April 8, 2006 - Morgan, Utah in my ASW20BL, 1 tow to 2,900 ft, 1.7 hour flight.
First flight of the year! I haven't been this excited for soaring since last season! ;) Over the winter I turned the 20 over and with the help of my friend Gill buffed out the scratches I put on the bottom of her when I out-landed my second flight last year. I also installed an ELT (Emergency Locater Transmitter) in case I ever get into trouble out in some remote place, heaven forbid. I also installed a long hoped for EDS pulse oxygen system. This system replaces the funny looking canula I was using before and shoots a measured dose of air up your nose every time you breathe in. It is supposed to use only about 1/4 of the amount of oxygen as my old system. It is a little strange to get used to but I am very happy to have stepped up to this new technology.
In February I also had a chance to attend the annual SSA convention in Arlington, Texas. Dale and Kirk were also able to spend some time down there. We met up with a few other fellow Phoebus and ASW20 owners and it was real fun to see the latest and greatest in sailplanes. The best part of the convention was sitting in classrooms all day long and listening to the best of the best describe how to fly better, safer, faster, longer and what technologies are on the horizon. Very cool to say the least! I had a great time and hope to attend the convention every year when my schedule permits.
The cloud cover was good showing areas of lift. The winds aloft however were really high starting at over 30 mph so I hoped it would not be a sled ride. My other soaring buddies Dale, Kirk and Russ also decided to fly up in Morgan that day so it was fun to hang out with everyone.
Takeoff went well other than the fact that I ballooned up a little high and had to quickly move down to stay in position with the tow plane. I was the last to take off at 4:18 pm so I had already missed some of the strongest thermals of this Spring day. Kirk took off over an hour and a half before me and had a great flight in his ASW 20. I have flown 75 hours in the Condor soaring simulator over the winter so I didn't feel anywhere as rusty as I have the first flights in years past. In fact, flying in real life was easier than the simulator. I highly recommend anyone who is interested in soaring to spend the $50 to get that software.
After release from tow in the center of the valley the lift that was there before had pretty much quit so I headed for the east end ridges. I lost half my altitude before I got there. The lift was really spotty and ragged down low because of the wind but I enjoyed fighting my way up to 11,000 ft. gaining 6,000 ft in that climb. I then flew around the valley along with my friends and Aaron who was with Russ in the 2-33. The scenery was breathtaking with the mixture of mountains, snow and dry patches of earth. I also really enjoyed my newest version of SeeYou Mobile PDA software that has a thermal assistant feature. It helped several times in recentering thermals. Landing was one of my smoothest and I am excited to go back up as soon as weather and schedule permits to try it again.
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 April 13, 2006 - Morgan, Utah in my ASW20BL, 1 tow to 2,200 ft, 2.1 hour flight.
For photos of the flight Click here.
This was a fun local Spring flight. The winds were very strong from the SW at over 25 knots which caused for very ragged thermals, strong but spotty ridge lift (due to wind direction) and very strong turbulence. Kirk came up and flew with me. Take off and landings were both perfect. I didn't jump up on takeoff like I did on my first flight. The thing I changed here was moving from only flap 2 to flap 3 instead of moving from flap 2 directly to thermalling flaps. I went further north from Morgan than I ever did before but it still wasn't much, maybe 25-30 miles. I didn't want to go further because I wasn't willing to risk a landout or even have the stress of cross country flying in these conditions this early on in the year. Yes I am a wimp! I am still remembering my landout in my 20 the second flight I flew her last year. It took me a couple of weeks and $400 to fix the scratches I put on her belly that day. I could have probably flown another few hours but it was starting to get boring just staying around the valley and I didn't want to burn bridges with my wife getting home late. I am trying to stock up on her good will for when the weather really starts booming and I get 4-6 hour flights. That will be fun! I am hoping for next flight to be on the 22 if weather and wife permits.
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May 11, 2006 - Cedar Valley, Utah in my ASW20BL, One 1,700 ft tow, 1.8 hour flight.
The weather has shut me out for the last three weeks. When I could fly the weather was bad (normally really high winds aloft or raining) and when I couldn't, everyone who did fly said they had a great time. Today I took the day off of work because it looked like the weather would work and I could get away from the office ok.
Morgan was closed, unknown to me, because the owners were going to get a new plane so I took the 20 down to Cedar Valley. It was great to see Brent and be back down there. Morgan is fun to fly at but Cedar Valley is incredible to do Utah cross country soaring flights from. I didn't get my glider together and checked out until 5pm and so had my latest flight in the day ever. It was a blue day. The lift was plentiful and the winds were mild from the west. I ended up flying the ridges north on the oquirrh mountains range until I landed at 7pm. It was a great fun and casual flight. I hope to go up again on the 20th if the weather agrees and my wife does as well.
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 May 20, 2006 - Cedar Valley, Utah in my ASW20BL, One 1,800 ft tow, 4.6 hour flight.
This Saturday flight followed one of the most perfect soaring weeks I have ever not participated in! Every single week day looked perfect. Cloud bases were in the mid to high teens, winds aloft even at 18,000 were in the low single digits, and the temperature was in the mid 80's. I was stuck at work and had a bad head cold. Finally, Saturday came and I felt good enough to fly and the weather still looked good but not as good as earlier in the week. The winds aloft had picked up to over 20knots from the SW.
I wanted to launch early but ended up not getting up until 1pm. The thermals to my delight were strong and the wind didn't blow them apart but did make them pretty choppy. I had a good low tow and took the first thermal up to the bottom of class B airspace. I then slipped a few miles west to get out from under the class B and took another thermal straight up to 14,000 and headed south. With the strong winds from the SW I knew the task area needed to be to the south so I could have a tailwind when I was heading home later in the day. I was making great speed to the south when I ran into a bunch of virga and overdevelopment east of Delta, Ut. I was down to 9,000 ft, 4000ft agl, about 70 miles out and struggled to find a decent thermal in the over development of clouds. After 45 minutes of frustratingly slow progress I was high enough to head east to some great looking clouds and found a 900 ft per minute thermal that took me up to over 17,000! My analysis software averaged this themal at 8.8 knots for over 7,000 ft! That was a fun ride!
I then headed south to the nearest turn point which was the Scipio radio tower. Beyond that was pure rain showers and down air. I headed north towards the most beautiful cloud street I have ever flown. My ground speed was 150 mph while flying 40 miles under these clouds and many times my vario was pegged at over 1000 fpm up! I flew over Mt. Nebo and them decided it had been a good day and final glided the remaining 40 miles back to Cedar Valley. What a great flight!
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