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| Junior Joe McGill over Mifflin County airport |
It was all part of a trip our Juniors take every couple of years when the coffers are full enough to support a trip away. We always talk about how much the Senior members give to the Junior program but in truth, the Junior members give a lot, too. Sometimes it is nice to just get away from the Hill and have an event dedicated solely to the Juniors that can be all about them.
This is a challenging event to plan. We have to have everything come together on the same weekend - airplanes, instructors, tow plane -and weather. The past several years, the weather has not cooperated and we've had to cancel. There is no rain date for this trip, either. It's just too hard to ask everyone to reorganize their life and slip the trip by a week.
As we went into the week prior, the weather forecast was not looking good. We were going to have to cancel for the 4th year! We decided to wait until the day before to make the call. Even then, the weather was not promising. We'd get wet for sure at some point and would probably not be able to fly the world famous Mifflin ridge.
The Juniors were still game for it, though. They'd been through past cancellations and were chomping at the bit to go *somewhere* that would be just for them. We decided to plan for the worst weather but hope for the best. Our contingent of gliders rolled into Mifflin on Friday with partly sunny skies overhead and predictions of thunderstorms.
We assembled (not trivial, considering we had both a 2-33 and 1-26 with us) and started flying. After about 2 hours, the buildups to the southwest began heading towards us and we tied everything down and went inside. The rain lasted less than an hour and cleared out to sunny skies again. We resumed flying and had great weather for the rest of the day! We had multiple instructional flights in the 2-33 and ASK-21, solo flying in the 1-26, fantastic ridge flights in the Duo Discus and I also brought the single seat Discus for some fun.
A group of happy and exhausted Juniors went to bed with another uncertain forecast the next day.
Low clouds and fog greeted us Saturday and it took a while, but finally cleared around lunchtime and turned into one of the nicest soaring days you can imagine. Light winds with thermals and a slight bit of ridge lift. The day steadily improved and even after 6pm we were still finding lift and thermals.
Altogether, we flew 40 flights Saturday and about 20 on Friday. Unfortunately, the rains came Sunday and we called it early, having to disassemble and trailer the gliders in the rain before heading home. Everyone was a trooper and we arrive back at Harris Hill Sunday evening, wet, tired, and happy.
What I Learned
1. The Juniors just loved it. It really didn't matter what happened. More than anyone else at Harris Hill, they experience soaring as a group. They are able to learn as a unit and they push each other along to keep improving. They had fun when the sun was shining, they had fun when it was raining. And they particularly enjoyed being the center of attention on the gliderport.
2. When flying in a strange location, be sure the GPS is working. I flew two flights in the Discus. The first was short, just out to the ridge and back when I couldn't find any lift. The second was better, a bit under an hour. But I learned the most from the first flight. Tim Welles told us the 'ridge was working at about about 50 knots' and I found out that was true. I was able to poke along down the ridge for 2-3 miles but realized that I might not be able to poke my way back, so I turned around.
Mistake number 1, I turned downwind and fell off the lift. I fell off enough that I was uncomfortable putting the glider back over the peak because I didn't want to get trapped on the other side by turning into the wind. That's fine, but I probably wouldn't have fallen out of the lift if I'd turned into the wind.
Mistake number 2, in unfamiliar terrain, practice spotting the airport before you fly away from it. When I turned around, I couldn't find the airport in the patchwork of farm field and roads. Fortunately, I had the GPS on and I flew the course line to return, but I didn't actually spot the airport until I was below 1,000 AGL. It sort of hid among the corn fields and I was seriously assessing if I was going to have to land close by and then explain to everyone how I was too stupid to see it from the air.
On the second flight, I picked some geographic landmarks and some buildings on the ground to help me find the airport and didn't have any trouble after that. But there was that momentary 'oh crap' moment when I thought I'd made a real bonehead mistake.
3. The people at Mifflin couldn't be nicer. It is so great for our Juniors to meet others in the soaring community and find that they are such gracious hosts. Mifflin Soaring Association really put themselves out for us and let us take over their clubhouse for the weekend and camp on their land. Fred Winter of MSA contacted me to offer the use of the clubhouse right out of the blue and Brian Glick was our tow pilot and host extraordinaire. It looks like a lot of fun to hang out at the airport and see what everyone is doing all the time. A special shout out to Gary Wilson, who tracked us down and gave us the key to his T-hangar so we could have a dry place to dissassemble our gliders. Boy did that come in handy! Gary got a case of beer for his generosity.
4. Harris Hill is like landing on an aircraft carrier compared to Mifflin. We were all joking about using only 1/3 of the runway for landing and still having a lengthy roll out to get to the launch point. I'd been told that if I can land at the Hill, I can land anywhere and I'm glad I have experience on the shorter HH runway. It made landing an absolute cinch.
What a great trip. Everyone enjoyed it and we managed to get out to dinner and ice cream in State College as well as have some of the best fresh-picked sweet corn I've ever had, thanks to Brian's brother.
Can't wait to do it again. After I rest up, that is.
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