The Cure for Winter Blues

Our Schweizer 1-34 awaits its Winter flight at the hill

Regularly scheduled flying takes a break over the winter at Harris Hill, but that doesn't always mean that NO flying takes place.  Today was one of those rare "Let's go flying!" days.

Thanks to Ron Ogden, the email went out to the mailing list and several member responded enthusiastically that "Yes!" we want to to fly on Saturday!

December has been a bit cold this year with day time highs in the low 20's but we've been spared that lake effect snow that Buffalo to the West and Syracuse to the Northeast have gotten.  We've had a number of light snow showers in December but they usually drop 1/2 inch or so at most.

Jeff Shingleton in his Lambada motor glider showed up,
paid a visit, and flew in formation with me at 3,000 feet.

In any case, several club members showed up at the appointed hour and Dana Smith also showed up for tow pilot duty and we all got a few flights in.  At first, I didn't think I would fly but would just help out, but as we rolled the aircraft out and positioned them, I caught flight fever and decided to take a couple of flights.

The weather was quite beautiful with clear blue and a few lower level dark but thin clouds that hinted at wave effect.  While we didn't encounter any wave, there was rather sparse and spotty weak lift that would help stretch your flight even if it didn't take you upwards.

I strapped into the Schweizer 1-34 for my two flights.  I love the 1-34.  It is easy to fly, performs fairly well and has dive brakes that can stop an out of control 18 wheeler.  I headed up to 2,000 feet above the field and let the tow rope go as I circled looking for lift.  I found a teeny tiny bit over the rock cliffs near route 352 and managed to arrest my descent.  16 minutes later I was on final for landing and a bit high.  I popped open those giant dive brakes and although I knew I would lose speed, had forgotten how powerful they were -even though I was expecting them to slow me quickly.  I stowed them again, picked up speed and landed pretty close to where I had intended to.

Bryan Reigal on final for Harris Hill in the ASK-21

The second flight was much like the first although I found a small burble of a thermal that I managed to circle in for several turns before giving up and heading back to the field.  This time I clocked in 17 minutes before landing.

It was great to get out in the middle of winter and get some flights in!  It is usually a long stretch to April and I'm glad I got to sneak some flights in before it was bitter cold.

If you want to see more, there are a few more pics in my soaring album here.  They'll be the ones at the end of the album.

Gallo Grijalva took the 1-34 for several flights

The weather was quite good - blue skies and not too windy/cold
with temps right at 32, making for good flying

Managing the Snowbird Contest

The Snowbird contest is nearly 70 years old

I was asked to be the Snowbird Contest Manager this year.  Frankly, it was the last thing I wanted to do as I've had a crazy number of commitments of the 'helping out' variety this Fall.  Buuuut...well, they needed someone to do it and it was obvious that nobody new was going to step up and volunteer.  I thought, "Gee, it's in just a couple of weeks so I'll just do it and get it over with."

It went fine, but it was tough to find volunteers for the schedule.  Thanks to the 'usual suspects' that volunteer every year and stepped up immediately. You know who you are.

Kvetching aside, on the two days the contest was scheduled, Mother Nature blessed us with 15 knot 90 degree crosswinds and gusts as high as 32 on the anemometer at the Flight Center!  Needless to say, no flying occurred and the whole contest was a washout.

What a drag!  This was my first Snowbird and I was looking forward to seeing the spot landing contest.  We'd laid out the landing zones on the runway and set up the marker cones to see who could touchdown and roll out, stopping closest to the cone.  Some years, the difference is decided in under 1 inch from the cone.

The contest is the longest continuously running contest in soaring history at 60+ years but the atmosphere is more like a local event.  We have members from Mid-Atlantic Soaring who come pretty much every year and a few others here and there, but by and large it's a chance for our local pilots to get out there and fly on last time before the New Year.

Instead, this year we had a whole lot of hangar flying as we waited each day until about 1pm to call the contest off each day.  Someone joked that I was automatically signed up for next year as the contest manager.  I don't think so.  But I'll be sure to volunteer for a task when the call goes out.

From here on out, it gets colder as Winter takes a firmer grip on the Southern Tier and it won't let go until April.  Time to put away those thermal thoughts for awhile until we turn the corner and Spring approaches.

Passing up the opportunity to fly?!

I've been busy the past six weeks.  REALLY busy, as in, no time to fly busy.  And when there has been time to fly, the autumn has been pretty poor for soaring.

The end of our staffed flying season at Harris Hill is the last week in October, so we're done for the season now, unless you make special arrangements to fly.  We'll have one more weekend to fly (our Snowbird contest on Thanksgiving weekend) but that will be it.

I passed on the opportunity to fly at the very end because I hadn't flown since the second week of September and I feel strongly that you need to fly regularly to be proficient.  So, while I could have squeaked in something at the end, the flying wasn't good soaring and I hadn't flown in 6 weeks.  I need to fly regularly.

Did I accomplish my goals this year?  I wanted to be more proficient at flying the ASK-21 and I wanted to fly some cross-country.  I wish I could say I felt more proficient in the 21, but while I'm more *experienced* I still don't feel more proficient.

I struggled all year to put the aircraft on the ground the way I wanted to.  I was generally able to land it on the spot I picked, but I was either faster than I wanted to be, or slower than I was comfortable with.  My rear seat performance on the BFR was dismal for takeoff and I was disappointed with my failure to react quickly and correct sufficiently.  That's a trait I've worked on to break all along and yet it pops up time and again.  Last year I felt like I was on top of it.  This year, not so much.

I also didn't fly any cross country at all.  The weather was either crummy when I was available or I couldn't hook up with an instructor.  Not to mention I find my technique embarrassing and don't want the upper echelon of the club to know how badly I fly.

Did I get better at thermalling?  Yes, I got better.  Did I thermal satisfactorily?  No.  I continue to have trouble reading and centering thermals, although I'm better at it than I was.  Compared to my technique last year, I have improved.  Compared to other peer pilots I've flown with, I need more improvement.

I flew more in the early part of the year than later.  I knew that for a month period between mid-September and mid-October I would not fly due to other commitments.  I hadn't anticipated that the weather in the last two weekends would be crummy anyhow.

So, the season ends with a whimper and only slow progress on my flying goals.  Next year, the logical thing to do would be to get my commercial glider pilot rating so I can fly passenger rides.  Although I'm hard on myself about my flying skills, it's more about assessing my skills and working on improving areas that need sharpening up.  I certainly don't have any compunctions about flying friends and family around as passengers and taking a member of the general public up for a ride isn't the same thing as developing soaring skills for cross country flight.  I'm a conservative pilot when I fly personally and I'm more conservative when I have a passenger with me.

I'll decide whether or not to cross that bridge next Spring when the flying season is closer.  There's a lot of preparation and analysis I need to do before taking that step.  It's expensive to take the flight test, it's expensive to take the written test, and I need to gear up for doing that.

In the meantime, our club President has asked if I would volunteer to be the contest manager for our Snowbird contest.  I have tentatively said yes, but told him I have no idea what I need to do to prepare for the contest and will need help.  We meet on Monday, so I'll find out what's in store for me then.

Bi-annual Flight Review

I took my biannual flight review (bfr) this Wednesday.  The BFR is required for pilots and consists of a few flights with an instructor and an hour of ground training.  I took mine from Ron Ogden, our V.P. of Operations at Harris Hill and one of our certified glider instructors.

You can't fail a BFR, but it is possible that you may not pass it.  For me, I wasn't too keyed up about taking it -as Ron told me, it is designed to be a learning experience rather than a testing experience.

We met at the field and discussed issues that were mainly related to aeronautical decision making.  As Ron said, and I whole-heartedly agree, knowing all the stuff about airspace and procedures is just fine but the FAA doesn't require very much training related to decision making.  And in soaring, a decision you made 5 minutes ago can have some very dire consequences.

I've flow power *some* -about 130 hours worth, but from my point of view, the most important part of flying is the decisions that you make.  In fact, piloting an aircraft differs most from driving a car in this respect.  Decisions you make in the pre-flight, cruise, and landing phase all have a huge influence on the successful outcome of a flight.

Skill-wise, I'd rate myself at the bottom of the average scale for skills.  Pilots are like anyone else, some are much more naturally inclined to excel at the stick and rudder skills and for some it just doesn't come as naturally.  For me, it's not so much that I'm a poor pilot, I'm just not a hot shot ace like some of the glider Gods at the field.  Of course, if I thought I was not capable of flying, I would stop.  So, maybe it's not quite as bad as I'm making it out.

Anyhow, I try to compensate for my average-ness by ensuring I don't get into situations that require heroic saves and incredible pilot skills.  Because most people don't have those -that's why they are heroic and incredible.  Maybe I do and don't know it.  But I'm not intending to find out.  I fly for fun and therefore I fly conservatively.

After our discussion about issues that were of concern to me - low level spins and how they develop, landing to the north, how far one can safely stray from the field and still count on returning and so on, we headed out to an ASK-21 for the first flight.  Ron asked me if I'd flown from the back before and I told him I'd only done it once and would like to try.  I got in the back, we hooked up, and off we went.

There was a light west wind that pulled us to the left of the tow plane.  I was concentrating on keeping the wings level as we pulled left.  I couldn't really see the tow plane until we were kind of far out of position, then I didn't apply enough correction to arrest the drift.  I reached for the tow release as Ron kicked in a little more rudder and stopped the drift.  The rest of the tow and flight went fine, with me a little embarrassed at not acting quick enough.

On landing, I realized I had probably been landing with a bit too little energy all along (see my previous posts on 'plopping it in'.  We then switched over to the Schweizer 2-33 to land down at the Elmira airport since I'd never landed there before.  We took a handheld radio along and I called the tower as we approached their airspace.   As Ron had told me, there was plenty of room to land -and there was.  Wow!  Landing at Harris Hill is like putting it down on an aircraft carrier compared to Elmira.  We could easily have gotten low on our base leg and landed across the airport without and worries at all.

After we landed, the tow plan came down from Harris Hill and picked us up.  We made my second unassisted takeoff (where you have one wing on the grass and the tow plane pulls you along until it comes off the ground), headed up to Harris Hill and landed on the runway there.

That was it.  Now I'm certified for two more years of flight on my own.  It hardly seems like it's been two years since I earned my glider rating.  It's more of a challenge than it ever was before as I'm trying to fly more smoothly and professionally than I have in the past.

Next year - I'll go for my commercial ticket so I can fly passengers!

Webcam replaced!

I've replaced the webcam at Harris Hill with the new Microsoft Lifecam VX5000.  Using the pinhole camera trick, I modified it into an outdoor camera and built a small enclosure with plexiglass on either end of a pvc pipe.  The cam is mounted inside and hangs from the overhang by the porch at the flight center.

It looks a lot like the cantenna I made for the WiFi connection.

Time will tell if this camera is worth it or not, but so far, the pictures are sharper and cleaner than the previous webcam.  The webcam has proven to be the most popular feature of the weather station install.  Everybody checks in on it to see what's going on up there.

Upgrading the web cam at Harris Hill

The web camera I put up on Harris Hill works great and I've had lots of comments about how helpful it is to have a camera so people can see what is going on.

However, the quality is poor (if this image doesn't look too bad it means I've replaced the camera).

  

I had a replacement camera of better quality - the Microsoft Lifecam VX5000.  However, that camera had AWFUL quality when placed outdoors.  Turns out this is a common problem and I found a fix for it on instructables.com.

It seems the aperture is set wide for webcams so they look good indoors.  This causes them to have way too wide an aperture when used outdoors.  The instructables site told me that fixing this was as simple as taking the camera apart and placing a piece of cardboard with a pinhole aperture over the lens opening.

It worked!  Incredibly, when I did that, the camera became suitable for outdoor use.  A little adjustment with the image controls gave me acceptable -and better, image quality.

I plan on replacing the existing camera in a weatherproof enclosure this weekend when I'm up at Harris Hill for my monthly duty cycle.  Hopefully, the little piece of plastic I used will remain in place with the airplane glue I use to bond it to the lens surrounding.

Plopping it in

Okay, I've officially gone from one side of the spectrum to the other.  Instead of bouncing when landing, I'm now firmly attacking the ground with a 'PLOP'! in crosswinds.

This is actually good news.  I've over corrected in the opposite direction.  Which means the answer lies somewhere in between.  I'm determined to find it.  My landings, while safe and acceptable, are kind of embarrassing.

I've seen this before with my flying.  I've got quite a few flights in on the ASK-21 now and I can handle it pretty well.  So, I've got enough experience with it that I OUGHT to know better but there's some kind of mental block associated with crosswind landings.

It's worth noting that I'm expanding the envelope of flying in the 21, also.  I've carefully expanded my crosswind experience by flying in stronger crosswinds in it, a few knots at a time.  So, the situation I'm referring to is one where the winds are higher or gusty and not blowing down the runway.  So it is a little more challenging to begin with, but I'd like to make it smoother.

Landing hot

Twice in the last couple of flights I've had slight directional control issues when landing the ASK-21 in a crosswind.

Each time, it has been a good touchdown but then a sudden swerve to one side and a not so pretty rollout.  Nothing to worry too much about, but it reeks of sloppy technique.

The complicating factor is the crosswind, of course, but after some analysis, I think it goes beyond that.  I think I've been landing hot -that is, too fast.  The right speed to fly when coming down final, barring gusty conditions, is right around 55 knots.  The ASK-21 stalls at considerably below that speed, perhaps 37 knots or even less.

Both times I've swerved, I've been right on the approach speed.  Problem is, I think, is that I'm touching down at that speed.  Touching down too fast means you have too much energy in the glider and it makes it easy to bounce.  In both cases, I've bounced.  Once because I didn't flare quite enough, the other time because I crossed the taxiway which is a slight mound, and bounced into the air briefly.  Each time, the crosswind swung me a bit and I touched down in a crab and swerved.

I've been touching down too fast because I was not happy with getting too slow on landing in previous attempts.  Those touchdowns were all quite good but I thought I was slowing too much in the flare.  I need to re-evaluate that.  Previously, I was flaring at just the right altitude and slowing to touch down, just a bit low with the tail first.  But recently, I've been touching down faster in that crosswind, probably because I'm worried about getting blown sideways as I touchdown.

Also, I may still be carrying a bit too much altitude into the landing.  I'm using full spoilers to get to the point I want to touch down on and I'm still going 55 knots when I get there.  In the ASK-21, if you do that, you can get a rather quick settling of the glider if you let it slow up too high and that requires you to put the spoilers in a little bit and pick that speed back up.  An unstable approach leads to a poor landing.  I'm going to work on trying to prevent that from happening.

It's a delicate balance between floating in that flare too long and touching down with too much energy.  I'm going to redouble my efforts to try and put the airplane down where I want to and stop where I intend to, all at the right speeds and numbers.

Flying the ridge

One of the great things about soaring is discovering that other people are just as much in love with it as you are.  Today I went out to Harris Hill to give some support to the members who are in training.  Turns out there weren't that many students there and the tow pilot was only good for another 1/2 hour or so.

BUT.  The wind was practically straight out of the north at about 12 knots.  That means RIDGE flying, boys and girls!  I grabbed a glider and just before I got into it, one of our members, Graham Hall, joined me for what turned out to be a delightful flight!

After we cleared the edge of the ridge on takeoff, the expected elevator-o-lift kicked in and we were climbing out with the vertical speed indicator pegged at 10 knots!  The whole tow to 2,000 feet took just one circle.  Graham was flying and we cut loose and headed for the nearby ridge.

The lift was there, just as expected.

When wind blows against a tall hill, and particularly a ridge, it will strike the ridge and continue upward.  As long as the wind continues to blow, the lift from that ridge will continue upward.  If your glider descends at 200 feet per minute and the wind blows upward at greater than 200 fpm, you will go UP.

That's where we found ourselves on this particular day.  We shared the ride along Harris Hill and the ridge with a 1-34 and a Duo Discus as we flew back and forth along the ridge.  Graham flew some, then I flew some.  Graham found some lift at one edge of the ridge and circled in it, at one point getting us up to 3,500 feet - just 200 feet below where we let off to begin with.

The setting sun was beautiful, the day was crisp and clear, and we could see the all the way down to Mansfield, PA where the windmill farm is.  It was just gorgeous.  Landing was uneventful and was a perfect end to a perfect flight.  Best flight of the year, I'd say!

Here, Graham's expression sums it all up as he maneuvers us into the lift:

Weather station online!

This week I completed the weather station project and was able to get it online!  It's been working properly for several days in a row and now we've got both weather observations, history, and even a webcam so you can see Harris Hill and the National Soaring Museum has a presence with their name on it out in weather station land.

From Soaring

View the weather station page here: http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KNYELMIR5

Also, some more pilot specific pages that use the weather data are on our Harris Hill web site: http://www.harrishillsoaring.org/weather.htm

For those interested, here are the details of how the system works.

First, the system uses a Davis Vantage Pro 2 weather station mounted on our Flight Center.  That's it on the right hand side on the white pole in the photo below.  The tripod device in the center is a local weather station but it did not have the capability to place data on the internet, so we needed the Vantage Pro.

From Soaring

Second, is a web cam that looks out at the flight line.  Unfortunately, the picture isn't nearly this clear, but the camera was free, so beggars can't be choosers.  It works well enough but I may see about getting something with higher resolution.

From Soaring

Here's the web cam location (below, it is the white blotch with the extra cable hanging off of it above the window)

From Soaring

Here's a closeup.

From Soaring

The webcam uses a cable that connects to a computer (upper right above the window) while the weather station sends its data wirelessly to the console (mounted about halfway up between the windows in this photo).  The console has a USB plug that connects to the computer and downloads the weather station data periodically.

From Soaring

From Soaring

The computer has a WiFi USB dongle that is stuck in the window of the Flight Center, below.

From Soaring

Then comes the interesting part.  The Flight Center does not have internet access, but the National Soaring Museum has limited net access via a satellite connection.

From Soaring

Distance from the Flight Center to the NSM is around 1,000 feet.
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From Soaring

At the soaring museum end is a cantenna.  Literally, an antenna made from a tin can.  Bush's baked beans, to be exact.  Vegetarian, of course.  The can is encased in a length of pvc pipe for weatherproofing and mounted on the side of the NSM pointing at the flight center.  I found invaluable instructions for how to build this on this site.

From Soaring

The antenna wire is routed inside the building to a WiFi router (Linksys WRT54G) inside and a cable connects the router to the NSM internet router.  The data on the weather computer is sent to wunderground.com and the Harris Hill soaring weather pages here.

That's it!  We now have visual and weather observations for the Hill from afar.  I've already used it to gauge when the winds shifted from the South to the Northwesterly direction and make flying possible.  Other members also seem pleased with the system.

This was a fun project and one that I *thought* was within my technical abilities but wasn't sure about.  It took longer than I wanted, but in the end I'm really pleased I was able to figure out all the little twists and turns involved.  AND, now the NSM has a presence on the web so people will see what's up at Harris Hill!

Off topic bonus:  Today I flew 2 hours and 15 minutes in the ASK-21.  Good times.

Weather station update

The Harris Hill weather station has been up at the flight center for a couple of weeks and I check it each time I go up there. It's working without a problem right now.

The original console had an issue where it was very reluctant to restart if you removed power to it. I'd been on the phone to Davis tech support and gotten it working once but was unable to get it to work after I moved it out to Harris Hill.

Davis gives a one year warranty and sent me a refurbed unit that works a treat!

Now, the weather station and the computer with the Weather Link software are happily churning away and recording data.

The last mile - making that all important connection to the National Soaring Museum's internet access. To get the station online in internet land, we need the NSM's internet connection. This weekend, I scoped out how to do that with the museum's tech rep and I think we've got a reasonable solution figure out to put it on the side of the building with an easy link to the flight center. Piece of cake.

I ordered the cable needed and have been building my cantenna to make the link to the flight center. As soon as it arrives, we'll install and should be able to get online with the system!

In other flying news, I flew for 49 minutes in difficult conditions, spending most of my time spinning circles. Good practice for thermalling, which is what I'm trying to get better at. I got off tow in a thermal about 500 feet lower than normal tow height, circled for awhile, mostly keeping altitude and finally gaining a few hundred feet, then headed out to find another thermal. They were close together but didn't go very high.

I kept at it, moving from one place to another and always finding some lift. I finally managed 4,000 feet but that was about it for the height of the thermals. I'd forgotten to check my watch for takeoff time and thought I better get back in case someone was waiting to fly -there were a lot of people on the field, many of them assembling gliders.

When I got back, several of the 'pros' had been up and back down quicker than I had as they tried to stay aloft. I guess I did alright for the day!

Weather station update

Getting closer on the weather station! The station is installed, the console is working reliably, and the small computer I use to run the Davis Weatherlink software is reliably updating and operating properly.

The last link in the chain is to get the WiFi connection about 1,000 feet down to the National Soaring Museum. Yesterday, I set up the WiFi router at one end of that run and walked down to the NSM with my iPad and was able to connect to the router. I logged on to the computer and was able to use VNC to remotely control the weather station computer. No unusual methods required!

That means a simple omnidirectional antenna for the WiFi will probably work just fine. Next week I'll meet with one of the guys from the NSM and get the router installed. Then, it will just be a matter of getting the antenna on the roof and we'll be in good shape for that final link!

Trading altitude for distance

Last Saturday I was waiting for an ASK-21 to come back from a flight so I could take a spin when I realized the 1-34 was sitting out there just waiting to be flown. So, I hopped in and off I went.

The wind was from the South but would sometimes blow and sometimes stop. Takeoff was to the North. The first flight reminded me that I forgot how much the spoilers will slow you down on a 1-34! Let's just say that I 'attacked' the runway in firmly returning to earth.

I took another ride, hoping to dust off the cobwebs. It was an odd day with shear and broken up lift aloft. The tow line went slack once and I carefully swung the nose out to slow the ship and take keep from putting a shock on it as the line went taut again. I was able to find zero sink but never sustained lift. I'd gotten aloft after a high overcast shut off the thermal activity, but no matter. This was more about wounded pride than staying aloft.

When landing into a South wind at Harris Hill, the wind blows up the backside of the hill and curls over and down into the valley at the northern end of the runway. That's the end that you cross on final approach when landing into a South wind.

I kept my pattern high and close on base leg and turned final with quite a bit of altitude. The wind sock was showing about 10 knots or a little less as I opened the spoilers and started to slip hard to lose altitude. This time I had my speed right as I descended down final when suddenly I started to lose altitude very quickly. I was in the waterfall.

Fortunately, I had been expecting it so I closed the spoilers and accelerated to 75 knots, pointing the nose down to get to that speed. The edge of the landable area was getting pretty big pretty fast. I started to mentally calculate when I should break off and make a turn to go back into the valley when suddenly the descent rate decreased. I was through it.

I pulled the nose up and tried to slow to 55 for landing. Suddenly, I'd gone from landing way short to looking like I might go long! No matter, I put the spoilers out full, slowed to approach speed and then closed them to about 1/3 as I got close to flaring out for landing. I bobbled a bit but managed to touchdown precisely where I'd been aiming and made a credible touchdown and stop.

I'm still rusty, but looking forward to more flying soon. The weather this Spring so far has been nice only when I'm working and a bit crummy when I'm flying. Hopefully that will break soon and I'll get some thermaling practice in.

And he's Current!

At today's Wednesday night training session, I completed my 3rd flight in the past ninety days, making me FAA current and legal to carry passengers on flights. I've completed my annual safety check ride, I'm current, and the season has just begun. Life is good.

Today, the winds were pretty strong out of the south all day but were predicted to change to the northwest and drop to under 10 knots. That's not exactly what happened, though.

When I arrived at Harris Hill, the winds were out of the northwest alright and dropping but after I got into the glider, the windsock went limp. I took off in what must have been a lull. Upon getting airborne, it was clear that the atmosphere was unstable with gusts and bumps all the way to altitude that got gustier rather than smoother as is usually the case.

I headed upwind looking for any signs of lift but when I found it, it was choppy and not very large. I flew 45 degree circles trying to stay inside it but finally decided that they weren't thermals after all but instead were gusts being blown up after hitting the ridge below.

The wind switched all the way around to the Northeast after I got to altitude and picked up again, necessitating a North landing with an eastern crosswind component and gusts. I stayed close on downwind, carried some extra altitude into the base leg, keeping it quite close as well, and turned onto final. I was determined to pick out and land on a specific spot, not too far down the runway but not too close from the threshold and get it stopped before the taxiway.

I nailed it. I did let my airspeed slip a bit on final but got it back to approach speed and put the glider precisely on the spot I wanted to land on, kept wings level, and kept flying it all the way to the stop, easily finishing before I got to the taxiway. I let the brake off, coasted onto the taxiway and stopped. Beautiful. A nice confidence builder.

So, now I'm ready to fly. I need some lift, first of course! The weather isn't too promising this weekend, but we'll find a day soon to practice thermal centering and climbing. I've been reading Kai Gertsen's Cross Country Guide and it is jam packed with practical advice. I'm preparing for cross country training this year and expect to be a much better pilot by the end of the season.

Weather station takes a step forward...

Saturday, I managed to get the HHSC weather station mounted. Thanks to Burke Carson and Doug...sorry Doug, I forgot your last name! Both were a great help to put the station up on the side of the flight center on a REALLY blustery day!

It's not perfect, of course. I chose to use a length of pvc pipe about 8 feet high but when we got it up, it's not really as rigid as I hoped for and it oscillates in the wind. And the day we put it up, the winds were pretty strong - 20 gusting to 30 mph.

I think we'll have to replace the pipe with something metal, unfortunately. I shouldn't have tried to cheap out on this part of the install.

Ominously, the blasted console is also giving me a lot of trouble powering up. I'm going to have to call Davis wether systems, It had this issue before.

Meanwhile, I've purchased an Ebay WiFi router and some parts to build a cantenna for the museum WiFi connection. The parts should be here soon.

Up, up and away!

You know how when you choose "Turn Off This Computer" in Windows that the color slowly drains from the screen, until it is black and white? Well, this time of year up at Harris Hill, it's like that -except in reverse. The color is slowly coming into the Spring after the cold and gray of Winter. And today, it got quite a bit more colorful.

Today was the first day of regular Wednesday night flight training at Harris Hill! Our flight students were up there after work and I headed up to get my annual field check with an instructor and get myself FAA current in flying a glider.

The weather couldn't have been more perfect as an overcast this morning with winds out of the North turned to clear skies with little, if any winds by start time at 5:30. Harris Hill requires an annual safety flight with an instructor after the winter layoff and I need it since the logbook said I hadn't flown since the end of September!

I got a bonus two-fer. I took my check in the 2-33 trainer, which I probably haven't flown for a year, plus it was my first flight in about 6 months. I climbed in, remembered where all the controls were and we towed out of 4NY8 into the afternoon sun. An East wind reminded me that one should stay close and tight to the field and the lower performance and lighter wing loading of the 2-33 kept me near the hill. I chose to stay mostly on the East side of the airport so the wind would quickly push me back to the proper side for landing.

Everything went smoothly. Okay, mostly everything went smoothly. I remembered how to fly on tow, I remember when I'm supposed to feed in rudder and elevator, and I can still keep the machine right side up pretty easily. On landing, I intentionally carried more altitude than necessary and slipped down base and around the right turn to final. Ron Ogden, our instructor extraordinaire (does anything ever upset him?!) said - put it on the asphalt, so I side stepped towards the pavement.

Spoilers open full to help bleed height and WHAM! we're down but in keeping spoilers open fully, I've got the brake on unintentionally. We touch down just short of the asphalt (I'll work on that, thank you very much), jump up onto the pavement and one wing goes low while the tire skids us to a very short stop. Not pretty. I told you I was rusty!

I emphasize to Ron that, no I wasn't pulling on the spoiler handle when we landed but that must have still activated the brake. I should have let the spoilers off just slightly before touchdown like I was thinking, but the approach was going okay and I didn't want to mess with it very much. Plus, if you do that on the ASK-21 you'll get a nice pop up into the air and possibly a porpoise that will amuse your pilot friends. See earlier blog posts about how I've pulled that stunt before.

Anyhow, Ron says "Well, I think you'll do okay on your own," and I'm checked out! I take a backseat passenger ride with one of my colleagues in the ASK-21 and then I'm off on my own in it after we land. And what do you know, I find a little zero sink air and milk the ride for awhile as I circle gently near the pattern for landing. Coming down final, I line up, get my spoilers set to help manage my energy and put it down on the pavement nicely, keeping the wings level and managing a nice taxi in the direction of the hangar. It's time to put the birds away for the evening.

But not for long. The soaring season at the hill has begun and Saturday is the club's first day of public operations. It's going to be a good year!

Springtime approaches!

The spring weather is approaching and Harris Hill ops begin on a regular basis the first weekend of April! It's still not what you would call warm here in Upstate New York, but it is warm ENOUGH to get airborne and we're all getting ready for it.
Here's some photos from last weekend's work on glider 6, an ASK-21 that the club owns. We buffed off a very fine layer (about 1/1000 of an inch) of oxidation and put two coats of wax back on the entire airframe.
The snow was too high to move the glider from the runway to the hangar, so we had to take it apart outside. COLD!

Fortunately, the hangar is heated and once we got it indoors, we went to work on it. We stripped the wing seal tape off, cleaned it, washed the glider down to remove dirt and took out the seat pans and gave it a good vacuuming and cleaning. After we were done, the result was a gleaming glass finish and a bird that is fit to fly for the season!

It was great to see the regulars out at the hill and it really got me psyched about doing some flying as soon as possible! Looking forward to the Spring in just under 4 weeks for a great season of soaring.

Putting the Hill online

Last Summer, I took on a project to get Harris Hill weather online. The Hill has a microclimate due to its position up on top and the fact that the nearby Elmira airport is down in the valley. The direction of the wind and the velocity is very often quite different from what's going on down below.

In addition, some members complained that they lived an hour or more away and could not easily tell when the winds were favorable or not. Also, I noted that the National Soaring Museum (NSM) although it has internet, doesn't have a presence online at places like Wunderground.com. That just plain seems wrong.

So, I decided to take some spare computer parts I had and donate them plus a Davis Vantage Pro II weather station. I asked members if they'd be willing to donate for the data logger that was needed to get the station data to the computer and promised I'd figure out the rest. They came through with the donations and now it's up to me to make it happen.

I've solved all of the problems and issues and the weather data is being uploaded to the Harris Hill web site (check it out here) with this up to the network issue. The NSM has internet access. Our flight center, about 1,500 feet away, doesn't. The weather station has a console that displays history and so forth and is useful for pilots who frequent the flight center. Thus, the console goes in the flight center, which means the computer goes there too.

But, to upload to the internet so everyone can see the data, you have to have a net connection. I've found what I hope is the solution - I'm going to build a 'cantenna' which focuses the WiFi signal from a router in the direction of the flight center. That should solve the 'last mile' problem and get us online. I hope.

Beyond that, I'm building personalized web pages with weather data on them including one for mobile phones. I've added the NSM weather station to www.wunderground.com personal weather stations and even have a web cam. My main concern is that it will run reliably so it's there when we need it.

Hmmm.

Being involved in an organization - any organization, that has a lengthy history can sometimes be an education in human group dynamics and interaction. Like an onion, you can peel back many layers and think you are seeing the core but you're not. It's a good reminder that just because you see stuff a certain way it is probably best to just pay your monthly dues, shut up, and enjoy the flying.