Flew LS8 at Minden for 2.5 hours. Went up to 17,100 ft. Toured around local landing spots (Dayton, Yerington, Rosachi, Farias, Alpine, and Topaz. According to Gabe, Topaz has a high glass, and not really suitable for aero-tow retrieve. Rosachi and Farias are good sites. There were some OD and virgas, strong sinks again, and wind (20+ kts).

The light log is posted on OLC.


Flying at the cloud base near Yerington

More pictures can be found here.

Towed LS8 from Williams to Minden via Truckee. Took about 4 hours to drive 200 miles.

When I was parking my trailer at Minden, Lemmy, a visiting pilot from England, walked up to me and kindly gave me a hand. Lemmy flies LS8-18 in England and visiting Minden to teach cross county flights We had a lunch together.

Flew with John Ellis in his Numbus 3 for about 3 hours. There were few, but very strong thermals (14 kts average), and we went up to 18,000 ft in a matter of minutes after we released. There was also strong and widespread sink. We went south, and turned back north over Mt Patterson.

After flight, John, Tony, Christopher (visiting from Hawaii), Gearhart (visiting from Germany), and I went to a nice Italian restaurant Villa Gigli Trattoria.



Departing Williams

At 17,900 feet

Over development on the east

More pictures can be found here.

How to setup SeeYou

Download and install Vector maps cit_usa2.exe, cit_usa3.exe, and cit_usa5.exe from Naviter.

Download and install turnpoint database for Williams (2007), Truckee (2003), Minden (Region 11, 2007), and Parowan (Region 9, 2007) from Worldwide Soaring Turnpoint Exchange database.

Download and install Williams' turnpoint and task data from VSA's race series page.

Download and install USA airspace data from Naviter or use an old one. Remove all other airspaces.

In SeeYou, go to File->Mobile Wizard, and select areas to export. The map can be scrolled by clicking on the edges. Right click, and choose Go To Location to center on a particular way point. Use Zoom In and Out buttons are on the upper right corner.

Copy the generated .cit, .cub, and .cup files to PDA. Open SeeYou, and Create profiles.

I woke up in the morning, and found that today's weather wasn't as exciting as yesterday. Besides, another fire went off nearby, and the visibility was far less than optimal. So, I decided to spend a day to test flight my glider with water ballast. This was the first time I put water ballast since I bought it. I put 12 gallons (45 litter) in each wing, 1.5 litter in the tail tank. I didn't bring a water tank from home today, so borrowed a water meter from Pete. This worked very well. I think I should get one instead of carrying around a huge water tank.

I towed up to 4,000 ft. The maneuvering was surprisingly unchanged. The aileron worked just as sharp during the takeoff and in the air. The airspeeds shifted around 3 to 4 kts, but nothing dramatic. Dumping water went smoothly, too. I didn't notice much difference until I dumped all water ballast. But once all water was gone, the plane was noticeably light.

I also made a little improvement on my trailer this weekend. A solar-powered ventilator was added on top. This fan has rechargeable battery, so it should keep working day and night to keep the glider cool and dry.

Pete's water meter

trailer fan

It was smokey

Flew LS8 for 1.3 hours at Williams. Released at 4,200 ft, but thermals were very choppy, and the sink was wide and strong. There were clouds, but the strong (20+ kts) wind made it unreliable markers of the thermal source. Some clouds had rain underneath them. The highest I climbed was 6,800 ft at 5 miles north of 3 Sisters. There was a light wave there. Most people did pretty much the same, but those who are in the race series (a couple of ASH26E's (Peter Kelly and Darryl Ramm) and a couple of ASG29's (Pete Alexander and Ray Gimmy) completed a 100km task with the low top. Other people who flew today were Rich Parker(7HV), Ginny Farnsworth(G3), Larry Roberts(YE), Jim Darke(1B), Key Dismukes(PS). Later in day, the wind got even stronger, and the wave brought one of them up to 14,000 ft.

After flight, we had a BBQ and a big birthday party for Key Dismukes.

Flying with Rich Parker(7HV) over the town of Williams

More notably, Eric Rupp flew from Hollister to Mexico border in his DG300 today. This was a phenomenal achievement in the local soaring community, and the news spread out quickly over the net. In the past, many attempts were made by great pilots only to result in an unsuccessful straight-out outlanding followed by a long daunting retrieve drive. This flight may result in a long retrieve drive too, but I'm sure that Eric is smiling all the way back home.

Here is today's NASA's satellite picture. Great cloud streets can be observed.



Here is an article about this flight.

Bay Area Glider Makes Record-Breaking Flight to Mexico

Flew Nimbus 3DT again with John Ellis at Minden, NV. John was visiting the US from England to fly glider for one month. John is a very good pilot and CFI, and I learned new things from him about flaps in this 4 hour flight. It was a blue day with no clouds, but there were good blue thermals up to 15,000 feet. We released over Burn about 3,500 feet AGL, and went south again. We turned back north around Sweet Water, but on our way to Sweet Water we were hit by very widespread strong sink. We got pretty low near Sweet Water, as low as around 8,000 feet. But John did a dramatic recovery. He patiently picked up weak lifts over Gimmy Bowl, and finally caught a strong one which brought us back to 15,000 feet.

When we were back at Mt Siegel, we saw some wild horses on the ridge.

Wild horses on top of Mt Siegel
(click to view a large picture, and look around a bit off the center to lower left)
Here are more pictures.

Flew Nimbus 3DT with Barry Danieli at Minden, Nevada. After releasing around 2,500 feet AGL, we caught a good thermal, and flew to the south. There were reasonable amount of clouds. Some of them were working, others were not, but mostly we could find a good lift under clouds. The sky had unusual haze due to the fire in Paradise, CA. We went as south as between Mono Lake and White Mountain Peak, which made about 300km out-and-return flight in 4 hours. The highest we got was 17,500 feet. See below to find a short video I shot while Barry was thermaling at 14,000 feet. It is posted on YouTube, too.


Looking at Mono Lake.

After the flight, we had a dinner at Wasabi's Sushi and Asian Bistro. Barry's wife Diane, and Tom and his wife Jane also joined, and we had another fun. They had an interesting combination of Japanese food and Thai food in their menu.

Here are more pictures.

A nice glider video. Notice the side stick control. This must be Diana 2.



Another nice glider video. This one is more educative, and shows trailer, rigging, and towing. It is not common to fly above clouds like this, but it sure looks good.

Created RSS Feeder for Williams Soaring Club's forum. Subscribe to the following feed, and you'll get updates automatically in your RSS Reader.

http://www.soaringsearch.com/cgi-bin/wscforum2rss.py

Flew LS8 for about 2 hours from Williams. The sky was totally blue with no clouds, and was hot. Larry (YE) and I launched on a double tow around 12:30pm. I had done double tows on the short rope a dozen times, but being on the long rope was new. It was unusual to see another glider right in front of me during the takeoff, but once we took off it wasn't a big deal. Larry had correctly warned me about the tendency to get slack ropes when flying in the low tow position. When we passed Tree Farm around 6,000 feet, the vario indicated 10 kts, so I proposed Larry to release at 6,500 feet which we did. But the air around the bump was rather quiet. I managed to go back to the thermal we hit before we released, went up and down several times, but the highest I got was 7,800 feet over Tree Farm. That isn't usually enough to march onto the north, but I headed north anyway because pireps on the south didn't sound good, either. I went as far as east of Snow Mountain, but I didn't feel much energy in the air, so I came back to the same thermal. I met a few gliders near Tree Farm, but all of them were much lower than me. I could have flown a couple hours more, but decided to wrap up early and get home early since it was getting really hot in the cockpit. Next time, I should bring ice water instead of just water bottles.

Overall, this was my first flight in 3 weeks, and I'm glad that I went for flying this weekend.

Larry and me on a double tow

I woke up at 7am, and drove up to Williams only to find that the wind was too high to fly. But I met a new friend Craig Melvin who flies ASW27 and ASH26E, and we went Wilbur Springs together. It was a neat hotspring just 30 min from Williams.