June 4, 2004 - Cedar Valley, Utah in my Phoebus, 2 Tows, .2 and 4.0 hours. 222.3 mi./358km, flight.
To view a map and pictures of this flight, click here.
My first flight of the day was a tow to 2,000’ above the airport. The day was beginning to look very promising after the threatening high cirrus clouds started to leave. My takeoff was really bad. There was lots of bouncing trying to get air born with a strong crosswind. I was anxious to get started on a cross-country and should have stayed longer on tow. I released on a little bump and found nothing. I tried as best as I could to find something but there was no lift in the area by the airport. Cloud cover had made sure of that. My friend Dale came to watch me take off so at least I was able to impress him with a horrible takeoff, release from tow in sink, and to top it off a lower than comfortable pattern landing. It would have been a great flight for a second day student! ;)
I FINALLY figured out how to take off in a strong cross wind! On my second tow, I reviewed all the things I did wrong on the first. Unfortunately there were quite a few. I was lucky I didn’t bend anything. I have been so afraid of nosing over because the nose sits so low on a Phoebus that I was not giving the stick even close to enough elevator to get the tail wheel off the ground properly. The crosswind was a good 15 knots. This time I did the following:
- I pulled the stick all the way back before rolling to put more pressure on the tail wheel so it would track straighter down the runway. I also concentrated on keeping the wings level the entire ground roll.
- After about 150 ft. I push all the way forward on the stick. To my surprise, my tail wheel stayed on the ground for about another 100 feet! When the tail did rise up it was pretty gradual and not a sudden pitching forward that I had been afraid of. As the tail rose, I gently released on my forward pressure of the stick to around neutral. In my past flights, I have been timid about pushing the stick all the way forward but with this takeoff, it showed me that it takes pretty decent speed and full stick forward to get the thing to budge.
- With the tail very comfortably off the ground, I then glanced at my airspeed and noted that I was still under 40 knots. I waited another 3-4 seconds and then gently pulled back on the stick and the Phoebus drifted up. What a difference between this and the bucking bronco takeoff I did beforehand. Bottom line, I was trying to get air born too quickly and didn’t have the airspeed to do so. I would get up 2-3 feet because of the ground effect of the wings but then come back down as the wings lost what little lift they had in the low airspeed. This is all pretty humbling to admit but I hope that others who may be having the same difficulties might learn from my mistakes. I better have another perfect takeoff next flight as well now that I really think I know what was going wrong. Again, all my ugly takeoffs were with strong crosswind but at Cedar Valley, I haven’t flown a flight in years where there wasn’t a crosswind smiling at you.
The second tow of the day, I released at 2,900’ agl this time. We also headed west to the mountains. There wasn’t any lift on the tow over and I was glad we didn’t try to tow in the direction we did on the first flight. I found a nice thermal, finally, on the east slope of Lewiston Peak and released. The conditions and clouds looked great as far as I could see south, I just needed to get high enough so I could race through the ugly stuff about 15 miles and then life would be good. I thermalled up to around 14,000’ msl and headed south. I started getting pretty low for being about 20 miles south of Cedar Valley airport but I was past the ugly stuff and I sniffed around some nearby clouds and hooked up with a small thermal that I worked until I got back up to around 14,000’ and felt confident I could make it to Mount Nebo which was about 19 miles southeast of the saving thermal.
Once over Nebo, I saw that the conditions were looking great for a further trip southeast. I really wanted to make it to Manti in the back of my head but I decided first to head to Mount Pleasant because of a few promising clouds in that direction. On the way to Mt. Pleasant I reached 17,900’ and I had to really push the stick forward to about 90 knots since I was still going up at over 600’ per minute flying straight! I bet that if I were allowed to have gone into Class B airspace, which starts at 18,000’, I could have easily made it to over 21,000’! Yes, it was a good day. ;) With the clouds staying true to the fact that there was a good thermal under each of them, I ventured south after reaching Mt. Pleasant airport and made it to Manti. I was very happy. The sky and clouds were just breathtaking, the winds aloft were very light, and I was midway through my longest cross-country flight yet!
I wanted to keep heading south after Manti but it was 5:00, I was 77 miles away from my home airport, and my wife wasn’t the most pleased that I went flying in the first place. Had I stayed on a little longer on my first tow, I would have had another 40 minutes and might have been able to go further south. I am actually glad I didn’t. It makes no sense to accomplish all my flying goals in just a few flights because what else do I have left to look forward to in future flights? An example of this is when I passed Mt. Nebo, I was just like, “Oh well, there’s Nebo, been there, done that.” Read my flight before this one and I was shouting to the world that Nebo is the most beautiful, furthest away place imaginable to a glider from Cedar Valley. J For the last year I have thought of how incredible it would be to make a round trip flight to Manti and back so this was plenty far for this flight. Oh yeah, I also had a 15-knot headwind to look forward to on the way back.
I made great time heading back and flew the 77 miles in 80 minutes. I was very happy with this considering the headwind I was working against. One last note, I needed to drop 1,000 feet quickly to make it under a Class B airspace section near the end of my flight. I opened full spoilers and pushed the nose over to 80 Knots. I couldn’t believe how fast I dropped. After analyzing my flight computer recording of the trip, it showed that I dropped at an astounding 2,140 ft per minute at this combination! I will never be worried about not being able to get down quickly again. Landing was great and I landed on the runway, not the grass strip next to the runway, this time because the winds were heading straight down the runway from the north. Great flight! By the way, I was able to get my new flight computer to work somewhat during the flight but I need to still learn how to use the thing a lot better. The good news was that it produced a great igc file of the flight so I can go back and replay it in every detail with my SeeYou 3D flight software at home. Very cool flight!
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June 12, 2004 - Cedar Valley, Utah in my Phoebus, 1 Tow to 1,500 ft agl, .8 hour flight.
The day before I went to Duchesne with 11 other glider pilots for our annual soaring safari. The weather was rotten and the few pilots that did launch took 5,000+ ft. tows and had to stay local. Rain, wind, overcast - but on the good side, lots of hanging out with a bunch of great people talking about flying and gliders. It was fun even though I didn't end up flying.
I trailered my Phoebus back to Cedar Valley and decided to take a quick local flight as the conditions looked like they were flyable. There was some lift and lots of 800+ fpm sink all over. I had a great takeoff, thanks to following the same procedures as last flight, and really enjoyed myself. I may not be able to fly for the next few weeks but will try to if I get a chance.
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June 23, 2004 - Cedar Valley, Utah in my Phoebus, 1 high tow of 4,300 ft, 4.8 hours. 252.6 mi./407 km, flight.
To view a map and pictures of this flight, click here.
I went to work not even thinking about flying. I took a look at the soaring forecast for the day sand couldn't help but go. The cloud bases were 18,000'+, under 25 knot winds aloft at altitude from the northwest, and low humidity to help avoid having the clouds overdevelop and completely block out the sun.
It always takes longer to get ready and launch at the airport than you plan on so I didn't take off until 1:45. This was my 3rd perfect takeoff in a row with strong crosswinds using the technique I mentioned 2 flights earlier. On tow it was almost completely smooth. I couldn't believe it since there were beautiful cumulus clouds popping all over. I didn't find my first real bump until I was at 9,300' (4,300 tow). I am glad I didn't release earlier and have to waste precious time and energy at the beginning of this flight to try and get high. If I had released earlier, I am sure it would have taken an hour off my flight just fighting to get high enough to start my cross-country flight.
The thermal I released in was good and strong and quickly took me up to 13,500'. I felt that I was high enough to head the 25 miles east to the Wasatch mountains. Just as I started, I saw a landing light to the south and enjoyed watching a Southwest Airlines jet fly by at about 2 miles away and 500 ft below me. I crossed the Salt Lake International Airport flightpath the rest of the way without concern. I hate how many jets fly right over the Cedar Valley area at between 11,000 and 17,000 ft. You really have to keep your eyes open and stay alert as they come at you REAL fast. Nuff said.
For Father's Day I got a Canon ZR90 digital camcorder to video my flights. This flight was my maiden test flight with it and I was pretty happy with the results. It will be fun to edit the video, put music to it and burn it to DVD's so I can watch my flights in the winter.
I headed east over Heber and then over to the Mirror Lake area. Just east of Mirror Lake is Hayden Peak and a large bowl where my family likes to hike into and camp for a few days. It was incredible to be soaring over this area knowing that just a year ago I was camping there thinking that this was too far to come to in a glider. Not! :) I continued heading east until I made it to Kings Peak which is the highest peak in Utah. I saw a reservoir about 15 miles to the north and decided to make it my turn point since it was not 4:45 and I was 100 miles away from my home airport. There were also large pockets of rain now over the Uintas on my return route and I didn't want to get shut off from returning home.
I flew north to the reservoir which I later found out is called Stateline Reservoir. It is in Wyoming so I can now say I have flown to and from other states during flights. The flight back was a little slow (averaging 60 knots westbound instead of the 85 knot average east bound heading due to the 25 knot headwinds from the west. I enjoyed watching my final glide computer telling me what it calculated my ending altitude to be. Landing was great and I hurried home to babysit the kids as my wife went out with friends. Furthest flight of my soaring career to date.
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