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.