 April 29, 2008 - Morgan, Utah in my ASW-20B, One 3,500 ft tow, 2.9 hour flight.
I had a great time over the winter messing around with my glider. I sanded, buffed and waxed both the top and bottom of the wings and tail. They came out looking great. I also took the time to remove all of the control surface tapes and mylars and replace them. It was overdue and I took my time and was very happy with the outcome. I also added a few little things that make a huge difference.
I added the MKII high tech yaw string for $5 and the Quiet Vent kit for another $5. It is the best $10 I have spent on my glider by 10x! The yaw string just looks cool and replaces the ugly taped on string I am used to. The quiet vent really does what it promises and now when I fly with the flip-out vent window open the noise is impressively reduced. If anyone wants to find out more about these products for your own glider I don't sell them but can connect you with the guy who does. Just email me and I'll send you the info.
I got to the airport early today so I could finally do a weight and balance on my ship. Jay and Stan out at Morgan were most helpful and I am pleased to say I finally know exactly what it is so I can start adding balast in the wings. I have heard that the performance gains are well worth that hassle.
I took an extra high launch because winds were strong (35+ mph) out of the south and it was overcast. The ridges were tough to work because the face westerly but I was able to play around for almost 3 hours in between snow showers and shifting low clouds. Very fun and I am quite pleased with how the ship is flying. Now for a decent soaring day...
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 May 3, 2008 - Morgan, Utah in my ASW-20B, One 3,000 ft tow, 3.0 hour flight.
Click here to view flight track.
The winds have finally gone away and left gentle westerly breezes so this flight will be much different than last Tuesday's. But, it wasn't a perfect day either. Plenty of high clouds blocked out 90% of the sky so it made for a challenging but fun day.
Kirk came up with me with his 20 and we both helped each other set up. He takes half the time I do. I guess I am just slow but we got there early enough I wasn't in a hurry. I got off of tow in the second big bump I felt and took the lift up to 13,000 ft in the shade. Not bad. I then headed north in between show showering virga pockets and entered the Logan valley. I have flown only local flights from Morgan so this was my first time into the Logan area. The lift was spotty, the sink was huge and I got low a few times but after a few low saves was able to get high enough to make it home. It was not a fast flight for the distance by any means but I was not in a hurray and just enjoyed flying over some new terrain. I came in high on purpose for landing so I could try the landing flap setting and REALLY liked how the ship handled and how I landed. I am going to start coming in extra high from now on so I can use this flap setting more. I normally land with thermalling flap but need to practice steep and slow approaches as well for practicing off-field landings. Great day! I hope to get up again on the 17th.
I purchased a Spot Satellite messenger a few days ago and can't wait to start taking it with me whenever I fly or go hiking/hunting. I would highly recommend all pilots and outdoors enthusiasts to get one! Here is some more info on the device. Also buy it from iboats.com because they pay my mortgage. :) Here is a link to Spot info.
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 May 17, 2008 - Cedar Valley, Utah in my ASW-20B, One 2,200 ft tow, 5.5 hour flight.
Click here to view flight track.
Click Here to see large High Uintah Spring photograph.
Click Here to see large Park City Spring photograph.
Well, I broke no speed records on this flight but I sure had a fun time. I think a sparrow could have flown my course faster...and made it back home which I didn't. Would I fly where I did again if I had the day to do over? Absolutely!
The winds were forecast to be around 20 knots out of the north east. Most of the time it is out of the south to west to north, but not out of the east so I decided to try a task up into Wyoming. I got to the airport around 10:30 to get my glider out of the trailer and hopefully ready to go by noon. As everything in soaring takes longer than planned I didn't launch until just before 1:00. The takeoff was a thing of beauty in a decent 10+ knot crosswind. I have been using a crosswind takeoff technique for about the last 10 attempts that has delivered some very good results.
It is not rocket science or anything earth shattering but for me it has worked very well. First, I position the glider to aim at the lee side wing of the tow plane as relative to the crosswind. If the crosswind is stronger than 15 knots I might even angle out a little more. Since the cross wind is going to weathervane me into the wind a little no matter what I do when first launching I am now going straight behind the tow plane after weathervaning back onto center line. I next position the stick about half of full deflection into the wind and hold it back about half way to hold down the tail. Before, it always seemed that the crosswind was picking up the windward wing and making me have to try to lift the lee side wing. I have not had any wing drop problems using this technique yet. Again, nothing too new with this technique but I thought someone might want to hear what seems to work at airports with a constant crosswind takeoff.
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 I towed over to the town of Cedar Fort and headed for the ridge just west after a few turns after release. The ridge was working very well and I quickly got up to around 13,000 ft. I wanted to have at least 14,000 to head east 25 miles and cross the Salt Lake valley. This would give me 4,000 ft to go the distance without entering into Class B airspace below. I flew to some clouds just south of the Kennecott copper pit, gained my altitude and called Salt Lake approach and asked for traffic advisories during the crossing. The altitude and area is just were the big jets flying into Salt Lake International come in and it was great having a transponder and an assigned squawk so I could move through the area in between jets and know they were looking out for me. The controller was very friendly and helpful.
I was heading towards a cloudless Lone Peak when a small little cloud over Alpine caught my eye and I changed course to head below it. I found lift and got high enough to head into Heber valley. I decided to ridge soar the east face of Mount Timp even though I knew there would not be much lift because most of the time the wind is from the west or the south and the turbulence would be too bad on that side. With the wind coming out of the northeast it was smooth (too smooth) and fun to fly the east facing cliffs. At this point I saw that there were clouds over the Uintah Mountains but they seemed to end around Evanston Wyoming so I changed my planned task and would fly the north slope of the Uintahs today. It was clear by now that the lift under the clouds was there but I could only get about 200 ft per minute gain out of any of them. I think it was due to being rusty on my thermalling skills, the cores were very narrow and not very strong and it just wasn’t an 800 fpm every thermal day. If I had to put blame on anything though I would say my thermalling. I was trying to fly around 45 knots between 30-45 degree turns and would just keep falling out and stalling. I then tried around 50 knots and did better after a while but it still wasn’t pretty. My nose of the glider was up and down and going all over the place. Yeah the air was a little bit ratty but the pilot needs a few more hours in the air to get back into form. Near the end of the flight I was flying better cores by keeping the speed between 52-54 knots and banking about 55 degrees. One of the tricks I learned a few years ago about judging how many degrees you are turning is to line up the diagonal screw holes on one of your instruments to the horizon. If they are parallel to the horizon then you are flying a 45-degree turn. Pretty simple.
By this time I was southeast of Evanston and the clouds on the North Slope were ending. The clouds over the Uintahs were great and headed east as far as you could see but with the lift being light and most of the time not getting more than 14,000 ft it just was not a day to go over that kind of rugged country for a rusty soaring pilot like me. I decided to turn back at Meeks Cabin reservoir and at 90 miles out from Cedar Valley and at around 4:45 I thought I had an easy final glide back home. I even mentioned to Tim Taylor who was flying out of Logan by radio that I had final glide about 80 miles out. My computers did say I had it if I could keep up at least a 40:1 glide ratio the entire time. Big mistake to be fine with those numbers! The clouds ended at the west end of the Uintahs and it was pure blue for the final 50 miles. I thought I was doing great and instead of getting a couple of thousand feet higher at that last cloud I blindly pushed on thinking I was some great XC pilot and could get lift somewhere if I needed it. Well, I really needed it once I tried to fly the American Fork gap. I was about 200 feet too low and there was a final ridge I needed to cross. No joy. With the winds from the north the entire Heber valley had shut down and I was trapped in the valley. I tried to scratch down low right over the Alpine loop and finally came to my senses that even though I could head down the canyon to the south I was foolish to be on the lee side of the mountains trying to work rotor winds only 400-500 ft above the ground. My flight computer also said I needed a 40:1 glide to even get to the Heber airport and relying on that failed me last time. Time to admit defeat and make sure I didn’t do something stupid trying to get home with a perfectly good runway just 10 miles away.
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 I limped over to Heber and arrived at pattern altitude from the West. It was 6pm and the entire valley was blue but the sun was still shining. I didn’t want to give up and tried one more time to ridge soar the hills right by the airport. I gained 1,000 but I still needed another 3,500 ft to make it home. Can’t pull it out this time. The airport was very quiet since the glider tow operator there took the day off. Landing was very smooth with a 15-knot crosswind from the north. I forgot to dump the 2 pounds of water ballast in the tail but at least I remembered to put down the gear. :) Got to remember those checklists! I pushed the glider off the runway and onto the ramp and called Brent the tow pilot at Cedar Valley. He was already laughing when he answered the phone. I think he was impressed that I was at least smart enough to put in onto a runway instead of a field. Gill (the ASW15 pilot I have some formation flight video of on the front page) had a feeling I might have pushed it too far and so hung around the airport until I landed. He volunteered to drive my car with the trailer and come pick me up. It took him only an hour to get to Heber and I was home by 10:30. Thanks Gil! I owe you big time man!
Lessons learned? During soaring cross-country flights you see some of the most spectacular remote places from the air that most people will never see. The High Uintahs were breathtaking and to see the windmill farm east of Evanston from the air was pretty cool too. Here is another. When you are 80 miles out and you have only blue skies between you and home and it is late in the day, if you can get a few thousand extra feet for a buffer, take it for crying out loud! Next, if you are going to fly 40 miles on the lee side of a mountain range expect some sink. Duh!!! And last but not least, be really nice to the other guys at the airport because you just might be calling 50 miles out and hoping they might want to spend the rest of the evening doing a retrieve. Fun day! I hope to get out again this coming Tuesday. It is late as I right this so I am not going to proof it. Please disregard the sloppy writing.
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