Driving from King Mountain to Hamilton, MT

Picked up my glider from King Mountain, and drove to Hamilton, MT. Hamilton is where Sean and Hank who towed us at King Mountain operate their glider ride and lesson businesses.

Drove 226 miles

Howe

On my way from King Mountain to Yellowstone, I dropped by Howe, one of the nearest landout site.

• The GPS coordinates in some turnpoint files is slightly off. The airfield is north of 3900N road, not south. Look for bluish and white barns which are at the south end of runway.
  
• The runway is gavel, but in good smooth condition.
  
• There is a windsock near the bluish barn.
  
• There is no obstacles on the approach lines on both ends.
  
• There is no graduation on the field.
  
• There are runway posts on both sides, but they are disguised in the bushes, and very hard to notice when landing. They are 58 ft apart.
  
• There are many fields suitable for landing around this field, but power lines are everywhere. Some fields looked big enough to land over the power lines.
  
• The town of Howe is 5 miles south of the airfield. Howe is an extremely small town with only 10 or so houses. There is no motel.
  
• Ground retrieve is easy. No gate, no tight turns, no gaps.
  

Looking south from the north end

Runway posts are about 1.5 ft high

Runway post on the shoulder

Gray and white barns

Looking north from the south end

Glider safari enthusiasts' trailers

I left King Mountain around noon to spend a week at Yellowstone National Park.

Here are photos of a few trailers modified for gliding safari.

Taking rest

Yesterday, I flew 7 hours, and came back 2am, so I decided to take rest today.

In the evening, we had a dinner at the airport hosted by local cheerleaders.

Flight to Yellowstone National Park

Unfortunately, the missing glider was found as a wreckage near King Mountain. The crash made some press coverage article. When the crash was announced at the pilot meeting, there was a long moment of silence. I didn't know the pilot personally or met him in this safari because he flew out of a different airport nearby, but my heart goes to his family and friends.

The TFR was lifted early in the morning, so we cheered up ourselves, and flew.

The soaring condition was good. I launched third following Ramy and Matt&Ron's DG1000. Somehow, they got stuck near Mackay valley, but I was able to connect to the clouds east of Mackay (north of Howe). From there to Yellowstone National Park wasn't too difficult. There were a few gaps, but basically I followed clouds and reached Gardiner airport around 4:30pm. Some clouds started to overdevelop, but not all of them. There was 4 hours left until the sunset, so I thought there was a good chance to make it back home.

However, the ODs formed a line over the ridges, and I had to fly over lower grounds which had fewer and weaker thermals. I got pretty low northeast of Dubois, and at one point, I committed to Dubois and started the final glide there. But I was saved by a weak 1-2 kts, and backed up to 15,000 ft. But apparently, this was a mistake. I spent too much time getting high, and by the time I made halfway to King Mountain from there, I realized that I won't make it home or bust the sunset time. I had Mud Lake and barely Howe in the glide. By looking at the chart, Mud Lake looked more civilized, so I landed there at 8:23pm. Ramy joined me north of Dubois, eventually made it back to King Mountain. The difference was that he cut the weak thermal at 14,000 ft, and kept moving on.

Mud Lake turned out to be a good airport to land. The pavement was in good condition. The runway has runway numbers and a windsock. Apparently, it was actively used for cropdusting. However, the runway was very narrow. It was the narrowest runway I have landed. If I put one wing tip on the paved surface, the other wing tip would be over a soft shoulder. And there were runway lights on both sides. I didn't have any troubles landing there, but probably, I do not want to take off there if there is a crosswind.

Cellphone worked, so I called John first to let him know that I was safe and okay, and then called Bill to ask if he could bring me back to King Mountain. I was thinking of doing self-retrieve, but Bill kindly offered me to bring my glider trailer so that we could do the retrieve in one pass. Bill and Yuliy arrived at Mud Lake airport around 11pm. While waiting, a neighbor Aike found me standing on a dark road side, and invited me to his house. With food, beverages, and shelter, I was able to wait comfortably.

We were back to King Mountain around 2am. Big thanks to Bill and Yuliy!

Gardiner airport and Yellowstone river

Flew 559km

No flight at King Mountain

To avoid interfering with the search and rescue effort, glider operations at King Mountain Glider Park was suspended for the day. Yuliy, Bill, and me went to Yellowstone National Park.

A tough day

We started launching around noon, but it was very hard to catch the first lift. The day finally started to kick around 2pm. I scratched ridges on the west side of King Mountain for a long time before finally finding something just over the airfield. After climbing to 13,000 ft, first I went north, and turned Borah Peak. When I turned it, I was barely above the ridge, and spotted an American flag on the very top of the ridge. Then I headed south, came back to King Mountain, and saw some clouds towards Big Southern Butte, so I decided to go there. On my way, I flew over semi-restricted area which reportedly has a factory for nuclear power generator for submarines. The world's first nuclear reactor is also in the same area, I heard. After turning Big Southern Butte, I momentarily lost glide to King Mountain, but worked out convergence lift, and came back to King Mountain with some extra altitude. I used it to climb up again over King, ventured out to west a bit, and landed after flygint 4.5 hours. The day was mostly blue. There were some Cu's but they were cycling so quickly that, by the time they formed, it was too late to go there.

After most people landed, we learned that a pilot and his glider did not come back to the airport as planned. John initiated search and rescue effort with multiple agencies.

At night, we all went to Sissy's Ram's Horn restaurant, and enjoyed baby back rib dinner.

Pilot meeting in the morning

Big Lost River

Big Southern Butte

No flight at King Mountain

We had overcast in the morning, and most of it stayed throughout the day.

Yuliy, BIll, and me went to Craters of the Moon National Monument.

At night, we had pot luck dinner and a camp fire.


At campfire

Opening of King Mountain Glider Park

Today was the first day at King Mountain Glider Park for me, and the first day of operation for King Mountain Glider Park. John Kangas, his family, and his staffs spend three years to put this place together.

We had many Cu's as soon as 10:30am, and the operation started around 1pm. The cloudbase was a bit low (14,000 ft and 15,000 ft in some places) considering the hight of ridges (11,000 ft to 13,000 ft) , we had pretty good flights. I went north following the ridge in which King Mountain is part of, turned south, then jumped to a mountain area west of it. I flew over Sun Valley, headed as south as the mountains took me, and headed east to go home.

Although most of the flight was over mountains, there were many good airports to landout. I liked the path I took for coming back from west. Because the straight line to King Mountain goes between two hills, I did not need add an extra altitude to what computer said to fly over a ridge. There are a couple of airports you can safely landout if you were to low to make it to King Mountain. Also, small hills around King Mountain were generating 2 to 3 kts of lift very late. It was very friendly way back home.



First glider tow out of King Mountain Glider Park

Heading north following King Mountain ridge

Circling over Borah Peak (12,662 ft)

King Mountain Glider Park from the air

20+ gliders in the tie-down area

Flew 382km

Moving to King Mountain, ID

The weather didn't look good, so I moved to the next destination King Mountain Glider Park in Idaho.

Drove 185 miles

No flight at Logan

The weather didn't look too good, and the contest called it a non contest day. Steve Koerner, his wife, and me went hiking to Logan Canyon.

Last flight at Logan

We had a marginal condition day. I stayed local and played around with ridges. At night, Bob, Biff, John, Jim, Jim's son, and I went to an Italian restaurant Le Nonne in Logan.

Towing back to Logan

The towplane from Logan came to pick me up at 5:30pm. While waiting, a few thunderstorm cells hit Big Piney airport, but they airport people were very kind and let me use their hanger to shelter my glider. Joe, a CFI who happened to be teaching there, helped me move my glider, and also ran my wing when I took off. Thanks Joe!

There was another first-time experience on my way back. The powerful tow plane, a Cessna 182, took me up to 14,000 ft and released me half way to Logan. I glided 80 miles back to the airport by myself. It was the first time I used oxygen on tow.

Gannet Peak, first overnight landout

Maybe because the organizer heard my inner voice, I was offered to be a sniffer today. Sniffer is a glider that launches before the contest begins to see if there is any lift. I gladly accepted the offer, and launched as the second sniffer after John (X). I released around 6,700 ft over the gap between ridges, gained 300 ft, and lost it. I had 16 gallons of water, so I finally dumped it, but still sled down from the ridge, and came over the town of Logan around 6,000 ft. Then I saw two birds circling between Walmart and Kohl's, went there, and caught a weak 2 kts lift. Being watched by all contestants, I carefully worked it out, and brought myself to 7,500 ft which was enough to make a second try in the ridge. I went back to the release point where I had gained 300 ft, and this time, I was able to climb to a 9,400 ft. There was a windshear around 9,000 ft, and it was critical to break the line. Then, I had access to a different type of lift which almost felt like a wave or wavelet. I used it to 11,800 ft, and headed towards Bear Lake where Cu's were.

Launching ahead of the grid today
From there to Gannet Peak wasn't too difficult. The cloudbase was high today, and I often went up near 18,000 ft in strong lift. I carefully watched the wind, because high wind was forecast, but it was about 15 kts of southwest wind all the way. I figured that I could manage 15 kts of headwind on my way back even without water, so I decided to complete my goal and hit Gannet Peak around 5pm. There was still 3.5 hours before the sunset, and there were many clouds left.
Gannet Peak
But as soon as I turned southwest, the flight computer indicated 25 kts of headwind. That was not fair! The first cloud I tried didn't work well, and I went down to about 14,000 ft. With such a strong west wind component, Dubois (166 miles away from Logan) was the only reasonable landout site. After struggling much, I managed to keep Antelope Run, Big Piney, and Ralph in glide range, but not Afton. I knew that Air Force Academy's glider landed on Afton and that they would do a ground retrieve, so I wanted to make it, but the air was pretty quiet near 8pm. I looked both Antelope Run and Big Piney, and Big Piney had a little town next to it, so I landed there.

It was 8pm, and was too late for an aero retrieve on the same day. I had to find some place to sleep, and wait for the retrieve on the next day. I was thinking of walking to the town, but it turned out that Big Piney was a really good airport. Their pilot lounge was open after hours, and it had a nice couch, shower, a PC with internet connection, and even a big screen TV with sattelite. I was able to spend a night comfortably. Another pilot landed on Antelope Run on the same day, and I heard that he had to sleep in his glider. A luck was with me.

Flew 477km
By the way, Mark's SPOT tracking page for Region 9 North contest was very useful.

No flight at Logan

The day started even later than yesterday. They started launching Open Class gliders around 2pm only to see all of them coming back within 20 minutes. After sporadically launching sniffers, the contest grid finally started rolling at 3:30pm. By the time my turn came, it was almost 5pm, so I cancelled my flight.

In the evening, Bob Faris, Bif Huss, Jim Frantz, and two others (forgot their names :( ) and I went to a nice Mexican Restaurant Cafe Sabor.

Waiting

Waiting

Chatting

Second day at Logan

The day started even later than yesterday. The grid started to move around 2pm, and it was almost 4pm when I finally launched. I used leftover thermals on the east ridge to head north, but by the time I reached Bear Lake airport, thermals started to die down, and I heard radio calls of a couple of gliders landed on Bear Lake airport. I wasn't too happy to end my flight so soon, but now I have to switch my mission to go back to Logan airport, which I managed to succeed. Some gliders who started much earlier than me seemed to accomplish the 300+ km task, but I doubt anyone who started around the same time as me completed the task. I'll find out tomorrow morning.

By the way, Logan is a decent city with many accomodations, restaurants, and other useful shops. They have two active runways, and one abandoned runway which we can use for tie-down and camping. It's a very nice to place to have a contest like this.

After the flight, Steve Koerner kindly came to me and showed how to use one-man rigger which I bought from him.

Logan-Cache airport

Regon 9 North contest

I plan to fly at Logan this week which happened to be also the contest week of 2009 Region 9 North contest. There are about 45 gliders flying in the contest.

Today is a practice day. The day started with a pilot meeting at 10am. Then, all gliders including mine were on the grid by 1pm, and they started launching around 2:30pm. Since I'm not in the contest, I always launch last, after all contest gliders took off. Even though there are 45 gliders, because there are three towplanes and because the operation is so efficient, it takes only 1 to 1.5 hours to launch all gliders. I launched around 3:30pm. A positive side of launching last is that there are so many thermal markers flying ahead of me. I got up to 11,000 ft or so quickly, and headed north. I saw Bear Lake airport, Lave Hot Spring airport, Downey airport, and came back to Logan airport. All these airports looked very good.
Convections started to die down around 5pm, which wasn't too surprising. It was a short flight, but was a good introduction to the area.

Glider grid on runway 10 at Logan airport

Flew 255 km

Driving from Boulder, CO to Logan, UT

I left Boulder at 9:30am, and arrived at Logan at 9:30pm. That's all I have to say about this day.

Drove 574 miles

Last flight at Boulder

The Day started with moderate amount of Cu's, but they looked broken hinting strong west wind. I waited late afternoon to see if they overdevelop, and they didn't, so I launched around 2pm. After releasing at 10,000 ft, I crawled under a few clouds only to find marginal lift. Also, the wind was 15 kts from east, which prevented me to go further west towards mountain. I went up to 11,000 to 12,000 ft a few times, but couldn't go above it. It appeared that there was a wind shear there, and the lift was chopped. After scratching a couple of hours, I ended rather crappy my last flight at Boulder.

Scratching over Flat Iron ridge near Boulder

Denver Tour

We had a rather crappy day today. The sky looked spectacular until 11am, then clouds started to explode one by one. By 2pm, I was surrounded by ODs in three directions, and the only open direction was Denver Class B airspace. So, I just did Denver downtown tour over the Class B, and landed early.

By the way, Boulder is in the busiest airspace I have ever flown a glider in. Especially, when you go south from Boulder, you will cross three airways right around the altitude those big birds flying into or out of Denver International Airport are at. Every time I turned my neck, I would find a new jet 10 to 20 miles away. The amount of jet traffic was like 6 times as much as Truckee area.
So, as I normally do in Truckee area, I contacted Denver Approach to ensure that they were aware of me and that this was a glider. But their response was like "Why are you contacting us??". After I landed, I was talking with one of local pilots, but he also didn't seem to think about the threat of midair collisions seriously.

In the evening, Dave Campbell, Raul Boerner, and I had a drink at Murphy's.

Downtown Denver from 16,000 ft

A better day at Boulder

Before yesterday's flight, I found that one of the glider batteries I brought for this trip was dead. Out of the four batteries I brought, including two backups, two died in just one month. My battery is fairly big, so one battery usually lasts for the whole day, and the other one onboard is just a backup. But, just to be safe, I went to the town in the morning to buy an extra battery. Around 10:30am, I came out of a battery store with a new battry, and was shocked. There were already many Cu's in the sky.

I drove back to the airport as quickly as I legally could, did preflight, and took off at 11:12am. A few pilots had taken off already, and may were in the queue. Unlike yesterday, the south looked much better than north, so I headed south. As I proceed south, some clouds started to overdevelop. Later, I learned that a couple of people who took off earlier than me had to landout because they were blocked by ODs and couldn't make it back to Boulder. Avoiding the ODs, I diverted west, turned Mt. Powell, and headed back north. One thing to note is that there was a horrible sink east of Mt. Powell's peak. I almost had to do ridge soaring on one of the peaks on the mountain.

After coming back near Boulder, I had two choices to go north. One was to use clouds just west of Boulder, and the other was go fly over the high peaks that eventually goes into Rocky Mountain National Park. There was no clouds over the latter, but was completely blue. The first choice was obviously safer, but was boring, so I decided to try flying over the high peaks. If that didn't work, I could go east and use the other choice. Soon after I came over the first peak, I found a pretty good primary wave. It quickly brought me to 18,000 ft, and I had to push the nose down hard to keep it under 18,000 ft. Apparently, the wave suppressed the convection layer, and made the area blue. I was actually in the wave window, so I could have gone over 18,000 ft, but since I wanted to go further north, I didn't bother to open the window, and kept flying under 18,000 ft to keep it legal.

I finally turned back south at 50 nautical miles north of Boulder around 6pm. There were still good lift somewhere and other places. I was 3,000 ft above the glide path to Boulder, so I cruised for an hour just straight, except when I occasionally pulled up a bit when I was in lift. By doing so, I gained extra 1,000 ft, and arrived at Boulder with 4,000 ft left. This doesn't help the speed, but I have to say that a long final glide with plenty of altitude is one of my favorite part of a cross country flight. The flight time of this flight was 6 hours 30 minutes.

The peak of Mt. Powell

Flew 500km

First flight at Boulder, CO

After waiting for 5 days, we finally had a soarable day. The day started rather late, or I started late because clouds looked so rugged and didn't look like workable. But a few folks flew up, and didn't come back, so I took off around 12:30pm. As I guessed, the lift was very choppy due to a strong west wind. There was a convergence line going north and south along the ridge, and you had to stay on the line. There were many equally good looking clouds west of the line, but as I went west, the lift was weaker and more scarce.

Went north about 50 nautical miles, and turned back. I tried to go south too, but there was a blue band west of Boulder, and I couldn't jump the gap to connect to clouds in the south. The flight wasn't long, but not bad for the first flight.

Heading to Long's Peak

Flew 265km