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.

With a whimper, not a bang.

Done. Over. Gone.

Bye-bye to the 2009 soaring season, which ended with rainy weekends and a fizzle. Ah well, I knew it would. The soaring gods were not as kind this year as in the past.

What did I accomplish this year? Well, actually I accomplished my soaring goals for the year. I learned how to fly high performance fiberglass ships and notched up my experience level one more notch. I'm really pleased that despite the scare of my landout mid season that I now officially feel pretty comfortable flying the ASK-21 and still love the 1-34.

I took several friends up for rides in the 21, which is a much nicer ship to take passengers in than the venerable 2-33. I still have a soft spot in my heart for the 2-33 and like that ship quite a bit. It's like a big forgiving teddy bear. And the ASK-21 isn't too far behind either. It's my new best friend.

I tried to mishandle the 21 the last time I was out and it's just darned difficult to do. I intentionally flew it right on the edge of a stall and fed in some rudder. It should have turned a half spin and stalled but it didn't. Just sort of mushed through the air and descended quicker. A really nice handling machine. The type that could lull you into trouble flying a super high performance ship. I'll have to keep on my toes with that as I move up.

Move up? Yes, there are two more ships on my 'next year' list. The Duo Discus and the single seat Discus. Luckily, the club owns two of these machines and they are suitable for serious cross country flying. Next year, I'll sign up for cross country training and depart the comfy confines of the Harris Hill ridge and Elmira valley. I'm excited and I'll spend the winter finding materials to read and study in preparation for the flights.

And maybe...just maybe...commercial rating? If I get a commercial rating, I can fly passengers for hire but more importantly, I don't pay for the flights. It's a good way to build time without paying for it.

Anyhow, one more event on the calendar this year but I won't be able to attend - the annual Snowbird contest takes place the weekend of Thanksgiving. The weather is usually bad but the contest is stuff like spot landing and so forth. Then...perhaps some flying on New Year's day and then the long march to April.

Can the Fall get any worse?

Good grief! The weather has been positively sub-optimal for weeks. And when it has been cooperative, I've been busy! Looks like this year's flying season will end with a whimper rather than a bang.

I did manage to get a beautiful flight in about a week and a half ago. It wasn't soaring weather but it was reasonably calm with about a 5 knot crosswind. I hadn't really flown in much of anything but dead calm or nearly direct headwinds all summer. Not to worry, all went well and the air was almost eerie smooth.

I managed to arrest my descent along the ridge and fell in behind one of our other club members as he went by and headed out over the valley. I flew minimum sink while he must have been flying best L/D (lift vs. drag). The fall trees were beautiful along the nearby hillsides with some stands of trees farther along than others, making the whole landscape look like a spattered paint canvas.

I worked my way down the ridge staying close to Harris Hill and then turned back around behind him as I was a little higher than he was. He made it look easy as he put it down in the first 1/3 of the field. I carried a bit more altitude for reasons that are obvious from my previous posts and landed beyond him, still stopping well before the pavement edge.

I've got one more opportunity to fly this weekend before we stop regular ops. Weather forecast is partly crummy with scattered crumminess changing to totally crummy later one.

The friends and family plan

As the flying season winds down, I've decided that I'm finally comfortable flying the ASK-21. I've achieved my flying goals for this year, which was to move up to higher performance aircraft and become comfortable flying them.

I know that because I've been recently flying a lot of friends and family members, giving them a taste of soaring in 15 and 20 minute chunks. I wouldn't do that unless I was comfortable and of course, a spate of dead calm, no thermal weather has made it perfect for passenger trips, if not for soaring itself.

One of my goals was to get better at thermal centering and flying in the higher performance aircraft. I haven't had as much time to practice this because there haven't been that many thermals when I've flown. I did manage 53 minutes recently on a day when thermals were in the 2-3 knot range. That was really good practice for circling in light lift conditions and while I was better at the end of it than when I started, I'm still not doing it efficiently. I'm letting the yaw string skid off too much when I circle, meaning the tail isn't following the nose.

Of course, circling at a constant bank it's not too tough to keep the yaw string straight back. But in a thermal, you often vary the angle of bank to center up the thermal. A little less bank on the strong side of the thermal, a little steeper bank on the soft side of the therm will alter the circle with the intent of moving you closer to the center of lift. Varying that angle skids the tail if you aren't good with the rudder.

The concept is simple, the execution not as easy. Rolling the ASK-21 into a bank, you add more rudder than aileron. As you roll in, you ease off on the rudder although not all the way. Then you may need to reduce aileron as you reach your roll angle. When you do that, you need to add a little rudder to get the tail to follow because one wing is flying faster than the other around the circle. (Just think of whirling a ball on a string around your head -the speed of the ball is quite a bit higher than the speed of a point on the string near y

our hand). That extra speed creates more drag and pulls the nose in one direction requiring correction with the rudder. The amount of correction varies with bank angle and since you are almost constantly changing the bank angle as you circle, you need to do it pretty much automatically. If you think about it, you'll be behind the aircraft.

So, I'm not satisfied with my technique and I'm also not satisfied with my awareness of the sky conditions. I need to read and think more about where lift is or might be under different conditions. I'll work on that this winter and try to apply it next spring.

Next year, I've got one more milestone aircraft to check out in - the Discus. Our club has both a Duo (two seat) Discus and a single seat Discus. They are mainly for cross-country flights but the single seater rarely gets flown as it is in a trailer and has to be assembled. Our other aircraft are in the hangar and easier to roll out.

I'm also going to consider getting my commercial rating so I can fly passengers at Harris Hill. As I said, I'm still not satisfied with my skills and a commercial rating requires more precision than the private pilot glider rating. I'm going to look through the requirements for commercial rating this winter and even if I don't go for the rating, I'm going to train for it. It can't hurt and there's no reason I can't get the rating.

In addition, I'm going to sign up for cross country flight training from our club pros next year. That will introduce me to the world of thinking on your feet and will make me a much better pilot.

I'll close with a shot I took yesterday from the ASK-21 that I landed out in earlier this year. The leaves here in upstate NY are changing and it's always lovely. There was no lift but the visibility was excellent and I hadn't flown since the leaves started to noticeably show. It was still and quiet and truly beautiful.

That's why I fly.