Weather stops play

For today, tomorrow? And poss Saturday.

Here is a photo of one of those large gliders that took vehicles and troops in WW2. Actually it's just the fuse as the whole glider wouldn't fit! This is at the previously mentioned SSA museum at Harris Hill, Elmira.

Waiting to launch

At the back of the grid sky improving but currently a lot of overcast.

A gopher

These little guys (about 4 inches high) are all over the airfield, and pretty difficult to take a photo of. You look at them, they pop back down. But I got one - not the best photo, you can see he has seen me. A split second later he was gone!

Day 4 - rebrief at 12

Day 4 of the Ionia Regionals and we still haven't got in the air yet! Today will be marginal, with strong winds, weak lift, high cirrus and stable air.

Yesterday we probably would have had a gliding window from about 4pm-8pm. Sunset here is just after 9pm and the clouds looked at least 7000ft until 8pm. The wind was still a factor, with trees bent over and white caps on the lake.

Here's a shot of the military cemetery next to the airport, with McDonalds in the background. Sort of appealed to me - the sacrifices made to protect the American Way.

Visiting Lake Michigan

Had a dip in icy water was quite windy too, the beach was just like a beach at the seaside, even moderate size waves.

Then we visited a nearby town which was very quaint, and arty and of course it was memorial day so lots of flags and many visitors: but we did get a space to park. Some expensive motor launches here- see pic below...

Just added a pic of the beach - Oval Beach.

Waiting at position 1 in grid

For an improvement in potential soaring conditions. Windy, hazy and not hot...

Additional - day canned; pretty humid tho, when it does get hot it'll be a killer!

Ionia this evening

May fly tomorrow? (rained off today)

More Niagara Shots

The falls from the US Side - a beautiful soaring day at 5:30pm

Niagara Canada in the background

Maiden of the Mist boat ride

We have the place to ourselves -

One more iPhoto shot of Niagara

From the 'Blackpool' side...

Arrived Ionia

And now the sun is setting as seen here from a crickets view...

Ohio

Here is a view on the road thru Cleveland Ohio. We are very close to Lake Erie, and looked like some nice places; couldn't get pic of lake as we were navigating heavy traffic at time.

Observation: as we go north driving standards seem to be slipping( not ours)! Certainly speed limits are meaningless...

We also couldn't help noticing how run down NiAgara Falls is on the US side. It's like Blackpool on one side of the river, and Merthyr Tydfil on the other!

A : See Details(Google Map)

Guess where

Got some great pics: for now this iphone shot will have to do...

Elmira - Harris Hill

An excellent airfield with the national soaring museum at it, the airfield is on a hill, an interesting spot.

Not good flying weather, had a look around the museum- here is one of the oldest original gliders ( not refurbished or a copy) probably in any museum anywhere !

Then we stayed overnight at Horseheads, with Tim and Paddy at their home, had a great meal out at an Italian, and a relaxing evening.

Now we are off to Niagara falls, then Ionia (Michigan) .

Rain Day

Looks like the comp is over. Today was called off this morning at briefing and tomorrow looks equally dismal. They have set briefing for 8am so that either means an early prizegiving or they are sending us on a very long task. Since it has now been raining continuously for 18 hoirs with no end in sight i think i can guess which is more likely! We will head north to Harris Hill and the National Gliding Museum.
Meanwhile, today we visited Penns Cave nature reserve and Cave... wolves, bobcats, stalactites.

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US Nationals Day 6

A 4 hour AAT was set over some of the most inhospitable terrain I have yet witnessed here. They never distribute the task until pilots are on the grid - so it is a bit of a rush to enter into PDAs and mark up maps. However I must say that I'm very impressed with the new Oudie - it is extremely easy to read compared with the old PDA I am used to. Now I just have to get used to SeeYou mobile!


The start tactics are quite different from Australia because of the option of starts out the top of the cylinder. A 5 mile cylinder means you are likely to find the best thermal somewhere well inside. But if you find it at over 5000 ft it is no use to you - you must pull brakes to be under 5000 for more than 2minutes - and ensure you dont exceed 70kt during that time. Today i had 3 attempts before getting one right. 

The task took us over some real boonies. There were a couple of times i had to make major deviations just to stay within range of a landable area. Others trusted a greater authority and got away with it. Thermals were broken and short-lived but it was good to have a decent flight after yesterday, especially since tomorrow looks unflyable. 

Bugs are really bad here - the leading edge was almost black. Here is a photo of the terrain we were flying over - sorry about the glare. 



There was a woopsie in the briefing this morning - someone dropped the Nationals trophy (it was made of glass)

Gross stupidity mixed with a little bad luck.

I'm kicking myself today. Another blue day with a late start. The start gate was just a few km from the solitary cu in the sky, which were at about 7000ft. I had a late launch so spent a lot of time struggling at release height before finally connecting with the cu and then having to burn off the altitude to get below 5000ft start. The main gaggle had already left by this stage and the obvious move was to head straight back to the cu and climb before heading out on course. By the time I got to it, it was dying and got me only to about 5500 ft before dropping to a kt or so. I headed out on track, got some positive air but noting usable until deep into the first area. A weak climb took me to about 4500 and I turned and came along the ridge toward the north end of the second sector but hit nothing. Finally turning out into the valley I worked over a tractor in a brown field but very slowly lost out height and eventually landed. What I should have done - well put up with the weak climb back to base, and then go for minimum distance? But we had no idea the lift on course was going to be so poor. Well tomorrow is another day. At least the farmer let me borrow his quad!

Watering up

With the big fire engine! Photo by Allan.

Day 4

Yesterday I surprised myself by doing quite well in a MAT task - a bit like a cross between an AAT and a RUN task. It is time limited but you can abandon after any number of turnpoints and come home for speed points. If you will finish early you can add your own choice of turnpoints to the end and getscored distance for those as well.

Today we had a three hour AAT or TAT as they call them here. I thought i had blown it with a late low start and slow finish but got another 900+ score much to my surprise. Here is a photo on task. Most of the flight was down by the trees but i was too busy concentrating to get out the camera!




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Will it stay blue?

Oh, here's the new panel.

It's not raining

Sky improving; we've been working on the panel- pics later! As you can see we were able to do the work outside this afternoon. Pretty unstable now, may see some storms or showers develop?

Day 2 - Take 2

Yesterday was rained off and we are just about to brief again.  I thought you might be interested in this short video that I took while waiting for retrieve on day 1. These guys are everywhere and it is a little frustrating to be stuck behind one for several miles on a windy country road!

Day 1 of the 15m Nationals

Well, Day 1 has come and gone and we were lucky to get a day in at all. Heavy prolonged rain was pushing in from the west and we already had a fully overcast sky, so a 1.5 hour AAT was set. Surprisingly, after launch, we found lift to 7000ft over the ridge. However there was a maximum start height of 5000. It was clear that the best option was to start immediately, so about 5 minutes before the gate opened everyone dived down from cloudbase to join those already circling below 5000. Over here it is permissible to start out the top of the start cylinder (5 mile radius) and that is what most people did. I foolishly decided to leave 5 minutes later to let others do the thermal searching, but by the time I reached the first marked thermal it had dropped off significantly and from then on I was playing catchup from below and behind. I touched both areas and then headed 90 degrees off course to the only patch of sunshine and climbed slowly until I had a 28:1 glide home. Unfortunately with the headwind and widespread sink, this wasn't enough and I eventually plopped into a private airstrip on the outskirts of town, 3 miles short of the finish line. I was #2 into that field, quickly joined by 3 or 4 others.

My practice day outlanding almost ended in disaster for two separate reasons - firstly, as I pulled down the canopy and tried to lock it, the pins missed their slots slightly so I pulled back the levers for a second try. You might have guessed - I accidentally triggered the canopy emergency release, just as the tow plane (only 10 m in front of me) fired up the propeller. I grabbed the canopy rails with both hands and it took all my strength to stop it blowing back over my head. Of course the tow pilot was oblivious to my dilemma as I had no spare hand to call him on the radio, or pull the release. Fortunately, the other pilot who had landed at the same strip ran over and managed to hold the canopy until I had got the tuggie to power down.

Secondly, after we towed out back towards Mifflin, I heard a call on the radio "Are you right to go?" which I assumed was the tug pilot suggesting I should get off tow and let him return for pilot #2. I checked my glide - 28:1 and pulled the bung. It turned out that the call was from another tug pilot about to start a ground run from a different outlanding. Meanwhile I nervously watched the glide angle deteriorate in the moderate headwind (by this time it was 6:30 and all chance of lift had vanished). I resigned myself to the humiliation of requiring two retrieves on the same day, but then spotted a bonfire being set alight some miles ahead. Sure enough, I got there and found a couple of knots that got me back onto glide and thankfully the rest of the flight was uneventful! Here's a picture of the aerotow retrieve just before the dramas began...

Harpers Ferry

An old historic town important in the Civil War. We were there last week and I took a few pictures. Since it's raining here I am grading the pics to see which to keep and process later; decided to process this one now and decided that it would look best in Black & White.

It's raining

Probably a Kinky day- all day, and all of the night...

A little virga in the morning

Cold front coming, rain for a couple of days; hopefully some gaps to let us install oudie in panel.

Heard someone comment that when they first started these comps there were 50 tents an two RVs; now there are 50 RVs and two tents! And most of the RVs are bigger than our place in Brisbane! Our Majestic looks tiny in comparison...

Gridded

The picture shows a strange scene in the background: can you see a man ploughing with horses? (Amish )

Still waiting for Allan to return from aero tow retrieve, don't know where they have got to?

In circuit now !

A gyrofrightner

Busy little airfield today with a fly in this morning, lots of little planes like Pitts and stuff like this...

Dunny racing

Why is that man on the quad bike being chased by a dunny?

Blue Ridge Mountain View

We are now at Mifflin, and Allan is flying with W3 (Tim) a long long ridge run, depending upon weather (obviously) they may do the run twice and make it around 1100K ! However all I know - since the spot has only updated 3 times (it's in the side pocket I think instead of on the chute) - is that the last update was 212 miles south of here. Better go to supermarket and then filling station and fill up! Here is a picture taken earlier on our drive over the Blue Ridge Parkway; which is a dedicated tourist drive, no commercial traffic; started building in the depression and finished about mid 1980s. There is a low speed limit (unnecessary for us) and its a small road with steep ups and downs, very slow but lots of pull over areas, some with a view like this one...

Outside Natural History Museum

Ok- people shot; we are really here!

Washington DC - new pics

Mall is dug up mostly: all being renovated... Here is the monument, also closed- due to quake damage.


And I think you know where this is !

Aviator's dream

Fantastic day looking around the museum at Dulles Airport - hundreds of aircraft from the original Wright Military Flyer to Concorde and the Space Shuttle Discovery. Includes about a dozen gliders and about the same number of Hang Gliders. Fantastic!








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Museum weather

At the Dulles Airport Smithsonian.

Recognize these big birds?

Mid Atlantic Soaring Association

This is a view of the rotunda/pie cart and a taxiway. The runway is tar and right off the road . The club has also another operation at a busier town airfield, which from today has a tower!

The camper is visible in the background.

A : See Details(Google Map)

View from the pub

Six pence inn: I think that was it?

Excellent local stout and amber. I think I pissed the barman off when I paid- I gave him exactly what he asked for, apparently the tip is added on that; bloody taxes and tips- how am I 'sposed to work it all out. A price is a price, is a price- except in US?

You must STOP!

You must stop back 60ft and on both sides of the highway - hence the paddle....