Getting a gold altitude flight at Gorham wave camp turns out to be 70% prep work, 10% skill, and 20% luck. Tyson gets credit for a lot of the prep work, and yet he let me fly our glider on the first Friday of wave camp, which happened to be the day this year with […]
1,400 feet per minute up! In a glider. That’s as fast as the Bearhawk can climb. Just a moment before my elevator ride, I had been facing the solid green flank of Mt Lafayette. This was way better than I had expected for the day. Earlier that week, the wind was forecast from the west […]
I enjoy group fly outs to small grass fields. Gliding turns out to be no exception. After a day flying with the other glider pilots, I was content ending my silver distance attempt watching butterflies dance in the goldenrod and puffy white cumulus clouds amble across a perfect blue sky. A few weeks ago, I […]
The forecasts for Friday, Saturday and Sunday kept changing. I was looking for an opportunity to complete my FAI Silver Badge for soaring with a 50 km flight. The requirement is to get anywhere that is at least 50 km away from both the point of takeoff and the point of release from the tow […]
We got our bronze badges! After our two hour flights, Tyson needed more solo flight time, and we both needed simulated off field landings and passing the written test. I have been swamped at work, so Tyson led the way on coordinating schedules with the instructors. We passed our written test on July 6th. Tyson […]
[skip to details about towing with an EV] Last year I started looking at gliders. My primary desire was for a glider I didn’t have to stand in line for, and I could take up flying for as long or as far as I wanted. The next priority was something that was easy to maintain […]
The plan for the day started as Bart and I swapping off between the L-33 glider and a tow plane. Bart was gracious enough to let me fly the glider first to make a 2nd attempt at a C badge 1 hour flight and, if things went well, one of the needed 2 hr Bronze […]
My second 2 hour flight towards the bronze badge was on June 1st. The lift was forecast to be decent this day, but there wouldn’t be clouds. I would have to find it by luck, or by spotting a bird or other glider circling. Tyson noticed the thermals were forecast to top out around 7,000′. […]
We have two small airplanes, an RV-4 and a Bearhawk, and we have fun flying them to local small airports, and off field landings with other local pilots.
