Most of you will find enclosed with this newsletter your 1997 membership renewal form for the Soaring Society of America. You are receiving this form from MITSA because the SSA's records indicate that you are an SSA member affiliated with MITSA. For what it is worth, MITSA will receive a few dollars if you happen to renew your membership before December 1.
MITSA is a chapter of the SSA, and the SSA simplifies its paperwork by assigning a common renewal date to all members affiliated with a given chapter. The renewal date for MITSA is December 31. Since you are an SSA member and the SSA knows you are affiliated with MITSA, you are receiving a renewal form with dues prorated so that your SSA membership will expire for the next time on December 31, 1997. This means you may be paying a little more or less than the normal $55 annual dues, but starting next year it will be $55 every year as usual.
MITSA members are strongly encouraged (in fact, expected) to be members of the SSA. If you are not a member, please contact the SSA by writing to SSA, PO Box E, Hobbs, NM, 88241-7504, by calling (505) 392-1177, or by faxing (505) 392-8154. I believe the SSA accepts applications over the phone with a major credit card.
New members: Please welcome our newest club members: Rich Herbst, Eric Hostage, Miguel Leon, Uros Marter, Varun Puri, and Charles Savoie. Rich, Miguel, Varun, and Charles are more-or-less new to the sport. Uros is already a smooth-flying private pilot. Eric is a seasoned power pilot with 4,500+ hours and a long string of initials after his name (ATP with Dash-7 and LTR-42 type ratings, SEL/SES, CFI, CFII, and MEI).
Sugarbush encampment: Carl Johnson writes: ``I'm planning a Columbus day weekend encampment at Sugarbush, Vermont this month. The Sugarbush airport has invited us to come up and experience their wave conditions, ridge lift, and fall foliage. For those of you who haven't flown in the fall wave, it's a not-to-be-missed opportunity. The current plan is to tow the 1-34 and one of the L-23's to Sugarbush on Friday, October 11. The gliders would stay through the following week and return on Sunday, October 20. I need volunteers to help derig the gliders and tow them to Vermont. I'm also trying to get the oxygen recertified for the 1-34 so we can make the best of the wave. If anyone knows of a good place to get this done, please let me know. There are several rooms available at the Valley Inn in nearby Waitfield for $89/night (a bit higher than Springfield, but this is peak foliage weekend).''
Repainting the 1-26: Ian Clark writes: ``Tom Avery at Sterling has kindly offered some space and help to refinish the Schweizer 1-26. The club has to strip the paint from the airplane using a chemical stripper after removing the control surfaces and then prepare the surface. Tom will then prime and spray the airplane. The club will have to supply manpower and materials. The job will have to be done promptly so that the hangar space is not tied up too long. I am willing to spearhead this project. I think it will take 4-5 weekends during the fall/early winter. Any one who can help please let me know and we can set the wheels in motion.''
Soaring documentary: Jim Emken writes: ``The Discovery Channel has scheduled a documentary on soaring for Monday, October 14 from 6-7pm.''
If it ain't broke, don't break it: I crunched my glider last month. I landed with the gear down but not fully locked. I flew through a strong wind gradient and lost airspeed. So I dropped the last foot, the gear collapsed, and the fuselage struck the ground. Steve Sovis, my partner, dragged the glider off to get it fixed, and I'll drag it back. Almost immediately after that, my wife had an accident in our car, and my first though was, ``Well, at least she had the gear down.''
A joke: But I must have been spending too much time flying, anyway, spending too much time away from home. I tried to tell my wife a joke. ``Why were the women who married Orville and Wilbur Wright so happy?'' The answer is supposed to be, ``Because they each married Mr. Wright.'' My wife thought for a moment and said, ``Mmmmm... because they both got their weekends to themselves?''
Springfield: The September newsletter was never published due to a lack of material, but now I have more material than I know how to use. Bill Brine and Peter Scarpelli (Nutmeg) organized an informal contest over Labor Day at Springfield, VT. John Wren was pulled in as contest director and weatherman, but he ended up doing a lot of the organization, too. It was a highly rewarding experience for everyone who participated, as the many articles in this newsletter will describe, and MITSA owes these men a round of thanks for their hard work. And also to Joanne Brine, Penny Clark, Sharon Johnson, Cathy Koepper, and others who organized evening activities and made the holiday weekend a family event.
Patience or Procrastination? On July 17th I finally passed the practical test and got my private ticket. Looking back at my log book I realized that I first joined the club in August of 1992, and was shocked to realize that I've been at if for four long years. I really didn't expect it to take this long to get my license, after all I've been promising rides to friends and family for several years now. Why did it take me so long? Could it be that I graduated from school, started a new job, and bought a condo during the last four years. Maybe a little, but I think those were minor compared to the real reasons.
First, I could never get myself to study for the written exam. John Wren's ground school class was a godsend. Finally I was able to get pass the hurdle of studying and taking the written. Even though everyone told me that it wasn't that hard, and it would only take about a week of studying to be prepared, I didn't have enough incentive (read discipline) to get my mind around the complexities of airspace regulations. Reading about weather and soaring was interesting because I could use that stuff out at the field. The only thing I knew about airspace was to stay away from Route 495 where controlled airspace started. In hindsight, everything I heard about the written exam was right, it wasn't that hard or time consuming after all.
Second, I was spending more time trying to soar, than to get my license. It was a little like trying to run before you could walk well enough. After I was solo, I started coming out on days when the soaring conditions looked favorable, rather than coming out consistently to work on my patterns. As a result my flying skills developed slowly. Sure it was fun to fly the 1-26, and it did help me build hours for the practical, but in the end it was more of a distraction than a help. Flying the 1-26 did nothing to improve my spot landings in the Blanik, the flight characteristics are just too different to have much carryover.
So was I being patient or was I just procrastinating? No one who joined the club after I did had gotten their license, until Mike Welles and Joe Kwasnik did. In my opinion, four years is too long, I should have focused on learning to walk before I tried to run. I was taking up valuable instructor time with checkout rides, and wasn't continuing to improve my soaring skills. Besides, it's fun to share the thrill of flying by taking up a friend. I would like to thank all MITSA's instructors, both past and present, for their efforts in teaching me about this great sport. Special thanks to Peter Foley for having the guts to send me solo, John Wren for his extremely helpful ground school classes, and Steve Moysey for giving me the final flight preparations for my exam.
Lessons Learned From My Practical Test I wrote this after I finished my practical and then learned that John Boyce had retired as the FAA examiner. The next examiner will undoubtably do things differently, but some information is better than none!
1) Read the practical test standards! John uses them as his checklist about what questions to ask in the oral and what maneuvers he wants during the flight(s). If you can't answer every single question or are not comfortable performing every maneuver listed, then you're not prepared enough. Also, if its not in the practical test standards, don't worry about it.
2) Know what questions you got wrong on the written, and know the subject well. John asked me what I got wrong, and then to explain why I got it wrong, and what the correct answer was. Thankfully I had just reviewed my wrong answers the night before.
3) Be sure to ask John to clarify his questions. Several times when I asked a question in response to his question, he would say that he wasn't phrasing it well, and the clarify. Don't try to second guess him or assume he's trying to trip you up, the questions are very straightforward with simple answers out of the text books.
4) Know your sectional -- what every object, color, line, and tick mark means.
5) Spot landings. I finished my first flight with a precision landing (touch down beyond a point, and finishing a roll out within 200 feet) as I had practiced it. Nice flare, hold it off, and the use of the wheel brake only when necessary to prevent smashing through the (imaginary) brick wall. I was quite happy with it when John's first comment was ``That landing was totally unacceptable!'' After blanching, I asked him why. What John is looking for is for you to fly the plane onto the ground and apply full wheel brake as soon as possible. It's not what we are taught as a standard practice, but he rightly pointed out that off-field landings don't allow for 2,000 foot runways. The next flight I did what he asked, and he was much happier.
6) There is a difference between stall and stall recognition and John wants you to demonstrate both, in level and turning flight. Ask him what he wants and how you should perform it before the flight. For example, which of the six signs of stall recognition does he want as the sign of an impending stall. In my case it was the onset of the burble that he was looking for.
Deja Vu Being a landlord has certain advantages. Making money while I sleep is one of my favorites. But the enterprise is punctuated with brief periods of hard work, and the occasional bad tenant increases the stress level on an exponential scale. Having dealt with the bad tenant successfully, I now had an empty apartment. The brief period of hard work came into play to get it ready for August 1st when my new tenant would move in. The weekend would be spent inside cleaning, patching, and painting. Saturday, July 27th, I tried not to look up at the cu's while outside cutting pieces of sheet rock to repair the larger holes in the walls. I felt better when it overdeveloped late in the day and it seemed I had not missed a really great one.
The TV weather forecast Saturday night looked very good and I tried to forget it while going to bed. I woke up at 2 AM with the wheels turning and sent an email request for the soaring forecast based on the Albany and Chatham soundings from 8:00 that evening. By 8:30 AM I had concocted a scenario that involved my wife's brother watching my son while Cathy painted on Sunday and a vacation day from work the next week for me to be used in finishing the Apartment. So with the understanding and support of my wonderful wife I went off to play while she donned old clothes and gathered painting supplies. A fortunate man I am.
At the field I found the two club barographs in the cabinet and pulled one of them out eagerly. At 11:45 I was rolling with declaration, camera, and barograph ready to document my 300K triangle. I had one of those feelings that I'd been there before.
I shared a thermal with a club Blanik on the first climb and halfway down the first leg I shared a thermal with Ira Blieden in UC who had launched after me and caught up. Near the first turn I shared a thermal with two hang gliders who I guess launched from Mount Ascutney. With a few tricky stretches the flight went well until the last 10 miles. But that is the next story.
I now have a new tenant in a freshly painted apartment and it seems proper documentation for a gold distance/diamond goal claim. Life is good.
Scared According to my highly sophisticated glide computing system I was about 500 feet below a 25:1 glide for the last 10 miles home to arrive 1,000 feet above the ground. Mucking around under an uncertain looking cloud searching for a core for that last little bit of height the vibration started.
As I centered the lift to get me comfortably home my mind went over the situation. Mainly in the rudder pedals I was getting low frequency somewhat intermittent pulses. Something was wrong with the glider! At least it was doing something I had never experienced in over 100 hours flying it.
Should I land at Worcester immediately? The closest airport had a control tower and my battery was low after 6 hours in the air making radio contact questionable at best. Spencer? I looked and was not sure I saw it and Sterling was not much farther away. Was this an emergency? It seemed to me that altitude was my friend right now and as long as I was climbing I would keep doing that while I evaluated this problem.
At 3,700 feet above sea level I rolled out on a heading for Sterling. The ship was flying fine and the vibration had not worsened. I had some extra height and about 5 miles out decided to try everything I needed to land while I still had the option to exit and use the parachute. Steep turns and abrupt pitch changes without incident gave me some comfort. I put the gear down. Boom! A bang behind me and now air rushing through the cockpit. This was not a happy moment. If I was concerned before I was scared now. Still she flew fine and the vibration was gone. Spoilers out and no problems. In my mind I was sure there was a problem with the landing gear or the fuselage and pictured the gear hanging down. On final I floated to the slowest possible speed and expected a collapse or some nasty thing on touchdown. She just settled down and rolled out normally.
Still having no clue what was going on I climbed out and looked at the ship. In a fraction of a second I knew exactly what had happened. The fiberglass fairing or ``turtle deck'' that covers the open area in the fuselage where the wings connect was gone. After completely preflighting the glider I had taped the gaps. Later I learned of a new rule requiring the serial number from the barograph on the flight declaration. The barograph was strapped down under the fairing. I could get to it by unlatching the fairing and reaching in without untaping and removing the fairing. I had replaced the barograph and failed to latch the fairing. The tape held it on for 175 miles when it loosened and set up a disturbance which vibrated the tail. Putting the gear down jettisoned the fairing completely 5 miles from home.
Reading accident reports I was quick to dismiss others mistakes as being too dumb and obvious for me to commit. I figured any accident I might have would be some rare unavoidable thing like being rammed from behind by a plane going 100 knots faster with no chance of seeing it. You might be thinking right now that you could never make a mistake like this. I humbly recommend that you think again. Particularly pay attention when doing something slightly out of your routine preflight practice.
John Wren from MITSA and Peter Scarpelli from the Nutmeg Soaring Association organized a four day encampment and contest in Springfield, Vermont over the Labor Day weekend. In spite of poor weather, the event was a success. On the Thursday before the weekend, Mark Koepper and I arrived early at Sterling to prepare for an aerotow of one of the Blaniks (118BB) to Springfield. After spending a fair amount of time fixing the wiring on the Blanik trailer we finally got everything working and Mark left for Springfield with the empty trailer in tow. Tom Avery kindly helped me drag the Blanik down to the end of the runway, so by the time John Wren arrived in the late afternoon and fired up the Citabria, we were ready to go. We launched after 5:30, so during the aerotow we had the opportunity to enjoy an early evening flight. We landed at 6:45, just before sunset. It was a nostalgic flight for me: I hadn't flown out of Springfield since getting my private glider license there in 1979. It's a wonderful location, close to the foot of Mount Ascutney and the Connecticut river valley. The airport itself has a beautifully maintained, long (more than five thousand feet), wide and seldom used main runway, along with another large paved cross runway. I felt like the space shuttle coming in for my landing there. After landing, we met up with Mark and Cathy Koepper and Bill and Joanne Brine for dinner at Singleton's restaurant.
In the meantime, my wife Sharon wasn't having such a good evening. After a long drive from Boston, complete with two squabbling kids in the back seat, she made a quick stop to check into the hotel and then left to meet us at the airport. While I was attempting to phone her at the hotel she was getting hopelessly lost looking for the airport. Since I couldn't reach her I assumed she had taken the kids out for dinner and happily went off on my own for dinner. She arrived moments after we left and then had to find her way back to the hotel in the pitch dark. When I finally met up with her back at the hotel that night I knew I had a weekend of making up to do.
On Friday morning, after a very satisfying breakfast with the Koeppers at the Hatchery restaurant in Ludlow, Mark and I arrived at the field in time for John's morning briefing. There were over a dozen contestants there, split between MITSA and the Nutmeg Soaring Association. John began with the weather briefing, during which he predicted that the first day would be the best, followed by steadily worsening weather as hurricane Edouard approached New England. He declared a post task, where each pilot could select his own set of turnpoints from an approved list. Since Mark and I would be flying the Blanik, we decided to keep the task short, with an initial turnpoint over Woodstock, followed by a return to Springfield. If the weather looked good, we left the option open to add additional turnpoints such as Clairemont, New Hampshire.
Peter Scarpelli launched as the sniffer at 1:00, and quickly reported that the lift was five knots to five thousand feet. The rest of the contestants quickly prepared to launch. Mark and I made it into the air just before 2:00, with Mark acting as pilot in command. After about 45 minutes of local flying, we flew through the start gate and headed north towards Mount Ascutney. There was a beautiful large landing field just northwest of the mountain over Brownsville, so we felt quite comfortable, even though the lift began to deteriorate. After flying a few miles farther north, we reached the edge of a blue hole that looked (to us) quite impenetrable. As we circled trying to decide what to do, we noticed Bill Brine about five hundred feet below us charging off into the hole. We followed him for a few miles, but then the fields below us began looking less and less inviting. We chickened out and headed back toward our safe looking landing field. We found some lift coming off a knoll close to the field and worked it to death for about half an hour. In the meantime, Bill was (of course) happily taking his turnpoint picture over Woodstock, having found good lift about half a mile after we turned back. With only a few hundred feet of altitude to show for our half hour of circling, and after watching Jim Emken and partner in their Janus successfully use our same thermal to get away, we resigned ourselves to land. Mark took us in for a perfect off-field landing at about 3:30.
Moments after we landed, a truck full of excited neighbors arrived and offered to help us pull the glider to the side of the field. They stayed with us while we decided how best to coordinate the retrieve, and one of them offered to drive Mark back to the airport to pick up the trailer. While I waited for Mark and crew to return, I was treated to some fine rural hospitality in the neighbor's home. They showed me their family business, which involved importing fine Finnish eighteen-ply plywood and cutting it into seats for competition rowing shells. Apparently this is the perfect Vermont business, since the slow season is during the summer, and business picks up just when the snow makes them want to stay in the house all day.
At about 6:00, Mark and Cathy arrived with John, Maria and Bill Brine. Everything looked like it would go quickly. After an inspection of the trailer and derigging tools, John determined that we hadn't left anything behind. We started with the easiest part -- removing the horizontal stabilizer. On the Blanik, this involves cutting a safety wire, removing a single pin, and then lifting off the stabilizer. Unfortunately we immediately ran into trouble since it appeared that all of the grease had worn away from the pins and they were now frozen solid in place. After about forty-five minutes of head scratching and unprintable epithets, we finally unbolted and removed the entire mechanism, only to discover a wasp's nest in the tail. Fortunately by then it was too cold for the wasps to pay too much attention to us. Our lesson learned is that we should periodically derig and regrease the pins on the MITSA gliders -- it's no fun to discover these sorts of problems in a landing field during a cold Vermont evening. The rest of the retrieve progressed uneventfully, and we had a nice meal at Michael's restaurant that night.
On Saturday morning I was a bit worried about having neglected Sharon for the last two days, so I brought her breakfast in bed. Ian Clark seemed impressed and somewhat astonished that I was doing this, and wondered what type of tip I could expect. Fortunately my gesture was well received, although I didn't receive any tip. I was content to do what I could to keep Sharon happy, since I was becoming increasingly concerned that the nonflying spouses might be plotting revenge against a weekend of abandonment.
Saturday was Terry Wong's and Andrew Watson's turn to fly the Blanik in the contest. After John's weather briefing (weather like yesterday's, only worse), Sharon and I headed off to explore the town of Chester. We enjoyed a lovely lunch at the Raspberry and Tyme restaurant (great sandwiches) and then found a small Rotary club sponsored fair where they were offering helicopter rides. After Sharon went up for a ride we returned to the airport. Terry and Andrew had concluded that the weather wasn't good enough to fly cross country and had enjoyed several local flights instead. Andrew offered to babysit our two children (A.J., age 6 and Madeline, age 4) while I took Sharon up for a Blanik flight. When we returned he reported that the kids had had great fun ripping up chunks of runway asphalt and sticking them to their clothing. Andrew certainly won our children's hearts that afternoon.
Since the weather wasn't that great, we spent the rest of the afternoon socializing at the airport. Skip, the airport manager, does a lot to make the place attractive to families. He has a TV, VCR, and playroom set up in the office for kids, and the hanger closest to the office is filled with bikes, roller blades, and toys. His daughter Lea acted as a mother hen to all of the children, and made sure that they had fun but stayed in line as they played in front of the hangar. We felt perfectly comfortable leaving our children to play while we enjoyed some adult conversation. A.J. later told me that he had had a great time and definitely wanted to return next year. He enjoyed meeting new friends and was especially fond of Bill Brine's daughter Katherine (age 4). After A.J. asked for her phone number, Bill told me this might become a problem, since she was already engaged to be married.
Joanne Brine organized a pizza party at the airport that evening, where we all had a chance to swap stories and get to know each other better. I had a chance to catch up with John Boyce, who had been one of my primary instructors in the Nutmeg club back in the 1970's. This was his last day before retiring as a glider flight examiner, so we had fun reminiscing about old times.
On Sunday morning I again brought breakfast in bed to Sharon, and was again abused by Ian in the hallway (``I hope your tip is increasing''). Mark and I were scheduled to fly again that day, so we headed to the airport after breakfast. After John's now standard weather briefing (weather like yesterday's, only worse), we launched and had a slow glide back for an uneventful landing. The air was smooooooth. John joked that one radio transmission between himself and Ian went something like this:
Ian: Springfield ground, Cirrus at IP
John: Mark, good start, Cirrus
Ian: Springfield ground, Cirrus on left downwind to land
In spite of the stable weather, a couple of small thermals did appear toward the end of the day, and a few pilots managed to make it to Chester and back. John spent the rest of the afternoon developing the turnpoint photos from the last few days and then had a chance to critique them for everyone. It was a good opportunity for everyone to evaluate their photo skills and proved to be extremely helpful for most of them. Some people's cameras weren't working properly, others consistently under- or over-flew their turnpoints. Better to discover these things during a friendly, informal contest than during the regionals. That night Joanne organized a BBB (burgers, buns, and beer) barbecue party at the airport. Several of the contestants had already returned home, but those who remained had a great time.
On Monday morning I brought breakfast to Sharon one last time, and again suffered abuse from Ian in the hallway (``this had better be a fantastic tip''). We were down to the diehards at the airport, and most of the men seemed to have a hard time getting away. While we were killing time ogling Skip's winches and gliders in the hanger the wives were organizing an out-and-out revolt. They were frustrated with the male-oriented nature of the weekend, and vowed to exact their revenge. We, of course, were blissfully unaware of this. I'm curious to find out what price each of us had to pay in the weeks that followed.
At 3:30, Mark headed back to Sterling with the Blanik trailer in tow and John and I took off for the aerotow back to Massachusetts. Edouard was somewhere off the coast of Nantucket at the time, so we had the chance to view the edge of the hurricane during the flight back. We had about thirty knots of tailwind, so we made it back to Sterling in less than forty-five minutes. Even though we were flying through the edges of the hurricane, the air was remarkably smooth. As we approached Sterling, we could see an angry wall of clouds inside Route 128, but where we were the ceiling was over twelve thousand feet. After landing, I called Sharon to see if she would mind if John, Mark Evans, and I went out for beer and munchies at Barbar's crossing. She seemed surprised (``What could you possibly have left to talk about?''), but graciously allowed me to finish off my weekend of self-indulgence.
Many thanks to John for organizing this trip, which was by all measures (except possibly weather) a complete success. I'm looking forward to this same event next year, and I hope I survive Sharon's revenge, whatever it might be. I'm also eagerly anticipating my tip, which I'm sure I'll get someday soon.
I arrived at Springfield airport in Vermont on Saturday of the Labo(u)r Day weekend to be welcomed (?) by the news that Blanik Eight Bravo, which I would be sharing with Terry Wong, Carl Johnson and Mark Koepper, needed rigging, having been trailered back to the field after an outlanding the previous day. Carl Johnson and Mark Koepper had flown it on the first competition day, but had run out of sky after a few miles and had to put it into one of the few decent fields in the area (``Aircraft carriers in a sea of trees'', as John Wren graphically put it). Unfortunately 8BB gets derigged only about once a year, as the retrieve crew discovered when they tried to take the tailplane off and found it cold-welded to the securing pins. Eventually the derig was completed by unbolting the pins, still stuck fast in the sockets on the tail. Fortunately the farmer owning the aircraft carrier, sorry, field in question was very obliging, but then I suppose it's not every day that a crew from MITSA turns up to deliver several hours' free entertainment to your door.
Blaniks, it turns out, are a comfortable seven-man rig, provided you have a vast supply of large cushions on which to lay the wings on the ground, and it only took us two hours to get the machine back together, including getting the locating pins back into the locating business with the help of our host Skip's well-appointed workshop. Terry and I just managed to get the machine into line by the appointed noonday gridding time, but as it turned out we needn't have rushed, since the day was turning out to be hot, blue and (above all) stable -- the sniffer launched to scout out the lift was scratching hard just to stay aloft. Finally, after launch time had been delayed a couple of times we all went off in the early afternoon. I seem to recall that some sort of task had been set, but it was clear from the moment we came off tow from one of Springfield's L19s that the whole task idea was pretty academic, and just staying up would be an achievement. An L19 tow, by the way, is something of an express elevator ride, with the vario sitting close to plus 10 all the way up -- probably the equal of the the 235HP Pawnee that many clubs regard as the sine qua non of tow-planes. Apparently L19s are ex-military spotter planes, no longer made, and command ridiculous secondhand prices through being bought up by nostalgic ex-military pilots made good.
In the event Terry and I took three tows that afternoon -- my logbook shows 30, 38, and 30 minutes respectively. While there was no competition, it was by no means a total loss -- we had plenty of practice gaggle flying, as all the gliders scratched around in the same weak thermal half a mile from the field. By the last flight we were frankly just sightseeing, admiring the view from a couple of thousand feet as we circled in a silky-smooth patch of zero sink a mile off the end of the runway.
Sunday turned out to be more of the same, only less sunny. It was Mark and Carl's turn for the aircraft, and I'd volunteered to be ground crew, leaving Terry free to look around the local area. Once again the grid was launched more in hope than in expectation, and once again mostly came down pretty quickly. Since Mark and Carl didn't want the aircraft for the reminder of the day I took a couple of solo tows, as much to experiment with my new handheld GPS as anything else. Whilst scratching on the first flight I discovered how conservative I would normally be judging angles and distances for getting back -- the GPS-displayed distance to the field plus some mental arithmetic on glide angles and safety margins showed that I would normally head back well before I safely have to. Then on the second tow I noticed only one bump on the way up, and when I released the air was completely dead, so I used the GPS to fly back along the exact track of the tow to see if the lift was still there, and lo and behold it was. While using GPS for local soaring is clearly overkill, the amazing accuracy of these gadgets certainly opens up some new possibilities for the soaring pilot.
Sunday evening marked the effective end of the weekend. The Labour Day hurricane made the weather unflyable the next day, although it subsided in the evening in time for John Wren to aerotow the Blanik back to Sterling behind the Citabria. Although the flying conditions weren't outstanding, I still enjoyed the weekend immensely, and especially the chance to get to know the other pilots and their families at the evening pizza party and barbecue held on the two evenings. My thanks to John Wren, Carl Johnson, Terry Wong and Mark Koepper for helping me to get organized to go on the weekend camp.
I've now flown two contest days in separate events at separate Vermont sites. My performance has been quite consistent. In both cases, my flight immediately prior was a 300K badge flight. Both contest flights were less than 25K with no turnpoints reached before a field landing. As a bonus, the second flight was in a club Blanik keeping alive the perfect 2 for 2 landout record N118BB has in contest flying. I understand the first contest flight for 118BB was piloted by Bill Brine and John Wren a couple of years back. Also about 20K, it too ended in a field. I'm looking forward to next year and hoping to hear ``good finish'' from the gate for the first time.
Flying at Springfield, Vermont over the Labor Day weekend was a series of firsts in my piloting career. The overall experience was a great learning experience and confidence builder. Four club members brought up a Blanik which we planned to team up in pairs and fly on alternate days. I arrived at the airport on a early Saturday morning with no one around. Getting out of my car, the first thing I saw was the rudder of the Blanik poking around the corner of a hanger, without the tailplane and on a trailer! Its been several years since I last saw the Blanik on a trailer, so it took some time to recognize what I was seeing. My first conclusion that the ship was damage was slowly replaced as it dawned on me that the ship had landed out on the first day. Wow, I wanted to hear all about it.
With a lot of help from Jim Emken, we struggled to get the glider assembled in time for gridding. I got a little nervous when we got interrupted for the pilots meeting, and a lot of our helpers had to go back to their own planes. Needless to say, I gave that Blanik one of the most complete preflight checks I've ever done. At the same time I was trying to organize my flight kit -- water bottle, snacks, maps, cell phone, hat, sun tan lotion, and many other small details to prepare for what could be a long flight.
I was teaming with Andrew Watson, who has a lot more cross country experience than I did, so it was helpful to sit down and talk a little strategy about how we would fly. Andrew had just purchased a Garmin GPS unit and had plugged in all the turn points. We decided it was foolish to venture too far afield given the landout on the previous day, so we highlighted all the close turnpoints on the sectional map. I wish I had the time to do this earlier than 1/2 hour before scheduled launch time.
After stuffing water bottles and bags of gorp into all the little nooks and crannies, and finding the right cushions to place on the seats, we were ready to go, and gridded the Blanik. I then experienced what competition flying is about as we all sat on the runway and waited for the launch order. A sniffer was launched and it soon returned. John Wren, as contest director, had said the weather would be like yesterday, but worse, and he seemed to be correct. As I sat on the runway I admired all the glass ships and dreamed about the future possibilities... I also listened to the other pilots talk about the flying, contests, and other miscellaneous details. As the newest private pilot there, all of it was new and interesting to me.
Finally, the order to launch came (after we switched ends of the long runway) and now the Blanik was second in the launch order. The butterflies set in, but thankfully, Andrew was going to be PIC on this flight. In seconds we were hooked up behind an L-19 tow plane and were rocketing down the runway. In comparison, it made our C-150 seem like a Honda Civic versus an Acura NSX, as we reached 3K AGL in a few minutes. Unfortunately the lift was not great, and no cumulus were developing so we floundered around in zero sink and slight ups for about 45 minutes. I spent my time in the back seat watching for other gliders, looking for landmarks to orient myself, and trying to pickout ground features that would indicate lift. This kept me well occupied, and I wasn't even flying. I've got a lot to learn before I can do everything, and fly the plane at the same time.
The next flight was a series of first for me. I was PIC from the backseat (without an instructor), it wasn't at Sterling behind a MITSA towplane, it was a contest, I was attempting to fly cross country, I flew in a gaggle (7 gliders), and I landed on a paved runway. The most thrilling part was flying in the gaggle with so many other ships. It took serious concentration to fly coordinated, stay centered in the thermal, and watch all the other gliders. An audio vario would have helped tremendously. Thankfully I was at the bottom of the thermal, with everyone above me, so it was pretty easy to keep my eyes on everyone else... Do you ever get used to flying like this?
On a final note, John Boyce, who had just given me my private practical several weeks earlier, was flying in that gaggle. I wonder if he was having any second thoughts about giving me a passing grade, not expecting to be flying in close formation with me so soon after. Then again, it could have been his glider that kept leaving the thermals, every time the Blanik arrived. In any case, his last words to me after I passed my test, still echo in my ears. Treat the private license as a learners certificate to the art and sport of soaring. The Labor Day weekend truly was a great learning experience for me. I highly encourage other low time pilots to participate in future events like this one.
Over Labor Day, I pulled the Nimbus up to Gorham, New Hampshire to check out the flying at Mount Washington Sky Adventures (603 466-5822). They run a commercial glider ride service over the mountain which is about 6,000 feet and is surrounded by numerous mountain ranges and ridges. It is spectacular soaring with panoramic vistas.
The field sits adjacent to the town of Gorham. It is a grass strip 2,800 feet long sitting at 854 feet MSL. There is camping on site with porta-potty but no showers. I recommend the Twin Peaks Motel for the less adventuresome as it is owned by the same folks who run the airport operation and they give discounts to glider pilots, about $38/night (603 466-3374). You need reservations this time of year as the ``leafers'' start their migration north. The tows are to around 6,000 feet to pull you into the wave from the east of the mountain to avoid rotor and are $35/tow (not bad for this altitude).
Thursday I assembled and then took a ride with Walter Kyle in their Schweizer 2-32 to check out the landscape and learn the tricks of the mountain. I highly recommend taking the time to do this, as the wave can be fickle and the terrain very unforgiving to landouts. Walter is a respected Boston attorney (is that an oxymoron?), who takes summers off to play by flying tourists over the mountain top. He is a wealth of information on the wave and area, and is a CFIG. We launched at 6:00 PM and got off at 6,500 feet in 6 knot up and went straight to 10,000 feet. I had flown in 5,000 foot wave several times over Mount Greylock (2,000 feet) in North Adams, MA and weak wave in Connecticut, but never in true mountain wave.
That evening was one of those memorable experiences with the sun shining on a sea of clouds with the only open area being directly below us. Unique lennies would form in the shape of a cotton candy ball. Each time we passed by, the sailplane would alter the shape of the pink and light gray lennie. The time passed quickly and we dove for home as the ground was getting darker. We were back on terra firma by 7:30 PM and it was scotch and soda time (heavy on the scotch part) at the operations office. ``Class'' began with Walter, Nathan Jacobs the tow pilot, and Wayne Buber the A&P. I learned much more about wave flying that night and remember none of it.
The next day I was off by 11:30 AM but no wave (at least any I could stay in). I soared the next 5.5 hours with thermals to 5,800 feet MSL and all the north-south mountain ridge ranges were working with a 15 knot westerly. You can really get out and stretch your legs on these ridges and there are other airports in the vicinity but the ``pucker factor'' can get high if you get low!
Saturday I was on the field early thanks to mega-doses of Advil. The winds at the airport were a disappointing light 5 knots from the northwest. It was obvious this was not going to be a good convection day as the the sky was hazy and it was a warm 75 degrees. What was it doing on the mountain top? Well, you just pick up the phone and call the weather observation station as they are on a first name basis with the airport folks. The winds were at 40 MPH gusting to 50 MPH. It was time to put on the thermals, turn on the O2 bottle and restock the supply of bladder baggies.
On the tow up we hit only moderate rotor. I asked Nathan to rock his wings (no radio in tow plane) when it was time and at about 6,000 feet I was off. The wave was only 2 knots and very tricky to stay in. I had been warned the wave was not always stationary and it wasn't. Even with flaps I could not slow enough to get to zero ground speed. I spent the next 2 hours climbing to 18,000 feet doing S-turns, flat circles, and continually trying to feel my way to the best spots (4 knots max and only a few times). After 6.5 hours it was time to come down. Despite 2 pairs of wool socks, my feet were frozen not to mention more important body parts. Under 4,000 feet it had become very turbulent on the ridges. The day before I could confidently stick my wings in the trees, but not today. The mountain ranges have vertical ribs that break up the air flow when the winds pick up. A few tries woke me out of my slumber with strong rotor like conditions. Once on the ground and the ship tied down (no tie down fees), it was time to replenish the antifreeze levels again.
I really enjoyed this soaring experience and plan to return soon. It is not uncommon for the winds to howl at 60-80 MPH in the fall. You can request wave windows from Boston Center with a few days advance notice. I suspect I could have climbed higher than the 18,000 foot limit, if I had a window. The air traffic is minimal at the airport and I understand high-altitude jet traffic is a factor at night.
The folks at the airport are good people and they welcome glider pilots, especially those with their own scotch or 12 packs of Coors Light. I spoke with Roy Bourgeois before going up. Roy flies out of Franconia airport and has many insights on these mountain ranges. I highly recommend Mount Washington.
Sunday, August 19. After a long period recuperating from the Standard Class Nationals I felt that it was time to get back into the air again. I checked the forecast charts on Friday evening, and calculated that Sunday would be a reasonable day, and duly planned a day at the airport.
There was already a good smattering of cumulus in the sky by the time I arrived at the airport, which is another way of saying that I got up too late again. Errol Drew already had 204 assembled, so with the help of a knowledgeable bystander I set about preparing the Discus for the days activity. This doesn't take too long, and we even had energy to spare to put together Mark Tuttle's 102.
I got into the air a little after midday. Cloudbase was about 4,500 feet, or still a little low, so it seemed prudent to head first to the west, since this allows you to stay near to airports most of the time. Thermals proved to consistent, if not very strong, and after meeting up with 204, we made decent progress. It was soon decided to turn at Turners Falls, and then head north to Springfield. Conditions were good at the first turn, with climbs of 5 or 6 knots to near 6,000 feet, but good climbs became harder to locate as we headed north. I flew to the west of track, hoping that the westerly wind would produce good thermals from the better-oriented ridges, but this didn't do the trick either. The good looking clouds seemed to be developing to the east of track!
However, things were not that bad either, I managed to turn Springfield airport at about 2:40 at an altitude of 5,000 feet. The return leg was greatly accelerated by the tailwind component, but a long glide to a cloud to the west of Keene, NH put me below 3,000 feet for the first time for the day. Following that, a couple of good climbs under well developed cumulus gave me hope that it might be possible to extend the flight as far as Southbridge, but on passing Orange it was evident that this was going to be risky, so I determined on Tanner-Hiller airport as a last turn before heading for home -- 4,000 feet and a 5 knot tailwind makes for an easy final glide. I landed shortly after 4 p.m., for a flight duration just shy of four hours, and covered a distance of 290 KM.
On the down side, as far as I could tell only one club ship launched, so a lot of perfectly good thermals went to waste in the Sterling area. All three parts of the FAI silver badge were waiting to be claimed.
Steve wrote this at the end of August. --Editor
The summer is drawing to a close. The evenings are getting a little darker a few moments earlier every day and soon the trees will be changing color. What does all this mean? The Wednesday evening group is about to close for the year. If the weather is kind, tomorrow -- August 28 -- will be the final evening session this year.
I would like to thank everyone who contributed and made the evening group a success. We had some great evening flying and, I hope, provided an opportunity for some members to further their flying ambitions. There have been a number of ``graduates'' from the group this year -- Steve Glow and Paul Overy soloed, Jeff Landsman resoloed and Peter Stark made a successful transition from power planes. Joe Kwasnik and Terry Wong did some useful pre-private test preparation that resulted in successfully passing their tests. Not all of these events happened on a Wednesday evening, but we certainly started most of them off!
I have had a lot of fun this summer with the evening group and look forward to flying on Wednesdays next summer, should there be sufficient interest to hold the session again.
Instructing can be a pretty thankless task at times, but I can honestly say I have felt very rewarded by the progress people made on the evening group. Thanks for trying so hard!
Final thanks go out to Roy Bourgeois for instructing, Rich Gammon and Ian Clark for towing, and every single member who turned out to either fly or help.
The highlights...
Most exciting moment for me (and probably Ian as well): Taking off in 8BB and having the brakes pop out after the student bounced the glider hard during the take off run. It took me 2.5 seconds to work out why the trees were still above us approaching the end of the runway and a further 0.5 to shut the brakes. Fortunately, it took Ian 3.1 seconds to decide that this was a good time to jettison the glider, as the highway off the 16 end of the runway was still above him! The glider/towplane combination lurched upward as the brakes closed, before Ian had taken a firm hold on the cable release. Our conversation, on the ground afterwards, is something I will treasure for the rest of my flying days. Two Brits, with stiff upper lips firmly in place, showing no sign of the disaster they just avoided by keeping calm. Thanks for being a great tow pilot, Ian. This incident provided me with a useful lesson -- check the brakes if the Blanik is slammed onto the runway during the take off run, as this seems to be sufficient to dislodge the brake lever from the detent. Once the glider has sufficient speed to stay airborne, the brakes get sucked out and... well, the rest is up to you.
Most satisfying sights on the ground: The grins on the faces of all the soloed/resoloed pilots.
Second most satisfying sights on the ground: Grins on the instructors' faces after dousing the students with water.
Most satisfying sight from the air: Sunset behind the mountain. Joe Kwasnik and I had a spectacular view of the sunset one Wednesday. All either of us could say was, ``Wow.'' Truly magical view.
See you at the field.
The MITSA Board of Directors
Club email address: mitsa@crl.dec.com
Club web page: http://acro.harvard.edu/MITSA/mitsa_homepg.html
For more information about MITSA, you can contact the club by email, visit our web page, or contact Joe Kwasnik, our director of membership listed above.
The Leading Edge is the newsletter of the MIT Soaring Association, Inc. The newsletter is edited by Mark Tuttle, and published every other month (more frequently during the soaring season). The submission deadline is the first of each month. Please send any inquiries or material for publication to Mark Tuttle, 8 Melanie Lane, Arlington, MA 02174; tuttle@crl.dec.com
THE LEADING EDGE
The Newsletter of the M.I.T. Soaring Association, Inc.
October 1996
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