Aug 16, 2003 - Cedar Valley, UT in Phoebus, 2100 ft tow for 1.2 hours.
It had been way too long since I last flew! The last few weekends I went up to Bear Lake and then fishing up in the high Uintahs so I haven't had the time to fly. The few days that would have worked overdeveloped so that didn't help either.
Today looked like a horrible day to fly. The soaring forcast only predicted max lift of around 350 ft per minute (my minimum sink is 126 ft/min) and by noon it was already overdeveloped and completely clouded over. I decided that even if I only had a sled ride it was worth it. Launch went great and I ended up scratching around the valley often times in only 25-50 ft per minute lift. It was very challenging yet fun to try to stay in these little weak thermals. I switched my vario over to X5 sensitivity and I was VERY impressed with how much it helped in such weak lift. I could have stayed up longer but I was pretty concerned about lightening that was less than 10 miles away from the airport and moving in that direction. I had a great landing in light crosswind and Brent and I quickly put the glider away.
Within 10 minutes of landing, the sock was completely horizontal and it was heavily raining and hailing. I am glad I decided to come in when I did! I think I will consider flying more on light overcast days just for the challenge of trying to stay up. Great flight.
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Aug 23, 2003 - Cedar Valley, UT in Phoebus, 2400 ft tow for 2.2 hours.
When I got onto the internet this morning the soaring forcast page wasn't working so I didn't know how good of a day it would be. I called the local flight service center and they said cloud bases were going to be around 12,000' so I wasn't expecting much. By the time I got to the airport it was already starting to overdevelop. I took the top off my panel to check the connections to my radio because it hasn't been working for a few flights :( everything looked ok. Bummer. I used a handheld which was a pain.
I launched about 2:45. There was a steady left crosswind as always out there in Cedar Valley. My takeoff wasn't my best. I stayed straight and level just fine but I tried to get airborn a little too early and did a few small bounces. It taught me that I need to not judge my lift off on runway location but on my actual speed and current conditions. Good lesson!
I played around in little lift and decided that I would play over the Oquirrh mountains on the west side of the Salt Lake valley. The lift was challenging to work but once I made it to the top I had a good wind from the west that deflected off the ridge lines. As you can see in the first picture I took at this poin in the flight, it was pretty overcast. I was glad because I had forgotten my sun screen. :)
I got almost to over the Kennecott Copper pit and decided to follow a cloud street south about 25 miles. I rode the lift street down making great time (topping out at 12,400') and got to about 3 miles north of the city of Eureka. The last time I flew this route was in the 1-26 when I ended up landing out. It was nice to have the performance this time around since I was 4000' lower this flight than when I didn't make it back.
 I promised my wife we would go out to dinner so I had to cut the flight short. I had 20 minutes to get back to the airport so I turned northeast and headed over to the Fairfield VOR on the mountains just west of Utah Lake. It was sunny on the east side of Cedar Valley. The lift was incredibly strong over this range and I had to keep full spoilers out to not glide up into the Class B airspace 9000' - 10,000' above the VOR. I quickly glided in and landed into a steady headwind from the north. My tailwheel weathervained again so it look like I am going to have to replace the unit Aaron installed because it doesn't like being backwards. Fun flight!
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