A Family Adventure


in the mountains, ocean, and air

Gardner

September 10, 2022
Emilie Phillips

September 10th and 11th the Sterling Fair takes over Sterling airport. A few of us relocated to Gardner. It turned out to be a great learning experience just by being different.

For reference, here are the rest of my glider training posts.

We staged the gliders off the end of the taxiway. The tow plane would then pull the glider onto the runway. We had to be extra diligent with our wing runner signals, and I got practice straightening out the glider with the rudder on the takeoff roll.

Unlike Sterling, the club doesn’t have detailed policies and procedures for every portion of the flight. On my solo flights, I started out being too conservative and ended too aggressive.

On my first flight, I stayed too close to the airport. I flew over the nearby ridge hoping for some lift. I found a tiny bit which kept me hovering right above downwind. The instructor said that was too close, and I shouldn’t be circling on the downwind because of potential traffic.

The next flight, I tried staying a little farther away. I found some better lift a bit away from the airport which kept me up for a little while.

The third flight, I found some nice lift over the city of Gardner. Then I found another thermal over a shopping plaza. I bounced around between three or four different thermal sources. I tried venturing south of the highway, but lost the lift. The best I could find was 1kt of lift which wasn’t enough to climb back up. I decided I needed to commit to gliding back to the airport. I flew the landing by looking out the window. I had a steady controlled descent the whole time. However, the instructor said I had not left nearly enough margin. I should have had 1,000ft AGL before starting a cross wind. With less than that, the safer bet is to turn directly only a right hand downwind. My GPS track says I only had 600′ AGL. I flew most of the pattern with no spoilers. That meant, as the instructor pointed out, I had no margin for a downdraft, or miss estimating my glide. I should have averaged half spoilers so that I could adjust longer or shorter.

The second day was overcast with rain later in the day. I only did two pattern tows.

The Gardner airport manager was quite happy to have us visit. More flights is good for an airport. He knew Tyson’s Dad as another airport manager and wanted to hear more about the trip to Alaska.

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