Woke up in the morning, and found that the smoke is back. The visibility was less than 5 miles. Yuliy, Seth, and I went for breakfast at "Coffee &" in the old downtown Truckee. We came back, and hanged around and asked around other people if they were going to fly.


Truckee airport in the morning

Sergio and Ramy took off with water anyway, and Yuliy was the next. Then around noon, the wind started to pick up, and the visibility got noticeably improved. Everyone including myself prepared to launch. I took off around 1:50pm, and released in a 9-kts thermal over the airport. I climbed up to 11,000 ft, headed north west (apparently I misheard Hans' pirep of a wave), couldn't find anything, came back to the same thermal at 8,000 ft, backed up to 11,000 ft again, and headed south west. Over the Northstar ski resort, I was able to contact a weak wave (1.5 kts), and climbed to 12,500 ft. I decided to try the same route (going south along the west side of Lake). On hwy 84 near Squaw Valley ski resort, I contacted another weak wave (1.5 kts), climbed a bit, and continued on to the south. Sure enough, right around 4 miles south of Tahoe City where I caught the best wave yesterday, I contacted a stronger wave (3 kts), which brought me to 14,000 ft. I headed south again, and flew 4 miles or so gaining 500 ft just like I did yesterday, but then I started to observe a sink. Remembering the sink I had before I reached the city of South Lake Tahoe yesterday, I turned back, flew the same path and gained another 500 ft to 15,000 ft, and decided to go east of the lake this time. Like yesterday, a few other pilots including Sergio, Ramy, and Yuliy already used the Minden wave earlier. I crossed the lake, and arrived Spooner Pass at 13,000 ft.


Crossing Lake Tahoe at 15,000 ft
(if you have a highspeed connection, click here, and watch in high quality)


The earlier reports said that a strong wave was west of Washoe Lake, so I headed there only to find a consistant sink. Apparently, I was flying between the primary wave and the secondary wave. When I came somewhere between Washoe Lake and Mt Rose at 11,000 ft which was the lowest altitude I had heard from those who caught a wave there earlier, I finally hit -10 kts sink, so I headed to Carson City airport. Then at 9,000 ft, over the south end of Washoe Lake, I hit a strong wave (max 11 kts), and maxed out to 18,000 ft in 25 minutes. Then I wondered what the best use of this altitude was other than annoying Reno Approach. Ramy and Yuliy were further south then, around Mono Lake. I thought about heading south too, but the area between where I was and Whites was totally blue. The top of haze was way below me, and was indicating that I could not expect a thermal to back me up to this kind of altitude if I get low. I headed to Pine Nuts mountain range up to Mine turn point, but wasn't convinced that I should go further, so headed back to Washoe Lake, did a little video shooting, and flew over Mt Rose to go back to Truckee. When I came to the east-side foot of the ridge that starts from Mt Rose, I hit a strong wave again, and learned that this was the wave other pilots had used earlier that day. I wasn't flying west enough to catch the wave on my first attempt. After I came back to Truckee area, I headed north west to see where sierraville was, and landed at 6:13pm. It was a 4.4-hour flight.

More pictures can be found here.

Drove up to Truckee in Yuliy's car Friday night, and stayed at the bunk house. In the morning, Seth, who share the bunk house, Yuliy, and I went to Buckhorn Espresso & Grill for breakfast.

Flew at Truckee for 3.9 hours. The smoke wasn't as bad as 2 weeks ago when I dropped my glider here. The visibility was around 10 miles.

Caught the first thermal over the construction area north of runway 19, but it topped off around 11,000 ft. Headed to Mt Rose, and caught slightly higher thermal which brought me up to 13,500 ft. But then the lift became unreliable, and I kept going up and down between 12,500 ft and 13,500 ft for a while. Then I decided to go south along the ridge on the west side of Lake Tahoe. Shortly later, after I passed Brockway, I contacted a weak wave (1-2 kts) at 11,500 ft, and backed up to 13,000 ft. I kept going south, and contacted another weak wave over Tahoe City at 12,000 ft, which backed me up to 13,000 ft again. I kept going south again, and hit a stronger wave (2-3 kts) around 8 miles south of Tahoe City over the Lake water surface. I stayed there for 35 minutes, and climbed to 17,000 ft. The wind was 25-29 kts throughout the flight. I again headed south, and flew 4 miles or so without losing or even slightly gaining the altitude. Then the air started to sink, and kept sinking until I turned north over the city of South Lake Tahoe. By that point, I had heard other pilots' reports of Minden wave on the east side of the ridge on the east side of Lake, but decided to just fly straight north over the lake to Brockway because it was already 6pm. I enjoyed a great view while flying over the lake. Arrived at Brockway at 13,000 ft, and hit the same first wave I used today. Climbed there a bit, flew over Tahoe Donner XC ski area, and landed at 6:50pm.

Flying over Lake Tahoe

After I landed, I found that Truckee's annual BASH BBQ party had started. I had a fun chat with Tony, who was also an LS8 owner, and his wife Nancy. Thanks Silverado Soaring for hosting a great event!

More pictures can be found here.

Which camera is the best for the glider cockpit?

I recently bought a new digital camera Panasonic Lumix FX35 to take pictures while flying a glider.


My previous camera was Nikon Coolpix 7600. It's a 7-megapixel camera, and is capable of zooming from 38mm to 114mm (35mm film equivalent). I was satisfied with the picture quality, and also liked the fact that it uses standard AA batteries. There is no need to carry around another battery charger in my bag. This is perfect for travel, so I took lots of pictures with this camera in various places. All albums in my Picasa gallery from 2002 to May 2008 are taken by this camera.

However, once I started to take aerial pictures, I started to feel that 38mm isn't wide enough. Also, 10-megapixel cameras are now commoditized and sold under $300, so I decided to upgrade. My requirements were as follows.

1. Has 28mm or wider lens
2. Decent image quality
3. Point-and-shoot compact digital camera

I chose Lumix FX35 primarily because it has 25-100mm lens. The 25mm is one of the widest lens you can get for a compact camera. An image taken by a wide lens often suffer from the barrel distortion, but this camera does not have that issue much. A drawback of this camera I often read was the noise in the higher ISO range especially above ISO400. So, those articles tended to conclude that this camera was not for indoor shots. But when I am flying, it is most likely sunny and I have plenty of sun lights to keep the ISO low and still have a fast shutter speed, so this isn't an issue, either.

A digital SLR takes better pictures of course, but if you want to take shots outside the canopy, its size becomes a problem.

Lumix FX35 also takes High Definition quality videos of size 1280x720 at 30fps. However, I found that my old camera's 640x320 at 30fps video was good enough for shots from a glider. After all, I am going to post them on YouTube, so the original quality will be lost.

Sample shots taken by Lumix FX35 can be viewed in my Picasa gallery starting from "Williams 6/6/08".

Sample videos taken by Lumix FX35 are posted below. Also, I uploaded the original files here.







I considered a few other candidates. Nikon Coolpix S600 was the closest second, and another one was Canon PowerShot SD870 IS. The reason I didn't choose S600 even though I have been a happy user of Nikon was because it can take only 190 shots with a fully charged battery while FX35 can take 290. PowerShot SD870 IS could be a good choice, but it is an 8-megapixel camera, so it won't be much of an upgrade from my old camera.

Woke up at 7am, and left Parowan for Truckee. It took 3.5 hours from Parowan to Ely, and 5.5 hours from Ely to Truckee. Considering the smoke condition in California, I decided to place my glider in Truckee for now.

Before I started this 2-week glider safari, I thought that all these drivings must be painful parts of the trip and something that I have to bear to have fun with glider. I was wrong. These long drives are actually also fun part of the trip.

Arrived at Truckee at 4pm. Joined Soar Truckee's Saturday BBQ. Stayed at their bunk house. Hans was there with his new glider Ventus 2C. He just made his first flight today. Congrats Hans! Darren's family already arrived from Parowan yesterday. Harry arrived late evening, and Yuliy arrived around midnight.

A 566-mile drive from Parowan to Truckee



A 360-degree view of somewhere on highway US50


As a summary, in this 2 weeks, I flew 10 flights and 42.2 hours. I flew a 600km, a 500km, a 400km, a 300km, and shorter flights. The goals I had before this trip were to fly 300km and to fly over Grand Canyon. I have to say that they were achieved 120%, and I am very happy. I also drove over 1500 miles!

We checked weather in the morning, and found that another round of thunderstorms are coming to this area starting from today continuing over the weekend. When we arrived at the airport, some people already started to disassemble their gliders. Ramy, Yuliy, and I waited until we became the last three. Yuliy went up in his motor glider, but Ramy decided to leave and spend time with his family in Las Vegas. I could see the over-development clouds not too far from Parowan in the east, so I decided to follow everyone else, disassembled my glider, and put it in the trailer.


Ramy checking weather every morning

Around 7pm, a thunderstorm hit the town. I was back in the apartment, but Yuliy was still flhying, and I started to worry. I called him on my handheld radio on both 122.8 and 123.3, but had no answers. It turned out that he landed half an hour before the thunderstorm hit the town, and tied down his glider securely just before it started to rain. I had forgotten that he was an experienced cross country pilot.


Rain and hail

On our last night at Parowan, we had a nice dinner at Rusty's Ranch House in Cedar City.

Matt, Ron, Michael, Me, Harry, and Yuliy

Now that I flew 500km, my new goal was a declared 300km which is one of the diamond badge requirements. I configured Volkslogger and set an 300km out-and-return task between Start C and Kaibab Lodge. Kaibab lodge is on the Kaibab plateau next to Grand Canyon. This way, I can achieve my goal, and also take more pictures of Grand Canyon. At 11:45am, I towed up after Ramy did, but didn't hit any lift even when I reached 3,000 ft AGL. I asked Ramy how he was doing, and he said that he towed all the way to the other side of the ridge which is east of Parowan airport. Indeed, that's the only place I could see clouds. So, I did the same thing, and released around 4,000 ft AGL. That was a right decision. I instantly found myself caught in a 10 kts thermal, and got an easy 18,000 ft. Then I flew back to Parowan, turned Start C turnpoint at 15,300 ft, and headed to another cloud over Ceder Breaks. Got up to 18,000 ft again, and headed further south. But at 25 miles from Kanab airport, I ran out of clouds, and it was perfectly blue all the way to Kaibab plateau. Also, for the first time, I was able to see through the haze and find what's on Kaibab plateau. A huge towering OD, almost the same size as the plateau, was there. It already had dark virgas on its east half. With the blue hole between the plateau and me and the OD, it wasn't a difficult decision to give up another Grand Canyon tour.

So, I headed north, and tried to join others who headed east. I picked a few thermals near Bryce Canyon, and was able to keep high until I came to 15 miles north of Escalante airport. There were still clouds, and they even looked like forming a street. But the base was broken, and there was an active thunderstorm 10 miles south of Escalante airport. I gradually lost altitude. I did everything I could to make use of broken lifts, and also went to the small canyon north west of airport to find any lifts from the heated rocks. At one point, I was able to back up to 14,000 ft, but that was the top. The thermal from heated rocks was not connected to the cloud, and was not strong enough to push me up to 18,000 ft again. I went up and down, and started thinking about landing at Escalante. I flew over the airport at 5,000 ft AGL so that I can give my final shot on the sunny hills west of Escalante. But the air was totally calm there. Probably the thunderstorm cooled down the surface, and killed all thermal sources. I landed on Escalante airport, which is 50 miles away from Parowan, at 3:42pm.

The airport was unmanned. I pushed my glider into the taxi way by myself, and called Parowan airport to ask for an aero retrieve. Yes, I had a full five-bar signal on my Sprint cell phone. Jeff came in his Cessna 150 about 1 hour later. Upon take-off, he suggested a creative way to hold the wings level and off from the rugged runway surface.

I also found that the runway was slightly uphill towards 13. This wasn't an issue for us this time because we had a weak wind from 130.


The flight was 4 hours. It was a short and long flight. It wasn't a successful flight, but it felt good to try every intelligence, skills, and knowledge I had to the last minute. After all, glider was safe, I was safe, and I can fly again.


Flight trace

Bryce Canyon again

A thunderstorm south of Escalante

Using bushes as wing stands for take-off (didn't work well)

More pictured can be found here.

Since I couldn't take pictures of Bryce Canyon and Ceder Breaks yesterday, I decided to go there again to take some. I flew with 36 gallons of water (wing load = 9.6 lb/sqft), but it was too much. I dumped half of it, then the glider started to climb better. I think this glider flies best when it had 24 gallons of water.

Bryce Canyon National Park

A lot of more pictures can be found here.

The flight was 4.6 hours, and the total distance flown was 250km or so.

Before landing, I dropped by Brian Head (a peak inside Cyder Breaks park). The BASA president Harry Fox was there by car, and was calling gliders to shoot pictures of them. Thanks so much Harry for taking great pictures! These will be my treasures.



Me (GS) approaching Brian Head with Cyder Breaks in back
(photo by Harry)

Me (GS) flying over Brian Head
(photo by Harry)

The location of Brian Head shown on Google Earth (click to enlarge)

More pictures taken by Harry can be found here.

At night, we had a big BBQ party at Joy's house. Thanks Joy for a great dinner!

Flew 7.4 hours. The goal of this flight was to go to the Grand Canyon, and fly over it. The weather condition was supportive, and most people who flew today made the trip. On my way back, I dropped by Bryce Canyon, and Ceder Breaks. There was a solid cloud street from Bryce Canyon to the north of Escalante airport, and I didn't circle at all for 50 miles maintaining the altitude.

The flight was good. However, I took too many pictures before I got to the Grand Canyon, and my camera's battery died as soon as I got there.

It turned out to be another 500km flight.

Flight trace

Filling up oxygen before flight

Waiting in line

There were plenty of clouds

Poining the nose to the Grand Canyon
More pictures can be found here.

Flew for 7.5 hours, and did my first 500km. It was an out-and-return flight to Mt Pleasant. There were a few tough parts. The first one was to jump ridges at Salina-Gunnison. After flying miles of quiet air, I barely reached the next ridge at around 10,000 ft. Luckily, I could find a solid lift over a wall of rocks. After that, the way to Mt Pleasant was not too difficult. There were lots of clouds that lead me to it. On my way back, I got low again to 11,000 ft, but was saved by a thermal over Knob Mountain. I jumped ridges again at Salina-Gunnison airport, and tried use left-over clouds. But the saddest moment of the flight came when I was heading to a nice-looking cloud just south of Pfeiler ranch. When I was flying to it, I thought I won my way back to Parowan, but as soon as I arrived, the cloud disappeared! I went there anyway to pick up any left-over thermal, but there was none. I just needed a couple of thousand feet, but the air was pretty quiet. I came down to 11,000 ft which was the same height as the ridge I have to cross to get back to Parowan, so there was no chance I could make it. A nice thing about Parowan is that there are abundant airports between ridges on which I can land safely. I chose Panguitch airport as my landing spot. But then, I had 3,000 ft extra altitude I could use. So, I decided to give my last shot on the big rock eminent from the ridge west of Panguitch airport. Then, wow, I hit a 7 kts thermal right above the rock (later, I learned its name Adams Head) which took me back to 15,000 ft. I was able to safely fly back to Parowan.

Flight trace

Altitude

Rock walls east of Salina-Gunnison airpot

A nice-looking cloud south of Pfeiler ranch, but it disappeared as soon as I got there
More pictures can be found here.

Thunderstorms came over the airport, so we decided not to fly today. Ramy, Yuliy, Morteza, and I went sightseeing to Ceder Breaks.

Glider in the rain

Flew at Parowan for 3.1 hours.

We had only a less powerful tow plane (a 150hp Cessna 150) today, so no water was allowed.

After the release, I quickly caught a 7 kts thermal, and went up to the 14,000 ft cloud base. After hanging around near airport and watched scenery, I headed south west following clouds. Clouds ran out after I passed Ceder City aiport, so I headed back to Parowan, hanged a while again, then headed west following the clouds again. The air was extremely calm there, and I flew 7 or 8 miles without losing much altitude.

A new place seem to trigger new stupid mistakes. Firstly, I released too low on my first tow (1,500 ft AGL), and had to relight. And when I landed, I should have landed in the opposite direction (rwy 22) than I took off (rwy 4) because the wind was from the south and the runway is sloping down towards the north. Secondly, when I landed the second time, I missed the first taxi way.

Yuliy cooking breakfast

Lots of Cu's, but the base was low

Looking at Ceder Breaks

It was unusually windy and cloudy for Ely today. Nobody flew. But that gave us a chance to go see Independence Day parade in the town. Craig, Helmut, Wilfried, Bob, three others, and I went down, and watched the pararde from 11am for about an hour.

Early afternoon, I disassembled my glider, and headed to Parowan. I thought there were very few roads in this countryside, so I trusted GPS and didn't check the overview map, but that was a mistake. When I got close to Parowan, I was navigated to smaller and smaller roads, and eventually to an unpaved road. If this was at night, I would have hard time avoiding bumps on the complete darkness. Even on the highways, there were crossing trenches which were covered by metal bars (with black-and-yellow posts on both sides), and I had to slow down to avoid damaging the glider.

Overcast..


July 4th Parade

A 213-mile drive from Ely to Parowan

Hitting the lonely road again

Arrived at Parowan just before dark

Flew 5.8 hours to make an out-and-return flight to Wells. There was a 20-kts headwind on the way back. The total distance flown was around 400km. Unlike yesterday, clouds stayed at the same place all day, so the condition was better. Late in the afternoon, virgas were observed on the downwind side of the clouds.

Not exactly a cloud street, but it was working

Wells airport

More pictures can be found here.

Flew at Ely with Craig (ASW27). We went half way to Wells, saw clouds disseminating, and head back to Ely. We lost each other somewhere on our way back, so I passed Ely airport, and kept flying south for 50 miles before turning back. I landed after 4 hour 20 minutes. The total distance was around 300km. It was a good introduction flight to Ely.

People here are very friendly, and the airport is quiet and at-home. Most of traffics are gliders.

Met Tony Smolder, another LS8 owner and a good friend of my glider's previous owner Casey Lenox, and yet another LS8 "71" from Arizona.

The ridge behind is a good starting point

Ely airport

Three LS8's (GS, TS1, and 71) in the parking

More pictures can be found here.

Decided to drop by Ely. Drove "the lonliest highway" for 5.5 hours. Arrived at Ely at 8:30pm, and had dinner with Craig and others.

A 336-mile drive from Minden to Ely

The loneliest highway US50

More pictures can be found here.