Celebrating the achievements of others

This year, I agreed to take on the task of Junior advisor at Harris Hill.  Our club has a long and distinguished history of teaching youngsters to fly gliders as part of our mission to educate the public about soaring.  If you've read my blog before or know anything about Harris Hill, you know our history stretches back over 80 years and many of our current membership were Junior members themselves, at one time.

I'm not sure if it is the history of the club, the presence of the National Soaring Museum, or just plain enthusiasm, but Harris Hill's Junior organization is probably the largest in the country.  At any given time, we have perhaps 35 prospective -or licensed, Junior pilots in our ranks.  That's a lot of kids, although we have some Juniors who aren't nearly as active as others.  Nevertheless, we have a reasonable core of kids who are either learning to fly or exercising the privileges of a glider pilot with the club.

I've been interested in helping kids out for some time but not really sure where to look to do that, when this opportunity landed in my lap.  It's a big responsibility and you can't take it on lightly.  We've got kids as young as 14 who are learning to fly.  It's serious business.  And their parents are entrusting the club to make sure they are safe.  If you think about it too much, it will make you go wobbly.

I did, for a while, then decided the same thing I always decide.  There's risk in everything.  We have an excellent Junior safety record and our instructors keep a close eye on the kids -particularly once they get to fly solo, and that's pretty much all you can do unless you decide not to fly at all.

It helps that my son is one of the Juniors and is nearing his first solo.  I'm just as nervous as any parent must be when they find out that their child will be piloting an aircraft alone.  The FAA allows a glider to be flown solo by a person as young as 14 years old and that sure does get your attention when it is YOUR child that is going to do it.  For heaven's sake, the state of New York won't allow him to drive solo until age 17!

But the argument that this is different holds water, in my view.  I'm going to guess that it is actually more dangerous to drive at age 14 than to fly because the safety margin is much narrower.  When you drive, there are so many more things that can quickly and immediately cause an accident -a pedestrian steps out from between two cars, a car in front of you slams on the brakes to avoid a squirrel, an oncoming vehicle swerves momentarily into your lane because the driver is distracted.  There's just a world of things that can happen that often result in an accident.

Flying a glider solo has its obvious catastrophic possibilities but the real risks in aviation are usually the ones that involve a judgement that leads to a poor decision that leads to an action that makes it worse, to an accident.  Any solo student, including our senior students, only flies alone under the supervision of an instructor.  That means he/she must seek out and get permission to fly solo that day.  If the instructor doesn't think the student is ready for the conditions, the student doesn't fly solo.  It's also a good chance to check in with the student, do a quick review of the conditions he/she might face that day, and remind them of the procedures and techniques.  If the instructor hasn't flown with the student before, they take a quick flight together and then the instructor decides.

The safety record speaks for itself - particularly in the training phase.  But that doesn't give me any fewer butterflies than any other parent gets.  And don't even ask me about my wife, who is supportive of my son's desire to fly but otherwise apoplectic about his prospects of solo.

I, of course, know that he will do fine.  I flew with him for several short 1000 foot tows and told him the airplane was his to fly, that I would make no control inputs unless I thought we were in danger.  What I found was a skilled pilot who takes off better than I do, flies in place behind the towplane better than I do, and, with just a tad more practice, is going to be better at landing than me.  The third flight we took, I said I wasn't going to talk to him at all -he should just fly the airplane like I wasn't in it.  A simulated solo.  He did beautifully.

So, he's going to be fine.  But I still worry because there's always that one thing that no amount of pilot skill will ever prevent or be able to correct for.  It pretty much never happens.  Except it does sometimes.  That's what causes me the most concern but really ought to be the least of my worries.

He's out there at the gliderport today getting instruction while I'm at work and he is just THAT close to solo.  It is going to happen this week and it might happen today.  I'm proud and scared.  Just like any parent would be.

I just want it to be over with.

Awesome. Totally awesome.

Today I accomplished a goal I've had for quite some time in my soaring career.  I checked out in a high performance glider - our Discus CS.

Since I've been flying at Harris Hill, I've had a goal of being checked out in all of the club's equipment.  Today, I reached the top of the pyramid, so to speak.  At least for our soaring gliders.  The Discus is a single seat racing sailplane and although ours is perhaps 20 years old, it is still a very viable machine for contests even today.  If you've followed some of my blog posts, you know I'm working towards learning to fly cross country and I now have a tool for flying those tasks.

Tim Welles again did me the favor of checking me out.  We started with a bit of bookwork, reviewed the speeds to fly and he gave me the main item to add to my checklist - Gear!  The Discus has retractable gear, you see, and everything else I've flown does not.  So the thing is not to land with the gear up.

After the review, we pulled an ASK-21 out to the line and took a check flight.  It wasn't the easiest conditions today.  We had a good 10 knots of crosswind that had gusts to 15 or so and we'd be landing to the North, which I haven't done this year yet.  But I felt ready and off we went to 1,000 feet for a quick up and down.  Everything went well and Tim seemed to be satisfied, so I eventually strapped in to the Discus and got ready to roll.

Everything was fine until the last few seconds before breaking ground when the crosswind I was correcting for with the rudder must have quit and I yawed to the right.  Just as I was correcting for the yaw, the airplanes broke ground and started flying.  Actually, it may be more accurate to say it LEPT into the air!  Startled, I fed in down stick, but the Discus is sensitive in pitch and I oscillated back down, kissed the pavement with the gear tire, then bobbled up again.  It was a bit if a yo-yo show for about two cycles before I managed to straighten out and fly right.

After that, it was smooth sailing and I tried a couple of stalls, did a few turns, and entered the pattern for landing.  The spoilers were super effective and I didn't have much trouble landing it.  I even remembered to put the gear down!

I met Tim, we talked things over a bit, and he declared me checked out.  'Go have fun,' he said.  I saddled up again and managed not to oscillate on takeoff this time and in just a few minutes, I was centered and climbing in a thermal.  I eventually topped out above 6,000 feet and headed for Corning, the town where I live, about 11 miles from Harris Hill by air.  

I was headed upwind, knowing I could easily return with a tailwind and it wasn't long before I felt at home circling the Discus.  It has a very light touch, good balance, and feels well balanced when it flies. Before long, I was circling over my house in Corning and exercising the broad speed envelope of the Discus.

I landed after an hour and fifteen minutes and while I rolled out somewhat longer than I wanted, everything was right with the world.

Approximate route of flight for my first Discus excursion.  "Dude, I can see your house from here!"

This really is a game changer for me as I begin to reach out beyond local flights around the airfield.  I spent last summer flying with an instructor cross country and now I'm ready to do it on my own.  My next step is to schedule a lead-follow with an experienced cross country pilot to both observe and do it on my own.  Then, I'll try it alone at some point.

It's my time to take the skills I've read about and learned and pave yet another path in my soaring journey.  I can't wait.

Sublime. Very sublime. (subtitle: time to level up again)

The 2013 soaring season is underway and I've posted nothing so far because I've been pretty freakin' busy with soaring!

An early March warm spell brought on some pre-season flying and put me back in the saddle again.  That was followed by my acceptance as the new Junior organization advisor for Harris Hill, some sporadic issues with the web site, the weather station, and a full upgrade of the Hill to add WiFi via a repeater to give everyone access to the internet from pretty much anywhere on the field.

Follow up with some great flights in the ASK-21 with passengers, some fun alone time in the trusty 1-26 and we arrive at my current project - getting checked out in the club's Discus glider.

Andy Brayer and the object of my desire - the Discus

All I can say is...this is one beautiful machine.  It's the kind of plane that soaring pilots dream of flying one day and I'm closing in on making that day happen for me.  Beautiful sleek lines, high performance, and ease of flight are hallmarks of the Discus and you can tell this is an incredibly efficient machine just by sitting in the cockpit.

Yesterday evening I strapped on the parachute and sat in the cockpit for about an hour while Andy Brayer, one of our Discus aces, familiarized me with the control locations, functions, and we ran through how the systems work, did a little scenario flying, and with the fuselage up on a cradle, I practiced cycling the landing gear up and down.

Ahem.  About that landing gear.  I'm really worried I won't remember to put it down.  And, there are two ways you end up landing without gear in a glider.  First, you flat out forget to put it down.  That means you didn't follow the checklist properly.

The OTHER way is the way I can totally see it happening.  Basically, you forget to put the gear UP after you takeoff, then as you get ready for landing, you put the gear "down" except you are actually putting the gear UP by accident.  It sounds real easy to do and I'm really worried I'll be the one to do it!

Regardless, I'm very excited to get checked out in the Discus because I'm itching to fly cross country and right now, the season is on and the days are ticking away.  I've got to act soon to get going on it and right now is the time.

Driving that is a passenger ride I had the other day.  My passenger was a lapsed flight instructor in gliders and after we got to about 1,000 feet I offered to let him fly.  It was obvious he knew what he was doing right away and after we released, he lowered the nose and sped up to get to a nearby cloud, cross country style.  He knew what to do and wasn't afraid to lose altitude to do it.  We eventually hooked up into a thermal and spent the rest of the ride above release altitude romping all over the Elmira area and just generally having a blast.

That ride made me want to get into the Discuss that much worse!  I think I've got it lined up for Saturday to get a flight checkout and then finally fly the aircraft.  Beyond that, Harris Hill has a cross country 'camp' they are hosting for a three day period prior to our region 3 soaring contest.  The camp will be led by our ace cross country pilots and will include lead-follow flights, ground school tips and hopefully good weather! 

The only fly in the ointment is that I don't have a glider to fly during the camp and the Discus is spoken for already.  Sigh.  The travails of not owning your own aircraft!  I'm giving some consideration to asking the club to use the 1-34 for that period of time.  Although it doesn't have the legs the fiberglass aircraft do, I can still use it to fly more local cross country flights.  I think I'll talk to one of our instructors about whether that is a good idea or not.

In the meantime, I'm nearly there to making one of my fiberglass dreams come true!

Not a newbie anymore...

I started this blog right after I got my glider rating.  At the time, I was a soaring newbie but now several years later, I've finally decided I'm not a noob anymore.

I have very few, if any, readers.  I don't keep it for that reason, although I do admit to wanting to record certain things for people who stumble across a post while doing a Google search.  How I prepared for my commercial checkride, how things work at Harris Hill, etc.  But I don't keep it for any regular readers.  As far as I can tell, I don't have any.

No, I keep it more as a diary to record my thoughts on soaring.  I'm keenly aware that as I get older, it may get harder to, ahem, remember what I did and when I did it.  Writing it in my blog means I can always find it.  

I also use it to organize my thoughts about soaring.  I think about soaring more than anything else.  Probably a lot more than people who know me well would think I do.  There's an inner pull to fly and in particular to soar, that is always at the core.  If I'm not soaring, I wish I was.  Soaring just plain makes you feel good.

So, I use the blog to organize my thoughts on certain aspects of soaring.  If I have an experience that is unusual, good or bad, I usually end up writing about it.  I use it to make an explicit record of my soaring goals so I can push myself forward in the sport.  I record my inner voice and put it in an order that makes sense.  Having to write it down usually makes me articulate it -or discard it.

So I started with the intent of sharing the experiences of a new glider pilot.  But, let's face it.  I'm not new anymore.  I'm also not a seasoned pro, either.  I'm just...a glider pilot.  So I've change the name of my blog from The Soaring Newbie blog to a Soaring Pilot's Journey.  It's a better description of my progression in the sport.

And I am on a journey.  I know that I'll never get to the end of it, but that it will take various twists and turns on the way.  I've had such a blast so far and I don't see an end to the fun in sight.  With that, I'll write down just a couple of things I've learned since I got my rating a few years back.

Things I've Learned Since I Became a Glider Pilot

1.  I can always do better.  Better thermalling, better decision making, better flight skills.  Always better.

2.  I'm not improving as fast I as would like.  It seems to take forever for me to improve this area or feel confident in that area.  Always too long.

3.  Soaring is real flying.  Of course, all flying is real flying, but having been a power pilot and converting to soaring, I can tell that I've learned a number of things I never would have learned as a power pilot that have made me better than I was.

4.  Experience isn't everything but it sure does count for an awful lot.  There was a slow realization that I will never, ever, ever have the same amount of experience as many of our ace pilots.  Combined with number 2, above, I'll never have the level of skill I would like to have when it comes to soaring.  Accepting this is difficult but it also makes me even more determined to make the most of the experience that I CAN get.

5.  Sometimes, I'm a little scared.  I don't mention it much, but sometimes I'm a little scared to go flying.  It doesn't happen when I'm actually flying.  I've heard other pilots mention it as those pre-flight butterflies and that's exactly what it is.  I think I'm more worried about what might happen to others rather than myself.  My family counts on me for a lot and I would hate to get killed soaring.  Of course, I don't think that is what will happen and the odds are decidedly in my favor.  But it COULD.  I think I get jitters every now and then from that.  Once I'm airborne, they're gone because I've committed to the acts and everything goes fine -even if there's an issue, it's always gone just fine.  And probably always will.  But you can't ever say "nothing will happen."

There's other stuff I've learned, but those are the things that stick out to me the most right now.  Can't wait until flying weather rolls around again.

Here it Comes - Soaring Season 2013

If I strain just a little bit, I can almost see it coming.  Soaring season 2013.

Right now, we're in the depths of an Upstate New York winter season but even the snowfall yesterday hints at what is coming.  Instead of the light fluffy stuff and below 20F temps, we had a wet, wintry mix followed by a 42F day today.

The soaring season officially begins at Harris Hill the first weekend of April, but if it looks good, we try to sneak in a little bit of flying early.  I think we'll manage it early this year.

It's not like I haven't been BUSY with HHSC stuff, either.  I'm the Facebook page administrator (look us up!), the webmaster, and the duty scheduler, among other things.  In addition, I've organized our HHSC Flight Night, soaring with Condor flight simulator and flying online with several of our club members.

It's been fun and instructive to fly tasks when I would normally be grounded.  I've learned two things that I think will transfer to my real life flying:

1.  How to make a plan for a task, how to evaluate that task as I fly along, and strategies to fly in different environments than just HHSC.

2.  How much a glider will really perform in sink and wind.  Condor does a good job of letting you explore the flight envelope "just to see" how the glider performs.  I've flown Mifflin ridge scenery, set the wind real high, and checked out how much altitude it takes to transition from one ridge to another.

The flight physics are really quite good and I try to fly it like I would in real life.  There are times when I try something that I wouldn't in real life, but I always start by saying, "in real life, my plan would currently be to do the following...."  That way, I make a conscious break from flying for real and trying something in the simulator.  It's been fun and I hope that it will transfer to my cross country plans this year.

I've also been asked to help with our Junior's program.  I think I'll do it.  Having the kids fly is one of the greatest gifts our club can give to them and we have a world class Junior's program, thanks to Janelle Sullivan, our current Junior advisor.  She's done such a great job, we're going to have to split it among several members rather than just one.

I think it's extremely important.  Where else can a 16 year old kid be given responsibility for a $100,000 piece of machinery?  It's a huge responsibility and our Juniors do a great job handling it.  If I can help them, I really want to do that.

I'm looking forward to a great 2013 soaring season and can't wait for it to begin - in real life!