Cherokee II Sailplanes

Neutral Progress

2012-01-27T13:59:00.000-06:00

Matt G has been a great help lately and we've gotten a little work done and moved backwards in a few ways too. Late last year I got a full set of ribs in the mail which have come in very handy during this process of rebuilding this section of the wing. I've used the old ribs to fit onto 53T's wing, tweak to the right profile, and then use them as a template for new ribs. Matt and I were able to use my new router to make new ribs for the two that I broke a few weeks ago.

Last week I spent some time working on the rib that goes through the middle of the airbrake. Long story short I ended up removing pretty much all of the "box" that surrounds the airbrake and one of the cross members that tie the spars together. However last night we cut a new rib for that location. We also started cutting the last rib but weren't happy with how it was going. So, this weekend, I hope to build a router table like I should've done to begin with.

Also, after some more inspection I decided to remove the last 8 inches of skin on the leading edge as the false ribs were a bit undersize and the skin had become detached on the bottom of the wing. I glopped a bunch of super-fil on those ribs so we can get them profiled to the right shape and then use those as templates for new ones. So that little hold that started a few months ago has grown to basically replacing everything but the spars from the inboard edge of the airbrake to the inboard edge of the aileron. 4 feet. I'm going to have to make another order of wood here pretty soon, might need a bigger sheet of plywood for the leading edge and will probably need more plywood for ribs.

In other news, I learned that a Cherokee II has been donated to the Antique Airplane Association in Blakesburg, IA. I'm looking forward to learning more about it and what their plans are for the glider.

Back to Work

2012-01-12T10:38:00.000-06:00

Leah and I had a nice Christmas break which included plenty of traveling. Didn't get out in the garage much last week but last weekend our friend Matt came down to visit. He started a welcome crusade against clutter in the garage and by the time he left on Tuesday morning the place was totally cleaned and organized. Thanks Matt!

Can't remember if I put anything up here but Matt G and I (ok...it was me) managed to break the existing rib that goes through the middle of the airbrake area before Christmas. Additionally, while walking around the garage on Sunday I managed to bump into the exposed ribs on the right wing and broke two. One was a new false rib and the other was an original full size rib (which I wasn't planning on replacing)

Last night Matt G came over to help and we worked on further destruction to get the newly broken stuff removed. With some careful chisel work we managed to get everything removed and preserve it all pretty well so hopefully we can use them for patterns for the new pieces.

Fleet update

2011-12-21T13:27:00.000-06:00

First off I took some time to update the roll call post. Some information has changed and I added a few more pictures that have come in in the last 6 months or so. Check it out: http://cherokeesailplanes.blogspot.com/2009/11/cherokee-ii-roll-call.html

N98P, the first Cherokee II to fly, has recently been sold and is heading to its new home in Idaho next week. I'm excited that it is going to a new home and am looking forward to seeing it get back in the air. 98P was built by Frank Kerns and was ready to fly before Stan Hall's own Cherokee, N63P.

While talking to the new owner he asked about the paint scheme. All the pictures I had ever seen of 98P from its first flights were black and white. However, longtime SSA member Bertha Ryan was mentioned in the article Stan wrote about his first flight in 98P. She was flying her kit built 1-26 on the same day. By the way Ross Briegleb was up that day in his BG-12. Quite a day for homebuilt soaring! Bertha had some old slides showing 98P and sent them to me. The first two show Stan (in the hat) and others after the first flight of 98P.

The following slide from Bertha was taken after Stan finished his first 5 hour flight in his own Cherokee, N63P. Very cool and thanks Bertha!

We did get some more work done on 53T on Sunday. I worked with the plane for a while getting the new trailing edge trimmed down to shape. It is looking good now. Bad news was that I managed to break a couple ribs in the process. Good news is that one of them was the new big rib which will be easy to replace. Not to mention it was a little oversized anyway. Also the existing rib that broke was the worst offender as far as being twisted from the airbrake return spring and now it will be much easier to get a nice looking straight rib in that location :) So now I know what will be waiting for me after the holidays.

Excellent Progress

2011-12-17T19:57:00.000-06:00

Yesterday a 5 ft long piece of Spruce arrived on the front porch. Perfect timing since today was going to be in the mid 50's. Not bad for December! I got to work this afternoon, starting with finishing the cuts in the existing trailing edge. Finishing the inboard side went alright and cutting the outboard side was a breeze. Here is the trailing edge pieces cut:

Then I cut the new piece of spruce to length and laid out the scarfs for it. With a nice sharp blade on the plane it took very little time to get the scarfs cut for the new piece. Helps when the piece is just clamped to the bench and not flopping around on the glider with ribs in the way.

Next I started thinking about ways to get the ribs straightened out. I also knew I was going to need to get the ribs out of the way in order to glue in the new trailing edge. I notched some 1x2's with the table saw to act as a sort of jig for the ribs to force them into a straight-ish orientation. It actually worked out pretty well and I think when the time comes will work alright for getting things lined up. I also removed the vertical stiffeners and cut the trailing edges of the existing ribs in order to get them to move out of the way for the trailing edge. Here is the jigs in place:

With the ribs able to move now I had to go get some supplies for epoxying. Namely, dixie cups and paint brushes. Then I clamped the aluminum angle firmly in place. It worked as a nice guide in my attempt to keep the trailing edge square and straight. Worked out a clamping scheme and mixed up the epoxy and put everything in its place. Then for grins I glued in the remaining bits of the false ribs so I'll have plenty of clamps to remove in the morning.

Installing Ribs

2011-12-11T00:07:00.000-06:00

Not a lot of work done on 53T lately but Matt and I did do some work this week on insulating the attic. Only 2 or 3 rafter widths left on that job and hopefully we will do that tomorrow! We did do some work on 53T today though. I bought a piece of stiff aluminum angle at The Yard Store this morning and am using it to jig together the two ends of the trailing edge on either side of the piece that I cut out. I started cutting the scarf on one side of that gap today. Matt worked on getting the ribs ready to glue in place with some last minute touch up. We ran a taught line to establish where we wanted the leading edge and made sure that we had a 1.5 mm gap between the rib for the skin.

We finished up the afternoon by mixing up epoxy and gluing and clamping the 6 false ribs to the forward spar. I have some more work to do around the airbrake before I'm ready to epoxy the real rib in place. We will also need to glue 4 of the false ribs to the rear spar. However our monthly glider club meeting interfered which was quite interesting. It featured the designer of the Belite Ultralight, www.beliteaircraft.com. He spoke at length about the recent feature of his plane on Mythbusters and the design of the craft. Very cool.

I also made it out to Harry's shop this afternoon and picked up a 4 foot square piece of 1.5 mm plywood which will be used for the new skin. Slowly but surely I can see this repair coming to an end!

More Sawdust

2011-11-29T19:34:00.000-06:00

Work on 53T continues...We filled up the propane tank last night so we're back in business. Tonight I finished cutting out and getting a rough fit on the big rib so now all the ribs that were removed from the right wing have new replacements. They look good and the next step is to get them epoxied in place.

While I've been doing this rib work i've been eyeing the trailing edge behind the airbrake. There is some twisting going on as a result of oversized return springs used on the airbrake. This torqued the middle rib that runs through the airbrake area. Of course we replaced the right hand rib. The left hand rib in the airbrake area was also twisted. Guilt by association I suppose. Anyway I figured if I could cut out the trailing edge in that section I could have a chance at getting the ribs sorta straight again and back in place. So, now 3 feet of trailing edge on the right wing are missing.

Looks like it's time to make another order from Aircraft Spruce...

Cherokee II Pictures from the San Diego Air & Space Museum

2011-11-29T11:07:00.001-06:00

I was just googling around and ran across these, which I've never seen before. According to the pictures it was built by Duke Stallings, I'm not sure if it was ever completed. I don't recall seeing a canopy quite like that before. Will have to do some research...Pictures start here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/4589752619/in/photostream/

Cutting Ribs

2011-11-20T13:58:00.000-06:00

I haven't made many updates in the last few weeks because we haven't been getting much work done on 53T. Some winter prep work around the house and in the garage has been my focus. Specifically i've nearly finished the last bits of insulating that needed done on the walls of the garage. We'll need to finish the last few pieces of sheetrock on the ceiling so I can finish insulating the season.

I have had a few chances to cut out a few new ribs for the right wing. I have two false ribs and the one big main rib remaining to be cut. Then of course we'll need new skin and filler to get everything smoothed out. I'm starting to contemplate replacing a section of the trailing edge to attempt to take care of some ribs that are warped.We'll see...

Update

2011-10-31T11:48:00.002-05:00

Last week I did manage to get to the garage a few nights. Matt came over to help and he cleaned the balsa facing off the left airbrake and removed both airbrakes. The hinges have some pretty decent corrosion on them. I kept working on the ribs on the right wing. New plywood arrived and the new rib shapes are traced out and ready to cut. I also received a package with a full set of ribs as well as metal fittings from Richard Beck. Thanks Richard! I used the rib in that package to make a template for a new rib to replace the one true rib that I removed on the right wing. So this week the goal is to make some sawdust and start putting parts back in the glider.

Yesterday we got 3Y out for the last day of scheduled operations at the club. This was the first time I have flown 3Y at Sunflower since my first flight in it this spring in May, when Summer and I landed out. Needless to say we have been on the road a lot with the glider this season. I added up the logbook and I think I had just over 50 hours in it this season. Not bad! Lift yesterday was weak and broken up, we had two flights, first one about an hour and the second one right at half an hour. Here are the traces:

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=2154811

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=2154816

Leah and I received some sad news on Saturday. Bud Brown, builder of 4653T, passed away on Friday. Awful news as I was very hopeful to get to meet him one day and show him 53T once we're finished with it. Here is Bud's obituary: http://www.emmonsmaceysteffey.com/sitemaker/sites/Emmons1/obit.cgi?user=501088Brown

Destruction complete, I think

2011-10-23T22:08:00.000-05:00

Tonight I worked a bit to remove the broken rib. First, however, I was able to get a good look down the leading edge of the right wing thanks to the false ribs being removed. there was a bunch of mouse nest leftovers outboard of the hole I cut so I spent some time with the shop vac cleaning the wing out. Managed to remove everything I could see. I also was able to get a good luck at the adjacent rib bays and determined that I didn't need to remove any more skin which is great!

The last thing I did tonight was remove the main rib that I broke while removing skin. It didn't cause too much trouble. For now at least this is the last phase of destruction in this section of the wing. There is a chance I might end up re-working the trailing edge but that won't come until the rib repairs are complete. Here is a photo:

Removal

2011-10-23T11:06:00.000-05:00

Harry stopped by to inspect the damage last night. He thought most of the ribs were probably OK and could be saved with some doublers. I had already removed the blantantly broken false ribs as those will be pretty easy to replace with new. Matt G came over to help and hit the not broken ribs with the sander to clean them up so we could see what we were dealing with. Both false ribs that weren't broken showed some pretty major cracking into the plys that was more than just the surface, so it was a pretty easy decision to remove them.

The main rib next to the airbrake box is also broken so it will probably get removed and replaced. I've ordered some plywood to cut new ribs. Here are some pictures of tonights destruction:

Opening Right Wing

2011-10-20T20:49:00.000-05:00

I started off tonight with the intention of squaring up the hole that I cut in 3T's right wing so that a new piece of plywood could be scarfed in to replace it. While doing that I looked towards the tip inside the leading edge and noticed that the next false rib was blatantly broken. So the hole went from this:

to this:

Not too bad I thought. However after looking at that rib, and noticing that the false rib next to it was also broken, I realized the easiest way to fix them would be just a complete replacement. The break was on the top back near the spar, not to mention the leading edges of all the ribs are in questionable shape thanks to the mouse damage. I also found some more mouse nest material in the new rib bay that I opened up and vacuumed some more out of the next bay towards the tip. So, I decided to remove the skin in the newly opened bay back to the second spar on top so the false ribs can be replaced.

Next I started careful work with the chisel to square up the aft edge of the original cutout. I noticed that one false rib was cracked which I wasn't particularly excited about. Then I managed to damage the real rib which forms the tip-side border of the airbrake box. That was it. The rest of the skin was coming off so I had full access to all the ribs in this area.

And thats where I stopped for the night.

Jacob was over earlier and we got the rudder cables finished and also he worked on sanding down the filler work we had done the other night. For the woodwork, next thing I suppose is to evaluate what to do with each rib in this area. Most of them are going to need some form of repair or replacement. Then I'll have to order some plywood and go to town. All the ribs on the Cherokee II are sawn from 1/4" marine plywood.

2011-10-19T09:21:00.000-05:00

Last night I started cutting out the soft wood in the right wing leading edge. There was a mouse in there at some point. No nest but some shreds of foam, a few acorns, and other leftovers. I kept cutting until I was back to clean wood and couldn't feel or see significant damage in the past the next rib.

Bud Brown added 2 false ribs between each actual rib to help hold the profile. It seems to have worked well. The plywood skin is 1.5mm and there were places where there was at least another .5 mm of filler.

Filling

2011-10-18T12:32:00.000-05:00

On Sunday Jacob came over to help and we started off working on finishing up the rudder cables. Well either I used up all my thimbles and sleeves or they were lost in the great re-organization which allowed the wings to go on 53T. There weren't very many left anyway so I've ordered a bunch more for the rudder, aileron, and airbrake cables.

Instead we mixed up some super fill and got to work. There was an area on the leading edge of the center section that needed smoothed out after the fabric pulled up some previous filler over the balsa leading edge. There were also some areas around the canopy that needed touched up and of course the intersection of the center section and fuselage. Jacob worked on that while I kept picking away at some stubborn fabric on the leading edge of the right wing. Along the way I found a short section of soft wood that will need to be replaced. It is 1.5 mm plywood and the leading edge on the Cherokee is non-structural so I don't think it will be too much trouble. Will be interesting to get a look inside the leading edge which has been closed up for the last nearly 50 years.

53T assembled

2011-10-14T22:29:00.000-05:00

for the first time since about a year ago the wings are on 53T. No its not finished, we just put the wings on so that we can make the cables for the aileron and airbrake systems. I am just loving that it fits in the garage with room to spare!

Eureka!

2011-10-13T09:17:00.000-05:00

Back when I bought 373Y I was told that Matt had a pile of pictures of the glider from when it was built back in 1964 by the Ree brothers. Well when we started looking around for them they were nowhere to be found and eventually we decided they were just plain lost and hoped that someday they would turn up. After a while I flat out forgot that they had ever existed. well yesterday I got a text from Matt and lo and behold its a picture of a pile of pictures of my glider! Woohoo what was lost is found! So as soon as Matt can get me the pictures I'll be sure to scan them all and put them up here. Here is the picture Matt sent me:

53T Control System

2011-10-07T10:49:00.000-05:00

Well with cooler weather and now the VSA Rally behind us I've been trying to get out in the garage at least a little every night to make progress on 53T. All of the pulleys in the glider have been replaced with new, and last night Leah and I started fabricating new control cables. In addition, night before last I took the stick out and cleaned it up. The stick is mounted on a short tube that runs through a couple of hardwood blocks. At some point in time someone thought it was necessary to lube all the moving parts on this glider, and used some sort of black goo to do so. I'm sure that it probably helped for a while but over time this lubricant picked up a lot of dust and dirt and just turned into a thick gunk. The area where the stick passed through the hardwood blocks was no exception and there was a LOT of friction in the left/right motion. A little time with a towel and some fine sandpaper and everything is moving a little easier. There is still some friction but it is much better.

Last night we made new cables for the aileron drive in the fuselage. These cables run from the side of the stick around a pulley and then back beside the seat into the fuselage, around another pulley and up to the aileron bellcrank that is mounted on the back of the rear spar. A turnbuckle is added into each cable assembly at the bellcrank attachment to allow for adjusting tension in the system. Of course the turnbuckles were loaded with more black goo lubricant as well so we spent some time cleaning them up and sanding off some light surface corrosion. Then with the turnbuckles in place and the control cables attached to the stick we got a good rough guess of where we needed to place our thimble at the cable/turnbuckle interface. A little bit of struggling with the nicopress and voila a shiny new cable at just the right length. The left side went so well that we finished up the right side and now have a closed loop in the fuselage again. Of course I was out of the proper bolts so had to make a quick order to Aircraft Spruce last night. Once they arrive We can finish the aileron drive completely. In the meantime we'll move on to the other cables in the fuselage and then on to the wings. That will be fun as I plan to rig the glider entirely inside the garage. It will required some organizing and re-arranging of course but I can't wait to see it.

XC Adventures in 3Y

2011-10-05T10:07:00.002-05:00

[Here is Pete's report from his flight in 3Y on Friday]

At this year's Wichita VSA Rally, Tony was kind enough to let me borrow his beloved Cherokee II 373Y again. I got to fly it last year, but the weather wasn't great so it was a short flight. The weather looked pretty good on Friday with lift to 5000' AGL, but also no clouds forecast. Since neither Tony nor I had managed to get our VSA silver coins we thought it might be possible to go on a 50km XC flight with the forecast conditions.

The WSA Ka-6 was available that day (Matt Colcasure Must have had to work :-)) so Tony decided to team fly with him in the Ka-6 and me in the Cherokee II. I took a tow to 2000' agl, and I found a good thermal almost immediately all the way up to 6000' MSL. Once up to altitude I met up with Tony, and we set off on course.

Team flying was really cool. I could see that the Ka-6 had a few less Ds than me as I tended to drop a bunch faster than Tony. True to forecast we kept finding decent lift out in the blue as we headed east towards El Dorado. At times I was struggling to get back up to altitude, but Tony managed to hang around and waited for my slow self to get back up to a decent altitude to continue onward.

I had Tony's Oudie in YYY so I was navigating and once we made 51km I signalled that we had made our goal over a feedlot just east of Rosalia, KS. As we turned back west I was starting to get lower and was on the lookout for a Thermal to get me back home. I had already picked out a nice looking plowed field next to a hay field with a bunch of round bales in case I wouldn't connect with the next thermal when Tony radioed me that he had found something right in that spot. Unfortunately I was getting rather low, when I saw that the hay field actually had a nice mowed runway running right through it. I was trying to make it to the thermal marked by Tony, but I just didn't feel comfortable so I pulled the plug at about 600' AGL, and went to land in the nice grass strip right below.

Tony got to watch me make a nice off field landing in his pride and joy (I was just glad not to do anything stupid :-)), and proceeded to get a nice thermal that almost got him back home. I radioed back to him that I was down safe and sound, at which point I realized that I had no idea on how I would get back out of there.

Well I just landed out in a borrowed glider, now what? Thankfully the better half of "Team Condon" was already on the way to the gliderport, so Tony relayed Leah's cell phone number to me. I felt a little embarrassed to have to call Leah to arrange for the retrieve, but she assured me that it would be ok. Leah made it out to the little strip about 45 minutes later, and we managed to derig 3Y without too much difficulty, and got home in time for dinner.

Turns out Tony made it back taking only one more thermal to get home. I caught a little grief from the rest of the pilots for making Leah pull my butt out of a field. Again special thanks go out to Tony for letting me have so much fun in 373Y, and especially Leah for showing up and pulling me out of that field in Rosalia, KS.

As it turns out I had both made my silver distance (51km) as well as silver altitude on this flight. http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-1115888105

VSA Report

2011-10-05T10:02:00.000-05:00

Well we all had a really good time at the VSA Rally. Gliders in attendance included Lee and Mary Cowie's beautiful Grunau Baby II, freshly restored, and Dave and Betty Schuur's Ka-6E. Locals included 373Y and my NG-1, WSA's Ka6-CR, Neal's Ka6-BR, Jerry Boone's Zuni, and Bob Holiday's Duster. The Grob, Lark, and 2-33 at the gliderport also made regular flights. John Wells and Richard Kirkland had their 17 meter Dart on display and of course there was lots of oogling over Neal's Ka2b which is nearly complete. He was working steadily over the weekend getting the cockpits put back together on it.

Pete arrived on Thursday night and I took Friday off work so that we could fly. He had flown 373Y last year at the rally and I intended to get him back in the Cherokee this year since he airlined down instead of pulling his Ka6-CR. We rigged 3Y and the clubs Ka6 which would be my bird for the day. We both launched into really great conditions for the end of September. I was often seeing 3-4 knot average thermals up to around 4000-4500 AGL. I radioed Pete and suggested that we run east to try to get 50km away and then return for our VSA silver coins. He wasn't going to argue and we headed out. It was a fun flight and we made the 50km. I made it back but Pete landed out. He has written up his flight and I'll post it right after this one.

Here is me taking off in the Ka6 (photo from Lee Cowie):

Saturday I headed to the gliderport early to get the NG-1 rigged before the morning seminar. Big thanks goes out to Caleb Teel from Tulsa, OK who helped me wash all the dust off the glider. He was visiting with his dad Randy and it was great to finally meet them. I talked about flying 3Y in the Region 10 contest during the seminar. After the talks we ate lunch and then rigged 3Y in record time. Matt Michael arrived in his Flybaby and Neal offered him the Ka6-BR so the three of us all launched. Unfortunately Pete and I found the lift weaker and spottier than Friday and only managed about an hour each. I did have fun flying with Matt in the Ka6 though and he got some air to air pictures of the NG-1 which looked pretty good. Saturday night was the cookout at the gliderport and there was a ton of people there. We had a blast eating good food and visiting. We finished the evening with a run to Bob Holiday's place for homemade ice cream. Yum!

Sunday my main goal of the day was to get Matt up in the NG-1. Pete gave me permission to fly 3Y so Matt and I launched. We both had 2 hour flights. We had a great time gaggling together and of course Matt blew me away in straight glides. I did a small triangle to Augusta Airport, Stearman Field, and back to the gliderport. When I returned I joined up with Matt again for a few turns but then we both were getting low so landed. It was a great end to a great weekend of friends and soaring!

Many more pictures from Sunday here: https://picasaweb.google.com/abcondon/WichitaVSA2011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIakjeG5hprOaw&feat=directlink

VSA Prep and 53T Update

2011-09-21T11:56:00.000-05:00

The VSA Rally in Wichita is coming up at the end of the month and of course there are a few things I'd like to get done on 3Y before the date. I ordered a quart of Daytona White from Stewarts to do some touchup painting. There are several spots on the glider where I made small patches and only have the gray Ekofill showing and I'd like to try to get the glider all one color for the rally. So hopefully late this week I'll be setting things up for shooting paint.

I'll also probably have the NG-1 out there too and it can use some TLC in a few places after a season of trips in and out of the trailer.

Third, Leah and I will be giving a talk about flying in the contest with YYY, so I need to get prepared for that.

On the subject of 53T I have actually managed to get some work done on it lately. Nothing too monumental but I've spent a few evening replacing the control cable pulleys. Right now the only thing left in the fuselage is the aileron cables and the airbrake. In the wings I need to get the bellcranks for the ailerons cleaned up and reinstalled and replace the airbrake pulleys. So hopefully sometime in the near future I truly will be ready to replace the cables!

Ulysses Report

2011-09-06T22:07:00.000-05:00

Leah and I once again spent the Labor Day weekend in Ulysses with 3Y. We had a good time even though the soaring was a bit sub-par.

Saturday was looking the most promising but still challenging. The challenge lie in the fact that a cold front moved through at about 8 AM. Soaring to the south of the front was forecast to be very good but behind the front not so great. Winds were 20 mph on average when I launched for the downwind dash. My idea was to fight it out in any scrap of lift I could find and keep drifting downwind, eventually get to the good stuff further south and then go like the dickens. I was even brave enough to declare Plains, TX as my goal, 314 miles. Leah had the truck all ready to go. I took a high tow to take advantage of the 1000 meter allowed altitude loss for the flight and to increase my chances of finding workable lift in the windy conditions. I ended up covering a whopping 26 miles in only 36 minutes from takeoff to landing in a dust field northwest of Hugoton, KS. I should say, a blowing dust field. Leah wrapped a bandana around her face cowboy-style to avoid eating dirt while we were derigging. Three dove hunters stopped by after seeing my fly over and then seeing the trailer and were very helpful derigging. Apparently the dove weren't flying in the wind either.

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=845531386

Sunday I was less than inspired by the forecast as the lift was forecast to about 3000 AGL but still with 15-20 mph winds. I wasn't looking forward to a repeat of Saturday and with the wind it would be a real struggle to fly locally. So I helped Steve get ready for his first flight in the FJ-1, a mostly 301 Libelle modified to landing flaps only. It was fun getting him launched and after watching him soar away and then Bruce do the same in the Grob we decided we might as well rig. By the time the glider was together we decided that Leah was going to fly so she took off for her first flight in 3Y in a few months. It was better than the last flight, her only complaint was a bit of a rough landing. The conditions were not exactly in her court though with a decent wind, about a 10 knot crosswind component, and plenty of thermal activity to keep her busy on tow.

Monday Leah did two more flights in 3Y around noon and reported some zero sink. Her landings were much better with more moderate wind conditions to deal with. I got my parachute and launched about 1:30 and was able to climb up to 4500 AGL. I circled with Steve (FJ-1), Jeff (Apis), and Ed (PIK-20) which was fun. The Cherokee seemed to climb right with the FJ-1. I was curious as I had once circled with a 201 Libelle that also climbed right with me. Of course as expected Steve walked away from me in cruise. I did follow him south for about 7 miles but that was as far as I dared. I wanted to make it back! The rest of the flight was nice and relaxing staying by the airport and just having fun playing in the thermals. I landed about 3:30 in order to get derigged and on the road home. Bruce and us hit the road about 5 PM and we were home right around 10.

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=1019923512

All in all a good fun weekend was had by all. ONce we get pictures from Leah's camera i'll try to get them posted.

Day 5, Region 10

2011-08-21T01:00:00.001-05:00

Today's task was a "Banquet Task". 2:30 from Llano up to San Saba (15 miles), FLF Gliderport (25 miles), and Mason (20 miles). Minimum distance was a mere 76 miles so even I would have to actually go inside the circles.

Yesterday Frank (TA) and I had a discussion about why I always start right away. I perfectly understand the strategy of waiting to start late as the day develops to its best but I also know that if I run into trouble in the Cherokee I'm going to need time to dig out. Once again today I was the first one out the gate, perhaps 500 feet below max start height for the downwind run to San Saba. That leg was pretty easy with high groundspeeds and only one or two thermals. Clouds were already forming on course and I was waiting to see a coherent group of clouds connecting to the east side of Lake Buchanan before I turned. I wanted to avoid any possible weak area to the downwind of the lake.

Once I decided to turn east I managed to connect with a great group of short cloudstreets running straight into the wind. My strategy, per the last few days, was to do no circling unless I was below 6000 feet. I managed to run straight into the wind for nearly 25 miles on streets all while staying high! SeeYou says the average L/D for this portion was in the 140's! Thanks to this monumental run my groundspeed was still in the 45 or 46 range. Now I just had to decide when to turn back west towards Llano. I did some mental calculations and figured that when I had about 50 minutes left I would turn. Running west I tried to cheat a little south to minimize the headwind on the final leg back to Llano. Visions of my Day 2 landout were still haunting me so I wanted to do everything I could to avoid that again.

The run west was awesome. I found a 5 knot thermal right over the middle of the lake and then just southwest of Llano caught an 8 knot thermal to my best of the day, about 9500 feet. Now that I was seriously local to Llano I decided to keep it that way. I ran out to the Mason circle and continued until I was 15 miles out with 15 miles remaining. I was about 10:1 to make it back to Llano but I knew that my speed would be fantastic even if I came in a bit under time. So I turned back.

The final glide back to Llano was mostly at about 80 mph indicated just to get down and I still finished at something like 3000 AGL. Oh well. The Oudie showed my average task speed at 50 mph although my scored speed was a bit slower due to being about 4 minutes under time. I didn't care, this was certainly a career best flight. Fantastic speed, never got low, and everything just worked awesome.

YYY and I ended up winning the day and moved up to 3rd overall. I was amazed and very pleased to make the podium. All the other pilots made it back today, all with smiles on their face. It was definitely a fantastic day of soaring for everyone. The awards banquet was a great time. Bob Holiday and I were proud to present the James LeSueur Memorial Trophy on behalf of the Kansas Soaring Association to the Region 10 Champ, Frank Paynter (TA). Great job Frank!

My flight from today: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-355613644

Day 4, Region 10

2011-08-20T09:27:00.001-05:00

The task for Day 4 was a 3:30 MAT. Mandatory turnpoints were Eagle Rock Ranch for the first and the West Start point for a steering turn at the end. It was up to us to fill in the gaps. Frank Paynter (TA) gave a quick how-to talk after the pilots meeting to help the rest of us rookies understand what to do. His main suggestion was to get at least half your miles early then find a small triangle to finish up your time.

I set up a plan to go back southeast to Sunrise Beach and then do a triangle from Sunrise to Spicewood to Moursund and back to Sunrise. At that point, depending on how much time was left i could go back to Spicewood again for more distance or head back downwind-ish to Llano for the finish.

The run to Eagle Rock was very easy. I had a lot of fun gaggling with Frank in his Ventus and Dave Coggins in his Nimbus near the north edge of the start cylinder. We were wrapped up tight and climbing well together. We got to nearly 8000, the maximum start height, when the gate opened, so I left. With the tailwind component heading out there I was able to make 26:1 average and only took one thermal on the way. I found a great thermal over the airport there and it was nice to tank back up on altitude before running back towards Llano.

I had to keep a sharp eye out as I was now head to head with the rest of the field who started after me. There was a good sized gaggle about 1/3 of the way to Llano that I took a few turns in before continuing on. I didn't get low-ish again until I was to Llano town and caught a thermal off a construction site, the same place where I had released from tow and climbed out. At one point we heard Keith Miller (AJ) call that he was landing out near the Flying D Ranch which was a bummer. He made it into the field alright but getting his trailer out of the field was, and still is, another story. I was able to make pretty good progress flying straight and dolphining. My general plan was to fly straight until below 6000 then take 4 knots unless I was below 5. I wanted to make sure to stay up high today and overall it worked well. I averaged 23:1 and 28% circling on the leg to Sunrise Beach, quite good considering it was into a quartering headwind.

After making Sunrise I diverted south a bit to stay upwind of the lake. Spicewood is along more or less the same course line that I had been on. I found a good thermal near the powerplant and was able to get back up high and back into cruising mode. For the short leg I was 26:1 and 29% circling and gained 1000 feet. During this leg I spotted a brush fire starting near the Herbert airport, and reported it, and heard that Mike Brooks (XL5) was getting ready to land out at Moursund Ranch. Well I didn't hear from Mike for a few minutes so I called him back and it turned out he had caught a thermal and was digging out. I turned Spicewood and headed for Moursund.

Another short leg into a quartering headwind but no big problems. Mike and I circled together for a few turns near the mid-point in a pretty good thermal, 5 knots average, and continued on our way. I got to Moursund slightly low but found a Vulture assisted thermal near the airport and started climbing as I drifted back towards Sunrise Beach. The leg from Spicewood to Moursund was once again 26:1 but only 14% circling. Of course I lost 2000 feet in the process too.

The run downwind to Sunrise again was very easy with the tailwind helping. I started tanking up on altitude. The run around the triangle had been in the clouds but it was blue back to Llano. I was nearly 50% circling for the 14 mile leg but still had good speed and a 29:1 glide thanks to the tailwind. Once over Sunrise it was decision time. Total Blue towards Llano and I had 50 minutes left.

Visions of my Day 2 landout were starting to replay again. On that day i had extended further downwind to avoid coming in undertime and ended up landing out. Today I decided that coming in under time was not the end of the world and I knew my speed would still be a competitive 40-ish mph if I finished early. Additionally, running back to Spicewood to pick up another turnpoint would add more time than I wanted. I was pretty worried about the day shutting down early. I had not been able to get above 7000 under the clouds and didn't expect to do any better in the blue. So I decided to just head for Llano and if I came in under time oh well.

I picked up the Llano airport as a final turnpoint and crossed over it at about 4000 feet. I had assumed correctly that the lift was soft in the blue. I took two thermals on the way to Llano and only averaged 2.8 knots. Now the only thing left was a 4 mile run out to the last turnpoint and straight back to the landing. I managed to find some weak lift on the way out there and maintained a respectable altitude, was still about 10:1 to make it back when I turned and the last few miles I had enough reserve altitude to push the speed up to 70 and (finally!) finish at 1000 feet.

I did finish about 15 minutes under time but I was happy with the flight. Initially I, like many others, were pretty worried about the MAT since it adds another element of decision making on course. Thanks to Frank's discussion before hand though I felt like I did a pretty good job.

Today is the final day of the contest and I've had a great time so far. I'm looking forward to a good final flight and the banquet tonight!

The flight: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-459916812

One more picture

2011-08-19T09:21:00.002-05:00

I managed to get the picture from my landout on Day 2 off the phone.

Region 10 Pictures

2011-08-19T00:11:00.000-05:00

Can't sleep, too excited about todays flight. Here are some pictures from the week so far.

Telling Glen about the Day 3 win:

Leah and Glen spent Day 3 visiting Enchanted Rock, a 500 ft tall piece of solid Granite:

Glen points out the only cloud in the sky, Day 3:

Attracting a crowd, Pre-Practice Day:

Turning Final:

Staying cool on the grid:

Finished!

On Tow:

Dollar Store umbrellas are no match for powerful Texas thermal gusts:

Dean and I in the pasture on Day 2:

Day 3, Region 10

2011-08-18T22:29:00.001-05:00

Todays task was another 3:30 TAT. Turnpoints were Brady (25 miles), Lampasas (25 miles), Harris Ranch (25 miles) and Mason (15 miles). We got our turn at the back of the grid today which was nice. More time to relax before launch and less time churning around in the start cylinder before the gate opened. Gary Carter (HK) stopped by to visit the contest on his way home from Uvalde and we had a nice chat with him before it was time to load up.

I ended up climbing out the top of the start cylinder near the north edge just after 2 PM and headed downwind towards the Brady circle in totally blue skies. In fact the entire task area was blue except for the back of the first circle. No way I was going that far anyway. However I was able to find good lift in the blue and one big thermal and few smaller ones later I was over the Deep Creek airport and turning east.

My plan was to fly due east to the Lampasas circle and then due South to the Harris Ranch circle. Thought being that the wind was supposedly south east so I would quarter the headwind on both legs that way. Well it turns out that the wind was more southerly. The flight to the Lampasas circle was pretty straight forward with one low point near San Saba. It was actually the same area where I got low yesterday and once again I was able to climb out in a strong thermal and continue on. Once I entered the circle I turned southeast and headed for the edge of the cu field setting up east of Buchanan Lake.

Strategy was to get to the third circle near Marble Falls to maximize the slighty northwest and downwind run to the last circle. However I wanted to avoid a repeat of yesterday where I was undertime and forced to go deep into the last circle and have to fight back into the wind to get home. I figured if I had an hour or less left when I got to Marble Falls that would be about right.

Working south I got to the low point for the day northeast of Buchanan Lake, down to 3000 feet but was saved by a flock of Vultures who led me to a series of good climbs that ended up getting me to nearly 8000. From there I managed the holy grail of saves by running a street for about 15 miles between 7 and 8000, never turning. Not a bad run for the Cherokee. Once off the end of the street it was only a few more miles to Marble Falls just as the timer went down through an hour. I turned downwind towards Mason which would take me right past Llano. My last low point was down around 3000 again over the Kingsland airport where I found a 5 knot average (8 for a while) climb to 9600, my high point for the day. The glide that started with the street and ended at Kingsland was 27.4 miles at and L/D of 37. About half of those miles were directly into the wind.

Now quite high I went into conservation mode. I had been here before and did not want to get low because I knew I had to make that 15 miles back to Llano. I aimed for the clouds ahead near the Llano airport and let the tailwind help my glide, keeping the speed below 65 mph mostly. Just south of Llano I found a good thermal and circled with Stefan Murry (U1) for a bit to boost me back up to 9000. Stefan had gotten low on the way to the Harris Ranch circle, bailed towards Llano in case he needed to land, and was digging back out to make it around the course.

I aimed for the extreme east edge of the Mason circle. Time was working out that I was not worried about being under. And even if it hadn't, I was absolutely not going more than a tenth of a mile into the last circle, time be damned. I had one more climb as I tried my best to keep Llano within a 10:1 glide. I was pretending I was in a 2-33. Landing out was not an option. I nicked the circle and turned back. 15 miles out at 7500 I needed 13:1 to make it. Not bad but I had seen worse yesterday. The first 5 miles were like Deja Vu with some massive sink. But I started to notice that the indicated airspeed and groundspeed were not much different, the headwind wasn't as bad as I had feared, and I didn't need to be flying so fast. About that time I hit a patch of lift in which I made a few turns just to be on the safe side. Now I was 10:1 to make Llano and feeling pretty good about it. I could see my pasture from yesterday way down there. I pushed up to 70 and, of course, was flying in lift and couldn't come down. Ok, up to 80. Now I was at least descending. The speed stayed above 70 and usually near 80 for the rest of the 10 mile run. I could barely make the glider descend and hit the finish at 90 mph and 2000 AGL. So much for getting the finish lower but at least I finished! From the finish 1 mile out i continued at about 80 with the airbrakes out and arrived over the field at 1500 ft. I kept burning off the speed into the pattern and made a nice landing. What a flight!

Scores worked out that not only did I finish, but won the day! Holy cow! YYY and I managed to beat contest junkie Frank Paynter (TA) by 14 points. I offered a glider trade to Frank after he mentioned that all I need to do to win the day is finish, but he declined. Two more days to go in the contest. Hopefully two more finishes for YYY and I can move up the score sheet a bit. So far the weather has been great, even when it has been blue. With 5 days of flying including the practice we have had 1 landout (me) and 1 relight (today). Not too bad.

My flight from today: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-547474619

Day 2, Region 10

2011-08-17T22:16:00.000-05:00

Today we once again had a TAT with a 3:30 minimum. Turnpoints were Hamilton (30 miles) to the north, then back south to Moursund (25 miles) then west to Mason (20 miles) and a short run east to Llano. I appreciated the task as the north/south of the first two legs was more or less crosswind, then a downwind run to the last cylinder with only a short headwind run at the end.

I once again started first. Frank Paynter said this morning in his winning speech that the best strategy is to start out the upwind side of the cylinder at max height. Well I was 500 below max height but right on the east side of the cylinder. Not bad, I thought. The run up to the Hamilton Cylinder was not too bad although the cu field was sort of forming as I flew along so I didn't have a lot of clouds. As a result I was fairly low for most of the run but always able to find a good thermal when I needed it. One nice side effect of this low-ish run was the wind was more southerly down low so my speed was good.

As if I had really planned this out I got a great climb just into the Hamilton cylinder and was now up high were the wind was more cross. If only I could stay up here, I thought, I could keep the speed up back to the south. So, I pretty much did! I did get low once near Burnet but found a great core, once again marked by vultures, and then continued towards Marble Falls. I went into the Moursund cylinder a little ways as I wanted to maximize my time spend on that downwind run to make my speed really unbeatable. As I went into the turnpoint I was averaging around 42 mph raw, 64 handicapped.

Turning downwind was a blast. Every cloud was working and I mostly just pulled up in the lift. I did stop for a booming thermal straight south of Llano that took me to 9900 feet. For a while the averager was showing 9 knots!! One problem with this great speed, though was that I entered the last cylinder with 30 minutes remaining but was only 11 miles from Llano. No worries, I would just run about another 10 miles in, get good and high again as I had many times that day and have a straight glide back to Llano.

Well I made it the next 10 miles in the cylinder but the climb never came. Oh well there were still plenty of clouds so I would just start working my back. It became obvious right away that I was now going to be way over time but I wasn't sweating it. For the last 3 days I have many times been low and flown right into a 5 knot thermal. Well it seemed that the 5 knot thermals were done for the day. Occasionally I would find 3 knots but sometimes 2 was all I could do. I kept trending lower and lower, taking a short climb then gliding a few miles. I was slowly closing the gap on the airport but the trend was not in the right direction. I started to hear a lot of other pilots on the radio calling their finishes.

The last 4 miles into the airport are pretty rough and I was over a nice looking pasture at about 2000 AGL. Off over the trees I went, hoping for something up. I got about a mile or so and still nothing. My only option for landing was the pasture behind me. The few fields west of town were out of range to the south and the one other pasture I had seen from a distance was full of cows. So back around I went. As I turned west I see TA, Frank Paynter, heading in for his finish. The PowerFlarm tells me he is 600 feet above me. Right after he calls his 4 miles I tell him I'm likely landing out. No lucky saves here, I am on downwind. Frank calls back asking me to confirm landing out and by then I am on base leg.

The pasture was nice enough with a few power lines that were easily avoidable and some slope but the Cherokee and I came to a complete stop no worse for the wear. I made a quick call to Frank and whoever was listening that we were OK and then started gathering info for the retrieve desk. That process went very smoothly and Leah and Dean showed up after not too long of a wait. I found the only pasture in Texas that isn't padlocked shut. No gate into the driveway and the gate into pasture from the house was open! We were out of there in about a half an hour and made it to supper with the group from Houston. Lots of fun!

Frank once again won the day, handily whipping the rest of the field. I guess all those contests flown this year have paid off. Too bad he didn't stick with his first day landout tradition...:)

All in all I was very happy with my flight. I flew right around 160 miles and besides not finishing it was statistically fantastic. My circling percentage on task was 31%, as low as I can recall in the Cherokee. Even with the struggling for the last hour trying to work into the wind my average speed on task was 40 mph. Up until turning back into the wind I was averaging 45. Not bad for an old wooden glider!

That is all from me tonight. Back in the ring for another round tomorrow.

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-624470567

Day 1, Region 10

2011-08-16T23:02:00.000-05:00

Today's task was another Turn Area Task, this time with 4 cylinders. The course would take us generally over the same area as we flew yesterday in the practice day. By the way, I was very pleased to learn this morning that the old Cherokee II and I won the practice day! Our handicapped speed worked out to somewhere in the 63 mph range, second and third were in the 61 mph range. Yay us! BUT, it was only a practice day and from what I could tell a lot of tough competition showed up on Monday while we were out flying.

The weather call was for similar as yesterday. 6-7 knot lift up to around 8 or 9000 feet. However there was a lower chance for cumulus today. I for one was hoping that part of the forecast was wrong. Gridding and Launch seemed to go smoothly. I was happy that Leah and I were able to be where we needed to be when we needed to be and everything was ready to roll when the time came.

That reminds me, there is a new high tech addition to my instrument panel. Thanks to Frank Paynter (TA) for delivering it from Uvalde, I'm renting a PowerFlarm unit for the contest. I built a shelf into the glider before we came down here and we got it mounted today. It seemed to work well although I was only in one gaggle with Frank in the start cylinder, I was able to see him in real life and on the Flarm. I'm not sure if any others here are equipped, there are more than a few who came up here from Uvalde so hopefully I'll have the chance to see more people as the week goes on.

I was 5th to launch today and managed to release in a good thermal and work my way up to a respectable height in the start cylinder. I worked with a few gaggles and generally got a feel for the day. As the fleet launched it was noted there were no clouds anywhere, and the CD did a roll call to change the task from a 4 hour minimum to 3.5 hrs. Fine with me. My plan was to just barely nick each cylinder, try to pick a course that minimized my time spent working into the wind, and get home over time. The gate opened and I started immediately.

The run west/northwest to the first cylinder was pretty easy even in the blue. A few climbs and I was there at an average of over 40 mph. Not bad! Then the turn south was BRUTAL. I got low enough a few times to have to take any lift I could find and the speed just tanked. I think the average was something like 25 mph. I was very happy to finally make it to the second cylinder as it appeared it had clouds in it! I had finally made it to cloud-land although the clouds were way above me and pretty thin, and cycling fast. Oh well better than nothing. After the second cylinder I turned more or less into the wind but was able to find a blue street that I ran for nearly 10 miles with no net loss in altitude. Not bad! A few more thermals and I was to the third cylinder and finally able to do away with a headwind component for good.

By this time I was down to about an hour remaining. It was going to be about 25 miles to the last cylinder and another 15 or so to Llano. I got really low for one last time right at the cylinder but then caught a few good climbs and rocketed up to my high point for the day, 8500 MSL. From there it was one more thermal to get to the last cylinder but by the time i got there I was back down around 3000 feet (1500-2000 AGL) and needed to get back up before I could head for Llano. I found a 2 knot thermal over a landable looking pasture and figured I would take whatever I could find if it was the difference between landing out and finishing. It did improve, with the help of a few birds showing me the core, and I soon was 1000 feet over glide to Llano. Right where I wanted to be. I set out but soon encountered some strong sink and even with the 15 knot push was making less than 20:1 over the ground. Oudie was telling me I needed 20:1 to make it so I started looking for another thermal. Found a decent one and bumped up another 500 feet and headed out again, by this time I was about 10 miles out and starting to get over some rough ground that leads up to the Llano airport.

Of course, like yesterday, that rough ground was a fantastic thermal generator. I already knew I was going to come in slightly under time and wasn't too concerned with that. A few minutes would hurt my speed slightly but what was done was done and I was happy to get a good finish. I did want to try to improve on my 2000 ft finish though from the practice day. Well when I got down to 2000 AGL about 3 or 4 miles out from the airport i found nothing but lift! I was running the Cherokee up to 80 mph at times and still not coming down! Good grief, I ended up finishing at 1700 today. Oh well.

SeeYou says my distance was 132.4 miles which should work out to somewhere around 37 mph. I'm pretty satisfied with that considering the struggle I had today. We'll see in the morning how it compares. Here is the flight:

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-722296350

Practice Day, Region 10

2011-08-15T22:57:00.000-05:00

Today task for Sports Class was a TAT with turnpoints at Menard (30 miles), Kerrville (30 miles), and Burnet (20 miles). We started launching about 1 PM and tasks opened at 2. I started pretty quickly and managed to climb to nearly the max start height of 7000 before leaving the cylinder.

The run towards Menard was epic. I would fly straight in almost any lift as long as I was above 6000 and then if I got lower than that would take a 5 knot thermal back up to over 7 again. There was a nice tailwind and I was making awesome speed. I got to the edge of the Menard cylinder in just over 30 minutes, averaging around 60 mph! There was a decent tailwind component pushing me that way and I just couldn't miss the lift.

Clouds seemed to be pretty honest all day and after a few I was able to work out some theories on which side of the clouds had lift etc. that seemed to hold most of the day. I pressed into the Menard cylinder about 10 miles before turning more directly into the wind towards Kerrville. I wanted to minimize the time spent fighting the headwind so I decided I would just nick the Kerrville cylinder and head for Burnet. That is basically what I did, and in typical fashion got extremely low along the run into the wind. There seemed to be some sort-of streets running to the southeast but nothing strong enough or organized enough to allow me to stay up high. I had many trips down to around 4 or 5000 feet before finding a good thermal. Almost always I was able to find a good one. Sometimes I would start off in desperation with a 2 or 3 knotter but almost every time I would spot a few birds (Vultures I think), shift towards them, and find a good 5-6 knot core, sometimes stronger, especially up higher. The highest updraft strength was definitely between 6 and 8000 feet. I had a few that were averaging 7 knots through that range!

After turning Northeast from the Kerrville cylinder I was feeling better about getting better groundspeeds and L/D's but was still pretty low as a result of the upwind run. I got down to 3000 feet at one point, I think at that time I was around 1500 AGL, but thankfully turned right into a nice strong thermal that got me back up to over 8000. From that point on I did better at staying higher. I got down to 4500 a few times but always managed to climb back up and keep on trucking.

South of Llano on my way to the Burnet cylinder I caught a great thermal, right at 5 PM, which took me to my high point of the day, 9000 feet. At this point I had an hour left for the task and was only a few miles from the edge of the cylinder so I knew I would need to go into it a fair ways. This is my first time flying this sort of task but I've ready a lot about it and knew that usually the goal is to make it back at minimum time. I was able to stay around 6 - 7000 feet pretty well on the way into the cylinder and figured I could probably have a pretty steady glide back to Llano for about 20 miles. As the Cherokee seems to be pretty happy at 60 mph I figured when the miles equaled the minutes I would be ready to turn. I think I was right around 20 miles east of Llano when I turned. I was slightly below a comfortable glide home and had to cross Buchanan Lake on the way. I wasn't particularly worried about that as there didn't seem to be a blue hole over the lake so I figured it wasn't a massive sink hole at least. I glided across it in smooth air and caught a nice little 3 knot thermal on the west edge of it. I had managed to gain a little on the time by then and needed another thousand feet or so at least to have a comfortable glide. Between the lake and Llano there aren't a lot of fields or private runways so I'd rather be high than low. Not to mention it would be really embarrassing to get that far and land out. So i took a few turns and gained some altitude. By then I was 11:1 to make it back so I figured I had it made comfortably and sure enough I ended up coming in over the airport with plenty of altitude to spare. I think I was 1500 feet above the minimum finish height of 500 AGL. Oh well something to work on tomorrow I guess.

All in all I was very pleased with the flight. Making it back was awesome and finishing the task right on time was even better. I entered the finish cylinder about 2 seconds after the timer ran out!

Here is the OLC trace, last I checked it was good for 1st in the US and 4th in the world. Helps to fly on a Monday...

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-797915770

Pre-Practice at Llano

2011-08-14T20:12:00.000-05:00

Today was the unofficial practice day here. We got rigged early before it got too hot and I launched right around 1 PM. I had it in mind to run down to Fredericksburg and then maybe somewhere else with a 3 hour time. I managed to find a decent thermal off tow and started to head south immediately. Wind was light out of the south/southeast. For the first 1/2 to 2/3 of the trip to Fredericksburg I was topping out around 5000 or 5500 MSL. Ground rises from 1100 at Llano to around 2000. I did get down to 1000 AGL over a private paved strip and then caught a great thermal cloudbase about 7500. From there I made it to Fred and back out about 10 miles before I needed to climb again. It was only a few more good thermals to make it back to Llano.

Forecast was for the lift to die down in this area by 4 PM so I wanted to be back in the area before then. I got back just over the 2 hr mark, didn't find a great thermal near the airport and decided I might as well just land. It was a good flight, I was pretty happy with my speed and it was nice to get a look at the area out to the south.

Landout options definitely aren't as great as Kansas or Iowa but I was pretty happy with how many options there are. Of course the acres and acres of trees and hills aren't too comforting but I was able to find enough pastures, fields, and private runways to never be too concerned.

Tomorrow is the official practice day and the contest starts on Tuesday. More pilots were arriving today and I suspect more will show up tomorrow morning from Uvalde.

OLC trace: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-892854180

Internet is too slow for pictures. Supposed to be hotter tomorrow and steady over 100 with light south winds the rest of the week, good news!

Hit the Road

2011-08-12T09:04:00.000-05:00

Well I'm on track to leave tomorrow morning. Last night I stayed up late and did some final work on the glider. I removed the skid as it was getting worn down from too much operating on concrete. Jerry stopped by and is going to weld some more strap to it. While I was down there I found a couple very small cuts in the fabric from the last off airport landing in Dalhart. Drat! so out came the MEK, Ekobond, and fabric. Didn't take too long to get it patched up, I'll brush a little EkoFill on it tonight and we'll be good to go.

Next I fabricated a small shelf that will stick out from the left canopy rail in front of the instrument panel. This will hold a rental PowerFLARM unit that I'm planning on getting for the contest. It should arrive from Uvalde on Sunday I think. I'm looking forward to flying with this and at least a few others at the contest will also be equipped.

I did a little more Super-Fil work on the wingtip skids and then got to work on the big task for the night, painting contest numbers.

Any good paint job is 99% prep and 1% painting and this was no different. I spend most of the time getting other things in the garage covered up. I had already done all the masking and papering around the lettering that I needed to do. Then i read the directions on the paint 20 times and got to work. I still ended up thinning it too much! I was supposed to thin to 20-22 seconds but mine was more like 15. i added more paint and hardener but it had no effect at all. I was really surprised as I actually put less water in than called out on the directions. Finally I decided that I would just go with what I had and be very careful to avoid runs.

Everything went very smoothly and worked just the way it was supposed to. I was relieved. I haven't painted anything since we finished covering 3Y and was pretty nervous about screwing something up. By 11 PM or so though all the paint was on and I just had to wait for it to cure.

This morning I peeled off the tape and stencils and the end result was pretty good. Not razor sharp lines but i'm happy with the job.

Tonight I pack everything up for an early departure on Saturday. Next report will be from Llano!

Prep for Llano

2011-08-05T12:16:00.000-05:00

While I haven't flown 373Y since Dalhart I have made my best attempt to start prepping for the Region 10 contest in Llano. The contest runs from the 16th-20th. In the meantime the main thing to do to the glider is to apply contest numbers! I have decided to use "YYY" for 3Y. Leah's 4653T will be "TTT". We already have a "3T" in our club. Tonight I will get stencils ordered so hopefully i can shoot paint next week. That is, assuming I can find a bit of time with cool enough air to shoot paint.

Other work also includes touch up painting all over the glider. There is a lot of scratch and dent sort of damage to the glider. trailer rash i suppose you could call it. Basically proof that it has actually been flown since I finished recovering it. I have made several small patches in various locations that are currently just gray with Eko Fill that need some paint. Tonight I will do a few more small fabric patches and work on building up the wingtip skids. I also need to replace the tailwheel as it took a beating on the concrete at Dalhart. Finally I need to make sure there is enough thickness in the skid left to handle a week worth of operating off concrete.

Of course the trailer could use some more rivets but all in all it is as ready as it is going to be. I'm looking forward to the week of flying with friends. The weather in this part of the country has been fantastic for soaring this year and hopefully it will stay that way for the next two weeks.

In Cherokee news, Gary Flandro has finished his work on 8722E! It looks great! Gary says once the weather is agreeable it will fly. I can't wait to hear the report. He also intends to bring it to the VSA Rally in Wichita where there should be at least 3 Cherokee's on display and hopefully all three flying, if 53T is ready.

Here is a great picture of 22E. Enjoy!

Dalhart pictures, VSA Award, Kowbell

2011-07-16T08:22:00.000-05:00

Sorry its been a while since I updated. I finally got the pictures off the camera from Dalhart. Here are some:

Gliders loaded in the hangar:

Rod checking the oil on the Pawnee. we suggested he needed a cape.

3Y rigged next to Joe Brack's LS-4:

Bob and I on the ramp at Goodland after my downwind dash.

In other news, at our club cookout last weekend Neal Pfieffer made a small presentation. Turns out that the VSA awarded Leah and I with a Restoration Award for our work on recovering 373Y. The award itself is a glass bird filled with sand and is very pretty. It was a bummer that we weren't able to make it to Lawrenceville to receive it there but it now has a prominent place on our mantle. The next time I get 3Y out of the trailer I'll be sure to affix the plaque in a prominent place. Thanks guys!

If you're into astrology you know that last night was the first full moon after the summer solstice and if you're into soaring and especially a KSA member that means that the following Saturday (today) is Kowbell. So yes I'll be headed to Sunflower shortly to get ready for the annual free distance contest, now in its 49th year. This year I'll be flying the NG-1 since I figure its extra 10 L/D points will be quite helpful in the all out non handicapped distance contest. The weather is looking quite promising and I think it will be a good day with some good distances flown. I'll have the SPOT tracker running: http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0xSWzZKb2GVSEASvOr6Tx08EyO4mMDphc

No real progress on 53T lately. It's been really difficult to find time to work on it between prepping for Dalhart and Kowbell and not to mention about 6 days out of 7 the last month have been over 100.

Last day at Dalhart

2011-07-02T07:32:00.001-05:00

Well after the downwind dash to Goodland we had a bit of an adventure. The fuel pump went out on my pickup, conveniently dying sometime after Bob shut the truck down on the ramp in front of the glider. We diagnosed the problem by about 8:30 PM and grabbed supper and a hotel for the night. Thursday morning we ran to the parts store and got a pump. John and the folks at Butterfly Aviation in Goodland were really great, giving us some room in a hangar to work in the shade and loaning us various tools to make the job easier. By mid afternoon we had dropped the fuel tank, replaced the pump, and replaced the tank. Hooked everything up and turned the key on, the pump worked! Not only that but the engine started and ran like a champ. We got back to Dalhart about 10:30 PM.

Of course we had missed a great day of soaring. The guys back here had put on some good miles, most around 250-300 km OLC distance, gotten to altitudes up around 13-14000 ft and generally had a lot of fun. Jack had also gotten his Silver Altitude and Distance in the Grob 102 with a flight to Stratford and eventual landing at Dumas.

I needed to make up for the missed day on Friday so declared a flight of Dalhart-Stratford, TX-Boise City, OK-Clayton, NM-Dalhart. The wind was forecast due south so this would give me a quartering tailwind on the way to Stratford and Boise City and quartering headwind on the way back during the best part of the day.

The flight was great, it started off slow but I climbed up over the airport and set out to the northeast. There was a weird street of cumulus-looking cirrus and i ended up gliding in the shadow of that for a while and naturally got fairly low about 2/3 the way to Stratford. But I got back in the sun and dug out. Then closer to Stratford I was able to get up to a respectable altitude and made the turnpoint.

The lift was strong enough and from Stratford on plentiful enough that I was able to pick and choose my thermal, rejecting weak lift, trying to keep the speed up, and generally doing all that stuff that usually only works in the textbooks. The clouds started forming about 10-20 miles past Stratford, I reached them after my first really great thermal that took me to nearly 12,500 ft. With the clouds marking lift I was cruising nicely and having a good time, never getting too much below 9000 until I was past Boise City and to Clayton. Up to Clayton I think my average groundspeed was somewhere around 45 mph, not too shabby!

At Clayton I got semi-low getting to the turnpoint, down around 8500, but over the airport I found a great core that shot me back up to over 12,500 at 5 knots. By now it was about 5:30. I called ahead to Jack who was soaring around Dalhart and he reported good lift to 10,000 feet there. I knew the day was going to die eventually and there were still a few clouds out on course to Dalhart so I pressed on wanting to get home as fast as possible. The clouds ended about 10 miles past Clayton and things started to look pretty grim.

For one thing the quartering headwind I had been expecting wasn't really quartering. It was mostly direct on the nose at about 15 mph. Then I heard Jack saying he thought he would be landing soon! What!??! I thought there was great lift! Well it seemed things were dying in Dalhart. I was still about 30 miles out. Jack was going for his 5 hrs duration flight and found a little something though. By the time I was 20 miles out from Dalhart I thought I was going to have to land. In fact I radioed Jack and let him know it was highly likely and then I caught a great late day core at about 1500 ft AGL. I was able to climb back to 10,000 feet on this thermal and with an adjustment on course found another small thermal that took me to 10,500. Now I was feeling better. I still didn't have a glide to Dalhart with that headwind but I was going to get a lot closer and was optimistic I could find something else. But then I just glided dead ahead in smooth air. Hmmm nothing cooking here, hopefully better down low. Well there wasn't much down low except seemingly stronger winds. I was now in survival mode trying to take any lift I could find that would improve my position to the airport. I needed at least 2 knots really to gain against the wind.

As I got closer I wasn't liking the landing options directly between me and the airport. mostly crop circles which are usually OK but the corners that I could see were wild grass with some sage brush and god knows what else. I followed the highway towards town and had fields picked out as I went. Another thermal was not to be so I finally committed to one of the fields and made a nice landing.

A few phone calls and Bob and Phil were on their way with the trailer. We loaded the glider in record time and got some supper. It was a great flight with a great retrieve. Total distance should be 153 miles. The task was 161 and I was 8 miles from the airport when I landed. Here is the trace: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-383595456

I had a ton of fun and some really good flights here this week and can't say enough for the Boulder guys for putting it together. Also Ingram's Flying Service here in Dalhart were great hosts, giving us the run of the FBO when we needed the space, arranging the big hangar for us so we could stay assembled each night, and generally helping out whenever it was needed. I'll drive back to Wichita today, supposed to be fantastic soaring in Kansas today of course. With any luck I'll get some flying in the NG-1 Sunday and Monday, then back to work Tuesday.

Downwind Dash

2011-06-29T22:57:00.001-05:00

Not a lot of time to type tonight but I had a good downwind dash today in 3Y. Bob Whelan chased. Ended up with about 240 miles to the airport at Goodland, KS in 5 hrs 20 minutes. It was a lot of fun with plenty of highs and lows like any good soaring flight. Looks like so far I am 2nd place in the US and 5th in the world with just over 600 points. More to come.

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-560199443

Soaring XC

2011-06-28T23:02:00.001-05:00

Alright! Today the lift was much improved here in Dalhart and 3Y and I set out cross country. The declared task was Dalhart to Dumas, TX to Clayton, NM and back to Dalhart which was basically cross wind and about 150 miles.

We launched at 2 PM. Seems late but it essentially solar noon and we are at the western edge of the central time zone. I found some lift off tow and climbed up near the airport and then headed out. The entire flight to Dumas was pretty standard. I never got particularly low, it seemed like there was lots of lift. I was optimistic for the flight back . It was rough though! Winds were out of the south southwest at about 20 knots and the thermals were getting torn up a bit. By the time I got to Dumas I was hot and uncomfortable and borderline nauseous. Thankfully after making the turnpoint I found a good smooth thermal and got some altitude and cooled off.

Unfortunatel the air was not the same on the way back. Instead of consistent thermals there was a long smooth glide to 4900 feet MSL. Ground is about 4000 down here! Amazingly I hooked a thermal and had it perfectly centered up to just over 9000 feet. Feeling better now that I had altitude, did not have to land, and figured from this height I would be able to make the next thermal, I pressed on towards Clayton. Well it was like Deja Vu all over again, another long smooth glide. Again at 4900 feet I felt a little lift, turned into it and...couldn't get it centered. I fought for quite a while near the Miller airport while scratching weak lift and drifting downwind until finally giving up and landing there.

The good news is I was only perhaps 5 or 8 miles from Dalhart! I called back to the airport and the towpilot came over with the Pawnee to get me. I had the crop-duster pilot at Miller hold my wing for me. With the wind today a wing run wasn't really necessary. We towed back over to Dalhart and I released near the airport. My goal for the rest of the afternoon was to have an enjoyable local flight. The rest of the guys were out flying XC and at least one had already landed out. I figured if any more reported in I could land and go retrieve. Meanwhile the Ventus also landed at Miller so I sent the towpilot over to get him.

I caught a nice thermal over the airport and climbed to my best for the day, 10,200! Nice! After that I delayed the descent a few times but the day was starting to die. I landed after 1:20 aloft the second time around. The first flight was about 2:40. not too shabby.

Here are the traces.

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-646717511

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-646423097

Dalhart Report

2011-06-27T21:35:00.000-05:00

Finally something to report from Dalhart!

Saturday I took two sled rides. The lift was all to the south and southwest of the field about 15-20 miles and even that started late in the day. Everyone else, except Doug, fell out too so I didn't feel to bad. Doug made a make or break run for the clouds, connected, and had a really good flight

Sunday was a blow out.

Today a cold front passed overnight and we were optimistic. However I don't think it warmed up as much as it was supposed to and the soaring as a result was a struggle. I took two flights of about an hour each, maxed out at 7200 and 7400 feet (ground is 4000 here) respectively. There was a brisk wind out of the northeast and it was a struggle to stay upwind of the airport let alone make progress into the wind. I didn't feel too bad though because no one else had any real success making progress either.

Besides the Cherokee there is an LS-4, ASW-19B, Discus CS, Ventus, and two Grob 102's here. One of the 102's belongs to the Soaring Society of Boulder. The Boulder club also sent their Pawnee towplane down here which is really nice.

Hopefully tomorrow it will heat back up around 100 or better and we will get some good thermals. In the meantime my SPOT will be on if you want to follow along. http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0xSWzZKb2GVSEASvOr6Tx08EyO4mMDphc

Here are my flights from today:

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-737100185

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-736995331

Packing

2011-06-23T12:47:00.001-05:00

Well as usual I haven't gotten as much done on 3Y as I wanted but it is ready enough for the trip to Dalhart. I'll be packing like a madman tonight so that tomorrow after work all I have to do is hook up and head out. Ol' Blue is at the shop right now getting the A/C checked out. Hopefully it can get fixed, forecast highs are above 100 in Dalhart at least through Tuesday. Saturday forecast currently is 105 with thermals above 18,000. hopefully that keeps up all week.

I'll have the SPOT on for the drive and all flights. http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0xSWzZKb2GVSEASvOr6Tx08EyO4mMDphc

I'll do my best to post flight reports and OLC links here through the week.

Update

2011-06-13T21:31:00.000-05:00

Been a while so i figured i should document what I've been up to. Last week was awful hot so I didn't get much done in the garage. We had 5 straight days of 100+. I did manage a really good flight last Sunday, but not in the Cherokee. I decided to take the NG-1 out and ended up barely finishing a 300 km FAI triangle! I've submitted the flight for Diamond Goal as well as 4 Kansas state records. I was hoping to do all Diamonds in 3Y but after the 6.5 hr flight and just barely making it home I felt I had earned it. Don't worry I still will have 300 km on the mind when I get 3Y back out of the garage. Here is the writeup I put on Soaring Cafe: http://soaringcafe.com/2011/06/diamond-goal/

3Y has been in the garage. I started doing a little practice fiberglass work by making a cap for the rudder. It turned out alright and is a much more complicated shape than the wing wheel which will be the next project. I have the fuselage and left wing in the garage now. I need to get some more felt before I get too deep into that project. I also have plans to work more on the seat back and I need to get the voltmeter wired up properly so that it works. I also would like to do some touch up painting in a few spots as well as perhaps getting the "YYY" Contest ID painted on the wing and tail. But to do that I will have to (finally!) get my air compressor wired up and running.

I did take the opportunity to do a small fabric patch on the left aileron of 3Y. There has been a hole on the top of the aileron for a little while now, not sure when that wound was inflicted, but a piece of wing tape has been sufficient until now. With the wing on the stand I figured it was a good time to do it right. I glued it in last night and brushed on some ekofill tonight. There is also the patch that we did down by the skid that will need paint when that time comes.

On 3T I have not made a whole lot of progress but have gotten a few things done. I did get the nicopress tool from Harry and tonight made my first nicopress joint. I need to make sure i'm doing it right but hopefully control cables will start to go back in the glider this week. It is supposed to cool off a little (90 instead of 100) for the next few days and the late sunsets are awesome.

I also did a little more Super Fill work on the right wing root, that job is almost done.

Summer soaring plans have gotten firmed up a bit. I'm going to try to get a few more flights in the NG-1 before the annual Kowbell Klassic free distance contest on July 16. With its L/D in the low 30's it will be my bird of choice this year I think. However between now and then I'm planning on going to a cross country camp in Dalhart, TX during the last week of June. I'll take 3Y there as I'm viewing it as a week of practice for the Region 10 contest in Llano in August where I intend to fly 3Y. Once Kowbell is over I will probably focus most of my efforts on contest prep, be that ground handling equipment or flying stuff. I still have a few bugs to work out of my Oudie/Nano setup. On the flight in the NG-1 the battery on the Oudie didn't last as long as it should've so I need to investigate that. It was hooked up to the external battery pack which kept powering the Nano for the 6.5 hr flight.

So that is what I have been up to lately, will be sure to post pictures as the cables go back in 3T and the wing wheel comes to life on 3Y.

Windy de-rigging

2011-05-30T18:45:00.000-05:00

Well Leah and I are home now. I had an interesting flight yesterday. The wind was supposed to pick up in the afternoon and along with that the lift was supposed to get really good, like up into the mid teens. I took the first launch about 1 PM. I had waited for the wind to get over 20 mph. I couldn't find much, struggled in a few torn up thermals and had to land just as Bruce was launching in the Grob. I took the next tow figuring things were heating up and would be better and was rewarded. Bruce had found some lift too and I caught a good thermal southwest of the airport and worked it up to 10,400 feet! I was feeling good, radioed Leah in the truck, and headed north.

I had some concerns that I was going to out run the weather to the north. The NAM forecast had showed a definite northern edge in west central Kansas while either the RUC or GFS, maybe both, had shown the good stuff extending further north. I knew there was no way I was going to be able to hold position upwind of the airport with the powerful winds aloft so figured my only option was to go downwind anyway.

As I turned north I took a look at the Oudie. Indicated airspeed of approx 65 mph gave a groundspeed of 105-110 mph. While doing a little dolphining I was able to get the achieved glide angle over the ground up in the 40-50:1 range. This was awesome! Any hope Leah had of keeping up with me quickly vanished as I sailed past Lakin and headed for Leoti. I wasn't finding a lot of good lift as I pressed on but occasionally would take a few turns in something and gain a few hundred or maybe a thousand feet. I figured I had quickly outrun the good stuff and would have to take what I could get and maintain as long as possible. I inched lower and lower as I passed Leoti. Not even the huge stockyard north of town was able to kick off a powerful enough thermal to boost me back up. I could sure smell the cattle though!

Eventually it was time to land, after an hour and a half in the air. The approach was short and steep into a dirt field with corn stalks left over from last year. I tied the glider down, hit the OK button on the SPOT, and was able to get a faint cell signal to get a call in to Leah. After about an hour she had found me and we started to de-rig. In between the landing and her showing up, the front had passed. I noted it by an approximate 5-10 minute lull in the wind. It dropped from probably 20 or 25 mph down to 5 or 10. Then it came back. Except when it came back it was more like 30 or 35 with gusts higher and dust devils everywhere! We were not looking forward to having to take the glider apart in this weather.

We did manage to get 3Y back in the trailer with no additional damage beyond the scratches, bumps, and scrapes that it already had. That was a relief. I think we both ate at least a tablespoon of west kansas dust during the process.

The report from the other guys at Ulysses was that after Steve launched in the Nimbus after me the wind went from strong to stupid strong. They saw gusts of 55 mph on Ed's weather station. At that point Ed was having issues taxiing the Call Air and no one else was really interested in flying anyway. Steve managed to push upwind to Guymon, OK and caught a thermal over Hugoton, KS to 17,700 feet! wow! Bruce also managed to do well in the Grob, sealing his Silver Altitude with a climb to 14,000 and perhaps getting Gold Altitude as well.

Leah and I were all packed up and came straight back to Wichita from the field. The wind was supposed to be 40-50 mph all day today out there and we didn't feel like pulling the trailer in that. It was bad enough in the wind last night.

Total distance for my flight was right at 80 miles. Here is the OLC trace. Unfortunately the Oudie battery died so it did not record the entire flight.

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=1097355504

Here are a few lousy cell phone pictures from the weekend, we didn't have the fancy camera with us this time.

Landout on Saturday, this was a former wheat field:

Tied down on Sunday

View from the cockpit on Sunday:

Flight Report

2011-05-28T22:00:00.000-05:00

Well the day was slow to start and I launched a little early today. Ended up maxing out at 6500 MSL (3500 AGL) and managed to work upwind 11 or 12 miles before having to land. The guys who launched later all managed 2ish hour flights with altitudes from 7800 to 9500. Leah came and got me though and we made it back in time for supper which is always nice.

Tomorrow might be a downwind day, we'll see. Monday is looking like a blow out so far.

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=956800845

Headed for Ulysses

2011-05-27T09:19:00.000-05:00

Leah and I will hit the road this afternoon for Ulysses, KS for the weekend. Hopefully we'll be greeted with good thermals. Right now the forecasts are all over the map but I think it will end up OK.

the SPOT will be running when we're on the road or in the sky:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0xSWzZKb2GVSEASvOr6Tx08EyO4mMDphc

Will be posting flights on the OLC and as long as I have time at least short reports here.

Leah flies 373Y

2011-05-24T11:20:00.001-05:00

Last night after work we went out to Sunflower and put 3Y together. We were hoping to get Leah a few flights in the glider before we take it to Ulysses for the weekend. Ended up with a late start of course but got her in the air shortly after 7. She had a good flight overall and *almost* managed a 30 minute soaring flight. She never managed to get back above release altitude but there was a lot of zero sink and weak lift that she took advantage of. All in all, a lot of fun.

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=539793801

3Y is back home now, hopefully this week I can do a little tinkering with it and the trailer in prep for Ulysses this weekend.

Haven't had a chance to do much on 3T this week although the hardware for the control cables are in the mail.

1/3 Scale Cherokee's Fly!

2011-05-23T10:38:00.000-05:00

In the last few weeks several of the builders of 1/3 scale Cherokee's have done their maiden flights. Here are some videos.

Creeve's glider is based on N8722E. The full size version is currently getting readied for flight by Gary Flandro.

I believe this is Dave Smiths, has a canadian registration number with the indian headress like 22E and 871Z.

And here is Nigels, a copy of the New Zealand Cherokee II.

weekend progress

2011-05-16T08:31:00.000-05:00

On Saturday the skies were overcast and the wind was howling so we spent some time in the garage in the morning and managed to remove all of the control cables and pulleys, with help from Shea. I went down to the yard store and got 150 feet of 3/32" aircraft cable to replace it with. Hopefully tonight I can get pulleys, thimbles, and nicopresses ordered so we can start replacing them this week.

Sunday i did some sanding and more filling on the right wing root. it is almost done. Leah also worked on wire brushing the hinges and other metal pieces that will need primed.

I submitted an article for the Bungee Cord about our progress so far so hopefully it will make it into the next printing.

Varnish!

2011-05-13T11:46:00.000-05:00

Last night I epoxied in the last part of the tail repair, the lower stringer. Tonight everything got a couple coats of epoxy varnish. Looking good! I guess the only thing left in this area is to finish priming the tailwheel bracket and drill a hole in the bracket for a castering wheel which is still TBD. I also varnished up the chewing damage in the left wing tonight. Next step is to figure out the new wheel/brake install and work on replacing the control cables. Leah is still working on sanding and filling in a few spots.

tail repairs done!

2011-05-11T22:00:00.000-05:00

tonight i cut the final piece of wood for the tail repairs on 53T. It didn't take too much time to get a piece of spruce cut to finish up the lower stringer. The epoxy job on the lower piece of plywood was satisfactory and after some touch up and sanding looked really nice. I got the lower stringer in place without to much trouble. Then I drilled some drain holes in the bottom plywood piece and drilled out the holes for the rudder attach hinge. I temporarily re-attached the rudder to get everything lined up and didn't have too much trouble getting the hinge bolted down.

Leah did some sanding on the areas that she super-filled last night and then added some more super fil to places that needed it. She's mainly working on the right wing root at the fuselage and a small spot on the left wingtip.

Weekend report

2011-05-08T22:41:00.000-05:00

We had a good weekend here. Leah was out of town Saturday but I stayed up late Friday finishing up the panel on 373Y and getting it loaded into the trailer thanks to help from my friend Brad. The panel went together OK although I had trouble with the leads on the voltmeter so it isn't currently working. I also got some 1/4" birch plywood at Lowes and fashioned a seatback out of it. I don't think it will be the final iteration but it is a good start.

Flying on Saturday was good. I was the duty instructor for the day and first order of business was to help Summer get back in the Ka-6. We assembled both the Ka-6 and 3Y and started Summer to work with a couple of spot landings. She did well so I put the logger in the glider and launched her up for some soaring. I was planning to join her in 3Y for some lead/follow cross country flying, probably to Kingman and back. A student showed up though so I flew with him in the 2-33 and got him solo'd agian. We also did some thermalling on about a 40 minute flight which was his first exposure to actual soaring. I sent him back up solo to do it himself, which he did with a 45 minute solo flight. Then I launched in 3Y and found Summer. We had a great thermal to about 6400 feet. The audio vario worked GREAT! I am happy to report that the Cherokee II will outclimb the Ka-6. By this time Summer's handheld radio battery had died but she followed me off to the southwest anyway. We flew about 8 miles out but encountered no real lift so turned back. We were shallow to the airport but I was optimistic. Summer was behind and below me but I figured with the Ka-6's superior glide she would be OK. I kept a beeline for the airport when I noticed summer was starting to fly an odd pattern below me, flying straight east and then north instead of northeast to the airport. Then she turned SOUTH!. Then she opened the airbrakes! About that time I realized she was landing.

And she did! She made a nice approach over the powerlines and slipped into a good dirt field. I called up the guys on the ground and a few other gliders flying around to report that she had landed. Let them know where she was at (Arlington Road and K-17) and decided that I would land with her. I was marginal to make it back to the airport to begin with anyway and had spent some more altitude circling to watch her landing. Plus, landing out is better with friends and I wanted to make sure she was OK. So I came in over the powerlines and Summer got to watch me make a nice landing in the dirt too.

We had a good time visiting with the neighbors and waiting for the crews to arrive (thanks Steve, Brian, and Steve) We all got back to the airport and put everything away, then retired to supper where I looked at Summer's trace and let her know that not only had she achieved personal best duration and made her first landout, but had also gotten silver altitude! It was a great day.

Today was a blowout, plus the dewpoints were high and what if any lift was probably not that great. We helped annual the club trainers and then came home. I worked out the analysis on 53T's left wing and the damage to the spar is OK, still have plenty of margin at an 8G Ultimate load. So I am pretty happy about that. We'll just have to smooth out the chewed up area and varnish it. I also trimmed up a piece of birch plywood and epoxied it in place on the bottom of fuselage truss where we made the repairs. All that will be left with that little project is to scarf in a new section of the lower stringer and then varnish everything. So we're pretty excited to get that done with.

Plan for this week is more progress on 53T. It is the only glider in the garage right now. I've also got another rowing shell that needs some fiberglass work.

Unfortunately no lift was to be found

Electricity

2011-05-04T23:50:00.000-05:00

Tonight I finished putting the electrons back in 373Y. The new electric setup features new connections at the battery (goodbye cheap radio shack connectors!) plus entirely replacing the rats nest behind the panel with a slightly more sane setup. Everything is hooked up and powers up nicely when the ship is connected to the battery. The LX 16 vario makes a nice steady tone. The only thing left is to solder the voltmeter into the system but that needs to be done last.

Tomorrow I'll probably take everything out of the panel and get it varnished. There are a few odd screws that I need to find some extras of so that everything is completely attached, plus I can work on finishing up the plumbing.

3Y passed its condition inspection also tonight with no issues so this weekend with any luck we'll fly!

Panel update

2011-05-03T23:25:00.002-05:00

I finished cutting holes for 3Y's instrument panel tonight. Tomorrow I will get the electrons flowing and hopefully Chris will come over and do the condition inspection.

My friend Jerry had a really nice flight today in his Zuni. Check it out: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-1197808315

Hopefully some of that weather is still around this weekend. I'm instructing Saturday but hope to fly 3Y at least on Sunday.

373Y Instrument Panel

2011-05-02T23:54:00.000-05:00

No real progress on 53T over the weekend although I did finish up that Maas 24 rowing shell. Last night I started doing a little work on the new electrical system for 3Y. Mainly last night I removed the old stuff. Tonight I started working on the new stuff which includes a new instrument panel. Decided to see if i could use a piece of the birch plywood for the panel and it seems to do OK. So far just have the winter vario and Oudie in place. Tomorrow I've got to get a bunch of progress done, altimeter and airspeed will go on either side of the Winter and then the radio and audio vario will go below them, on either side of the oudie. area towards the edges will be reserved for master switch, circuit breakers, and voltmeter.

Updates in Cherokee Land

2011-04-28T12:46:00.000-05:00

I've got a Maas 24 rowing shell to get seaworthy, hopefully by this weekend, so no updates on 53T except that the epoxying job from the other night turned out looking nice. I received the electrical goodies for 373Y yesterday so I can look forward to getting some progress made on her too.

There has been quite a bit of activity from the scale model guys on their 1/4 scale Cherokee's. Creeve should be flying his 1/4 scale Cherokee any day now and Dave Smith and Nigel will wait for the Yakima Aerotow event to fly. Here is a picture of Dave's bird. He just got the Cherokee noseart decal added. This is modeled after the nose art on 871Z and 8722E. Looks sharp!

I got an email from Ken Caldwell in Australia a few weeks ago. He had VH-GLU out a few times over the summer down under. He managed to put 10 hours on the bird between rallies at Leeton and the big vintage rally in Bordertown. Ken also made contact with Ron Wingate who was an early member of the Renmark Gliding Club and had a lot of info and pictures of the construction and history of Cherokees GLU and GLV. Ken sent me the letters and pictures, I'll have to work on getting the info posted here. Here is a picture I found online of GLV at the 1967 Australian Nationals:

And here is one of GLU at the rally at the 2011 Bordertown rally.

There are a few other pictures of GLU along with more vintage gliders in the album at http://www.vintageglidersaustralia.org.au/btgallery2011.html

I need more clamps

2011-04-25T22:43:00.000-05:00

Tonight I finished up the scarfs on the gusset pieces and made the cross piece that goes between the side frames just in front of the forward spar of the vertical stabilizer. Then it was a big epoxying party for about 30 minutes. I made to sure to use the slow curing West System this time since I knew I'd need a little time. First on were the gusset pieces which went fairly smoothly and I was able to get enough clamps on them to hold them down I think.

Next I put on the cross piece which was no sweat. Then I had to mix up another batch of epoxy. Third was the tailwheel support. It is a nice tight fit so no clamps required. What a relief to have finally replace the piece that started this saga! I had some more epoxy left so I closed up the back of the vertical stab with the piece of birch. I did remember to put some masking tape over the holes for the rudder hinge bolts so that they don't get epoxied shut. I'll have to locate those holes on the outside and drill through the new plywood and then I can reinstall the hinge.

So the "only" thing left in this section is the bottom piece of plywood that covers the entire area and then finishing off the stringer. So that will be next on the list when I get back to working on 53T. Might take a few days off to make some progress on that boat though.

I did order electrical system supplies for 3Y today so I look forward to getting that by the end of the week.

Here are some pictures from today:

Weekend progress

2011-04-25T12:19:00.000-05:00

Saturday I flew the NG-1on three flights which went really well. Our club had a great currency day with spring checkouts, towpilot checkouts and general currency flying all around. Everything was sled rides although I managed to delay in some zero sink a few times. We did 29 tows for the day, not bad!

Sunday was forecast to be at least overcast and possibly rainy so I started working in the garage in the morning. First thing we did was pull 373Y out of its trailer and get it in the garage. I have some stuff I want to do to it before the season starts. Specifically wire up a new electrical system with tefzel wiring and generally better electrical practices. What I had last year was probably somewhere between cheap and dangerous. I also will probably work out a new instrument panel while I'm at it to accomodate the LX16 Audio Vario and allow space for a dock for the Oudie and Nano. Also will probably switch from cheap radio shack fuses to klix on circuit breakers while I'm at it. I also need to rig up some sort of seat back and probably some under leg support for comfort on long flights. A relief system is also in order after having two 6 hour flights last year. Finally I'd like to get the bubbles on the leading edges of the wings flattened out. Might try to paint the contest ID (YYY) on it while its in the garage. It will be in need of an annual inspection May 1 so I might as well get that taken care of too.

On to 53T, when I cut the scarf for the longerons it ended up cutting into the gussets where the truss comes together under the horizontal attach. So i spent most of the morning working on removing nails and cutting scarfs on that gusset for some new plywood to make it whole again. I was about done doing the glider side of things when Jerry called and said it looked like soaring weather at Sunflower. So we hit the road! I ended up giving Jerry a tow and then Leah and I flew the 2-33 for about 40 minutes until the weather clouded over. We managed to gain about 1000 feet with Leah doing all the flying and had a lot of fun. Back home I started cutting plywood for the gussets. I got the four pieces cut and trimmed and also cut plywood for the plywood piece that goes over the back of the vertical stab. I got the scarfs cut on that piece and one of the gusset pieces before I decided to call it a night.

Nutplates

2011-04-22T23:17:00.000-05:00

The nutplates arrived yesterday for the tailwheel bracket so I went to Harry's this evening to get them riveted onto the backup sheet of steel. That all went very smoothly with no issue. Once home I knew that I was going to epoxy the steel sheet w/nutplates to the wood piece so I figured i should glue some other stuff while I was at it. I spent a little time getting the scarfs cut for the rest of the stringer pieces that I had to remove to do the plywood scarfs last weekend. With everything ready it was time to glue and clamp. Everything is curing now.

Tomorrow is looking like a flying day and I'm planning to get up in the NG-1 for a few flights to practice landings in it. Sunday is looking stormy though so I suspect I'll get more work done in the garage that day. Here are a few pictures from today.

more glueing

2011-04-18T23:21:00.000-05:00

tonight I did some yard work after going for a row with Leah. So we got started in the garage late. Leah did some organizing to make room for 373Y while I worked on drawing out the parts that will make up the tailwheel spring attachment. I'm copying what Dean Gradwell used on 72DG which is a stack that goes something like this:

.063" 4130 sheet
1/2" Spruce
1/4" Steel tailwheel bracket

With 2 1/4" bolts going through and a locking nutplate on the 4130 sheet.

I did get the pieces cut to finish the stringer work but by the time I was finished with that it was getting late so I'll have to get those scarfed in later in the week. Everything is coming together nicely on this tail section. A few more days of progress and it'll be done!

trimming

2011-04-17T23:00:00.000-05:00

This morning I removed the clamps from the plywood and epoxied the longerons in place. It went very easy with no major issues. Spent the rest of the day watching the NASCAR race and raking the yard. Then took off the clamps and the longerons looked great. A little bit of time with the saw and I have the area more or less trimmed up to what it will eventually be. Removed the excess spar and web as well as the extra longeron. The last thing I did tonight was cut the glider side scarfs for the stringer stuff. Tomorrow I'll cut the spruce for those and try to get them glued in place.

I managed to get a wheel/drum brake combo from a friend in our club that should work so I'll have to work out the mounting and a way to activate the brake.

We have discussed and basically decided to replace all the control cables while we have everything opened up. I noticed the Yard Store has galvanized aircraft cable for sale so I need to figure out how much we need and borrow Harry's nicopress tool and go wild with that.

glueing

2011-04-17T00:04:00.000-05:00

The last few days have been busy ones. I stayed up really late last night working on the vertical stab of 53T. The progress made was getting the new longeron pieces matched to the glider scarfs as well as trimmed down so that they taper to match the stringers. Of course I had to remember to leave a gap between the longeron and the spars of 1/8" for the plywood webs. This was a lot of fine tuning so it was time consuming work. But by about 1 AM I had the pieces cut to my satisfaction and was ready for bed.

Leah also worked in the garage for a while last night, although she didn't stay up late like me. Mostly she worked on taking the ailerons off the wing. Getting 45 yr old cotter pins removed from castellated nuts and removing the old nuts and bolts was no easy task. Once she got the aileron off the right wing she called it a night.

By the way she is standing next to my latest rowing shell project, one of the clubs Maas 24's. It is a workhorse boat and has no fewer than 3 cracks in the hull and another couple possible leak points. So I'll be doing plenty of sanding on that in the next week or so and learning some fiberglass work, which will be nice. Earlier this year I replaced a bunch of spruce in the truss of one of the clubs Van Dusen racing singles which was a lot of fun.

Back to 53T, this morning after breakfast I epoxied the front and rear spars in place. They didn't provide any particular challenge although I still managed to glue a few of the clamps to the glider. Thankfully they came off without any trouble or damage.

Most of today was spent finishing up the condition inspection on the NG-1 and assembling and disassembling the NG-1. It was nice to finally get this glider together and get it airworthy. I bought it last summer and am looking forward to having a little more performance. Don't worry 373Y is still my first love and I intend to chase my diamonds in the Cherokee. The NG-1 just might come in handy for things like the KSA Wooden Wings trophy, Kowbell, and of course the SSA Barringer Trophy and Henry Combs award :) Here is the NG-1 in the driveway.

After we got the NG-1 back in the trailer we ran to Harry's to help with the clubs 1-23 project. We were checking the fit of the wings before Harry starts riveting all the skins back on the bird. Thankfully everything fit (whew!) and only minor shimming will get it fitting even better.

Once I got back home I started working on the plywood webs of the vertical stab. Got out the handheld sander and some 50 grit paper and in no time had the glider side of things ready.

I used my piece of birch plywood since my mahogany is on backorder. no worry, the birch is stronger anyway. It didn't take me too long to trim up a piece of wood that was a little oversize for what I needed. Then a little sanding, but a lot of dust, and it was time for epoxy again. Currently everything is out in the garage curing. Tomorrow I'll be ready to epoxy in the longerons as well as scarf in some new stringer material on the right side that i had to remove to accommodate the plywood scarf. There is also a small plate of plywood in front of the vertical stab box beam that i need to replace. Then it will be on to fabricating the tailwheel bracket.

In other news now that the NG-1 is out of the garage I'll start moving 373Y in. Need to get to work rewiring the glider, installing an audio vario, and fixing the bubbles in the leading edge. It will be due for its condition inspection May 1 so I might try to get that done too.

scarfing

2011-04-11T10:27:00.000-05:00

most progress this week was constrained to the lower vertical stabilizer area. The longerons and front and rear spars are cut for their scarf joints. Hopefully tonight I'll have time to start cutting the scarfs on the new wood that arrived last week from aircraft spruce. General order of replacement will be:

Front Spar
Rear Spar
Plywood sides that form the box beam
Miscellaneous stringers etc that have to be removed to accomodate plywood replacement
Longerons
Lower plywood/Keel

Then I'll have to settle on a tailwheel spring and work up a backup structure/nutplate assembly that will epoxy to the bottom end of the vertical stab box beam. And it will all get drain holes!

I also removed the main wheel this week. I might have mentioned before but the main wheel on 53T did not have a wheel brake. That will change. I'm currently researching options for installing a brake. I'll need to get a new axle made as the old one had a nice bend in it.

I still need to remember to get measurements on the mouse damage in the left wing so we can do the calculations to determine the best course of action there. Hopefully tonight.

some pictures

2011-04-04T23:32:00.000-05:00

Here are a few shots of the lower Vertical Stab area on 53T. I did some more cleanup and started cutting the scarf on the right lower longeron tonight. Will keep on working on getting the scarfs cut until the wood shows up. Leah did some cleanup on the right wing, found a little more mouse damage, joy.

short update

2011-04-04T09:33:00.000-05:00

time for an update. We had to be out of our apartment by thursday night so we didn't have much time this last week to get any work done on 53T. I did manage to get the heat working in the garage on friday night, just in time for 80 and 90 degree weather. We spent all day Saturday and a little Sunday morning trimming trees at the house and weren't ready to be productive again until late afternoon Sunday. I did get the rest of the water damaged wood removed from the lower part of the vertical stab and mapped out most of the scarf joints that I will need. This should be fun, longerons will be scarfed up into the gusset below the horizontal. Hopefully I won't have to remove much or any of that gusset but time will tell. The forward vertical spar is going to be a challenge to work on from an access standpoint since it is inside the fuselage truss. the scarf on the aft vertical spar will be long enough that i'll have to re-drill the holes for the rudder hinge but that should be manageable.

Ordered wood and fabric from Aircraft Spruce last night. Tonight I hope to remove some more plywood from the bottom to accommodate the longeron scarfs and maybe start cutting the scarf joints for the glider side of things. Also need to get good measurements on the wing damage and clean up the other wing.

Pictures hopefully tonight.

Progress this Week

2011-03-25T22:42:00.000-05:00

Well I did manage to get some work done this week on 53T. Most of the progress was in the department of sanding and filling and more sanding. As mentioned before I put some filler in a few spots on the stringers where we had pulled a little wood up with the fabric. Hey I guess we just got a little excited tearing off the fabric. Other places that needed some help were on the wing center section and the coaming around the cockpit. The epoxy filler (best guess) that was originally used to fillet the transition from the wing to fuselage had gotten soft in a few places and was pretty easy to chip away. I removed everything that seemed to want to be removed and filled in the gaps with Super-Fill. The coaming around the cockpit is skinned with Balsa and seemed to have had some sort of epoxy coat over top of it that had chipped off in large areas when removing the fabric. This also happened on the balsa leading edges on the wing roots. Anyway I used some super fill in those places too to fill in the holes and keep everything as smooth as possible. There also is a fairly large area on the right wing root that is sort of flat on top. It had a bunch of filler there before, some of which came up with the fabric. So I slopped a bunch of super fill on there in hopes of building it up to a more appropriate wing profile. Here are a bunch of pictures of various areas in various states of fill.

Visited with a few of the experts about the left wing this week. Basically there are two options. Option 1 is to get good measurements on the material that was removed and then figure out the bending stresses through that area using good conservative assumptions. At max weight and max G if we still have a positive margin on the spar then we'll just smooth it out, varnish, and carry on. Odd's are this will be the case, I think.

Of course if that is not the case then the only option is to scarf the spar with new spruce. The repair would look something like this:

That is easy enough, the problem is getting to the spar. To do that I'd have to cut out three bays of leading edge skin, remove at least a couple sets of cross members, and take out at least a few ribs. Then scarf the spar and put everything back together. Not impossible of course. Harry and Neal have and will continue to do much more complicated repairs. It's not really anything that I think is outside my abilities either, but i'm not so excited to test those skills that I'm looking for an excuse. So, hopefully tomorrow I can get some good measurements and start crunching numbers, then go from there.

I spent some time last night doing some more looking around the tail area and trying to visualize and determine the best strategy for the repair before I got too crazy and cutting wood. I think I have a plane so the next thing I do on the fuselage will probably be to remove the aft bit of each lower longeron along with the lower part of each beam on the vertical stabilizer and some of the plywood sides of the box spar. Here are a couple pictures of how that area looks now. I used some rough chisel work previously to remove the bad portion of the aft beam and plywood cover on the aft side as well as the plywood along the inside of the lower longerons.

That's all for now. Tomorrow is supposed to be club cleanup day at the Gliderport and if we make it out there I plan to return with 373Y. However the forecast is looking pretty crummy so we'll see if it happens. The temperature is down for the weekend and beginning of next week but I think I will have the heater operational tomorrow at some point which is fantastic! Of course then I'll need to finish a few spots of sheetrock and insulation in the ceiling and walls.

One step forward, two steps back

2011-03-20T21:17:00.000-05:00

Well we got a great day of work in on 53T today. We moved the glider over to the new garage on Friday but yesterday we didn't have a chance to get any work done out there. It was cold, rainy, and windy. However the wind flipped around to the south today and brought 80 degree temps that could not be resisted!

My first order of business was to get the new top stringer installed. The old one was removed as it was pretty warped and generally made the glider look lousy. We ripped a new piece a few weeks ago off a long board of Douglas Fir. It didn't take too long to get it trimmed to shape to fit nicely into the glider.

I worked out a scheme to get the important parts clamped into place. Harry and Sue stopped by to look over some stuff on the NG-1. So that was a bit of a delay as we got one of the NG-1 wings unloaded from its trailer and did some inspecting. Then I got back to work epoxying the stringer into place. It went very smoothly with no real issues. I could tell it was a lot warmer as my cup of epoxy started curing very quickly! I'm not used to that after working with the West System in colder weather. Guess I might have to go get some slower hardener...

Here the epoxy has cured, Leah is in the background cleaning all the dirt and grime out of the left wing. It was a job that was really needed and greatly appreciated. With some water and Murphy soap the wood is looking brand new! We did find some additional damage from the mice nest that was in the left wing however. In wing bays 12, 13, and 14 there is damage to the forward spar. Apparently mice have a taste for aircraft quality spruce.

We are not Mickey fans around this house. We much prefer Goofy since he was a glider pilot.

So here are some pics of the damage. Will have to check with the local experts on the best repair route for this. Might have to remove the skin and do some scarfing. We'll see.

This is the damage in Bay 14

Bay 13

and Bay 12

Other work accomplished today was hanging the tail from the ceiling which will make it a lot easier for me to remove the rotten wood back there. Leah did get the left wing cleaned up really well which is great. I also did a bunch of cleaning up and sanding where the center section meets the fuselage. I also added some poly-fil filler to a couple stringers that had gotten damaged when we removed the fabric. I'll be doing more poly-fil work to fillet the intersection between the wing root and fuselage in the next couple days. Other main short term goals are to get the rotten wood cleaned out of the tail and get the right wing cleaned up.

The blog should be much more active now that the glider is here at the house, so keep checking back for updates!

More Scale stuff and update

2011-03-14T11:42:00.000-05:00

Well there hasn't been a lot of Cherokee related happenings in my life lately. We've been slowly working on finishing up the garage. I still need to get about 3/4 of the insulation in the ceiling and some in the walls. Big thing remaining is to get a propane tank set up and hooked up to the heater. We are hoping to get 53T moved over anyway this week though and start to get to work. It's starting to warm up and going to be in the 60's and 70's later this week.

More updates from the 1/3 scale Cherokee guys. First up is Creeve's (Charlie) from rcgroups.com. His bird is covered and he's working on trim work. Turns out he is modelling Gary Flandro's full size Cherokee which is the bird that was for sale on Craigslist. 8722E if I remember right. It will have the full dress indian chief nose art and also a baby albatross style paint job on the rudder.

Here is a picture of the rudder on Gary's full size Cherokee. Looks cool! I can't wait to get more pictures from Gary. He reports that he has gotten the wings recovered and is working on painting everything.

Nigel has also been hard at work on his 1/3 model. He's modelling the New Zealand Cherokee. Looking good!

1/3 Scale Cherokee's

2011-02-25T16:26:00.000-06:00

Just saw the other day on rcgroups.com that Dave Smith's 1/3 scale Cherokee is ready to be covered. He's not the only one, either. Nigel (monocoupe110) and Charlie (Creeve) both seem to be ready to cover theirs too. Can't wait to see how these turn out! Nigel is modelling his after the New Zealand Cherokee ZK-GBT. Not sure about the other guys.

Dave's:

Nigel's:

Garage progress

2011-02-21T10:03:00.000-06:00

Yesterday Jerry came over and helped hang the heater. "All" it needs now is a gas line. i managed to get 5 more rolls of insulation up on the walls the other night, that job is probably about 3/4 done. I'm hoping to go get Leah's trailer tonight after work so I can get sheet rock and insulation for the ceiling. Need to get the outlets in the rafters wired before I totally close things up up there. So, making progress!

Insulation

2011-02-14T09:41:00.000-06:00

Leah and I spent most of the Saturday moving furniture and other odds and ends into the new house, with the help of a few friends. On Sunday the weather was great so in the afternoon we went to Lowe's for a few more supplies and another truck load of insulation and then got to work with the staplers.

The heater will likely go in the NW corner of the garage. That is also where the breaker box is at so any electrical work will require leaving that area open. So we started on the south wall. We were about through the first three rolls when Harry and Sue showed up so we visited with them for a while and showed them the house. Then back to work for another hour and finish up the second set of 3 rolls. Leah was impressed at how quickly it went up!

Tonight we'll keep working along the west wall and maybe around the garage doors on the east wall. Tuesday and Wed. I have other plans and am hoping to get some electrical work done in the rafters on Thursday.

Here is Leah showing off our progress:

SSA Conference Report

2011-02-02T13:24:00.000-06:00

Leah and I had a really good time at the SSA Conference in Philly. We arrived late Thursday and met up with our "Flying Turtle" friends. We spent most of the daytime sampling the presentations available and catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. Lunch with the WSPA on Saturday was a lot of fun. Highlights for me was the presentation by Penn State students about their human powered airplane project. Incredible! I also enjoyed Dan Armstrong's talk about Low Cost Soaring, mainly focusing on low cost launch methods, primarily auto tow. Had a really nice chat with Dan later about his various airplane projects.

I managed to snag two awards at the membership meeting on Friday. One was for being the most active SSA Instructor in Region 10. The other was for being the 3rd most active SSA Instructor nationwide. I am really proud of that and proud of the students in my club who put in the effort to earn their badges.

The banquet on Saturday was, as always, a blast. Good food and good friends. The keynote speaker talked about the history of glider flight attempts, leading up to the Wright's glider and powered flight and continuing on as sailplane design developed to a point where true soaring was regularly possible. The videos he showed of early glider replicas flying (and sometimes crashing) and the shots from his flights in a Wright 1902 glider and the 1903 flyer were fantastic.

The awards given on Saturday night are always a highlight for me. Francois Pin won the Hatcher Trophy. The Barringer Trophy went (again) to Mike Koerner. I'm going to have to start giving Mike a run for his money! I think this is the 10th year Mike has won it, good job! There were several certificates handed out for exceptional achievement. I don't think there were too many dry eyes in the house when Chris O'Callaghan received a standing ovation for his posthumous award.

The finale of the evening was the presentation of the Warren Eaton trophy. This is the SSA's highest award and this year went to Burt Compton. We were all really proud of Burt. He's been around gliders since he was an infant and his dad won the Eaton trophy in 1948.

We had a bit of a SNAFU on our flight back which resulted in spending the evening with friends in Cincinnati. But we made it home on Monday just in time for the winter storm to hit. Today we closed on our house (yippee!). Hopefully next week we can start getting the garage ready to work in. So we might have a short break from direct progress on 53T but once it's ready hopefully we can make a lot of progress quickly.

Cutting wood

2011-01-25T20:46:00.000-06:00

I got a chance to get about an hour and half of work in on 53T this evening. It went pretty well, I put my newly sharpened chisels to work. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures but will try to get some tomorrow.

The main problem with the glider is there was no drain hole back in the bottom of the tail in the fuselage. This is where the vertical stabilizer spar meets the bottom of the fuselage. So there is plenty of water damage around the lower longerons and the box spar of the vertical stab. So tonight I started cutting out the wood and plywood that is bad. I've got more work to do there, then will have to figure out scarf lengths and get new wood to replace the rotted stuff.

It's supposed to warm up this week but of course we're headed to Philly for the SSA Conference. Hopefully next week will be warm too. Leah and I close on a house next Monday and will start slowly moving in. It has a 36 x 36 garage that I need to get insulated and heated, which should accelerate my work on our various projects. We have the restore/recover of 53T and the cedar strip canoe. I've also adopted a refurbishing project on one of the rowing clubs singles. Its a 1976 Van Dusen. The wood frame had cracks in a few places and was warped in others. So that will mainly just be a cut out and replace job and then put a new cover on it.

More progress

2011-01-18T11:34:00.000-06:00

Last night it was a balmy 44 degrees in the garage so Leah and I did a little work. The main thing I did was cut out the top stringer on the fuselage. It had warped between its supports from years of doped fabric shrinking down on it so we decided to replace it with a nice straight piece of wood. It came out pretty cleanly, just a little work with a chisel and i should be ready to glue in a new piece.

I also went around identifying areas that need our attention and marking them with tape so we don't forget about them. There are a few stringers that got damaged when we got a little too excited removing the fabric. The lower longerons are covered with a quarter round piece of balsa to give the fabric something smooth to slide over and in a few places this got torn up too. There is one support between the lower stringer and the fuselage truss that is no longer attached to the truss which will need re-epoxied.

There is one stick on the root rib of the left wing that needs re-epoxied. The rest of the left wing looks good as far as we've been able to see. On the right wing I found some issues around the airbrake area. The airbrakes are sprung shut on the Cherokee and the spring that does this runs from the bottom of the airbrake to the bottom of the rib that runs through that area. On 53T there was actually two small springs providing this resistive force which made it difficult to impossible to completely open the brakes. I'm going to use this to excuse my long landings when i flew the glider. Anyway with that extra force, the rib started to twist over the years and broke the glue joints to a couple of the vertical stabilizing pieces that span the rib. so that are will need some re-gluing. The right wing does not show any issues in this area so that is good.

The only other issue with the glider is the rot at the bottom aft end of the fuselage which I think I've already written about that.

I have some pictures but they're still on the camera, will try to get them uploaded soon.

In other news Leah and I are getting close to closing on a 36 x 36 garage with detached house. Should make a great workspace for the gliders. Especially after it gets heat! We will be at the SSA Convention in Philadelphia at the end of the month so if you're planning on attending let me know, we're looking forward to a good time catching up with soaring friends.

I bought an Oudie this winter and an LX Nano flight recorder. High technology for an old glider but I think it will be well worth it. I was flying with a loan Cambridge 20 GPS last season which was great. I loved having the GPS display and having the flight logs after each flight for analysis and posting on the OLC. Not to mention being able to turn in the logs for my Gold Distance and Altitude. I've got Diamonds on the mind now so having an IGC logger was a must and the Nano seems to be a great value. It can interface to the Oudie for a really compact and portable system. I just got the Oudie hooked up to my old PC a few days ago and have been playing around on Condor soaring simulator with it to learn the ins and outs.

Still trying to determine what I want to do this summer. I'd like to fly 373Y in a regional contest somewhere. The closest so far is in Moriarty, NM but the dates conflict with previous plans so I won't be able to make that one. Hopefully something will turn up in Texas. Otherwise I'm kind of thinking about going to a ridge camp in Jasper, TN in late March and then returning to Chilhowee for the Region 5 contest in September. Also will probably spend Memorial Day at Ulysses again (perhaps ground crewing for Leah in 53T if it's done) and also might try to take 53T to the Vintage Nationals in Lawrenceville, IL in June, once again if it is complete. So, we'll just have to see how the schedule plays out.

Back!

2011-01-04T10:05:00.000-06:00

Leah and I have returned from the great white north where we had an enjoyable holiday vacation. Leah's gift to me was a couple of photos of N373Y on canvas frames, looks really nice! Hopefully tonight I'll be back to work sanding on N4653T.

In other updates...

There is a nice article by Jim Schafer about the restoration of N10124 in the Bungee Cord which I just received yesterday. Some great pictures are also included. Need to join the VSA to receive this great full color newsletter? Click here

I received some pictures and a little info on the current status of N86693, built by Peter Newgard. I'll try to get the Roll Call updated soon.

The SSA rolled out the new online sailplane directory over the holidays! I love it! One of these evenings I'll have to upload a bunch of pictures under the Cherokee II entry and I also plan to send in the polar that I developed from flight testing N373Y. Check it out at http://www.ssa.org/sailplanedirectory/

Wings open

2010-12-08T22:25:00.000-06:00

Today was relatively warm so Leah and I got back to work. The knifes came out and the fabric started flying. All in all the wings look good. Bud Brown used a solid trailing edge about 2" wide which is showing minimal warping. I don't think its enough for me to bother trying to get it any straighter. He also obviously spent a lot of time with (probably) epoxy filler on the leading edges and sanding to get them very smooth.

We did find a good size mouse nest in the left wing but it didn't appear there was much damage associated with it. This wasn't completely surprising as we had found some evidence of mice during the condition inspection last summer. But the good news is these wings won't require much more than some sanding and a little wood sealant before they are ready to cover again!

News from Oz

2010-12-01T12:32:00.001-06:00

Ken Caldwell emailed me the other day bringing to my attention that there is Cherokee news to report from down under. The Australian Vintage Times newsletter reports that Cherokee VH-GLV has been purchased by Peter Raphael who is working to get it re-registered and airworthy again. I'll update GLV's roll call post with more info from the article but I was impressed to see that it has over 1300 hrs on it. This very well could be the highest time Cherokee II in the world.

Ken also sent some pictures from the 1966/67 Australian Nationals in which -GLV competed. I'll put the story from the competition on the roll call post. Thanks Ken!

Fabric off 53T's Fuselage

2010-11-29T22:05:00.000-06:00

Tonight Leah and I spent a little time in the garage (a balmy 44 deg F inside) and got pretty much all the fabric off the fuselage. All in all it looks to be in good shape. There is one stand off between the truss and the lower stringer that needs reglued to the truss. Also there are a few stringers that suffered a little damage when we got a little to carried away tearing off fabric. Should be no problem repairing that. The only other thing I noticed is that the epoxy filler that was originally used to fillet the intersection between the wing and fuselage managed to turn to a pretty weak powder over the years. Pulling the fabric off managed to pull up some of that so I see a little Super Fil in our future.

Oh one other thing, I managed to bust off the tailwheel spring and the support and backing block. It appeared that there was no drain hole back there in the tail and based on the look of things it had gotten some water in there. So we'll have to rebuild that and come up with a new tailwheel setup. I didn't really like the other one anyway.

Pictures!

First cut on 53T

2010-11-23T09:46:00.001-06:00

Well last night Leah got out the knife and cut out the N numbers on 53T. We stopped by the frame store and will be getting them framed. One for our wall and the other will go to the builder, Bud Brown. We also did this on 373Y with William Ree. Unfortunately we were busy last night getting ready for the Thanksgiving holiday so we didnt have time to get much more destructive. However the wood that I could see in the tail looked like it was in great shape which is always really encouraging. Probably next week we'll take the rest of the fabric off the fuselage at least.

4653T in the garage

2010-11-22T09:39:00.000-06:00

Leah and I got a lot of work done this weekend. On Saturday we started with 2 11" wide and ~20 ft long planks of cedar and by 10 PM we had 1300 feet of 1/4" thick 1" wide cedar strips with nice bead and cove edges. Sunday we spent a few hours cleaning out the garage and generally making some more room. Leah's whitewater canoe was lifted up to the rafters and we unloaded a few loads of garbage. I built a simple shelf along one wall for the cedar and then we moved 4653T inside. We also removed the gliders rudder so that the door will shut! Then it was back out to Harry's with the trailer to get the cedar. Hopefully tonight we can at least make a few cuts on the glider and get a look inside before the Thanksgiving holiday.

Paint Scheme

2010-11-18T09:16:00.000-06:00

Leah and I started discussing paint schemes for 53T yesterday. She took a look through my list of Cherokees and decided she liked a two tone scheme. I found a copy of Martin Simon's 3 view on retroplane.net and started playing around with different colors. Our current favorite is this Forest Green/Ivory combo with the two tone fuselage and opposite colors on the wings.

Leah's flight report

2010-11-18T08:59:00.000-06:00

Leah posted this on the WSPA forum.

First Flight- Monday November 15, 2010

For insurance reasons I have had to wait until I have my certificate before being able to fly Triple Tango. Not only was Monday's flight my first flight in a single seater but it was also my first solo flight in a glider besides the SGS 2-33. As fall is finally starting to catch up with Kansas I wanted to squeeze in a flight with my glider before the end of the season. She has mostly been sitting in the hangar gathering dust. Tony has flown her a few times along with our friend Pete at the Wichita Vintage Sailplane Association Rally and Tony's former student Luke, but mostly she has been patiently been waiting for me to be ready to begin our partnership.

I was hoping to get my first flight with her in on Sunday but Tony and I arrived back in Wichita from Kansas City a little later than we had planned. We did get in some incipient spin training in the Cessna 150 as Triple Tango has a tendancy of dropping her left wing when stalled. Cherokee II's in general have a reputation for spins so it was really important that I got some extra training besides what spin entries we could coax out of the 2-33. Future plans include my getting some more training in a Lark sailplane with a friend who is an aerobatic pilot (and future CFIG student of Tonys....I get to be his guinea pig).

On Monday I was able to line-up a tow pilot and Tony agreed to run my wing. First we had to empty out all the other gliders out of the hangar as Triple Tango was WAAAYYY in the back. After the extrication we got to work dusting her off so she would look good in front of the cameras I then performed a pre-flight and positive control check of Triple Tango. Tony performed my ground check out by introducing me to the cockpit controls. He then lifted up the tail to show me what attitude to expect from the glider upon landing. He positioned the glider with the tail on the ground, and with the nose on the ground as well. We then had to figure out the best place to position my ballast. I was too tall with it in the configuration I use in the 2-33 with ballast (could not close the canopy). At 5'4" I never thought that I would be considered to be tall! The problem was solved by spreading out the weights and by removing the cushion under my "seat". While I felt a bit like the Princess and the Pea I was able to get full control movement, and the canopy shut!

I was fairly nervous. Ultimately after enjoying myself sitting in Triple Tango on the ground Tony asked if I was ready. Truly the answer was that I was as ready as I'll ever be. I felt like I had under gone all the preparations that I needed too and that I would not be completely ready until after the towplane started up with me in the glider. Tony stressed that I was going to lift off sooner than I would in the 2-33. He warned me that the pitch in Cherokee II's is more sensitive and that once I initially ballooned up I needed to level off there instead of trying to drop back down and risk PIO. Sure enough I popped up right away (even Tony was surprised) but I am proud to say that I managed to follow directions and leveled off without PIOing (is that a term?).

Next I was surprised at how smoothly it flew on tow. The conditions were calm and there were not any thermals working, but it did not really require much pressure from me on the stick to keep it in position. In fact it was a bit unnerving to just calmly sit there with the feeling that I should be doing more but I managed to just let the glider fly and did not over control too much Tony told me to take a 3,000 ft tow and even with our 4:30 arrival at the gliderport, I knew that the maturing daylight was only going to allow me this one flight. Typically I take either 1,000 ft pattern tows or 2,000 ft tows so I felt really far up @ 3,000 ft. I released (which was interesting in and of itself as the release has very little movement compared to the yellow knob in the 2-33) and made a smooth turn to the right.

Through out most of the flight I had to remind myself to relax. I was on my best piloting behavior and trying to do such a good job that I kept unconsciously tensing up. I just had to remind myself that I can fly gliders and that Triple Tango was just another glider. I worked on dutch rolls to get a feel for how she coordinated. Next I did some medium banked turns. Then while I still had the altitude I knew that I had to do some stalls. I am not a huge fan of practicing stalls in general. I know that it is an important thing to do, but there is just something in my nature that cringes inside every time I start to pitch up into a stall. My body is screaming that the nose is too high up but my brain has to reassure myself that I am aware of this and that it is intentional and then continue to pitch up. This time this feeling was intensified by the knowledge that I also had to be prepared for a wing to drop and to react to that. I did two stalls in a row. I did not stare at the airspeed indicator the entire time but the last time I looked before the stall, the needle was dropping under 30 mph. Sure enough as expected my left wing dropped once I reached the stall point. As soon as I felt/saw the wing drop I relaxed my back pressure and kicked in opposite rudder. I did not really give the wing the opportunity to develop any where near as sharp as in the C-150 but still I am proud of my reflexes.

After stalls I made a conscious effort to slow my descent rate by slowing my airspeed down. While I was expecting that the quieter travel through the air (Tony had me open both air vents so I would have some noise) compared with the 2-33 I was flying closer to 60 mph so I dropped it down to 45 mph as after all I did not stall until below 30 mph. I then did some slower flight maneuvering. After this I figured I needed to practice slips. Stan Hall is known to have said that if he had to opportunity to design the Cherokee II over again he would have extended the air brakes out another rib. The air brakes are not very effective, Tony says they mostly just change the sound, so most landings are reliant on slips.

This is where I made the first error of my flight (that I remember of course). While practicing slips, I focused more on the direction that my nose was pointing along with my track over the ground and not enough on my rate of descent while in the slip. This error was made apparent when I set myself up to land. I have a history of coming in a bit high and so landing a bit on the fast side. I set up the perfect pattern for either myself in the 2-33 for a no spoiler landing with wind....or myself in the 2-33 for a no wind, spoiler landing. Unfortunately neither of those conditions was the Cherokee II with no wind and weak spoilers. I realized that I was high when I turned to final and I just kept floating. I usually try to be around tree height when I pass over the road at the North end of the runway, and I was way above that. The only thing I could do was just to keep my slip in. When I transitioned from the slip to the flair I majorly ballooned upwards as the runway was rushing by underneath of me and I knew that I just had to keep burning off energy. In fact I was a little bummed that I hit tail wheel first (I was trying to land low energy/keep the flair) as this was something that Tony and I went over. Once on the ground I opened to full airbrakes (which I should have done sooner) to engage the wheel brake and let the glider drop to the nose skid. All told I had maybe 100 or so feet (Ok Tony says I had a few hundred feet left but to me it felt like I only had 2 ft left so 100 ft is the compromise) left of the runway before it went into the weeds.

While I was a little frustrated about my poor landing (I was just verifying how long it was) I tried not to let that deter me too much from the rest of my flight which was fantastic! I could see the lights on over town which was pretty and the quiet solitude that I was up there with just myself and Triple Tango. This feeling was more pronounced than when I have flown the 2-33 solo. I did see 2 airplanes, one of which was a jet, a bit closer to me than I prefer (of course there would be traffic on my first Cherokee II flight) which made me more alert but there was plenty of room between us. Overall I walked away from the flight with a sense of what I need to work on once spring arrives. I plan on taking Triple Tango out to the 7,000 ft long Sunflower Gliderport and see many pattern tows to work on landings in my future This of course will only take place once Triple Tango has had her winter make-over completed. After recovering Tony's N373Y last winter, it is now N4653T's turn to have her 1964 original fabric replaced. I am hoping to have her ready for flight by mid April when we will continue to get to know each other.

-Leah

Leah flies N4653T

2010-11-16T07:01:00.000-06:00

We've had 4653T for over a year now and really haven't done much flying with it. I have done a few high tows in it and Luke did his one flight in it but other than that it has been doing a lot of sitting and waiting. It has mainly been waiting for Leah to get her private certificate since the insurance company required a private pilot to fly the glider. Well on Saturday she passed her test so yesterday we got out of work early and headed to the Wichita Gliderport. Long story short Leah got one good flight in before sunset and landed with a smile! I'll try to get her to write up a report of the flight soon.

Now that she has flown it, 53T will go back in the trailer tonight and sometime this week we will probably start cutting fabric off it for its recover this winter.

Gold Badge approved!

2010-10-21T11:54:00.002-05:00

My name just popped up on the SSA's website today. My Gold Altitude made it through and hopefully soon I'll be receiving Gold Badge #2599. Yippee! Now on to Diamonds...

End of the Season?

2010-10-18T15:26:00.001-05:00

I had 373Y out at Sunflower on Saturday to make our attempt at the "Last Man Down" contest this weekend. Lift was weak but I did manage a 500 ft gain after release and then delayed settling back down long enough to get a 40 minute flight in. I wasn't last to land however but so be it. My former student Summer was very happy that she was able to stay higher than me in the club Ka6. She also took off before me and landed after me. Good job Summer! I remember when I first outclimbed my instructor, it was (and still is) a great feeling.

Here is 373Y on the ramp at Sunflower. Steve Leonard standing by noting takeoff and landing times for the contest.

This very well could be the end of our thermal season here in Kansas although i hope to perhaps take a trip or two to Talihina, OK this winter for some ridge soaring.

Winter projects are shaping up as follows for us:

1) Complete our cedar strip canoe
2) Recover 4653T
3) Touch up work on 373Y

Generally in that order, too. Leah is nearly ready for her Private Glider checkride and we hope to get her a flight or two in 4653T before it goes under the knife.

373Y has a fair amount of battle scars from a good season of soaring. I think I have about 46 hours on her this year. Scratches here and there mainly from trailer rash. Also I've noticed some bubbling on the leading edges. Consulting with Doug Stewart seems to indicate the technique I used to attach the fabric probably shrunk and partially sealed the fabric and didn't allow the glue to completely penetrate through, causing air bubbles to form. good news is some time with some glue in a syringe should take care of them.

I received the following pictures from Jeff Stringer. This is 871Z, built by Bill Miller and owned at the time by Len McClain, founding member of the VSA. Len added the Cherokee nose art to 871Z. Pictures appear to be from Harris Hill, I suspect during a VSA Rally.

That is the same nose art as 8722E. 871Z also had a clear finish on the wings at this time, which you can see in these photos.

In other excellent Cherokee news, 10124 has flown! 10124 is the original Cherokee RM, built by Terry Miller and the Ree Brothers. The Ree's also built my 373Y. Den Barton, Bungee Cord editor, has been working for the last year or so restoring 10124. New fabric and paint and a sport canopy has been added. I'm still waiting for a detailed account of Den's flight(s) and will post if I hear anything. It looks GREAT!

In RM related news, Matt Colclasure is working away on 1073. Now 1073 isn't an RM but Matt is facing having to rebuild the wing so is interested in the idea of maybe making it into an RM. He did manage to get ahold of Terry Miller but Terry has no plans sets for the conversion. He did give Matt as much info about it as he could remember however. If anyone out there has a set of RM plans please let me know!

Update

2010-10-11T13:22:00.000-05:00

It's been a few weeks so I figured I'd post an update. I haven't flown 373Y since the Vintage rally. I did think about flying on Sunday but the weather had other ideas. I got as far as pulling the fuselage out of the trailer, getting the battery and GPS loaded up, along with cushions and parachute, and then watched the high cirrus build thicker and thicker. Back in the trailer it went. Later in the afternoon it started raining.

The last I heard from Den Barton N10124, the original Cherokee RM, is very close to being ready to fly. A few weeks ago I talked to him about weight and balance. I can't wait to hear about the first flight and get some pictures of the bird completely assembled. The pictures that I've received so far and shared here look absolutely gorgeous.

Gary Flandro is working away on N8722E. The trailing edges had gotten warped thanks to years of shrinking fabric doing their work. Pretty common issue on an old wood glider so he is putting in new trailing edges that will be a bit stronger.

Matt Colclasure has been working like mad on N1073, aka "Stinky". After some inspection it was pretty obvious that all of the glue joints on the fuselage were suspect at best. While most of us would've had a bonfire at that point Matt carefully deconstructed the fuselage and is now working on regluing all the joints with new gussets. It appears that originally the bird had Resorcinol glue but after years of languishing either the glue had gone bad or the wood around the joint had gone bad. Either way Matt is cleaning up all the joints, making new gussets, and re-gluing using West epoxy. From what I hear so far he has one of the fuselage sides put back together and is making gussets for the other side, then He'll have to tie the two sides together and continue to build back up the stringers and everything. I'm going to try to get up there to see him sometime and get some pictures of his progress. It looks like the wings are going to need the same attention. Matt is currently pondering the idea of rebuilding the old wings or just building a new set from scratch. He's particularly interested (and so am I) in learning more about the Cherokee RM wing. If anyone out there has any information on where a set of plans might be for the RM wing please let me know at abcondon@gmail.com

A few more pictures

2010-09-28T12:43:00.000-05:00

Lee Cowie sent me these. That's Summer Gajewski running my wing. She just got her private glider and started flying the club Ka-6.

More VSA pictures

2010-09-27T07:19:00.000-05:00

Jim Short's 1-21 and Dave Schuur's Ka-6E

Scott William's SHK. What a gorgeous glider!

My Cherokee, Leah's Cherokee, and Neal Pfeiffer's Ka-6E. The Morelli is hiding behind my Cherokee.

Morelli starting to be derigged Sunday

On Saturday after the rain we flew some free flight models. Here Robert Pfeiffer launches a model while I watch. In the background Steve Leonard is about to launch his towline model. We had a ton of fun flying these models until sunset.

Flying on Saturday was decent early but an approaching cold front shut things down by mid afternoon with solid overcast skies. I did a couple of orientation flights in the 2-33 and then launched in 373Y. By the time I launched it was pretty much solid overcast but I did manage to finda few nibbles of lift. I gaggled briefly with Lee in the ASK-18 and Jim in the 1-21. Should've stayed with them as I set out to find something else but they stuck with it and climbed up. I landed and by then it was time to start loading glider in the hangars as rain was coming.

Sunday was low overcast in the morning so we spent the morning getting the visiting gliders loaded in trailers and saying goodbyes. I did end up giving an intro flight in the 2-33 in the afternoon which lasted an hour. Bob Holliday had a good flight in his Duster and Matt C got out the club Ka-6Cr and managed a 2 hour flight. Both of those guys were pretty cold when they landed!

I got Pete off to the airport and then Matt and I put 373Y in the trailer. It was a great weekend!

VSA Friday

2010-09-24T22:42:00.000-05:00

We all had a blast today. Not much soaring going on but it seems that most everyone got a flight or two in. Spent the morning assembling gliders and slow but steady tows through the afternoon. Here is what is on the field as best as I can remember

Ka6CR - Neal Pfeiffer
Ka6E - Neal Pfeiffer
Ka6E - Dave Schuur
Ka6CR - Wichita Soaring Association
ASK-18 - Lee and Mary Cowie
2 Cherokee II's - Tony Condon
Morelli - Morelli gang from Lawrenceville, IL
Duster - Bob Holliday
Std. Cirrus - Harry Clayton
Schweizer 1-21 - Jim Short
SHK - Scott from Norman, OK

I think thats about it for now. Hopefully a few more will show up tomorrow.

I got a 25 minute flight in 373Y with a 200 foot gain. Pete VonTresckow came down from Madison and we were hoping to get him up in 4653T. Unfortunately he does not fit so instead he flew 373Y! Had a great flight, also about 25 minutes. I'll have to get him to post a report when he gets a chance.

Here are a few pictures.

Jim's 1-21 and Neal's Ka6Cr

1-21, Ka6CR, and Cherokee II

Vintage Pilots

373Y after a nice day of flying

VSA Rally this weekend

2010-09-23T12:38:00.000-05:00

Well the annual VSA rally starts today here in Wichita. Supposed to blow like hell and rain all afternoon though so I doubt I'll miss much. Pete is showing up tonight from Madison and tomorrow I'll probably send him up in 4653T. I'll be flying 373Y and likely giving a talk summarizing the 2010 season on Saturday morning. Not looking like a lot of soaring to be had but certainly plenty of fun. I'll be sure to report back here and post pictures when i get them.

Portales, NM pictures

2010-09-08T17:45:00.000-05:00

Here is where I stopped rolling:

Sunset as we derig:

Gilbert and I. Gilbert was a great help in helping me find a way into the field, getting Leah the right directions, and derigging.

Gold Altitude

2010-09-08T09:35:00.002-05:00

Here is the flight report that I typed up for a few other forums. I still need to get pictures off the camera, hopefully tonight. The flight ended up being good for 7th place in the US on OLC and so far it is the highest scoring flight flown from Littlefield this year!

---

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 headed 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.

Gold!

2010-09-06T22:32:00.000-05:00

Just a short note tonight. Full report will come tomorrow.

Leah and I pulled 373Y to Littlefield, TX on Saturday. Sunday we flew with the Caprock Soaring Club. I made it 2/3 around an FAI 300km triangle, landed out in Portales, NM. I also managed to climb to about 15,000 feet MSL which is the highest 373Y and I have ever been and was good enough for Gold Altitude, to complete my Gold Badge.

OLC trace:
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-366913198

Fleet update and weekend plans

2010-08-29T15:08:00.000-05:00

Some exciting news in the Cherokee world in the last few weeks, at least to me! First there was a Cherokee listed for sale on craigslist a few weeks ago in Dahlonega, GA. Turns out this was N8722E. Here are some pictures from the ad for it.

N8722E has quite a history including being involved in 2 accidents in the late 60's/early 70's. In fact I didn't even know the glider was still out there as the last NTSB report showed it as destroyed. However it was rebuilt in the 80's and passed around a bit. Now it is owned by Gary Flandro and he is working on giving it a good inspection and going over before he gets it back in the air. It'll be great to see another Cherokee II flying! I"ll be sure to update 8722E's entry on the roll call post.

N1073, aka Stinky, has been living in my garage for the last 6 months or so. This glider was rescued from a hangar in Maryland. It needs a bit of work as the glue joints for the stringers on the fuselage all need redone. As a result pretty much all of the glue joints in the glider deserve attention. I have visited with a few people about this project but it isn't a project for the faint of heart, plus distance is an issue. Good news though, one of the newer pilots in my club is going to take it on. Matt is an A&P mechanic and has become quite a fanatic soaring pilot this summer, flying the clubs Ka-6CR often and finishing up his Silver Badge just last weekend. I'm going to be taking 1073 up to Matt's place on Monday. Hopefully I'll have some regular updates on it to post here.

N10124 is still under restoration in Dennis Barton's shop. It is getting closer and closer to flying! This is the Cherokee RM that was built by the Ree Brothers (and Terry Miller) after they finished building N373Y. Dennis sent me these pictures of 10124 a few weeks ago. Looking good! Perhaps 373Y and 10124 can be reunited at IVSM 2012 on the Hill.

I've been steadily making updates to the Cherokee Roll Call posting as I search through the SSA's online archive for tidbits of information. A few pictures have been added as well as tidbits of info including ownership changes and badge claims. Aerosente readers: Once I have the info updated I will do a mass post on the Aerosente blog.

In local news, N4653T is still assembled at the Wichita Gliderport and will likely remain that way for the near future. It will be flying for the Vintage Sailplane Association rally over the September 25th weekend. If you are interested in attending let me know and I'll get you in contact with the organizers. It should prove to be a fun event. Last year we had a good lineup of vintage and classic gliders in attendance.

N373Y is quietly waiting in its trailer for our next adventure. For Labor Day weekend Leah and I will be taking it out to Ulysses, KS again for a long weekend of good soaring. Summer, new glider pilot and recently checked out in the Ka6, will probably be attending with us too. I'm hopeful for strong fall soaring weather and the possibility to make a Gold altitude climb and perhaps an assault at Diamond Goal or Distance. Or Both! No matter, we'll be spending the week getting ready for the trip. I finally got a brake controller so I will have to spend some time wiring that into the truck and trailer. Otherwise its mainly a matter of getting orgainzed, loading turnpoints into the GPS, and making sure I don't forget anything.

Last weekend

2010-08-23T14:52:00.000-05:00

Well I was hoping for some good soaring Saturday. The forecast was so so but since I was the scheduled towpilot on Sunday I knew that I had to go for broke on Sunday. I launched first and couldn't find anything! I worked a few small areas of lift but never got back above release altitude and landed. Rats!

Well the glider was assembled so I figured I'd try again. If I found any lift I was going to head out. I had gotten brave and declared a 300 km triangle for a Diamond Goal attempt. Hey you can't win if you don't try, right?? Of course by now it was after 1 PM and the early start I had hoped for was a dream. Well I started to set out to the southwest, hoping to find some lift over the dirt fields. I found a little here and there but it was difficult to work and weak. I kept an eye on my distance from Sunflower, trying to stay within glide just in case I needed to return home. I didn't find a lot of lift the first few miles and tried to work some weak stuff as I hadn't had a lot of altitude when I left and was getting lower. Pretty soon returning to the airport was starting to get questionable so I continued on a little more, feeling committed. In retrospect I should've just kept going, perhaps something good would've happened.

Instead, I decided to see if I could make it back to the airport. There were several dirt fields north of me and I thought if I could catch a thermal off one of them I could at least stay local or perhaps try to set out on course. I couldn't find a darn thing and was soon low enough to need to be picking fields. So I picked out a cut wheat field and stayed in a good position to land there. Alas, no more lift to be found although a red tail hawk tortured me by thermalling below me. He must've been about 50 feet above the ground as I passed over him and found nothing.

The landing was fine. I had to clear a treeline and powerlines then slipped into the field. The landing was nose high to avoid the wheat stalks from ripping through the fabric on the nose. It seemed to work as nothing got ripped. Then the fun began.

I had forgotten my cell phone. Damn. The house next to the field was empty. Rats. I had sent Leah a "i've landed out and I'm OK message" on the SPOT which turned out to sort of be a mistake. We had developed a special procedure for this flight that obviously needs a little refinement. When I was still optimistic about the forecast I had mentioned that if it was looking too impossible to make it back from the triangle I would just continue downwind to the west. To alert her that she would need to start heading west with the trailer I would send her a message on my SPOT. What I meant was I would send a custom message that said something about Diamond Goal. So as soon as I sent the land out message I knew that there would likely be confusion at the airport as to what I was doing. I started to envision me sitting in a field waiting for the trailer while it was headed to western KS trying to find me. It wasn't pretty.

So, I left the SPOT tracker on in track mode. That way if anyone could get to the web they'd see that I had in fact landed out. Then I started walking. Where? To the airport! I had landed only 3 miles west of the field. I figured at the worst I would get to the airport and be able to call Leah back before she got too far away.

Meanwhile, the PW-5 had flown over and seen me in the field. He radioed back that the Ka-6 landed out! Confusion reigned at the airport. Leah still hadn't gotten the message on her phone about me landing out. No one was sure if the Ka-6 trailer was ready to go. No one was exactly sure where the Ka-6 was at. No one was looking forward to having to go get the Ka-6. Then, the Ka-6 landed at the airport. How did he get back? didn't he land out? more confusion. who landed out? By now Leah had gotten the message I think but I'm not sure she had learned about the Ka-6 landing out. She wasn't sure if I had landed or not and wanted to make sure of my location before she headed out. Good thinking. Well we don't have wifi at the airport and the smart phones can't run the SPOT tracking site. No one had a laptop that could be synced up with a phone. Well a few phone calls to people with the internet and a little time searching around and Leah learned I was in a field 3 miles west of the airport. She started walking to the truck to head out. That was when I piped up and asked where she was going. I had just finished the 4.5ish mile walk.

The rest of the retrieve was uneventful.

Here is the OLC trace for the day:

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-1755157692

Here is a cell phone picture of the landing spot. Nice field.

Luke's report on N4653T

2010-08-15T20:42:00.002-05:00

Here is Luke's report on his flight in N4653T:

All my glider flying thus far has been in the Schweizer 2-33, with one flight in the Grob G103 Acro with Bob Holiday. My flight in Leah's Cherokee II, 4653T, gave me my first glimpse into single-seat flying.

Tony gave me a quick rundown on the airplane and let me sit in the cockpit while he lifted the tail to demonstrate various pitch attitudes. He explained that most pilots tend to over-control in pitch on their first takeoff in a single seater...and while I had this in mind the whole time, I still managed to bobble a little bit on takeoff but recovered quickly.

I was expecting to need some forward pressure on tow...but was pleasantly surprised that the Cherokee tracked behind the towplane nicely with very little control input. Part of the reason for that is because it was around 8:00 and most of the wind and thermals had subsided for the day.

Everything seems to happen much quicker in the Cherokee than the 2-33, and speed correction is no exception. Several times I'd be in a bank, look down, and see the airspeed indicator pushing 70. You can really tell when you speed up in the 2-33 because it gets a lot louder. Not so in the Cherokee.

I tried a few stalls, some straight ahead and some in bank. As Tony had warned me, there is a lot less incipient stall indication in the Cherokee. Once you feel the buffet, you are fully stalled, and the left wing tends to drop. Easily recoverable though. I did get a secondary stall on my first try however, I got the impression it takes a little longer for the Cherokee to regain flying speed than the 2-33. Either that or I've never had the 2-33 stalled as completely as I did in the Cherokee.

I also tried a few slips at altitude. It took me a few tries to get comfortable with the recovery, smoothly rolling out of the bank and rudder input without too many oscillations. On that note, I felt like I was okay at keeping the Cherokee coordinated while rolling into turns, but rolling out was a different story. Possibly because it doesn't require as much opposite rudder to roll out as the 2-33, but it's something I would have to fine-tune on further flights.

The approach and landing was pretty straightforward. I had watched Tony come in really high on his previous flight, and not wanting to test my newly-acquired Cherokee-slipping skills in front of everybody, I made sure to widen out the approach a bit. The airplane is definitely happy in the air and did not want to come back down! The airbrakes don't do much, but I was expecting that too, per Tony's instruction. Landing attitude felt very much the same as the 2-33, but with no tailwheel on the Cherokee the touchdown and rollout seemed much louder.

Tony is as sly as a used car salesman...letting me fly the Cherokee like that. Next thing I know, I'll be buying my own!

2010-08-13T11:48:00.000-05:00

N4653T Flying

2010-08-12T23:44:00.000-05:00

Luke, Rafael, and I assembled 4653T today after work. I took the first launch in it, trying a few fewer cushions last time to give me a little better comfort. It was better but I still have to cram in to fit. I took a 2500' tow and piad close attention to control forces required and the general handling qualities so I could give Luke a good description of what to expect.

My approach was a bit on the high side and it took a nice big slip to get down in a reasonable distance. Luke got a few pictures of my approach:

Next was Luke's turn. He just passed his Commercial Glider checkride a few weeks ago and has mainly flown the 2-33. He only had a slight PIO on initial takeoff which smoothed out immediately as he towed to 4000 feet. I'm going to try to get him to write up a report of his impressions during the flight and will post it here when I get it. He learned from my approach and made a nice approach and landing. Here are some shots:

I think I should call that the "Cherokee Grin". Luke seemed to have a really good time and I was glad to get him up in a single seater before he headed back to his final semester at school.

Diamond Goal attempt #1

2010-08-12T23:16:00.000-05:00

Well the flight on Wedensday went great. I'll repost what I posted on rec.aviaiton.soaring which tells the tale pretty well:

I had a fun time skipping work yesterday. Declared a 300 km out and
return and took off at ~ 1PM. I made sure to get a valid start within
1 km of the start point on the opposite side of my course. Lift was
not as good as forecast but I was soon finding 4-5 knots up and
climbing to around 8000 feet.

I did get a little up close and personal with an Air Tractor at 4000
feet. I was surprised to see him up there but he saw me and went
around the thermal I was working.

There were several dust devils that helped mark the way across
Kansas. Lift was strong and often really rough. I occasionally got
brave enough to dive at a blistering 65-70 mph between thermals. I
rounded Hays about 4:30, making sure to spend enough time on the
opposite side of the airport to get a good trace over there, then
headed back. Things were starting to weaken and a big bunch of the
sky had gone blue. I knew my only hope was to beeline straight home
and figured I'd go as far as I could. Keeping a positive mental
attitude helped a lot as it really looked doubtful that I'd get very
far.

Flight home was characterized by long smooth glides followed by weak
smooth thermals. I did get one good climb over a country airport
about halfway home. That was my last of the 4 knot variety. After
that it was 1-2 knots. A couple of turky vultures marked a core for
me at one point which was most appreciated. I had been using a bit of
mental math and figuring my glide at about 25:1 as I flew in smooth
evening air. My last good climb had been at 6 PM. Usually I'm on the
ground by then. I kept finding these really weak, smooth thermals
every 5 to 10 miles and was slowly closing the gap on the airport. It
seemed like I might be able to actually make it. or at least there was
a chance.

I left the last thermal 15 or 20 miles out. I was right on the edge
of a 25:1 glide to the airport. Of course I had to go PAST the
airport to finish the goal flight so I knew I needed a few more bumps
to make it. As I got lower I started to fly like Dick Wolters in The
Sunship Game. "field by field by field" Well unfortunately this
tactic was going to require a change in tactic as all of the fields
along my course within about 4 miles of the airport were full of full
grown corn! I started to turn a bit east to try to approach the
airport from the north but quickly realized that it was highly
doubtful I was going to make the runway, let alone get a finish for
the flight.

I was set up well as I was on an extended base leg to a private
airport. I also had a few dirt fields around as options. I didnt
find any more bumps so I committed to the runway and turned final. Lo
and behold there is a Duster sitting next to the runway. Turns out my
friend Jerry had landed there as well, not having quite enough left to
get back home. At least I'd have company.

All in all it was a great flight and I learned alot. Keep in mind that
I've never flown a real out and return beyond maybe 20 miles from home
and have flown a declared goal flight.

I should've started earlier. I screwed around for a while after
takeoff trying to find some great lift before I set out on course. Of
course I didn't want to land out immediately and waste the whole day.
However I could've used those extra minutes at the end of the day. I
have a slow glider and have to take advantage of the entire day

Turns out this flight was my second longest distance and my longest
duration at a bit over 6.5 hours. Not too shabby! Here is the OLC
trace: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=1688698192

All I got were crummy cell phone pictures but here goes.

Proof that I almost made it:

Here is the Cherokee and the Duster at Mills Field. Nice end to a good day of flying.

Gone Flying

2010-08-11T08:21:00.000-05:00

well it is looking like a good soaring day here in Kansas. Somewhere around 10,000 foot thermals and no wind so I'm going to try a Diamond Goal out/return flight from Sunflower to Hays and back. watch the SPOT and I'll post an update tonight when I get home:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0xSWzZKb2GVSEASvOr6Tx08EyO4mMDphc

Updates in the Cherokee World

2010-08-09T10:08:00.000-05:00

There has been a lot of Cherokee II related stuff going on lately. I've made a few small updates to the Roll Call including a new picture of the Leonard Annebula, N25001, as well as some info on N46840, which just popped up for sale on Barnstormers. Turns out that 46840 is a motorglider! I had only known about the Flaglor Cheorkee motorglider which featured two engines mounted on either side of the fuselage. 46840 has a 30 HP KFM motor mounted above the fuselage, a la Monerai.

In more Cherokee II for sale news there is a Cherokee currently listed on Craigslist in Dahlonega, GA. Here is the ad: http://atlanta.craigslist.org/nat/for/1863948236.html. I know just a little about this glider but have been in contact with the seller. Let me know if you'd like to know more. I'd like to see this glider go to a good home with potential to eventually fly again.

In other news, I've started working with Aerosente on Cherokee II related things. I'll be starting to blog over there as well. Aerosente is run by Mike Smock and specializes in distributing scale model Remote Control sailplanes, including a 1/4 scale kit of the Cherokee II! So I'll be putting up pictures and stories and any other info I think might be useful over there to help support builders of the scale models. Mike is also hoping to eventually branch out to 1/3 and maybe even 1/2 scale kits which I think will be really cool!

On the full scale side of things I'm going to try to get a condition inspection completed on N4653T this week and do some more flights in it. 373Y is still waiting patiently in her trailer for our next opportunity to fly. The last two weekends of August are the next chance I'll have and I hope to take it to Ulysses again for Labor Day weekend. Then I'll be prepping it for showing off at the VSA rally in Wichita on September 25 weekend. There are a few dings and scrapes that I'd like to touch up. I'm also going to try to start hooking up the electric brakes on the trailer this week.

A good struggle

2010-08-02T12:09:00.001-05:00

On Saturday Leah was line crew at Sunflower and we got out to the airport early. I did some trouble shooting on the GPS power cable and determined that the ground wire was not getting through to the connector. So I chopped it off. Steve came out with some spare connectors and hooked me up with a good power connector and also found me a new cable for the LCD display that wasn't so intermittent. I plugged in the GPS and viola, no smoke! So I finished taping up the Cherokee and pulled it out to the runway.

I was pretty much the first of the single seaters to launch I think. The club trainers had been up on a few flights and the Ka-6 had perhaps been up for one flight but had fallen out. I took off shortly after 2. The forecasts seemed to indicate it would be a late starting day and they were right. It has been incredibly humid here with dewpoints in the mid 70's.

I released at 3500 ft into a weak thermal and climbed up to 5000. I had in mind that I would try to run northwest (crosswind) and see how far I dared to go out and return. Leah was willing to come get me if I landed out but wouldn't be able to leave Sunflower until she was done with line duty. I didn't want to get too far from home mainly as a matter of convenience. Well I ran about 6 or 7 miles northwest and found NOTHING. Not only was there no lift but when I started to return to the airport I quickly discovered that I probably wasn't going to make it back. Well I wasn't against landing out but landing out a mile or two from the home airport is a little embarassing. There are plenty of open fields near the airport so I just kept trucking in that direction hoping I'd find something. Thankfull I did manage to find a few little thermals. Eventually I was back within a mile of the airport at about 1000 AGL where I caught a decend 2 knot thermal and went back up.

By this time several other gliders had launched and were thermalling around the airport. Included was one of my students in the 2-33, the Ka-6, an HP, Pik 20E, and a Mosquito. We all did a bit of gaggling together around the airport and eventually I had climbed up to around 6000 feet. Not too shabby I thought so I decided to head east this time. I would be battling into a quartering headwind. Dennis in the Mosquito also was thinking along the same lines and we divided K-96. He worked to the south of the Highway and I generally stayed north of it. I found a little lift north of Haven, the first town I came to, and was back up to around 6000.

I kept heading east, crossing the Arkansas river and making sure my trajectory would keep me north of the Wichita Class C airspace. My new goal was to fly to the Wichita Gliderport. My grand plan was to land there and hangar the glider, then try to fly it back to Sunflower on Sunday. Worst case, if I landed short, I would be more or less on the way home for Leah to pick me up. So I kept heading east, aiming for the north edge of Valley Center.

The closer I got to Wichita the more airports started passing beneath me. There are a lot of privately owned grass runways and airparks on the north and northwest sides of Wichita. I had most of these in my GPS and some of them were marked on the map. That coupled with the recent wheat harvest left me with plenty of options for places to land. I kept struggling along in 1 - 2 knot lift. Once I think i hit a thermal with several circles of fairly steady 3 knot lift. That was like riding an express elevator. The lift actually reminded me a lot of Kowbell. I was flying gingerly, conserving as much altitude as possible. I don't think I ever pushed much higher than 60 mph. It seemed like the workable thermals were about 5 miles apart which was a bit of a struggle considering the headwind and the low altitudes. I once again spent a lot of time on this flight below 2000 AGL.

I did find one good thermal between Haven and Mount Hope that also contained a few red tail hawks. It is always a joy to soar with the birds. As I continued though things started to weaken and I found it a struggle to get much above 3500 feet. I kept pressing on as much as possible but was definitely exploring every bit of lift that I encountered. I was headed towards High Point airport but comparing my altimeter to the distance on my GPS i could tell it was going to be close. There was another airport, Hidden Valley, just to the west of High Point. was within 10 miles of both airports and couldn't see them. Trees and buildings lined the sides of both airports and the runways were north/south and I was headed east at relatively low altitude. However there was a few good fields directly north of Valley Center so I had good options.

Airport Ho! I could see some hangars and houses at High Point. But I was still 3 or more miles out and down to 1000 AGL. I could tell immediately that I didn't have enough altitude to make the airport and manuever to the runway. Plus the area right around the runway contained a lot of houses, trees, and other green stuff that didnt' look very landable. The Hidden Valley airport was somewhere between me and High Point but I couldn't see it. I had picked out a field just north of the football field in Valley Center and was ready to land there. I didn't find a thermal so that is just what I did.

The approach was over some power lines which I made sure to clear by a large margin then a big slip intot he big field. I stopped about in the middle of the field, maybe a quarter mile from the road. One witness came out to make sure I was fine and then left. I tied down the glider and walked over to the road to scope out access. Leah was on her way.

I met some friends who were sitting on their porch and saw me fly overhead but missed the landing. I guess they weren't expecting me to land in the field. They gave me food, water, and beer and a nice shady place to sit and visit while Leah was coming. I had visited with the land owner and worked out a way to get the trailer in and out of the field with no issues.

We made quick work of de-rigging and took 373Y to the Wichita Gliderport where we tied down the trailer. I ended up with 118 points on the OLC for the flight. I was pretty satisfied with the flight considering the conditions of the day. Not to mention I got home before sunset!

Here is the OLC trace: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=727859162
Here is a really lousy cell phone picture of the Cherokee in its field. I've updated the map with this landing point, I think i'm up to 21 landouts in 373Y now!

373Y Distribution

2010-07-21T10:22:00.000-05:00

I got curious yesterday about everywhere that I have visited with 373Y. I did determine that (I think) my Kowbell flight on the 10th was my 20th off airport landing in the Cherokee. So I made up a google map of all of the places I have landed the glider. This map shows every time I've landed somewhere that I didn't take off from. Takeoff sites have been:

Ames, IA
Muscatine, IA
Wichita, KS
Yoder, KS
Ulysses, KS

Of course I've also flown 373Y at Marfa, TX but I always landed back at the airport there so it didn't add anything to the map. So here it is:

View Cherokee Flights in a larger map

My GPS is out for repair at the moment, I haven't heard how long it will be before it returns. This weekend I am instructing on Saturday and towing on Sunday so I don't plan to fly the Cherokee. I do hope to get 4653T out for a few more flights before the end of the month as it will be in need of an annual starting in August.

Kowbell 2010 report

2010-07-11T01:04:00.000-05:00

Leah and I were out to Sunflower early this morning and had 373Y ready to go with plenty of time to spare. The Cu actually started to pop at 9:30 AM! but they were really really low. I was hoping for an 11 AM launch. However I had a bit of trouble when plugging in the Cambridge which lead to a bit of smoke coming out of the GPS. Not good! I called Steve to see if he had another unit available and he said he'd bring one so with everything else ready I pulled out to towards the runway. Steve showed up but the replacement GPS wouldn't power up either. Something is wrong on the glider end, not sure what, so I launched about 11:45 AM.

Flight started out strong with lift under every cloud and decent climbs in the 4-5 knot range. After the first 30 or 40 miles though things started to weaken noticeably. I was having trouble keeping my altitude above 2000 AGL and lift was often 1-2 knots but occasionally I could find a tiny 4 or 5 knot core. My main goal was to simply stay aloft. I knew that I wouldn't make any miles if i pushed too hard and landed so I took every bit of lift that I could get.

Leah and Summer did a great job following me and at one point were actually out in front of me. I got down below 1000 AGL a few times but managed to blunder into a thermal and climb back out. Once I climbed from my low point for the flight directly to the high point, about 5500 MSL! By 3:45 PM the clouds were starting to thin and there wasn't much lift to be had. I continued to work everything I could find but struggled finding anything truly workable.

I was also flying out of wheat country and into corn and soybean land. I had just crossed over the nebraska border and was having to be careful about my route to ensure I had a safe place to land. Thankfully there was still a cut wheat field every mile or so that proved me a haven. I chose my field and set up an approach. It was a bit tricky as the field was shaped like a bowl. I approached to the south end of the field, landing uphill and into the wind. There was a pretty big ditch that ran through the center of the field at the bottom of the bowl so I was sure to clear that. Then I noticed that there were terrace bumps running along the field, 90 degrees to my direction of travel. Rats! well nothing I could do now so I cleared the first bump and set it down immediately. I still had a little speed as I bounced over the next bump but it wasn't too bad and I quickly came to a stop.

A friendly local farmer had seen me circling and was first on the scene. We had a nice chat and got Leah and Summer some good directions and within a half hour they were there. Within the next half hour 373Y was loaded on the trailer and ready to hit the road. Nice!

Here are a few pictures. More can be found at my picasa album http://picasaweb.google.com/abcondon/Kowbell#