix of Pete, JP, Brandon, Tango, and Eric in JM. Never heard much from Eric during the day. Tango occasionally popped up on the radio to check in. What a day.
Paperwork is with Jenn for the silver, hope it all comes out alright. If not, no big deal. I have seen the XC, and now Crewe and Petersburg don’t seem so far away.
8B
I think I was #3 for takeoff, Piet Barber in QQ was #1, not sure who was #2, but I dropped off tow from behind the Citabria at 2,800’ as we flew under Piet and Mystery Glider in a thermal. Slight bank right to clear the rope and then left around and into the thermal I go. Pretty soon I’m fully fueled at 5K and off to my start gate. I managed to think ahead and put in a start gate over Emporia, upwind of the airport. So headed there, and through that and got the ‘Task Started!’ message on my Kobo. Caught more lift out side of the start gate and topped off, I have nothing but time since I’m going for duration as well. No reason not to get high and stay high! Thermal again outside of town, again over some kind of clay pit. I think that when I started the first thermal outside of town, I heard Tango (Jim) call that he was on his way to Lawrenceville. Silly me, I was all excited to have someone to fly with! By the time I was ½ way to Lville, Tango called and was 13 miles beyond it. Ha! Those wascally Duo pilots!
The thing that kept coming back to me on the way to Lville was how similar the first real task flight is to the first solo. You’re really out of reach of an airport, it’s you, your skills, and a good decision that stands between airport and dirt as your landing options. Once I got about ½ way to Lville, I was getting pretty comfortable. Fields were plenty, as was the lift. So approaching Lville turn point, I see the airport off to my right, and switch to the local freq for traffic monitoring. I’m higher than I want to be for the turn point, in case I need to declare a free distance, so I’m flying fast. Pushing 75 knots indicated and hitting the occasional 2kt up. Crazy lift. Until there’s none and I’m in sink all the way around the turn point. From fighting to get down to 3,500 to worried about getting back out from 2K. I knew I had just passed through all that lift, but that was higher, and the lift low isn’t always so dependable. Not much for it but to push on. Airport off to my left if I need it, but it looks kind of low. I remind myself that I have a tail wind now, and relax. Thirteen minutes later, I exit the thermal at 4.7K and am pushing downwind for Southamption, 50+km away! I tune back to 123.5 and start listening to the Intrepid Crew heading to Merlin. My ground speed heading to Southampton is averaging 75-77mph, with 55-60 indicated. Winds were nuts!
I top up just before the prison to almost 6K and pass through the turn point around 5K. Clearly above the 1% rule on the free distance! Life is good. It was such a quick trip (50min) out to the prison that I thought, hey, day’s over! Piece of cake! But now I’m 14 miles from Emporia, and downwind (que sinister music). Cloud to clould with some good distance runs between them back to about 2-3 miles from KEMV and the blue hole opens up. I try to go direct KEMV, no dice. Thermal and back a mile. So I turned North to some clouds up that way, thermalled and back a mile. Back toward KEMV, thermal, back two miles. I just couldn’t get back to the airport, and winds ar e20-24 at this point. Shit. Finally managed to find a street running along the street (VA 58) and got upwind of the airport. What a pain! While this is going on, the Intrepid Crew (JP, Pete, Piet, Brandon) have hit Merlin, and a blue hole with sink, and are digging out. Then they’re on their way to the SW. Listening to them was like old tyme radio serials. They’re down to 2,500 and scratching hard, looking at local airports out west. But wait! They find lift! They’re good! Oh no, sink! Back to scratching, where’s the next airport, how much alt do we need? Ain’t got that much! Scratch like a flea bitten dog and back up again! While I’m trying to finish my duration flight, this was highly interesting and very entertaining!
So while they are trying to dig out, and doing sliver distance glides, I find this weird wave like air mass. Exiting a thermal, I point downwind and start climbing. 5,200’ to 5,700’, u-turned and went through it again, up to 6,100’, turned again and ran a couple of miles, 8kt up at times, up to 6,700’, turned again, speed is below the stall arc, and I’m climbing at 7kts up to 7K! Ground speed is about 30-35. No idea where it came from or what it was. At this point, QQ Piet is back, it looks like the rest of the Intrepid Crew are also going to make it home. Talk of many full pee bags. If I didn’t have direct line out the bottom, I’m sure I would have had to come down sooner. As it was, the tube stopped draining so I was a bit uncomfortable for the last bit of the flight. But not enough to come down before I crossed 5 hours and some margin for safety. Then Jenn had to pull me off the runway by hand while Piet was on downwind because I needed some off runway area to figure out what was up with the tube. That was special!
So I landed, Piet behind me, then some mix of Pete, JP, Brandon, Tango, and Eric in JM. Never heard much from Eric during the day. Tango occasionally popped up on the radio to check in. What a day.
Paperwork is with Jenn for the silver, hope it all comes out alright. If not, no big deal. I have seen the XC, and now Crewe and Petersburg don’t seem so far away.
8B