Flying the 2-33....again

I forgot how much I like the 2-33

After flying commercial flights for several hours, I was ready for a break but my son wanted to take a flight.  The ASK's were busy with passenger rides, so I saddled up in the back of the trusty Schweizer 2-33.  Kevin was thrilled to fly his training aircraft.  I did the takeoff, then turned it over to him for the tow and rest of the flight.  He flew a tad high on tow, but would generally correct back to the proper position and I could see that he's definitely 'getting it' and learning how to handle the aircraft.  A couple of bumps kept him alert and were good experience.  Pretty soon we were up to release altitude - 3700 feet above sea level.  We released and began looking for lift.

I directed us over the hang glider launch since that's where I'd found a pretty reliable thermal for most of the day and sure enough, we found it.  The thermals were a bit odd with shear in them and sort of an on/off feeling to them.  I'd been able to center them in the ASK-21 with passengers, but I thought I'd let Kevin try his hand at it without too much direction from me.

Pretty soon we were circling with good lift on one side and zero on the other.  The right thing to do is to try and move your circle towards the stronger side of the lift by banking steeply on the weak side and making a more shallow bank when you are on the strong side.  This moves your circle, hopefully strengthening the lift so you are in it all the way around the circle.  I gave a little direction to Kevin and pretty soon he had it centered and we started climbing steadily.  We topped out right at release altitude after 700 feet of climb or so and I could tell he was pretty excited that he made it happen.

We flew around a bit more, discussing what to look for and think about and then he set us into the pattern for downwind.  I took over from there and made the landing, talking through the checklist with him and explaining what I was doing and why.  As we turned base, I told him that I thought we looked a bit high and he agreed.  What he didn't know was that there was sink off the end of the runway but I did because I'd flown through it all morning.  With spoilers almost closed, I used it to bring us down and turned final only slightly high.

Kevin said, "You're too high," but since I barely had the spoilers cracked, I just eased them open, brought us into line, then eased them almost closed and touched down in the grass right where I'd been aiming.  After we got out, I smiled and said, "So you thought I was too high, eh?"  It was good to know I could still fly the 2-33!  

It had been a couple of months and I get nervous about being used to flying a higher performance glider, then flying a lower performance one -especially since I was in the back.  But it turned out to be the same trusty 2-33 I learned to fly in and it was great fun to fly it again.  Plus, we both enjoyed flying together and he seemed pleased to show me what he'd learned.  I know I got a kick out of it.

Return on Investment

Yesterday I worked my first full commercial pilot shift at Harris Hill.  I was scheduled last month but we were weathered out with a no-fly day.

Yesterday was different - a cool morning with river fog gave way to a sunny and spectacular Fall day at Harris Hill.  When I arrived, there were three passenger rides waiting and after a slight delay to allow the fog to burn off, I started giving rides.  Taking a glider ride was apparently a popular idea as we steadily built up a queue of people waiting for rides.  By the time I landed with the second passenger, we had three gliders in passenger operation and kept them all busy until 5pm.

I gave 8 rides that day and passed the magic number of 12 passenger rides which is the point that the personal cost of getting my commercial license is exceeded by the cost of flying 12 times.  So, now I'm on the plus side of the ledger and every flight I make with a paying passenger is gravy on top.

I like introducing people to soaring and although the weather was quite good, I really liked flying steadily for a period of 4 or 5 hours because I got to experience the changing conditions from smooth and calm to thermal activity.  The East-Southeast wind we had was very, very light on the surface but caused some turbulence and a decent crosswind on takeoff and landing.  It was quite different in the sky than on the ground and it was interesting to experience it evolving.

Even though it was a light wind, there was a good deal of sink on final approach, but I had anticipated it and making 8 landings gave me a good feel for what it looks like under those conditions.  The other thing that is nice is that you aren't trying to stay up for a long time.  Twenty minutes or so is the length of the ride, so if you find a single thermal you can easily make 20.  You stay near the field and simply fly wherever you want with no particular destination or task necessary.  You pass a few minutes of pleasant conversation with passengers and then return for landing.  Nice.  And of course, you get more experience with flying the ASK-21.

All in all, a great decision to get my commercial rating this year!

Region 3 Glider Contest

Harris Hill just finished hosting the region3 glider contest and it was good fun.

The contest is a race - whoever flies the farthest the fastest scores the most points.  Each morning a specific course is laid out for the contestants and they must fly to various turn points on flights that can last 2 hours or more.  Distances are generally 100-200 miles.

There are two classes of aircraft FAI and Sport class and they compete in their own class.  The contest lasts a week, which is good since they had only 3 reasonably good flying days plus 1 practice day to get ready.

I worked the retrieve office for the contest.  Our job was to track who took off and place a prepared card on the window as they departed.  When they landed, we would take the card down.  It's a simple way of tracking who is back and who isn't.

If a pilot can't make it back and 'lands out', they are instructed to call the retrieve office and give us relevant information about their location and how to contact them.  We then flipped their card over to the red side as a signal to their crew that they need to get the trailer ready and go get the pilot and glider.

We had a couple of land outs but not really too many.  Contest pilots are usually quite seasoned but as they push themselves to complete a task, there's always the possibility of a land out.  Sailplanes are designed for this and pilots are used to it.  The old joke goes, "There are those pilots who have landed out and those that will."  Everyone gets a turn eventually, especially when trying to win a contest.

Our Harris Hill juniors did an outstanding job of volunteering and working the competition and everything went smoothly for the week.  Watching the pilots launch and waiting for them to return, I wondered whether I would ever do any contest flying.

I doubt it.  The learning curve is steep and to be any good at it you need to fly cross country an awful lot.  Also, the contests are a week long which puts a crimp in the vacation leave time, plus you have the expense of staying wherever the contest is and of course, you need to own a glider or have one you can take with you.  That's a lot of difficult variables for a married person with kids nearing college age and it explains why many of the racing pilots are retired.

Andy Brayer won the Sport Class

Interestingly, the Sport Class competition was won by our very own Andy Brayer in a borrowed Discus glider owned by Harris Hill!  I guess that sort of shatters the barriers, but of course those were taken care of  because he flew the glider from its home base and the contest was held here at Harris Hill.  Nevertheless, I'm really happy for Andy - he's one of our juniors and he's turned into a top notch pilot who selflessly give training to our juniors all summer long.  He obviously worked hard for this win and he earned it by winning every single day that we flew -particularly against Roy McMaster, one of our ace pilots with a great competition history under his belt.  Congrats to both Andy and Roy for their 1, 2 finish.  

First commercial passenger

Yesterday I was at Harris Hill and the scheduled commercial pilot was a no-show.  The clouds were only about 1,200 feet so the only flying going on was training.  Short hops up, then back for landing.  There was little wind, but with the deck so low it wasn't suitable for passenger rides.

After noon, to the east a big hole opened up and the promised clearing began in earnest.  At about that time we had several inquiries about passenger rides.  I agreed to take one -my first commercial passenger.  There wasn't too much lift but we found some zero sink and I managed to extend the ride for a little bit, then turned into the pattern to land.

Everything went smoothly and as he was getting out of the glider, he exclaimed, "Wow!  That was incredible!"  I thought so, too.  I thanked him for flying with us and pushed the glider back into line.

I Learned About Soaring from That

This post could probably be sub-titled "How to (almost) land out without even trying."

Last Friday, in preparation for my commercial glider checkride, I decided to take the afternoon off and fly some spot landings to convince myself yet again that I know how to fly and calm my apprehensiveness.

When I got to Harris Hill, the place was a beehive of activity.  The soaring forecast was not just good, it was GREAT.  One of our members remarked that it was the best soaring day of the season.  I grabbed the last ASK-21 available, put a battery in it so I could monitor what everyone else was doing and took off.

I could hear that most of my fellow pilots were up between 7,000 and 8,000 and lift was everywhere.  The thermals were closely spaced, nicely marked by cumulus clouds, there was little wind to tilt them over and they were reasonably strong.  Buoyed by all the good reports of lift, I got off tow a few hundred feet lower than normal as we passed through a 4 knot thermal.

A 'blue hole' was over Harris Hill.  This is fairly common at our field when the wind blows cool air off of Seneca lake to the Southwest.  The cooler air dries up the clouds and can kill the thermals in the hole.  I'd gotten off tow at the edge of the hole and circled up to about 4,500 when the thermal petered out.  I decided to move away from the hole to the southwest where some cumulus clouds looked promising.

I kept finding lift, but only of the 2 knot variety.  I was able to stay at about 4,500 feet but couldn't seem to connect with thermals that would take you to 7 and 8,000 feet where everyone else was.  I continued to move from cloud to cloud trying to find better lift to get higher.

Eventually, I wasn't even finding 2 knot lift.  At 3,900 feet I thought I'd try one more cloud before turning back to the airport as I was getting pretty far away.  That cloud didn't work out and I turned back to the airport.  It looked pretty far away and I considered that the little itch in my head that told me to go back at the last cloud would have been a really good idea.

As I headed back, I saw why the thermals were dying.  The blue hole had shifted to the Southwest -my direction, and was killing the lift.  I would have to cross the blue hole to get back to Harris Hill.

At this point, aside from being deeply disappointed with allowing myself to get this low this far away from the airport, I considered my options.  I could head North and get out over the Chemung valley and probably land out in a field down there.  I could head West, even farther away and look for more thermals.  There were lots of fields to land in, if necessary.  Or, I could head back to Harris Hill and most likely land somewhere in between.

Looking back towards Harris Hill, I could see at least 5 fields that were grass covered and easy to land in.  I figured I'd head back, not expecting to find any lift, and likely land in one of those fields.  If I was lucky, I could make it to the valley and easily glide to our emergency landing field in the valley.

I headed back and, as I expected, didn't find lift.  However, there were periods of zero sink.  I slowed up during those times and sped up to best L/D speed when I wasn't in it.  Fortunately, there wasn't a lot of sink.  I eventually found a small 2 knot thermal.  I circled tightly, perhaps 50 degrees of bank (great practice for my upcoming flight check!) and managed to gain a few hundred feet.  But it wasn't a very high thermal and I still didn't have enough to get back to Harris Hill.  Reluctantly, I left it as it died and headed East again.

Fortunately, that thermal gave me the altitude I needed to get to the monastery which is on the edge of the hill overlooking the valley with our emergency landing field and, although I was too low to get to Harris Hill, I knew I could glide to the field, or if things were not going well, I could land in the field in the monastery.

As I passed over the chapel, I caught some lift near the edge of the dropoff to the valley.  I was perhaps 500 feet above the high ground and did a circle.  The thermal was small and I banked over, determined not to lose contact with this one and managed to gain a few hundred feet.  While circling, I heard someone on the radio remarking that one of our gliders (me) was way low and asking who it was.  All this time, everyone else had been up at 8,000 feet while I was struggling for altitude!

Remembering Kai's guide to off field landings, I turned the radio off.  It was distracting and I needed all the concentration I could muster.  After a few minutes, I'd climbed to 2,700 feet but the thermal dissipated and I was left with 3-400 fpm of sink.  It was time to cross the valley and land out.

I expected no lift over the valley -usually that is the case as the cooler air and crop cover tends to make the valley and unusual place to find lift.  However, the day was warm and you never know, so I headed across the valley towards the hang glider jumpoff on the Harris Hill ridge.  Still too low to make the field, I had at least accomplished making the emergency field.  

I lost less altitude then I expected crossing the valley due to mostly zero sink and I arrived at our ridge with 2,100 feet of altitude.  I had enough to check the knob where the hang gliders launch and while there was a burble of lift, it wasn't something you could circle in.  I sighed and went through my pre-landing checklist, extending the spoilers to check them.  I sidle along the ridge, still above it in zero sink when it happened.

Whoosh!  I stumbled into a 2 knot thermal.  I immediately circled and gained 50 feet.  Continuing, I managed to center the lift and get 2 knots steady all the way around the circle.  Pretty soon, I saw 2,300 feet on the altimeter, then 2,400, then the magic 2,500 which is our normal approach to landing altitude!  I was now in easy gliding distance of the airport and just like that, I was NOT going to land out!

I decided I'd had enough drama and excitement for the day and left the thermal and headed in the direction of our landing pattern.  Would you know it?  I stumbled into a 4 knot thermal.  I couldn't pass it up, so I circled and the thermal strengthened to 6 knots.  In a matter of minutes I was passing through 4,000 feet and climbing.  The thermal was getting wider and smoother, settling down to a steady 4 knots and I rode it all the way up to 5,000 then 6,000, then 7,000 then 8,000 feet!  I topped out at 8,200 feet -FINALLY up at altitude with the rest of the gang.

I continued the flight for another 2-1/2 hours, never getting lower than 7,500 feet, finally landing with 3 hours and 19 minutes on the clock, the longest flight for me so far and the highest I've ever gone - 8,400 feet.

After I landed, I considered what I had learned.  

1.  I learned that I was able to formulate and execute a plan when I needed to.  I knew I was pretty far away from Harris Hill and the main mistake I made was leaving a perfectly good thermal to try and find a better one, all the while moving a little farther away.  There's nothing really wrong with that and there wouldn't have been anything wrong with landing out, but to be safe, I should have made a *conscious* decision to turn back or try another cloud with the possibility of landing out.  

2.  I did not compromise the safety of flight.  There are plenty of options for landing in fields in the area I was in, so the safety of the flight was not in question.  However, I will revise my aeronautical decision making to highlight when I am making a decision that includes the possibility of not returning to the field.  I want that to be a very specific 'go/no-go' decision.  In this case, I made it more casually than I should have because I believed the lift on this day was good (which it was) and would continue (which it eventually did).  

3.  I saved the flight because I was lucky, not skilled.  Let's be perfectly frank - I didn't land out because I got lucky.  

4.  I capitalized on opportunities in a safe manner.  I made good safety decisions when faced with the prospect of landing out.  When I stopped to circle in lift, I made sure I had a plan if it turned into sink.  I put myself in a position to take advantage of the lift when it showed up and I thermalled the glider like never before to center the lift and climb away when I needed to.

This was my best soaring flight ever.  I had lows and I had highs.  I probably learned more about soaring from this one flight than any books could have ever taught me.  That's what I love about soaring - it's a continuous challenge and you can always do better.

Commercial Success!

I passed my commercial glider pilot checkride today.

This was my goal at the beginning of the season and here I am with it all achieved!  What a great feeling - and what a weight off of my chest.

I let myself get all wound up for the ride and as my instructor said, "bad rehearsal, great performance!"  It all started with a less than stellar performance a few days prior to the checkride.  I simply performed poorly - much more poorly than I usually do, starting with the takeoff and tow to altitude.  Granted, it was quite gusty and we were getting pulled around quite a bit but still, it was not a great start.

As we started in our base leg, the wind had really picked up and I realized we were dropping like a stone.  I abandoned the base and aimed for the runway, accelerating to get closer before we lost too much altitude. The wind gradient made for moderate turbulence on final with loss of airspeed, gain of airspeed, crosswind, you name it.  I managed to get us down in one piece and without damaging the glider, but my confidence was shaken.  It was too rough to fly after that, so we rescheduled for the next day.

After a rather sleepless night, the next day's tasks went fairly well with one major issue - being able to rollout to stop inside a designated 100 foot box.  The solution was relatively minor, I needed to let the glider get a little bit lower on final.  I was simply carrying too much energy into the landing in the form of altitude.  My instructor reluctantly signed me off and I stuck around to do some touch and goes with some friends from the field - including Bryan, who was also going for his commercial checkride the same day.  We flew until we could nail the spot consistently.

When the big day came, Bryan went first and, as I was certain he would, nailed the ride and passed easily.  Then it was my turn.  First we did about 1.5 hours of oral question and answer, followed by 3 flights.  The examiner, Jim Rizzo, was really, really, good about getting me to relax and being very conversational.  We went over the weight and balance I prepared, a cross country I built in advance, the weather and so on.  By the time we were ready to fly, I felt pretty good.

The flights went pretty uneventfully.  I made several lame attempts to thermal and after the second landing, I caught my foot on the side of the glider and fell out onto the grass.  I asked if that amounted to points deducted and he laughed.

We did one really cool combination of maneuvers.  He asked for a steep turn in one direction, and after I went around once, he asked me to roll into a steep turn the other direction, then at the completion of that turn, to pull up into a turning stall.  That was pretty neat.  I'd always practiced them as separate maneuvers without linking them, but this was both more challenging and more interesting.

I did well at keeping my airspeeds right, I think I did average at coordinated flight, and after our third landing, we went inside and he filled out my temporary flight certificate for commercial glider pilot.

I worked really hard for this.  I wasn't afraid I would fail because I didn't know how to do the things I was supposed to do.  Rather, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to demonstrate them to the examiner.  In the end, I was able to do that and I've got another level of certification for my continuing journey in soaring.

I owe thanks to many people for getting me this far, particularly my instructor, Ron Ogden.  He takes all kinds of personal time to come out and train us for flight and gets nothing back for it.  Thanks, Ron!

Into the breach

Well, it's been a whirlwind since I passed my commercial written exam.

I contacted the examiner and he told me he has an opening next Sunday.  Like....6 days from now.  Gulp.

I took it.  But I also synched up with Bryan Reigal, one of my fellow prospective commercial pilots.  We're both scheduled for Sunday with the examiner and we're both pretty nervous about it.  Like, that sort of butterfly in your stomach-a little nauseous feeling you have when you're about to do something like bungee jump.

But it's now or never.  There's no question I know how to fly, I'm already a pilot.  I've knocked the rust off of my skills by flying as much as I can lately and I've been practicing to the Practical Test Standards that are published by the FAA.  I'll go flying tomorrow afternoon with my instructor and we'll practice for the test.

I *know* I can do it.  The real question is whether I manage to demonstrate that on the day of the test.  We'll see.  Until then, I am on pins and needles studying, prepping, and worrying.

Oh yeah, the weather Sunday is calling for a South wind of about 9 knots, which can cause all kinds of issues like extended takeoff roll, less effective ailerons as you take off with a tail wind and big sink on final approach.  In my note to the examiner I mentioned that if it was a strong wind I might need to reschedule.

More likely, what will happen is it will be *kind* of strong, making the decision gut-wrenching.

I'll post on my progress with my instructor later this week.