Bruno's Phoebus and ASW20 sailplane and soaring pages

July 2004 Soaring Logbook

To go back to main 2004 logs page click here.

July 3, 2004 - Cedar Valley, Utah in my Phoebus, 1 tow to 1,300 ft, .5 hour flight.

I was all excited to try a cross country triangle flight today but the weather had other plans. I had a good takeoff and got off in a decent thermal pretty low. The valley was overdeveloping quickly and I wanted to get started asap. I climbed to 1,900 ft above the valley floor and it started to rain on me. I headed east to the hills and found 900 ft. per minute sink on the way.

I ran out of options and decided to play it safe after I got to 1,000 ft above the ground and went back to the airport to land. Landing was good and as soon as I stopped it started pouring. I considered relaunching but decided that the overdevelopment would last a while. I was right. It poured for at least the next hour and a half. There was plenty of lightning as well so I am glad I didn't keep the glider out. It was dissapointing but that is the nature of soaring. I am hoping that Monday the 5th will have good weather so I can try again.

July 5, 2004 - Cedar Valley, Utah in my Phoebus, 2 tows, first to 2,200 ft, second was aero retrieve of 40 minutes, 6.5 hour first flight.

To see map of flight Click Here.

It has been 7 days since this flight and I am sorry it took me so long to do this update. I took my new video camera with me and made a great 1 hour DVD of the flight. I am just learning the video editing software and making this video took up most of my free time. I am thinking of eventually making a 2 minute clip of each flight's highlights and adding it to the site. Please contact me if you are interested in seeing the full videos.

The day was not great (for Utah). Cloud base was 14,000 ft and the lift was choppy. There were also a 25-30 knot winds from the northwest. I played around Lewiston Peak for about an hour and a half videoing riding the ridge lift. I got some great footage! Because it was the holiday and my wife and kids were out of town, I decided to go on a cross country even with the strong winds.

I headed south and went about 120 miles until I got to Richfield, Utah. By this time it was about 4:45 and I was really late in the day to be that far south with a strong headwind. The last 50 miles of the flight was completely cloudless. In fact, there was not a cloud in the sky continuing north. I rode the ridge lift until I made it to the base of Mt. Nebo. I tried to ride the lift up to the top of the mountain, but the winds were just beating me up with 1000'fpm up and then 1000'fpm down every 5 seconds. It wasn't worth it to try to make it back as the winds were too strong so I headed 5 miles back to the Nephi airport. I called Brent my tow plane pilot and he came the 40 miles with the tow plane and towed me back. It was an expensive retrieve but well worth it. It was a great flight and I will enjoy the video of it for years to come. I love this sport!

July 22, 2004 - Cedar Valley, Utah in my Phoebus, 1 tow to 4,000 ft, 4.7 hour flight.

I have been a happier person than I am right now. My ipaq would not boot up this morning and in trying to fix the problem, I deleted everything on it. I lost yesterday's flight data as well as all my flight programs. To top it off, I have been unsuccessful in downloading the flight from my gps as well. :( (update: I got my Garmin II+ to work on my home computer and I was able to download the flight without altitudes. The map on the right is the flight path.)

I did get video of it though! But even that is tainted because I filmed it in LP mode to get an extra 30 minutes and the quality is decidedly degraded. I'm pretty bummed out. I took off around 1 and had to take such a high tow because the only thermals working were over the mountains to the west. I quickly got high and headed south. I thermalled with a hawk for a while west of Eureka at 11,000'. Very fun! I continued south until I limped into Delta. A few blue sky thermals helped keep me alive.

I then headed east and flew over Uba Lake and then on to Manti where I turned north. I flew past Mount Pleasant and instead of heading west to Mt Nebo, I decided to head north to Spanish Fork Canyon. There was only marginal lift by this time but the ridge lift was working so I flew along the eastern mountains of Provo, past Mt. Timpanogos (where I had a blast ridge soaring) and then on to the mountains east of Alpine. I saw numerous large groups of mountain goats. I then flew over my house with my wife and daughter watching from below and then on west back to the airport. Takeoff and landing were excellent if I say so myself. Wonderful flight! I am excited to watch the footage.