1200 miles and Gold (Long)

tonycondon

Gastons CRO (Chief Dinner Reservation Officer)
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Mar 9, 2005
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Wichita, KS
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Tony
Typically several members of my glider club spend Labor Day weekend soaring in Ulysses, KS. However our host out there had some family issues come up and had to cancel on us. Oh well at first the forecast was looking crazy windy anyway so I didn't worry about it too much. Of course then as the weekend approached the forecast in western kansas turned to great soaring conditions.

I've been itching to get my Gold Altitude done which is a 3000 meter altitude gain from a low point in flight. Well with 14 or 15000 foot thermals forecast in western KS it was looking like that could actually be a possibility so I started trying to figure out how to get a tow.

I ended up looking south for the answer and called up my friend Mike in the Caprock Soaring Club in Littlefield, TX. This was on Friday morning. He said come on down I could get a tow whenever I wanted and have a place to stay. Well Leah said she would come along so Friday after work we got busy getting ready. Thankfully the glider stuff is always more or less ready to go. The big challenge in prep for this trip was the truck.

I had replaced the axle on the trailer with a really nice flexride with electric brakes, but I hadn't hooked up the brakes yet. I started to realize that I would feel really dumb if I ended up having more trailer problems that could've been prevented by having the brakes so in prep for the trip to Ulysses I ordered a controller and got the stuff I needed. Of course when Ulysses fell apart I lost my motivation to do the work. So with a new plan Leah and I went out to Sunflower Gliderport on Friday night and wired up the brakes. I also had to switch the truck and trailer from flat 4 to a 7 plug trailer wiring. Surprisingly i managed to get all the wiring right and the brakes and trailer lights all worked on the first try.

Saturday morning was pretty relaxing. I had breakfast with the CAF, Leah went rowing, then we finished packing and hit the road. Decided to take the interstate which was a bad idea. Ol' Blue was only able to manage about 60-65 mph and passing semis really played havoc on trailer stability. Oh well, lesson learned. We arrived at Mike's house in Plainview, TX at sunset after a 9 hr pull.

Sunday foreast was still looking good and I decided to try a triangle flight from Littlefield, TX to Hereford, TX to Portales, NM and back to Littlefield. This was long enough to qualify for the 300km Diamond Goal flight.

I took off at the first sign of lift about 12:30. Release from tow and flew through the start zone but wasn't finding much lift. I got pretty low and was entering the pattern when I found a weak thermal and started to climb away. I managed to keep inching upward but the lift was nothing like Mike had promised. All he had talked about was big West Texas thermals. This was more like the weak torn up thermals that I was used to working in Iowa and Kansas! I thought 'why did I drive 600 miles to fly in Kansas thermals????'

Well I wasn't getting very high but the lift seemed consistent just low so I started heading out to the north towards Hereford. I almost had to land about a half dozen times in the first two hours. It was hot and turbulent. I was sweating alot and the thermals when I could find them required about a 60 degree bank to stay centered. I was starting to get nauseous which I believe is the first time I've felt that way when flying alone in a glider. By now I was near Dimmitt. Mike had launched behind me in his Discus and climbed to 9000 over Littlefield and raced north to catch up with me. Well he must've raced a bit too fast because he got low over the Dimmitt airport, got sucked in by the "airport vortex" and had to land.

Right before he landed I hit my first smooth thermal of the day just south of Dimmitt and climbed to 9000 feet. Finally! I was starting to feel a lot better, the air was cooler. I set off for Hereford. I was going to be turning straight into a 20 mph wind after Hereford so I wanted to get there with a lot of altitude. Some cumulus clouds had been forming up that way so I had high hopes for good lift in the area. I was rewarded with a strong smooth thermal that carried me to 14,300 feet. A new altitude personal best for me and the highest my glider has ever flown. All right! I caught the turnpoint at Hereford and turned SW.

The wind was rough and sink was strong. I had to dive at 70 or 75 mph to make any progress into the wind. I needed to minimize time circling and do my best to just keep trucking. I set 10,000 feet as my deck and decided to dive down there unless i hit absolutely great lift. Below 10,000 and I would be a little less picky. This strategy seemed to work but progress was still slow. After about an hour and a half I was halfway to Portales and getting low near Bovina. There is a massive cattle feed lot there which seem to usually be good thermal producers and this one delivered. I had been down to about 1500 AGL at that point and determined to take that thermal as high as it would go, which turned out to be 15,000 MSL, the high point for the day. Of course I drifted backward about 7 miles while doing this. I started diving off the altitude again and creeped towards Portales. Around Texico and Clovis, NM I started to get low again but managed to get back up to around 11 or 12,000 and kept trucking for Portales.

Of course started to get low again near the city of Portales and the airport is another 5 miles southwest of town. I hunted around the brown fields in the area, looked for circling birds, corn leaves, dust devils or anything i could find. There were plenty of dust devils but of course they were all way out of range from my altitude. Down to 1500 feet again and it was past 6 PM. I could see a Dust Devil south of town that looked like an F1 tornado. There is lift out there! But not where I was and I ended up landing in a cut hay field NW of town.

Total flight time was just shy of 6 hours. My altitude gain was 10,700 feet or so which is more than enough to qualify for Gold Altitude and complete my Gold Badge. I was quick to call Matt Michael and Adam Kite as we have all had a sort of competition on who could get Gold First. Matt needs altitude and Adam needs distance.

Leah headed out to get me and with a little help from the locals I was found and we got into the field and got the glider out at right around sunset. I noticed that the taillights weren't working on the trailer and lo and behold the fuse had blown. So i replaced the fuse. about a half mile down the road it blew again. lights were flickering as we went over bumps in the road before it blew. I suspected a bad ground in the trailer but couldn't get it figured out after a lot of trouble shooting and trying different things so we stayed the night in Portales.

Monday morning woke up at sunrise and heade back to Plainview to get our stuff from Mike and then set out for Wichita. Avoided the interstate this time and had a much nicer drive. Lost a few rivets on the trailer but it held together with some help from some Cleco's. Need to remember to take my cordless drill and a rivet squeezer on the next road trip.

Here is the OLC trace of my flight. last night when I uploaded it it was good enough for 6th for the day: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-366913198

I've got a few pictures on the camera that I'll have to post tonight.
 
Awesome, Tony!
 
I read the title, and thought holy crap he did 1200 miles in his glider. At first I was :D then I was :(

I can't imagine driving 1200 miles to do........anything.
 
well it was 1200 miles round trip from wichita to plainview to littlefield to portales to plainview to wichita. all in a weekend's work for Ol' Blue.
 
adam, yes. before we went to Marfa this year I got a 9 cubic foot aerox bottle with single place regulator and Oxysaver Cannula. I'm really happy with it. lightweight and small and plenty of O2 for me. It sits under my legs so I can see the pressure and open/close the valve in flight. Many gliders have the bottle buried in the back and if you forget to open the valve preflight you are SOL.
 
As I recall, you have a transponder and battery in your glider as well, not to mention your handheld comm. When you're doing a flight like this and are getting up to altitudes higher than I've ever taken the Aztec, do you leave it on?

In the spirit of making your glider have better avionics than most aircraft, have you considered one of those solar charging things? I've seen a few that seem pretty nifty, and might provide a trickle charge that would at least give you significantly more useful life out of the transponder. At this rate you'll end up with the same endurance as a 747.
 
i haven't hooked up the transponder yet. one of the things on the wish list. i'm going to be doing some panel rework this winter probably so that may be part of that project. However if I had a tranpsonder I would follow the FAR's and leave it on at all times.

I actually have a very nice panel mount Microair radio thanks to many of the fine PoA people.

I dont really have a good place to mount a solar charger. I think some gliders do put a solar panel on top of the instrument panel or some other flat place that is under canopy. I don't really have much excess canopy area.

I could just spring for a panel mount Trig transponder that draws .5 amps or less. Not sure i'm ready to spend that kind of $$$ though.
 
That'll be interesting to see what sort of life you'll get with your transponder.

Next thing you know, you'll need the Mode-C so you can go into the flight levels. :)
 
the transponder that is sitting in my garage is a Garmin 320 which is the low power version of the more common 320A. I think I figured that along with the encoder and such it will draw about an amp. I think I have a 10 amp-hr battery.

I'd have to be IFR equipped and on an IFR flight plan to operate in the flight levels unless I am in a Wave Window. I'll probably have to travel to somewhere with a wave window when it comes time to get Diamond Altitude...
 
Somehow, having an IFR-equipped glider just sounds fun. :)
 
i'd love to be able to cloud fly!

the ultimate panel would be the microair, variometer, transponder, and Dynon with the built in backup battery. get an ifr clearance and climb up into a big puffy cu. pop out the top or the side and go far.

icing could be an issue though, might have to move south.
 
I can see it now... by the end, you've got an Aerostar with no engines on it. :)
 
Couldn't you put some of those flexible solar cells on the turtledeck?

Lol you could do the diamond altitude the oldfashined way by cloudflying a CuNim. That would make for one hell of an article for Soaring :D
 
many gliders have much more advanced instrument panels than most airplanes and fly at much higher altitudes than most GA Pistons.

I think its kind of funny that my glider has outclimbed the AzTruck. I don't have much room for dogs though
 
Couldn't you put some of those flexible solar cells on the turtledeck?

Lol you could do the diamond altitude the oldfashined way by cloudflying a CuNim. That would make for one hell of an article for Soaring :D

hmm as long as i kept a few spelling and grammar errors they would probably just think it was a reprint from the 30's...
 
You did a little better than me this weekend, although I didn't have to drive as far. :D
Sunday was too windy most of the day, and since Farzan was washing his 152 near the fuel apron, we decided to haul the gliders over for a much-needed, if cursory, bath. Got one sleigh ride in, late in the day... not a total loss, as I'm still learning to get a feel for the 1-26. And the air was the clearest I've seen around here in a long time... kinda nice just to be up there. :cool2:

Yesterday was better, but the blue-sky thermals were tight and rough, and the few baby clouds didn't seem to be producing. I did get about 35 minutes off my first tow, getting off at about 2200 and reaching 4000... probably would have stayed up longer if I hadn't tried to reposition for something steadier. It was pretty rough up there, and I'm still in this phase where I can't seem to settle into a good, solid, steep turn while thermaling in the 1-26, especially in those kinds of thermals. Still a little jerky and stall-shy. It behaves much differently in rough air than the 2-33! :eek:

Second tow was too late in the day, I guess... fell out fairly quickly. But my approaches and landings are improving, and I'm doing pretty well keeping the dreaded 1-26 PIO under control on my launches. :thumbsup:
 
cool Sean!

Don't worry I couldn't keep a steady anything when working the rough thermals. bank, speed, and turn rate were all over the place. I just did my best to keep turning!

keeping your arm braced on your leg and flying with fingertips usually is plenty to keep the PIOs under control.
 
Yeah I got out on Saturday as well for two extended sled rides. It looked promising in the morning, but the cirrus layer moved in by the time we had a Pik-20, an LS-1F, a Pegasus, my Ka-6, and the 2-33 lined up on the flight line. So there we were staring at the gray skies above. Steve went sniffing in the Pik, but came back in maybe 20 minutes. Ted and Dave just hung their heads in shame, and dragged their lanes back to the trailers.

The first tow was to 3,000', and I was ecstatic to find 2 knot lift! 35 minutes later I was back on terra firma. I decided to take another tow with similar results, but it was great to fly the Ka-6 again. I'd forgotten how nice it flies compared to the L-23 tank i've been driving around for most of the summer :)
 
I think its kind of funny that my glider has outclimbed the AzTruck. I don't have much room for dogs though

Our goals are also different in flying. I'm trying to get somewhere, and as such I'll stop climbing when the engine and airframe start to get inefficient. For you, altitude is your friend. With a full load of dogs even in the winter, 11,000 is about as high as the plane is efficient. Solo it'll do 14,000 fine (that's the highest I had it), but it wasn't going to be any more efficient to fly at 15,000 or 17,000, so I didn't bother trying, even though it might have made it.

Even turbocharged piston aircraft will typically top out in the practical range in the low flight levels, so it doesn't surprise me that purpose-built gliders will go significantly higher. :)
 
keeping your arm braced on your leg and flying with fingertips usually is plenty to keep the PIOs under control.
Yep... also helps to hold the stick below the grip. First time I forgot to do that, I had quite the interesting launch.:D
 
Yep... also helps to hold the stick below the grip. First time I forgot to do that, I had quite the interesting launch.:D

hehe you shoulda seen my first flight in the 1-36. Only had two bounces the first launch :D
 
great read TC. Loved flying along with you.
 
Congrats on the GOLD !!!
Great flight.. but ya had to go a looongg way to get a tow..
 
if the weather won't come to you you have to go to the weather.

or as someone else once said

Tomorrow may rain so I'll follow the sun.
 
pictures!
 

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if the weather won't come to you you have to go to the weather.

or as someone else once said

Tomorrow may rain so I'll follow the sun.

Paul McCartney in fact.
 
Tony,
Great flight and write up, you have inspired me to try and get my gold and I think I will give it a try tomorrow. I also see I have some catching up to do on OLC! Nice job!
 
yes you do, ~240 points to make up. I've still got a 100ish point flight on there too. Maybe I'll have to fly this weekend...
 
wahoo! Gold Badge #2599. I've only been checking the SSA website 15 times a day for the last month waiting for it to get approved. yippee!
 
yep, i started working towards diamond this season and came damn close in August to getting Diamond goal. 4 miles short. so next year i'm going to be doing my best to try for 300km out and return flights and 500 km pure distance. once i manage the distance tasks it'll be off to the mountains for diamond altitude. I intend to do all the Diamond legs in my Cherokee.
 
wahoo! Gold Badge #2599. I've only been checking the SSA website 15 times a day for the last month waiting for it to get approved. yippee!
Tres bien, Tony, tres bien.
 
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