June 6, 2003 - Morgan, UT in Phoebus, 4200 ft tow for 2.35 hours
I left work at 12:20 in the afternoon and picked up Nathan, a neighbor friend, and we drove up to Morgan. We put my Phoebus together along with Aaron's B model and slooowly walked them both down to the other side of the runway for tow. We both really need to get some tow out gear!
We waited for over an hour while other gliders in front of us took tows. Aaron took off first around 3:45 and I took of at 4:00. I find towing in the Phoebus interesting. When we are close to the ground I am rock steady right behind the tow plane with no PIO's. Once we are a few hundred feet up, I guess I slack off a little bit or something because I find that I am in a constant state of slowly sinking or raising above tow position. I am going to concentrate on correcting this on my next tow. I was a complete wimp and even though I hit a few bumps around 200-300 fpm I took a very high tow to 4200 ft agl to above Durst ridge. I wanted to make sure I didn't have just an hour flight. I quickly found that I had been overly cautious and the lift while not booming was pretty easy to find.
This was the first time I had ever really tried to take pictures while flying. It is very tough to fly straight and look through a camera view finder. Even harder yet is just looking through a view finder in the reclined position of a Phoebus! I took 25 pics and 24 ended up being good enough to post on the site. Click here to take a look at the pics of the flight.
I ended up flying south of Durst down the ridge line about 7-10 miles just for fun and ended up south east of Morgan city. The lift wasn't good at all and so I headed back northwest. I had a wonderful time playing along the different canyon and ridge lines going back. At one point I just slowly worked back and forth up a ridge until I made it back to the top of the mountain. On top there was a ranger station or cabin that I circled around for about 10 minutes. It is located only about 1/4 mile from the radar tower south of Durst. I am mad I didn't take a picture of the place. It was sooooo beautiful. I find that I really enjoy playing right off the mountain ridges and not just circling 4000' above them. The quickly changing scenery and trees rushing past you is just breathtaking! Flying those ridges ranks up in my top 5 most scenic flying experiences. I think another reason why it impressed me so much is that it has been a long time since I have flown ridge lines like that. I will be doing it again!
I radioed Aaron and we met back up above the Durst ridge. There was now a gaggle (multiple gliders in the same thermal) of 5 of us gliders circling over the ridge. I took a few good far away pics which was fun. Aaron and I didn't get close enough to compare performance between the Phoebus A and B model so we will have to do it again.
I left the gaggle and headed west at 10,000 msl for about 13 miles. I played around over a ski resort (I think Snow Basin) and then needed to come down to land. I told my wife I would be home between 6 and 7 and it was already 6:15. I knew I was dead meat which later I was. Landing was great, with a left downwind for runway 21. There was a 3-4 knot crosswind which was fun to feel and made it more interesting on final. I stopped next to my trailer and Nathan and I frantically took my glider apart and trailered her home. My wife was less than happy that I showed up at 9:30. Yikes! I trailered my glider back home so that we can take it to Nephi next week for my first "glider safari" with about 15 other guys. After that, I will be hangering it out at Cedar Valley for the rest of the summer. Great flight!
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June 14, 2003 - Nephi, UT in Phoebus, 3000 ft tow for 3.7 hours
To view pics of this flight, click here.
The Thomson's from Morgan Valley Soaring put together what they called the "Nephi soaring Safari" where 13 gliders trailered down to Nephi, Utah and they flew their tow plane, Ugly, down to do tows. It was my first time trailering down to another airport to fly.
I left work Friday at noon and after getting the family ready (took forever!), drove down to Nephi. My wife drove my car so she could leave before I did Saturday. We got there at 3:15 and I was ready to fly by 4pm. A strong, 20+ mph, north wind kicked up and I elected not to push my luck and I didn't go up. I was disappointed but glad I played it safe because everyone who did try came straight back down.
We had a great dutch-oven dinner Friday night. Almost everyone and their families headed to the local hotel. Heidi, the kids and I slept in the motor home. My son decided to stay up from 12am to 4am and I was the lucky one to stay up with him. It was nice having the family there and was worth the lost sleep.
The Thomson's put together a great breakfast and everyone just mulled around all morning. Heidi and the kids didn't even wake up till after 10:30! Early morning for them :) Again, the Thomson's provided the food for lunch and to my later frustration, everyone took their time. We didn't start launching gliders until after 1pm. I was second last in line and so didn't launch until 3:30. I was probably more impatient than I should have been but I was aching to fly since I didn't go up the day before.
---------The Flight---------
Please note I have included a map of the flight at the bottom of this description.
My tow went well. Heidi left because of the wait so I was disappointed that she wasn't able to video it. I really want to get a video of a launch/landing one of these days. I wimped out and again took a 3000' tow. I probably could have gotten off at 2000' but was not going to risk it since my flight time would already be limited by the time of day. I got off at 8000' msl about 4 miles north west of the airport and centered the thermal I was in climbing to 12,500 within 10 minutes. I then headed east to go play over Mount Nebo. I thermalled over Nebo until getting to 16,500' and decided to follow a cloud street along Nebo's mountain chain south. It has been a while since I have gotten over 17,000' and it was nice for once to not be in a rental glider worrying about how hypoxic I really was. My Mountain High oxygen system that Aaron installed for me works great!
I decided to turn east before getting to Manti since I didn't want to risk landing out of Nephi. I didn't have anyone set up who could/would bring my trailer. I headed for the town Mount Pleasant and during the way took my glider for the first time up to 95 knots indicated airspeed. My gps read a ground speed of 144 mph! I started the turn at about 16,500' and by the time I got to the lakes east of Mt. Pleasant I was at 12,800 and 34 miles away from the Nephi airport. The little distance gliding chart I made and put up on my instrument panel said I could be at 11,500' at 90% L/D and 16,100 50% efficiency. I wasn't finding much lift near the lakes and I wasn't willing to go further east 3-4 miles to where the clouds were teasing that there was lift. My heart started racing and I thought to myself as many glider pilots do more often than they would admit, "Oh crap! I really don't want to land out today. I sure looked low in altitude in perspective to where Nephi was even though the numbers said I could make it!" I decided to not waste any more time over that area and headed north along the range. I FINALLY found a 2 knot thermal and slooowly worked my way back up to at least 14,500'. I felt a little better and headed west passing over the city of Fairview.
There are some medium sized foothills about 5 miles west of Fairview and the first clouds in my area were looking like they were working pretty well over them. I hit a 7 knot thermal and to my relief soared up to 17,400'. I am sure I could have gotten back to Nephi without finding any more lift but I really do not have hardly any cross-country experience (over 25 miles away from my landing airport). Give me 3 more months of flying and another landout or two and I hope I will consider myself having more cross-country time under my belt. Regardless, I can see why long time glider pilots spend so much of their time and energies only doing cross-country soaring.
I decided that I wasn't ready to just head back to Nephi and call it a day so I turned north and headed over to Payson, Utah. I had gobbs of altitude and so I put the nose down and averaged 130 mph ground speed heading over there. I turned south on the Mt. Nebo range and opened my spoilers to lose another 4000' altitude so I could play along the ridge lines. It was now after 6pm and the lift was radiating from the ridge that I couldn't find sink even when I looked for it. There were two groups of hikers at the top of Nebo and I circled by them for a few turns. They were waving and seemed excited to see me up close and going fast.
I got a call on the radio from my soaring friend Dale and he said I had better land soon or I would have no one to help me put my glider away. It was now 6:30 and so I followed the immediate ridge line south of Mt. Nebo with full spoilers and descended 7500' and came in to land. There was absolutely no wind as I came in. It was a great end to my first real cross-country flight.
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June 17, 2003 - Morgan, UT in SGS 2-33, 2 tows for 1 hour
I wasn't expecting to fly today but I am not complaining. JB, the head moderator of my company's online message boards came into town to visit with his grandson Daniel. After meetings we thought it would be a nice gesture to take them up on a flight. They were excited to go. I had a real time limit on how long we could fly because I needed to get back to Salt Lake for a business dinner. I flew back seat and I think they had a nice time. I was really impressed by how unfun (is that a word?) flying a 2-33 is after flying my Phoebus a bunch lately. I shouldn't complain since any flying is fun flying.
The most interesting part of the two flights was when we started a grass fire on the side of the runway from the metal skid plate on the 2-33. They told me to land on the side of the runway in the grass. That policy is now changed. :)
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June 28, 2003 - Cedar Valley, UT in Phoebus, 2800 ft tow for 3.8 hours, wind from north at 10 knots, low humidity day (blue skies, few clouds).
 To view pics of this flight, click here.
I was very excited to finally fly my glider out of Cedar Valley. I trailered it out the Tuesday before and put it together (in a rainstorm), then put it in a hanger. Yeah! No more putting together and then taking it apart every time I fly.
My wife and kids came out to watch the launch. Heidi video taped the launch. It took me a while to make sure everything was ready before signaling for the wing to be lifted by the runner. I couldn't get a radio check from the tow plane (I later remembered that Cedar Valley uses 123.3 not 122.8 - Duh!). I signaled the runner to lift the wing and we started the tow. It was my worst by far and my wife caught it on video.
As I passed the area where the tow plane started my left wing dipped suddenly and I had a nice .5 second scrape. It didn't sound pretty on the video. After that the tow went just fine. I thought I stayed behind the tow plane better on this tow than any of my others. Too bad about the wing drop but no harm done.
There was a funny part about the launch which I later found out. My two year old son Bruno V (the fifth) got onto the floor of a golf cart behind my glider and pressed the gas pedal with his hands. It was heading straight for an ASK 21 two place glider waiting next for tow. My wife swore, dropped the video camera and barely stopped him just feet from his crashing into its side. She has assured me that my kids are not coming back to the airport any time soon.
Brent towed me west to the Oquirrh Mountains and I released at 2,800' agl a mile west of Cedar Fort. I didn't find lift on the ridges so I headed back over the town and took a 3-4 knot thermal up to 11,500' and then followed the ridges to the top of Lewiston Peak. I was surprised at how blasé I felt about staying there. Lewiston Peak used to be my nirvana in a 2-33 just a few years ago.
I circled the peak up to 13,500' and decided that the conditions were right to try for Lone Peak. In 1996 I wrote a list of 100 life-time goals. Those that are glider-related is to own my own glider, fly over Lone Peak in one and fly in a glider competition. The first accomplished I set out to tackle the second goal.
There were some decent clouds building just north east of the airport so I headed over to them. I noticed quite a bit of commercial airline traffic in front of me coming from the south at about my altitude heading to Salt Lake International airport so I kept a close lookout for them. I made it to the south side of Lone Peak at about 10,000' and tried working the ridge but got down to 9,500' and had to start heading back.
Over the new Sun Crest community located on the top of Point of the Mountain I found a rescue thermal that took me back up to 10,500' so I turned around and tried again. Same thing happened. I returned to my rescue thermal and got to 11,000' this time and tried again. Again, I could not for the life of me work the eastern side of the mountain to get to the top. My goal was so close but I couldn't make it to the top by taking this route.
I found a new thermal over Alpine at about 9,000' and worked it up to 10,500' and then headed east to the ridge just north of American Fork Canyon. It took me about 10 minutes of scratching before I found a boomer and shot up to over 12,500'. While circling I needed both hands to adjust something and was quickly reminded of the all-flying-tail when the plane took a hard dive and my head and camera hit the canopy pretty hard. You can never take both hands off the stick in a Phoebus. I hope I learned that lesson once and for all because it shook me up pretty good. I was amazed my camera didn't break the canopy. Thank goodness!
I was plenty high to make it to Lone Peak and meandered north alone the ridge line east of Alpine taking in the unbelievable scenery and taking some pictures of the lakes and ridges to the east. It still amazes me how beautiful and truly breathtaking it is flying over the mountains here in Utah. It is unbelievable how rugged the mountains are behind Lone Peak. I bet very few people ever go back there even just 2 miles directly east of the peak. There has to be at least a few big bucks hiding up in there somewhere.
I felt an enormous rush of both relief and accomplishment when I flew over the summit of Lone Peak for the first time. When I was 13 years old, I hiked to the top with some friends. We were sitting on the edge of the cliff when a 2-place glider (I think a Grob) flew over us from behind only about 100 feet over our heads. It was my first encounter with a glider. I had no idea what it was because it was making a high pitched shrilling noise and at first assumed it was a jet. That experience left a real impression on me as to how cool soaring really is. I always wanted to be the pilot in the glider buzzing the mountains right behind my parents house where I grew up. I finally got my wish. I know this all sounds corny but it really meant a lot to me to finally be able to do it, and better yet in my own glider!
I need to wrap this report up. I headed back over to the ridges east of Alpine and gained enough altitude to very safely make it over American Fork Canyon to Mount Timpanogos to the south. I was spoiling myself by doing Mount Timp as well as Lone Peak for the first time. I was an idiot and wasted my limited digital camera's 36 shots by this time in the flight. I want to go back and take more pics of the backside lake (it is so blue it looks like antifreeze) and glaciers. I circled right over the summit's hikers' shelter in a great thermal up to 15,300' and then decided to follow a cloud street south. I made it to Y mountain east of Provo and decided to start heading back because of a promise to make it home for a date with my wife.
I had gobs of altitude and so I pushed the stick forward and flew at around 80 knots indicated airspeed. Over American Fork Canyon I contacted my wife at home and told her to go outside with the kids in 5 minutes and I would circle overhead for a few turns. I arrived over my house in Lehi with about 11,000' and circled for 5 minutes. I was way too high to see them waving but it was a cool feeling to be circling over my house. Again, I am so amazed at the entirely different experience a soaring pilot has when they go from low performance trainers up to higher performance cross country glass ships. There was no way I could have made a quarter the distance I made in this flight in a good old 2-33! I zoomed back to the airport and had a good landing on the grass strip (they say its grass but it is more like dirt and mowed weeds) to the east of the runway. It was a memorable flight to say the least!
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