April 24, 2004 - Morgan, Utah in SGS 2-33, 1.7 hours
To view pics of this flight, click here.
Finally! The weather this April has not been too accommodating to soaring. Last weekend shut me out with rain but today made up for it! My glider is not going to be ready for another week or two to fly with the cockpit changes I'm making so I flew in the old 2-33 rental available up there in Morgan. At least I finally got to fly again!
Takeoff and tow went great. I don't care who you are with how many thousands of hours flying under your belt, the first 30 seconds of the first tow of the season gets your blood pumping! After, you realize, "yeah, I remember how to fly this thing after all" and you settle down and have a great time. I really like the new towplane that Morgan Soaring purchased at the end of last year! It has 250 hp and does a great job of getting you up high quickly.
I released on the ridgeline about 5 miles southeast of the airport at 3000’ above the airport elevation. There was a pretty decent westerly wind, which made slope and thermal soaring interesting. I had a very hard time thermalling because the thermals were pretty narrow and were close to the mountainside. What ended up happening is that I would turn into one turning away from the mountain but could only do a 180 degree turn and then have to pull out of it because the wind would blow me near the mountain side and I would not have enough space to keep going. One of the basics of flying near a mountain is to never turn into it if you are even fairly close because you might not be able to make it all the way. Winds get very shifty when you start getting within a few hundred feet from the mountainside. Because of this, I would enter into a thermal but have to turn out of it to avoid the mountain. Much of this time was spent thermalling in 100-200 feet per minute lift and plenty of 300-600 fpm sink all around, so it was sloooow going.
I ended up playing on the ridge line for about 45 minutes and then decided that I should be doing better than I was and to start paying attention to the thermals further out away from the mountain side so I could get enough altitude to fly up to the higher mountain behind the first ridgeline I was flying. I found a couple of good ones and quickly made it to the top of Durst Mountain, the highest peak in the area. The air around the top of the peak was pretty (I am trying to think of a word other than violent but can’t come up with one) at times. I circled up to cloudbase in on thermal that was 900 fpm + at its narrow center.
I could have stayed there and played for hours but I had a family commitment and knew that I could only fly for about another 30 minutes. I decided to follow a cloud street north east of Durst and almost made it to the Wasatch range just east of Ogden but I ran out of time. I was at 10,900 ft (airport elevation is 5,000’) and opened 2/3 full spoilers and started heading back to the airport. The pattern was pretty busy when I got there. I entered downwind right behind another glider and had a powerplane about 2 miles behind me also entering the pattern. I did a great short field landing and pulled off to the side of the runway. I could have stayed up for another 2-3 hours but I am learning that if you take care of family duties first, you are allowed to fly another day. ;)
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May 5, 2004 - Morgan, Utah in my Phoebus, 2.0 hours
To view a map and pictures of this flight, click here.
Happy cinco de maio! Today was the first flight with the Phoebus this year. I was very ready to go since I have been dreaming of flying her again for over 6 months now.
My good friend Dale took a half day off and came along with me to fly in his club's Grob and possibly act as ground crew and drive my car and trailer back in case I was able to fly all the way down to my permanent summer airport in Cedar Valley. When we got to the airport at 1pm my glider was far from ready and it took 4 more hours until it was assembled and ready to go. I won't bore you with the details. Aaron wasn't quite finished with my new flight computer but I still had my trusty old Garmin II+ gps to record the flight (until it ran out of memory).
Taking off for the first time of the season in any Phoebus is always an adventure to say the least! You never quite remember just how sensitive the controls are until you over-control during the first 10 seconds of takeoff and quickly force yourself to be smooth and make little movements. My takeoff was pretty good actually but I just couldn't believe how sensitive the Phoebus is compare with the lumbering 2-33 I flew a week and a half before. It took me a good hour to get completely comfortable with the controls again. Some people say the that Phoebus sailplane has a bad reputation because of how sensitive and light the stick forces are. I like to compare it with driving a Ferrari instead of a bus. It is great! You can instantly be in a tight turn within just a second or two. You never have to wait for it to catch up with you when maneuvering. But, the first 10 seconds after a break from flying the Phoebus does get your blood pumping! Enough said.
The soaring conditions were just ok for the day. It was pretty choppy below 13,000' and there were strong 30 knot south westerly winds aloft. I flew around Durst enjoying the scenery and taking pictures and then made a big loop around the valley by first heading south over Morgan city and then turning west and flying to the Wasatch mountains just east of Ogden. I then turned north and followed the ridge mostly in light lift until I got to Snow Basin ski resort and then turned east to go back to Durst Ridge to meet up with Dale for some photos. We flew formation back and forth over the ridge for a few minutes taking pictures of each other and then we were both ready to go back and land since we still had to take my Phoebus apart and trailer it back to my home. Dale ended up getting just over 4 hours since he took off a few hours before I did. We had a great and long day. Next flight, Cedar Valley on probably Saturday the 15th if the weather cooperates.
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May 19, 2004 - Cedar Valley, Utah in my Phoebus, 2 Tows, .2 and 2.5 hours
To view a map and pictures of this flight, click here.
Finally! I took a half day off of work and got to the airport by 1:30. It was very nice having everything already assembled and waiting for me in the hanger. The flight computer I just bought didn't work again so I was a little bit frustrated. Who knows what the problem is. The weather was decent but not the best. The eastern part of the sky and horizon were blocked out by cirrus clouds so that really dictacted a local or to the south flight. Winds were fairly steady from the east (crosswind takeoff) at around 10 knots. That is the standard at Cedar Valley.
I wasn't too happy about the first takeoff. I needed to push forward on the stick more to get the tail off the ground. The ground roll was slightly longer than I anticipated and I tried to get into the air a little too soon. It resulted in a few small bounces. :( I thought I was a better pilot than that. It was nothing severe and I didn't damage anything but I was a little paranoid about my tailwheel due to my tailwheel nightmare last year so I decided to make it a pattern tow and land to make sure the tailwheel was fine. It was.
The next takeoff I did the same thing. Argh! I guess it takes doing it twice to finally learn (I hope). A few early hops and I was on tow. I wish the Phoebus was slightly easier to control on crosswind takeoffs. It keeps it interesting!
I decided to play around Lewiston Peak for a while and took some good pictures and then followed a cloud street south while bucking a 30+knot headwind. I ended up at the south end of Cedar Valley and decided it was time to go back since I was 5:50 and the lift was clearly dying. I got about 23 miles south of the airport but with a tailwind and 6,000 ft above the ground, the final glide back was a no brainer. It was fun but I had a few cockpit hassles that I want to fix next flight. My air hose kept getting pulled by my right arm, my relief system is not the easiest to use or hook up during flight, my camera strap was a little too long, need to fix the flight computer, need to have a much better takeoff roll in cross wind conditions. All in all, I have had better flights but I shouldn't complain, it was beautiful, I didn't bust anything, had 2 safe flights. I will try to get in two flights next week if my schedule (my wife) and the weather cooperate. ;)
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May 26, 2004 - Cedar Valley, Utah in my Phoebus, 1 tow to 1600 ft agl, 3.2 hours
To view a map and pictures of this flight, click here.
My first cross country flight of the year! :) I am a very happy person as I write this. The day was pretty rotten, again. There was overcast clouds covering 80%+ of the sky so I didn't think I would get much of a flight in. My takeoff was great. I used some of the takeoff lessons I learned from the last flights and things went great. Big relief.
I got off tow at 6600' msl and circled up to 8,900'. I could have kept going up but class B airspace goes from 9000-10,000 ft above Cedar Valley. You don't want to violate that airspace at all costs. I then headed southwest about 10 miles to try to make it to Vernon Utah. There was rain and virga in Vernon's direction so I decided to head south to Eureka. On the way there I flew in between patches of rain avoiding them at all cost. Cloud base was about 14,700' and the thermals were fairly weak.
I made it to Eureka at about 13,000' and decided to go for broke and fly another 15 miles southeast to Mount Nebo Peak. I was very excited about this. First, last year when we did the soaring safari at Nephi Airport, it seemed so far away from Cedar Valley. I was excited to have progressed enough in my cross country flying that I could now fly to Mt Nebo which is 38 miles south of Cedar Valley. I was also concerned. The overcast continued to overtake the remaining skies and I didn't want to have to land out on my first cross country of the year. I decided to take the chance.
I followed a line of clouds to the mountain with the benefit of a tail wind. The wind was helpful in getting there but would be blowing against me on the way home. The peak was beautiful and I took some really good pictures. Make sure to check them out. I circled for 20 minutes and decided I had better get headed home because the clouds/rain in the direction of home didn't look too fun.
I left Mt Nebo at 13,500' and started a 38 mile final glide home to Cedar Valley which is at 5000'. It didn't look like I would have much lift on the way. I had 8,500' to glide 38 miles, with a decent head wind, patches of rain, and fly over a part of Utah Lake. My heart was beating pretty good looking at the distance I needed to go. I love this sport! :)
The final glide home went great. I avoided most of the rain, found a few patches of lift and enjoyed gliding over a big lake for the first time. Glad I had plenty of altitude. There was still plenty of lift over the Fairfield VOR and I arrived at Cedar Valley at 8,000'. My good old Phoebus did a great job taking me home again. Landing was perfect with fairly strong down the runway northerly winds. Great first cross country of the year!
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