vontresc
En-Route
Well I've finally done it I ended up in an Alfalfa field instead of back at the airport. I wish I could report on an epic 170 mile flight like Tony, but I only made it 17 miles from the airport before the bottom fell out.
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-1085308493
The first few thermals were ok giving me confidence in being able to get away from the airport. The clouds to the NE looked good, but that's about the only thing I could say about them. I could not find any decent lift, and before I knew it I was in survival mode circling in 100fpm lift hoping for anything. Long story short, there I was over the town of Kewaskum circling over a plant, and some parking lots getting nothing. I had already scoped out a possible landing spot just north of town, and at about 800' AGL I proceeded to start my approach to the cut Alfalfa field.
Other than not seeing the large ridge running through the first part of the field the landing went great. I only rolled 150-200', and had the Ka-6 stopped near a road and had easy vehicle access.
Here's me in the fieldd
View from the road
Turns out landing was the easy part. After arranging for a ride back to the airport to pick up my car and trailer, the sky started to overdevelop. We figured that we should be able to get out of the field pretty quickly, but we hadn't considered mother nature
When we got back to the glider we were met by a friendly neighbor who informed me that he had a nice strip about a mile north "by the windsock". Oh well on to disassembling. As I am pulling stuff out of the trailer, my friend Steve tells me, "Hey look at that cop with his ticket book". I thought he was giving me a hard time, but it turned out to be the first of two cops who showed up. Apparently someone had called in a plane crash. On the upside they did inform us of a severe weather statement that had been issued.
We managed to get one wing off when the sky just opened up. Rain, lightning, and pea size hail Yea!
Well at least we could take shelter in the trailer. The second cop was a good sport, and let us take a picture with him, while waiting out the hail.
The rain let off for a bit, and we got the wings off and into the trailer, at that point the second cop comes back to ask me a couple more questions. Right then I notice some accumulated water on the turtledeck, and decide to brush it off of the plane. Right at the troopers pants. D'oh! Well he was a good sport, and let us go
The drive home was similarly epic driving through more hail and torrential downpours.
We had some good laughs, and got everything home ok. Although now I am on the hook if someone else lands out.
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-1085308493
The first few thermals were ok giving me confidence in being able to get away from the airport. The clouds to the NE looked good, but that's about the only thing I could say about them. I could not find any decent lift, and before I knew it I was in survival mode circling in 100fpm lift hoping for anything. Long story short, there I was over the town of Kewaskum circling over a plant, and some parking lots getting nothing. I had already scoped out a possible landing spot just north of town, and at about 800' AGL I proceeded to start my approach to the cut Alfalfa field.
Other than not seeing the large ridge running through the first part of the field the landing went great. I only rolled 150-200', and had the Ka-6 stopped near a road and had easy vehicle access.
Here's me in the fieldd
View from the road
Turns out landing was the easy part. After arranging for a ride back to the airport to pick up my car and trailer, the sky started to overdevelop. We figured that we should be able to get out of the field pretty quickly, but we hadn't considered mother nature
When we got back to the glider we were met by a friendly neighbor who informed me that he had a nice strip about a mile north "by the windsock". Oh well on to disassembling. As I am pulling stuff out of the trailer, my friend Steve tells me, "Hey look at that cop with his ticket book". I thought he was giving me a hard time, but it turned out to be the first of two cops who showed up. Apparently someone had called in a plane crash. On the upside they did inform us of a severe weather statement that had been issued.
We managed to get one wing off when the sky just opened up. Rain, lightning, and pea size hail Yea!
Well at least we could take shelter in the trailer. The second cop was a good sport, and let us take a picture with him, while waiting out the hail.
The rain let off for a bit, and we got the wings off and into the trailer, at that point the second cop comes back to ask me a couple more questions. Right then I notice some accumulated water on the turtledeck, and decide to brush it off of the plane. Right at the troopers pants. D'oh! Well he was a good sport, and let us go
The drive home was similarly epic driving through more hail and torrential downpours.
We had some good laughs, and got everything home ok. Although now I am on the hook if someone else lands out.
