 June 3, 2006 - Cedar Valley, Utah in my ASW20BL, One 1,900 ft tow, 3 hour flight.
Today turned out to be a 90%+ high cirrus cloud cover day. Luckily there was a break in the clouds to the south west so I had hope to make it decent. There thermals were weak until I got to the blue area where there were a few cumulous clouds marking the lift. the winds were strong from the southwest (like they have been all season so far!) so the thermals were blown apart a little bit. I had a great time heading west from Eureka and then buzzed a hiker on Mount Nebo. It was a relaxing and fun local flight. I can't wait until the weather and schedule work together to give me a big day that I can stretch my asw-20's legs a little bit more!
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June 16, 2006 - Cedar Valley, Utah in my ASW20BL, One 3,700 ft tow, 3 hour flight.
First big tow out at Cedar Valley because the winds were strong from the north and there was strong rotor all throughout the valley. I took off to the north in a very strong 20kt headwind (thank goodness not a cross wind) and had a wild ride on the tow. I was very pleased at how well I stayed behind the tow plane. It was going all over the place.
Cloud base was low at the start at only 11,000 msl and once I reached cloudbase I headed south knowing I'd have a fun time flying into the wind on final. I ended up making it about 10 miles south of Nephi and then headed over to Nebo where I tried to gain lift to get back home. Nebo was a WILD ride and I was glad several times I remembered to keep my airspeed up because a few gusts really wanted to blow me into the mountain. That would ruin my day. I finally got to 12,500 over Nebo and thought I had plenty of alt to get home. The wind from the north killed those expectations really quickly when after 20 miles heading north (the airport is 40 miles north of Nebo) I was at half the altitude I should have been at that point. I later have decided that I was flying too slow into the head wind and it was killing my LD much worse than flying faster. Lesson learned...I hope. I flew to the last few remaining small clouds in the area and sweated it out for about 20 minutes until I finally found some lift to get me high enough to get home. Landing was great into the same high headwind. This was a fun flight in challenging conditions. I felt good about it since 3 out of 5 people who launched today ended up coming straight back to the airport. I am really anxious for the winds aloft to settle down and to get in some big XC distance. Hopefully that will be in the next week or two.
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June 22, 2006 - Cedar Valley, Utah in my ASW20BL, One 2,800 ft tow, 5.7 hour flight. One retrieve tow .5 hour flight
Yep, landed out at another airport but it was well worth it! The day looked like it would be pretty good on paper, cloud bases above 15,000 and winds aloft predicted to be light. Reality turned out to be much different! There was not a cloud in the sky and the winds were medium strength out of the north. The thermals were very narrow and turbulent. I didn't care and decided to head south as far as I dared. I ended up 97 miles to the south and turned at the Fillmore airport. Getting there was hard enough and getting back proved to be impossible. I made it 60 miles back north hoping that Mount Nebo would give me a final thermal high enough to get me home. With the winds from the north the mountain was completely shut down and offered no lift. I tried to see if the northern faces would give me anything but they just prolonged my demise.
Two years ago I encountered very simular conditions and landed at the Nephi airport. I decided I would try something different and headed north knowing that Spanish Fork airport was barely within final glide at best L/D performance. It was thrilling to be landing out at an unknown busier airport and barely making it there (so it seemed) at that. I called out about 8 miles out on the airport's frequency and reported I was a glider coming in to land requesting any current conditions from anyone in the area. I didn't know what they were flying because I was on a different frequency until this time. A very nice guy let me know the active runway and then told me it was a left hand pattern after I asked. I was very grateful. I am sure my voice sounded a wee bit stressed. I don't know what the big deal was since I have flown to many other airports in the past when I have flown power planes. I think I was mainly stressed because I was so low to the ground that I didn't even find the airport until I was 3 miles away from it. Thank goodness in this case for my flight computer telling me exactly what direction to fly. Sure, I know a true pilot would have been able to find the airport with their eyes closed but I wasn't in the mood to pretend I was a real pilot at that point. I wanted to find the airport and enter into the pattern without interfering with too many other planes in the area.
I did great and flew a precision pattern landing 5 feet after the threshhold. I needed to stop short to be able to get off on the second taxi way. I have been concerned about my landings because out at Cedar Valley there really are not any good markers to test my precision landings. At Spanish Fork airport there are buildings a hundred yards past the runway so I needed to do it right. It felt very empowering to be doing something I felt a little less comfortable doing but needing to anyway and pulling it off great.
I called Brent Davis my tow pilot and he figured I had landed somewhere and was relieved that I wasn't in some field. He has gotten that call from me 3 times before over the last 12 years. He was happy to bring the tow plane the 25 miles to Spanish Fork airport and tow me home. The retrieval ended up only costing me an extra $60 and a few drinks. Brent has always been more than fair. The guy has a heart of gold and I love every moment I get to hang out with him. He is a true friend and I am lucky to know him. I would encourage everyone who flies gliders and want to try soaring in Utah to go to Cedar Valley and give Brent a few bucks. They will quickly see how special of a place and people Cedar Valley airport really is! Great memory making flight.
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July 8, 2006 - Cedar Valley, Utah in SGS 2-33, 1,400 ft tow, .3 hour flight.
I needed to take my glider's log out to the airport for an annual inspection tomorrow. My son was with me and we decided to take him for him first glider ride! He did spectacularly well. I kept the flight short for two purposes. First, I didn't want to overdue it with him - I didn't since he was mad at me for how short the flight was. Second, I jumped in line in front of a student and instuctor who were on the way to the airport so I didnt' have much time. The lift was very good since it was only 11am and we could have stayed up for a long time. I did a few roller coasters with him (0 g's) and he got a real kick out of it. I was very proud of him. He is only 5 and he handled himself great! I sure love that little guy.
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 July 12, 2006 - Cedar Valley, Utah in my ASW20BL, One 1,400 ft tow, 5.2 hour flight.
This was my furthest out and return flight! I flew from Cedar Valley south to Beaver's ski resort 144 miles to the south and back. There was a very strong south headwind (23-28 knots) going down but it made for a quick trip on the way home. I thought the thermals would be all blown apart but even though they were sometimes ragged they held together just fine.
I experienced the strongest sustained lift of my life over the mountains just north of the resort. At one point I showed 2,800 ft going up! I was so glad my ASW20 wings are so flexible because it was incredibly violent. For the first time soaring I can honestly say I felt like a leaf in the wind. It was amazing, scary, and thrilling to be in such violent lift.
The stats for this flight from my SeeYou programs are the following:
Time Spent Circling: 17%
Distance Done: 362 Miles
Average Speed in Straight Flight: 84 mph
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