 Aug 13, 2005 - Cedar Valley, UT ASW20BL - 2.5 hour flight with extended 16.69 meter tips
The day was overcast and the soaring forcast called for a weak lift day so I thought it would be a great opportunity to try the extended wing tips. Here is a video I took with my little point and shoot Nikon showing 1 minute of the flight.
The extended tips look pretty cool. I really could notice the increased time and effort it took to back over into a thermal but the extended glide performance below 120 miles per hour is pretty cool. I flew over to Mt. Nebo where a couple of hikers up on top mooned me. I laughed pretty hard. Final glide of 40 miles back to the airport starting at 7,000 ft agl was a piece of cake. Very fun day with challenging thermals. My landing was great. No bounce like last time.
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 August 27, 2005 - Cedar Valley, UT ASW20BL - 4.3 hour flight
Today promised strong lift but also lots of patches of rain and lightening. I really wanted to make it to Beaver, Utah about 130 miles to the south of Cedar Valley but by the time I got 30 miles south a huge storm cloud I was trying to pass under started raining/hailing on me and I was averaging 1,500 ft per minute down. In hind sight I flew too slowly through this area so that didn't help me. I finally limped back north to the only patch of sunlight and was only about 1,000 ft above the ground. I struggled in very weak and ragged lift for about 25 minutes but then got high to the good lift band. I really did not want to land out again so soon!!!
Gill, a close friend flying an ASW15 was also up in the air and we chatted on the radio the whole flight. I headed over to Timp and then south to Y mountain east of Provo. I could see a good cloud street heading east through the rain and went up to Strawberry reservour. It was very pretty from up high. I then headed back west and then north to meet up with Gill and Ed over the ski resorts in Little Cottonwood Canyon. The day was ending but I decided to head further northeast and stopped about 10 miles north of I-80 and then turned for home.
I have enjoyed talking to SLC ATC on the radio giving them position reports and squawking a unique transponder code assigned by them. I feel a lot safer now and hope the jets can see me much better. Takeoff and landing were picture perfect. Great flight!
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 September 20, 2005 - Cedar Valley, UT ASW20-BL - 2.2 hour flight
My schedule and the weather have not met up to let me fly in the last 3 weeks. Today the weather report showed it would get to the mid 80's and the extended forecast showed this might be the last day above 80 this year. I took the day off work and headed to the airport.
Winds aloft were pretty strong with winds being over 30 mph over 11,000 ft. The mountains were creating lenticular clouds all over the place indicating lots of wave activity. There was also a front coming from the south promising to block out the sun by mid afternoon. I took off around 2:30 because everyone at the airport was going in slow motion. I probably would not have been able to stay up had I taken off earlier to give them some credit.
Takeoff was great, just a small wing drop in the normal place this time. I am still trying to figure out how to correct it. It happens every time I move from positive to negative flaps on the takeoff roll. I took a high 3,400 ft tow up to the mountain ridges and hit either a thermal or ridge lift and released from tow. The lift was ragged but strong in some areas and I fought it up to the top of the mountain and ridge soared for a while. I only went up to 13,600 ft. because my oxygen system was leaking. Oh well, a good excuse for me to buy the EDS system next spring. :)
I ended up going west past Tooele for the first time to the Stansbury mountain range and fought the very ragged lift over them to get high enough to get back to the airport without a problem.
Kirk, a fellow ASW-20 owner was also flying that day and at the end of the flight we flew together to compare the difference in performance between his straight wings and my winglets. We didn't notice any difference up to our fastest speed together at 110 knots. The picture for this day is of Kirk above the fields in Cedar Valley. Landing was perfect. Great flight!
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October 14, 2005 - Cedar Valley, UT ASW20-BL 16.69 meter tips - 1.0 hour flight
This was the last glider flight of the year. My tow pilot is going south to Mexico for the winter so I will get a break until next April. Today's conditions were really weak with winds aloft weak as well so I knew it would be tough to stay up and not count on ridge lift by the mountains. I took a low tow for the conditions and enjoyed my shortest flight of the year at only an hour. I scratched and had fun. At least I didn't land in a field. ;) I hope to get some more airplane flying in this off-season and hope for a better year next year. Overall, this season was a tough one, my wife had a baby, I bought a new glider, I herniated 2 disks in my back, moved mid summer to a new house and have been crazy busy at work. Maybe that's why I only got in 20.1 hours this year compared to close to 50 last year. See you next year! - Bruno
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