First Flights of 2015

The start of the soaring season form me started a bit rocky. I was fighting the feel and relying on electronic help, which proved to be in conflict for learning the basics, and I learned the hard way by missing thermals and doing a few relights. But after a few flights, I'm starting to get the feel again.

My past flights were nothing more than long noodle tracks in the sky.

Last weekend pushed me to my first long distant flight this year (just under 269 km) and to parts I have never been to before.

I was about three thermals away from landing out, but proved to be quite an adventure. Thanks to Mike Carris's mentoring, but I know I still have much to learn and do!












Here is a view toward the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, during which I flew over Pecos NM at 15000' before heading south.

Winter 2014!??! .... so soon!

Well gang... we went from summer to winter here in New Mexico. What happened to fall!!?!?

My last flight was in late September, I was hoping to get a few more in before the weather turns foul, but that didn't happen.

There have been some wave days, but those have been during the week, and with my glider in a trailer, it makes for an unpleasant ordeal to assemble and disassemble the glider a strong, cold wind.

So, I'm focused on working on the wrecked PIK-20B during the winter months.

So, for now, I'm standing down on flights for the next few months, until the weather settles down and good lift returns to my neck of the woods.

From Bare Glass to Diamonds. - It's Badge time - Silver Distance / Altitude - Part 2

My first filing of my Silver Altitude and Distance Badge had an error that didn't qualify for entry. My data-logger shut off at take off, and when I caught the error, I was already off tow and had to return to my start point. To qualify, I had to have a record of the launch and release. So I was back to retry my attempt.

I completed the task, and we filed my paperwork.

I received a confirmation letter from the SSA that I have successfully fulfilled the requirements for the altitude and distance portion of the Silver Badge. I still have to do a 5 hour flight to claim the Silver.








My flight can be seen on OLC at http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=3928232

Adding a FLARM

I posted this on a different site, but I thought I would share this story.

I recently purchased a FLARM from Cumulus Soaring, Inc. Since the airspace we share is full of heavy metal (airliners) in addition to gliders, I felt that this would be an invaluable instrument to have on board.

 

Just days before receiving it, I did a fly-over of our home. Louise ran out of the house to take a photo of me passing over, but the glider she saw was not me!. It was a Duo Discus (upper right corner and I'm in the lower left corner), and thou she did take the photo, being under a dark cloud, I did not see them until after they past.

 

 

As soon as the FLARM arrived, I was out to the airport to install it in the glider. I purchase the FLARM Core brick. It is a tight fit on the tray. What is even tighter, is the antenna installation. 

Since the Libelle does not have a combing, I had to mount the GPS antenna in the nose, top-side up, and the FLARM A and ADS-B antennas were mounted on opposite sides of the nose bulkhead. It now requires small hands to button up the tray!









For the display, I bought the LX Nav  FLARMview. It is bright and easy to read in flight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Tuesday was the first time I flew with the FLARM, and as soon as I released from tow, it went off. It was alerting me of a target using a transponder.

 

The object was above me and closing. As I was circling in the thermal, scanned the sky around me to see what I was closing in on. When I was just less than three hundred feet from it, I banked out from the thermal in a direction away from the target. A soon as I made the turn I noticed it was the club Grob above me at my six-o-clock high position. I didn’t know if they could see me, since I was at their 12 –o-clock low position.

 

During the rest of the flight, I was warned a few times of a approaching target,, and sure enough, it was the Grob.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was a good first test flight with the FLARM. I certainly see a value in this instrument and those who fly with a minimum, a working transponder.

Thank you Paul and Renny for your help with this purchase. Money well spent!

 

Still more Trailer Mods

Howdy all!

I know that it has been a while since my last post. I have been busy with work, and doing some flying when the weekends are good. We have had a wet summer, and the soaring has been fair.

Since I don't have a hanger to store my bird between flights, I have been "Flying out of the box".

I had to create a storage box for my assembly equipment, after the bin I was originally using softened and the shaft from the Wing-rigger stuck the underside of the wing fairing.

The new enclosure is made of plywood, sealed in polyurethane paint, and marine carpet on the sides facing the wings.


So far, it works well in protecting the wings.




All that is left to do in the trailer, is to create and mount the wing-tip guards.

More Trailer Mods!

I have not been doing much flying over the past two weekends due to weather, so I continued to work on the trailer. I knew that I was far from finishing this sucker!

Now that I have a working glider, it is time to finish the means to secure it and the support equipment for travel.

I fabricated a rack for the horizontal stabilizer. It was made from aluminum to keep it light.


I was getting fearful that the struts would not hold the additional weight, but, for now, it seems to be working.

I used felt padding to reduce scratching the surfaces.













The next area on the trailer to tackle is the forward compartment to house the spare tire, wing rigger, support stands, the wing and tail dollies, and supply bins.

From Bare Glass to Diamonds. - It's Badge time - Silver Distance / Altitude

Now it's time to do what Rick told me to do with this glider four years ago "Fly the Hell out of it!"

Over this past weekend Brian at Sundance Aviation wanted to know when I was going to go for my badges?! I replied, .. "what do we need to do?"

Since he was a authorized observer, he gave me a task to fly that would get me my Silver distance, and my Silver altitude. My first attempt was on Saturday, but I failed to reach my second turn waypoint due to strong winds breaking up the thermals. So I made my second attempt on Sunday.

Sunday, all looked go, and when I reached my start point, I had achieved plenty of altitude to reach my first turn waypoint. As I headed out, I noticed on my PDA that my Nano was not showing it was connected. I looked at it and noticed that it shut down. I knew that I started it while I was on the line, but, for now, I had to restart it and turn back to do a restart at the start waypoint.

So after making my turn at the start gate... it became a challenge to regain the altitude lost to restart....

But, I was able to make my task with a 5 mile buffer!.

My flight can be seen on OLC at http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=3846680

So, I unofficially made the task. Now we just need to file it!