April ridge soaring in Mifflin

This is from Rick Rolke and aimed mostly at those with their own gliders and those with a license who could use the clubs 304 (maybe).

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Somewhat to my surprise I have been getting emails about the Mifflin trip for 2013.  With it this cold out, I am impressed that our stalwart glider pilots are thinking positive thoughts about the awesome spring flying at Reedsville.  So as long as it is on someone’s mind, it is time to extend an invitation to all (including other R1 Clubs and Friends), for our annual pilgrimage to Mifflin County Airport, in Reedsville PA.   To avoid conflict with Sports Class nationals, we will be looking at the last partial week in April.   The current plan would be to go from Saturday April 27 th – Sunday May 5th.  This gets us down there early enough to avoid the crops and the nationals, but late enough to avoid the snow…

For those who have never flown in Mifflin, this encampment is typically attended by licensed pilots flying single place ships (club or private), but there is always the possibility of bringing a two place ship.

The Mifflin valley is a wonderful place to fly.  It is surrounded by ridges that work in NW or SE winds and within the confines of the valley, has some of the best out landing options to be found anywhere.   It can provide wonderful thermal flying, but is best known for the ridge systems where some very long flights have been made (2000 +km last year).  Like the Wave Camp, the organization for this trip is carried out on a separate email list to keep the chatter off the main lists.   If you are not on the Mifflin list, and would like to be, just let me know.  This will likely be the last notice on the main club lists of what is happening…

One interesting thing we have done in the past is to organize an online introduction via condor.  There is remarkable scenery for the Mifflin area (downright spooky real for those who have flown it before).  We have done a kind of mass lead / follow to show the popular ridge routes “in person”.  There are sometimes several qualified guides flying, so the group can be well covered.  I expect we will organize another round of these flights, if we have new folks that are not familiar with the area.  Once on the Mifflin list, feel free to ask any questions, from lodging, to retrieve logistics, to good tasks.  There is no shortage of knowledgeable folks on that list…

This announcement is mostly to let those interested in coming, to put a mark on their calendar now so it does not come up on short notice, and for any newcomers that are not currently on the Mifflin list, to drop me a note to keep abreast of the plans…

Note, I will send a note out on the Mifflin list that says “if you can read this, you are on the Mifflin list”.  If you get such a note, there is NO reason to contact me at this time.  Just wait for the chatter to show up on the Mifflin list…

Hope to see you there…

Rick

RR/304cz

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Wave Pictures

11 more pictures are on the clubs Picasa website taken when over by Okemo.

Sorry, none available of the tow planes vanishing act or of the final descent.

-Andy

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Winter wave flying

Saturday 1/19/13 report:

A banner day for flying at Springfield, everyone had great flights.

The PW6 is back in service so Walter and Jerry gave it a few test flights, all is good.

Tim went next in the 304 but struggled over Ascutney to no avail.

Greg made into wave twice and flew for about 2 hours. Very happy camper.

I had towed all day and was pretty much satisfied to call it quits but when Walter offered me the PW along with a free tow AND I learned that Jerry and Steve (new FBO guy) went to 9300′ I immediately put Tim in the back seat and off we went for a very exiting flight.

Jerry was our tow pilot and I told him to bring us to where he found lift and at just below cloud deck (~5000′ msl) I radioed to ask what the plan was. He replied with “just hang a bit longer” and then about 6 bits later he completely vanished into the clouds. Pop goes the rope release and forward goes the stick! I flew straight west in no lift and very very murky conditions for a few minutes knowing that the the winds were 40 plus knots so the airport was not far behind us. Eventually we flew into the clear just a few miles south east of Okemo, connected to the wave and proceeded to 10,000ft to a fantastic view.

Above the clouds

 

 

 

 

 

I had been keeping an eye on a reasonable sized hole in the clouds maybe 8 miles behind us and with Tim’s blessing I turned downwind and with 150 mph ground speed I raced to the hole with full spoilers but Tim said hey why not see if you can find lift again so I closed the spoilers, made a few small turns and then my gut told me it was time to descend, oops, too late, hole started to close right up, had to pick a small spot that was still semi open, closed the spoilers to fly over to it, pulled them back on, rocketed through to the other side which brought us out near Ascutney with lift everywhere (this is like 4:15pm). It was perfect.

So there’s no reason to not be flying this winter, just dress warmly and go for it!

-Andy

 

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A Record Hang Gliding Ride on the Texas Wind

From the New York Times.

These guys set a record for distance and was truly an amazing flight.

(Posted for Bob Aliber)

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EBA Breakfast Report

EBA turnout was less than stellar with only 5 members showing up (Andy, Bill, Christopher, Mike and Tim) which was disappointing as usually it’s more like 15 or more folks showing up.

See the calendar page for the schedule.

-Andy

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NESA Annual Dinner

PMSC and or anyone interested is welcome to attend this event.

NESA (New England Soaring Association) annual dinner is Saturday 1/26, $29 each – pork, turkey, fish, or veggie lasagna. Checks payable to NESA c/o:

Dave Carton
PO Box 46
Claremont NH 03743

603 543-1639

-Andy

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Fying at Springfield

Thanks to Tim for being the catalyst Andy, Evan, Greg, Skip and Walter all got to fly yesterday at Springfield with a total of 6 flights.

The wave was working once you got to the right spot and if the cloud base wasn’t in your way. Took me awhile to find it but once I did I managed to climb to about 5500′. Greg and Walter had similar results but Evan and Skip were not so lucky.

Bill Swartz also joined us but didn’t get a chance to fly due to a very early sunset.

Springfield offers a great opportunity to fly this time of year, lets do this again and next time an earlier start.

-Andy

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Schweizer 1-35C For Sale

Tony Moehrke has put his glider up for sale, here are the details.

atmoehrke at tds dot net

SHIP: 1980 Schweizer 1-35C, N2927H, SN 97, purchased from David Presby in Whitefield, NH in 2008, empty weight w/O2 tank at last W&B in 2008: 465 lbs., NDH, Cleveland hydraulic brake, excellent main tire, small 2” long x 1” deep “trailer rash” on trailing edge of rudder (doesn’t affect performance and passed annuals), TT 997 HRS., 90° flaps, no dive brakes, last annual 6.1.12, all AD’s and service bulletins complied with. The ship is a floater yet an honest 35:1 XC performer.  Flown a few 300K and dozens of 200K+ flights.  Got my Gold badge in it.  Stall speed 36 MPH with full flaps so minimal landout roll for off-field landings.  No bad habits.

AVIONICS & EQUIPMENT:

1.   Schweizer factory air speed indicator (MPH) and altimeter (ft)

2.   Borgelt B-400 audio vario & averager (kts), new 2008

3.   Winter mechanical vario (ft/min), factory reconditioned in 2010 by Winter in Germany, speed-to-fly ring calibrated with 1-35C polar

4.   Aluminum 22 ft/cu ft. O2 tank, last hydro-test 2009; Mountain High (“MH”) XCP 1P regulator, new 2009; MH O2 filler tube extension from O2 tank so refilling done without removing turtle deck with remote pressure gauge so visible in cockpit, new 2011; MH  XCP “Oxymizer” O2 conserving cannula with tube extension for easier adjustment in cockpit (reduces consumption up to 300% over conventional cannulas); MH 00XXP-1050-01 full face mask for flights above FL18

5.   Canopy, UV grey, sliding vent w/air scoop, hinged, new 2007, no cracks/scratches

6.   Ridge Soaring Sunbrella-brand fabric canopy cover, new 2008

7.   PTT switch installed by Rick but not working—could be adaptor nor wires

8.   Holux GPS (not IGC-approved for badges) and two Palm Tungsten T’s running SoarPilot

9.   All manuals, log books and records

TRAILER:  1980 Lagenfeld (German) enclosed trailer.  New tires and wheel bearings repacked in 2008.  Tracks perfectly at 75MPH.

$19,000

IMG_3362 IMG_3358 IMG_3363 IMG_3357

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We have a new waypoint database

and it’s on the World Wide Turnpoint Exchange.

The geographic area of this database is quite large.  You’ll find it useful whether you are flying out of Post Mills, Springfield, Morrisville, Franconia or Gorham.  The whole database is just a little too large to fit in a Cambridge Flight Recorder, so you can either edit out the 25 or 30 points you find least useful or wait a day or two for a 250 point trimmed down (based on distance from PM) version which will be posted shortly.

Similar databases will be available for Franconia and Gorham very soon based on the same core waypoint list.

Use at your own risk.  Any landable airport or field can become unlandable without notice.  I’ve pulled a lot of scat out of the old database (seaplane ports, missing airports, 30′ wide airports and similar) but I can pretty much guarantee that somewhere in here lies an “airport” unsuitable for gliders.  We have not visited them all.  Check them out on Google Earth, and if you really want to rely on them, go visit them in person.

Thanks to Moshe and John Leibacher for helping with this.  Any errors found should be reported to me.

-Evan

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Recommended reading

I’ve added 3 books to our Library at the request of Tim Chow.

The titles are Introduction to Cross Country Soaring, Thermalling and if all else fails Off Airport Landings all by Kai Getsen.

These are pdf files which you can read in your browser or download.

-Andy

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