Managing the Snowbird Contest

The Snowbird contest is nearly 70 years old

I was asked to be the Snowbird Contest Manager this year.  Frankly, it was the last thing I wanted to do as I've had a crazy number of commitments of the 'helping out' variety this Fall.  Buuuut...well, they needed someone to do it and it was obvious that nobody new was going to step up and volunteer.  I thought, "Gee, it's in just a couple of weeks so I'll just do it and get it over with."

It went fine, but it was tough to find volunteers for the schedule.  Thanks to the 'usual suspects' that volunteer every year and stepped up immediately. You know who you are.

Kvetching aside, on the two days the contest was scheduled, Mother Nature blessed us with 15 knot 90 degree crosswinds and gusts as high as 32 on the anemometer at the Flight Center!  Needless to say, no flying occurred and the whole contest was a washout.

What a drag!  This was my first Snowbird and I was looking forward to seeing the spot landing contest.  We'd laid out the landing zones on the runway and set up the marker cones to see who could touchdown and roll out, stopping closest to the cone.  Some years, the difference is decided in under 1 inch from the cone.

The contest is the longest continuously running contest in soaring history at 60+ years but the atmosphere is more like a local event.  We have members from Mid-Atlantic Soaring who come pretty much every year and a few others here and there, but by and large it's a chance for our local pilots to get out there and fly on last time before the New Year.

Instead, this year we had a whole lot of hangar flying as we waited each day until about 1pm to call the contest off each day.  Someone joked that I was automatically signed up for next year as the contest manager.  I don't think so.  But I'll be sure to volunteer for a task when the call goes out.

From here on out, it gets colder as Winter takes a firmer grip on the Southern Tier and it won't let go until April.  Time to put away those thermal thoughts for awhile until we turn the corner and Spring approaches.

Passing up the opportunity to fly?!

I've been busy the past six weeks.  REALLY busy, as in, no time to fly busy.  And when there has been time to fly, the autumn has been pretty poor for soaring.

The end of our staffed flying season at Harris Hill is the last week in October, so we're done for the season now, unless you make special arrangements to fly.  We'll have one more weekend to fly (our Snowbird contest on Thanksgiving weekend) but that will be it.

I passed on the opportunity to fly at the very end because I hadn't flown since the second week of September and I feel strongly that you need to fly regularly to be proficient.  So, while I could have squeaked in something at the end, the flying wasn't good soaring and I hadn't flown in 6 weeks.  I need to fly regularly.

Did I accomplish my goals this year?  I wanted to be more proficient at flying the ASK-21 and I wanted to fly some cross-country.  I wish I could say I felt more proficient in the 21, but while I'm more *experienced* I still don't feel more proficient.

I struggled all year to put the aircraft on the ground the way I wanted to.  I was generally able to land it on the spot I picked, but I was either faster than I wanted to be, or slower than I was comfortable with.  My rear seat performance on the BFR was dismal for takeoff and I was disappointed with my failure to react quickly and correct sufficiently.  That's a trait I've worked on to break all along and yet it pops up time and again.  Last year I felt like I was on top of it.  This year, not so much.

I also didn't fly any cross country at all.  The weather was either crummy when I was available or I couldn't hook up with an instructor.  Not to mention I find my technique embarrassing and don't want the upper echelon of the club to know how badly I fly.

Did I get better at thermalling?  Yes, I got better.  Did I thermal satisfactorily?  No.  I continue to have trouble reading and centering thermals, although I'm better at it than I was.  Compared to my technique last year, I have improved.  Compared to other peer pilots I've flown with, I need more improvement.

I flew more in the early part of the year than later.  I knew that for a month period between mid-September and mid-October I would not fly due to other commitments.  I hadn't anticipated that the weather in the last two weekends would be crummy anyhow.

So, the season ends with a whimper and only slow progress on my flying goals.  Next year, the logical thing to do would be to get my commercial glider pilot rating so I can fly passenger rides.  Although I'm hard on myself about my flying skills, it's more about assessing my skills and working on improving areas that need sharpening up.  I certainly don't have any compunctions about flying friends and family around as passengers and taking a member of the general public up for a ride isn't the same thing as developing soaring skills for cross country flight.  I'm a conservative pilot when I fly personally and I'm more conservative when I have a passenger with me.

I'll decide whether or not to cross that bridge next Spring when the flying season is closer.  There's a lot of preparation and analysis I need to do before taking that step.  It's expensive to take the flight test, it's expensive to take the written test, and I need to gear up for doing that.

In the meantime, our club President has asked if I would volunteer to be the contest manager for our Snowbird contest.  I have tentatively said yes, but told him I have no idea what I need to do to prepare for the contest and will need help.  We meet on Monday, so I'll find out what's in store for me then.

Bi-annual Flight Review

I took my biannual flight review (bfr) this Wednesday.  The BFR is required for pilots and consists of a few flights with an instructor and an hour of ground training.  I took mine from Ron Ogden, our V.P. of Operations at Harris Hill and one of our certified glider instructors.

You can't fail a BFR, but it is possible that you may not pass it.  For me, I wasn't too keyed up about taking it -as Ron told me, it is designed to be a learning experience rather than a testing experience.

We met at the field and discussed issues that were mainly related to aeronautical decision making.  As Ron said, and I whole-heartedly agree, knowing all the stuff about airspace and procedures is just fine but the FAA doesn't require very much training related to decision making.  And in soaring, a decision you made 5 minutes ago can have some very dire consequences.

I've flow power *some* -about 130 hours worth, but from my point of view, the most important part of flying is the decisions that you make.  In fact, piloting an aircraft differs most from driving a car in this respect.  Decisions you make in the pre-flight, cruise, and landing phase all have a huge influence on the successful outcome of a flight.

Skill-wise, I'd rate myself at the bottom of the average scale for skills.  Pilots are like anyone else, some are much more naturally inclined to excel at the stick and rudder skills and for some it just doesn't come as naturally.  For me, it's not so much that I'm a poor pilot, I'm just not a hot shot ace like some of the glider Gods at the field.  Of course, if I thought I was not capable of flying, I would stop.  So, maybe it's not quite as bad as I'm making it out.

Anyhow, I try to compensate for my average-ness by ensuring I don't get into situations that require heroic saves and incredible pilot skills.  Because most people don't have those -that's why they are heroic and incredible.  Maybe I do and don't know it.  But I'm not intending to find out.  I fly for fun and therefore I fly conservatively.

After our discussion about issues that were of concern to me - low level spins and how they develop, landing to the north, how far one can safely stray from the field and still count on returning and so on, we headed out to an ASK-21 for the first flight.  Ron asked me if I'd flown from the back before and I told him I'd only done it once and would like to try.  I got in the back, we hooked up, and off we went.

There was a light west wind that pulled us to the left of the tow plane.  I was concentrating on keeping the wings level as we pulled left.  I couldn't really see the tow plane until we were kind of far out of position, then I didn't apply enough correction to arrest the drift.  I reached for the tow release as Ron kicked in a little more rudder and stopped the drift.  The rest of the tow and flight went fine, with me a little embarrassed at not acting quick enough.

On landing, I realized I had probably been landing with a bit too little energy all along (see my previous posts on 'plopping it in'.  We then switched over to the Schweizer 2-33 to land down at the Elmira airport since I'd never landed there before.  We took a handheld radio along and I called the tower as we approached their airspace.   As Ron had told me, there was plenty of room to land -and there was.  Wow!  Landing at Harris Hill is like putting it down on an aircraft carrier compared to Elmira.  We could easily have gotten low on our base leg and landed across the airport without and worries at all.

After we landed, the tow plan came down from Harris Hill and picked us up.  We made my second unassisted takeoff (where you have one wing on the grass and the tow plane pulls you along until it comes off the ground), headed up to Harris Hill and landed on the runway there.

That was it.  Now I'm certified for two more years of flight on my own.  It hardly seems like it's been two years since I earned my glider rating.  It's more of a challenge than it ever was before as I'm trying to fly more smoothly and professionally than I have in the past.

Next year - I'll go for my commercial ticket so I can fly passengers!

Webcam replaced!

I've replaced the webcam at Harris Hill with the new Microsoft Lifecam VX5000.  Using the pinhole camera trick, I modified it into an outdoor camera and built a small enclosure with plexiglass on either end of a pvc pipe.  The cam is mounted inside and hangs from the overhang by the porch at the flight center.

It looks a lot like the cantenna I made for the WiFi connection.

Time will tell if this camera is worth it or not, but so far, the pictures are sharper and cleaner than the previous webcam.  The webcam has proven to be the most popular feature of the weather station install.  Everybody checks in on it to see what's going on up there.

Upgrading the web cam at Harris Hill

The web camera I put up on Harris Hill works great and I've had lots of comments about how helpful it is to have a camera so people can see what is going on.

However, the quality is poor (if this image doesn't look too bad it means I've replaced the camera).

  

I had a replacement camera of better quality - the Microsoft Lifecam VX5000.  However, that camera had AWFUL quality when placed outdoors.  Turns out this is a common problem and I found a fix for it on instructables.com.

It seems the aperture is set wide for webcams so they look good indoors.  This causes them to have way too wide an aperture when used outdoors.  The instructables site told me that fixing this was as simple as taking the camera apart and placing a piece of cardboard with a pinhole aperture over the lens opening.

It worked!  Incredibly, when I did that, the camera became suitable for outdoor use.  A little adjustment with the image controls gave me acceptable -and better, image quality.

I plan on replacing the existing camera in a weatherproof enclosure this weekend when I'm up at Harris Hill for my monthly duty cycle.  Hopefully, the little piece of plastic I used will remain in place with the airplane glue I use to bond it to the lens surrounding.

Plopping it in

Okay, I've officially gone from one side of the spectrum to the other.  Instead of bouncing when landing, I'm now firmly attacking the ground with a 'PLOP'! in crosswinds.

This is actually good news.  I've over corrected in the opposite direction.  Which means the answer lies somewhere in between.  I'm determined to find it.  My landings, while safe and acceptable, are kind of embarrassing.

I've seen this before with my flying.  I've got quite a few flights in on the ASK-21 now and I can handle it pretty well.  So, I've got enough experience with it that I OUGHT to know better but there's some kind of mental block associated with crosswind landings.

It's worth noting that I'm expanding the envelope of flying in the 21, also.  I've carefully expanded my crosswind experience by flying in stronger crosswinds in it, a few knots at a time.  So, the situation I'm referring to is one where the winds are higher or gusty and not blowing down the runway.  So it is a little more challenging to begin with, but I'd like to make it smoother.

Landing hot

Twice in the last couple of flights I've had slight directional control issues when landing the ASK-21 in a crosswind.

Each time, it has been a good touchdown but then a sudden swerve to one side and a not so pretty rollout.  Nothing to worry too much about, but it reeks of sloppy technique.

The complicating factor is the crosswind, of course, but after some analysis, I think it goes beyond that.  I think I've been landing hot -that is, too fast.  The right speed to fly when coming down final, barring gusty conditions, is right around 55 knots.  The ASK-21 stalls at considerably below that speed, perhaps 37 knots or even less.

Both times I've swerved, I've been right on the approach speed.  Problem is, I think, is that I'm touching down at that speed.  Touching down too fast means you have too much energy in the glider and it makes it easy to bounce.  In both cases, I've bounced.  Once because I didn't flare quite enough, the other time because I crossed the taxiway which is a slight mound, and bounced into the air briefly.  Each time, the crosswind swung me a bit and I touched down in a crab and swerved.

I've been touching down too fast because I was not happy with getting too slow on landing in previous attempts.  Those touchdowns were all quite good but I thought I was slowing too much in the flare.  I need to re-evaluate that.  Previously, I was flaring at just the right altitude and slowing to touch down, just a bit low with the tail first.  But recently, I've been touching down faster in that crosswind, probably because I'm worried about getting blown sideways as I touchdown.

Also, I may still be carrying a bit too much altitude into the landing.  I'm using full spoilers to get to the point I want to touch down on and I'm still going 55 knots when I get there.  In the ASK-21, if you do that, you can get a rather quick settling of the glider if you let it slow up too high and that requires you to put the spoilers in a little bit and pick that speed back up.  An unstable approach leads to a poor landing.  I'm going to work on trying to prevent that from happening.

It's a delicate balance between floating in that flare too long and touching down with too much energy.  I'm going to redouble my efforts to try and put the airplane down where I want to and stop where I intend to, all at the right speeds and numbers.