Thursday, May 13, 2010
N4653T Patch done
Today after work I finished up the patch on 4653T's left wing. I hit the new fabric with an iron to shrink it a tad and then brushed on about 3 cross coats of EkoFill primer. Should be good enough to fly. Not the prettiest with a grey splotch on the white wing but it will get us through this season and we plan to recover the glider next winter anyway. In true form, here is an out of focus picture of the patch! I'm hoping to get 373Y's wing into the garage tomorrow. Might do some work on organization as well. I've got some ideas on how to more compactly store 1073 and give myself more room to work.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Pictures and Patch
Here are a few more pictures of N373Y in Falls City, NE. Taken shortly after landing.
Tonight I got to work on N4653T's left wing. It suffered a bit of hangar rash and had a small hole out towards the tip on the top opf the wing. Here's a really out of focus picture of the damage.
The wing was originally covered with nitrate and butyrate dope so I hit it with some MEK and cleaned the area down to the fabric. Here is an out of focus picture of the cleaned up wing:
I hit the area with the stewarts cleaner and rinsed with distilled water. Let that dry and then busted out the EkoBond glue. I cut a little piece of fabric out to cover the area and glued it in place. It looks good and here is an out of focus picture of the patch glued in place.
I did take one picture that was in focus. Here is what my garage looks like right now. Not a lot of room to work. On the right is N1073, "Stinky", and then there is Leah's wing on the benches.
Tomorrow i'll brush some EkoFill primer over the patch and call it good probably. Then we'll switch out this wing for the Left wing of 373Y for some filler work. Hopefully by the middle of next week both gliders will be ready to fly and we can start working on my trailer.
Tonight I got to work on N4653T's left wing. It suffered a bit of hangar rash and had a small hole out towards the tip on the top opf the wing. Here's a really out of focus picture of the damage.
The wing was originally covered with nitrate and butyrate dope so I hit it with some MEK and cleaned the area down to the fabric. Here is an out of focus picture of the cleaned up wing:
I hit the area with the stewarts cleaner and rinsed with distilled water. Let that dry and then busted out the EkoBond glue. I cut a little piece of fabric out to cover the area and glued it in place. It looks good and here is an out of focus picture of the patch glued in place.
I did take one picture that was in focus. Here is what my garage looks like right now. Not a lot of room to work. On the right is N1073, "Stinky", and then there is Leah's wing on the benches.
Tomorrow i'll brush some EkoFill primer over the patch and call it good probably. Then we'll switch out this wing for the Left wing of 373Y for some filler work. Hopefully by the middle of next week both gliders will be ready to fly and we can start working on my trailer.
Cherokee Updates
I got Leah's left wing into the garage and will start working on a patch for it tonight. I'll be sure to take pictures and post a report here.
I've been working on some writing lately. The weekly newspaper in Falls City, NE will have an article detailing my Gold Distance flight this week. I'm also going to have articles about the recovering process on 373Y in the next editions of the Bungee Cord and the online magazine, RC Soaring Digest. Additionally I think I'm going to try to work up a Gold Distance flight report for Soaring.
Dennis Barton just emailed me an update on N10124, the original Cherokee RM built by the Ree Brothers and Terry Miller. It is in the process of being covered and is ready for UV blocker, then paint! Looking good!
I've been working on some writing lately. The weekly newspaper in Falls City, NE will have an article detailing my Gold Distance flight this week. I'm also going to have articles about the recovering process on 373Y in the next editions of the Bungee Cord and the online magazine, RC Soaring Digest. Additionally I think I'm going to try to work up a Gold Distance flight report for Soaring.
Dennis Barton just emailed me an update on N10124, the original Cherokee RM built by the Ree Brothers and Terry Miller. It is in the process of being covered and is ready for UV blocker, then paint! Looking good!
Friday, May 7, 2010
Cherokee Updates - more work to do
Well it has been a busy week for good reasons and bad.
Im still flying high after my Gold Distance flight last Sunday. I've replayed it a million times mentally and on See You. Thanks to everyone for the congratulatory emails and phone calls. It was a great flight! Steve and I have my paperwork almost ready to go and hope to send it out on Monday.
I heard from Jason Conaway that he is starting to restore N3300T, which was built by Ron Chitwood. I'm looking forward to hearing about his progress and helping out in any way possible. Hopefully he can at least give me regular updates that I can pass along or maybe make some posts himself.
I had a bad day on Tuesday. While taking 373Y back to the Gliderport I hit some fresh loose rock on the gravel road and was driving too fast. After about a quarter mile of the trailer swaying every way but straight and me trying my best to accelerate out of the situation, the left wheel of the trailer caught the ditch and the trailer tipped. It stayed connected to the truck. The glider is mainly OK, there are a few scratches on the wingtips (which stayed connected) and the fuselage stayed in place. The only damage I could see was on the left wing. The root cradles broke free and the left wing hit the rudder control horn which has scarred the plywood leading edge.
So now I have more work to do. The trailer fared well. I am now an even bigger believer in Steel Frame trailers. It has some scratches on the Aluminum Skin and some repairs to make where the front of the trailer dragged for a few feet down the road but the box itself is not too much worse for the wear. It protected my glider well.
The hitch is a real mess though. Twisted up pretty good and I think it might be a good opportunity to just replace everything forward of the box. The axle and suspension are going to need replaced but hey I wanted to put a rubber torsion style suspension on it anyway.
Long term plan is to build a couple of new trailers for both 373Y and 4653T. Maybe next year by this time I'll be ready to start that project. In the meantime I've got lots of plans. First is to bring 4653T's left wing into town. It suffered a little hangar rash and needs a small patch done to it. I'll be sure to post a report and pictures. Then, 373Y's left wing gets switched into the garage and whatever needs done to it gets done. And the rest of the glider gets a close inspection. Then I'm going to see if 373Y will fit in 4653T's trailer. Either way I'll start working on 373Y's trailer right after that. The answer to the question will determine how quickly I work :) I'm hoping to have at least one glider flyable for May 22nd weekend which is a Kansas Soaring Association club contest weekend and both gliders ready but not necessarily both trailers for Memorial Day Weekend when we plan to go out to Ulysses, KS for a long weekend of soaring. I plan on doing whatever I need to do to 373Y's trailer to have it ready for the Kansas Kowbell Klassic straight distance contest on July 3rd.
N1073, now nicknamed "Stinky 73", is in my garage. I need to get some pictures posted, sorry its taken so long. I also need to get Neal and Harry in to take a look at it and give their opinion on its condition. I'm sure that Harry will tell me its just a matter of how much time someone wants to put into it. In his mind, anything is repairable. Some truth in that I suppose.
I've been slowly making updates to the "Cherokee Roll Call" post from way back when. It is linked at the top of the page. As I receive pictures or bits of information I try my best to add them. The Soaring Magazine archive is continually being expanded and once I get some time I'll try to add info from the latest set of magazines that have been uploaded. They haven't turned on searchability past 1977 yet so I'm still waiting on that.
I've got an article for the Bungee Cord, a newspaper article for the Falls City, NE paper, at least one club newsletter article, and possible an article for Soaring about my Gold Flight and/or my recover to work on so I've got plenty of writing to do, but will try to post updates here about anything new!
Im still flying high after my Gold Distance flight last Sunday. I've replayed it a million times mentally and on See You. Thanks to everyone for the congratulatory emails and phone calls. It was a great flight! Steve and I have my paperwork almost ready to go and hope to send it out on Monday.
I heard from Jason Conaway that he is starting to restore N3300T, which was built by Ron Chitwood. I'm looking forward to hearing about his progress and helping out in any way possible. Hopefully he can at least give me regular updates that I can pass along or maybe make some posts himself.
I had a bad day on Tuesday. While taking 373Y back to the Gliderport I hit some fresh loose rock on the gravel road and was driving too fast. After about a quarter mile of the trailer swaying every way but straight and me trying my best to accelerate out of the situation, the left wheel of the trailer caught the ditch and the trailer tipped. It stayed connected to the truck. The glider is mainly OK, there are a few scratches on the wingtips (which stayed connected) and the fuselage stayed in place. The only damage I could see was on the left wing. The root cradles broke free and the left wing hit the rudder control horn which has scarred the plywood leading edge.
So now I have more work to do. The trailer fared well. I am now an even bigger believer in Steel Frame trailers. It has some scratches on the Aluminum Skin and some repairs to make where the front of the trailer dragged for a few feet down the road but the box itself is not too much worse for the wear. It protected my glider well.
The hitch is a real mess though. Twisted up pretty good and I think it might be a good opportunity to just replace everything forward of the box. The axle and suspension are going to need replaced but hey I wanted to put a rubber torsion style suspension on it anyway.
Long term plan is to build a couple of new trailers for both 373Y and 4653T. Maybe next year by this time I'll be ready to start that project. In the meantime I've got lots of plans. First is to bring 4653T's left wing into town. It suffered a little hangar rash and needs a small patch done to it. I'll be sure to post a report and pictures. Then, 373Y's left wing gets switched into the garage and whatever needs done to it gets done. And the rest of the glider gets a close inspection. Then I'm going to see if 373Y will fit in 4653T's trailer. Either way I'll start working on 373Y's trailer right after that. The answer to the question will determine how quickly I work :) I'm hoping to have at least one glider flyable for May 22nd weekend which is a Kansas Soaring Association club contest weekend and both gliders ready but not necessarily both trailers for Memorial Day Weekend when we plan to go out to Ulysses, KS for a long weekend of soaring. I plan on doing whatever I need to do to 373Y's trailer to have it ready for the Kansas Kowbell Klassic straight distance contest on July 3rd.
N1073, now nicknamed "Stinky 73", is in my garage. I need to get some pictures posted, sorry its taken so long. I also need to get Neal and Harry in to take a look at it and give their opinion on its condition. I'm sure that Harry will tell me its just a matter of how much time someone wants to put into it. In his mind, anything is repairable. Some truth in that I suppose.
I've been slowly making updates to the "Cherokee Roll Call" post from way back when. It is linked at the top of the page. As I receive pictures or bits of information I try my best to add them. The Soaring Magazine archive is continually being expanded and once I get some time I'll try to add info from the latest set of magazines that have been uploaded. They haven't turned on searchability past 1977 yet so I'm still waiting on that.
I've got an article for the Bungee Cord, a newspaper article for the Falls City, NE paper, at least one club newsletter article, and possible an article for Soaring about my Gold Flight and/or my recover to work on so I've got plenty of writing to do, but will try to post updates here about anything new!
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Gold Pictures
Here are a few pictures of me and 373Y in Falls City after landing sunday. These were taken by Karen and Tim, who saw me fly over and stopped out to visit.
I got the flight up on the OLC and it seems that I won the day in the US and got 2nd in the World! Here is the link to the flight: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=1618688367
I got the flight up on the OLC and it seems that I won the day in the US and got 2nd in the World! Here is the link to the flight: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=1618688367
Monday, May 3, 2010
Gold
Here is a flight report that I put together for rec.aviaion.soaring and a few other aviation forums. Enjoy! I do have a few pictures I need to upload and will also be posting to the OLC tonight.
It was a good flight. I never thought it was going to happen. Yesterday was "one of those days" at the airport. We got out about 10:30 and put the glider together. A few friends showed up and we needed to put Leah's glider in its trailer to free up space in the hangar. So we got to started on that and it took about 5 times longer than any of expected or wanted. Finally finished it about 12:45 and the sky was already exploding and the glider still wasn't quite ready for flying. I had promised Leah some flights in the 2-33 before we went but she graciously realized that the lift was good and I should go fly, so she freed me from that obligation. I finally launched about 1:30.
experience shows that my glider is about a 30 mph glider when flying cross country. In order to fly the 300 km (186 miles) required for the gold badge I would have to fly something like 6 hours which I immediately assumed was going to be impossible. So I figured I'd just head downwind and try to fly further than I had ever flown before. Shea and Summer, two of my students, were crewing.
I initially flew straight north as my GPS was figuring the winds out of the south. Lift was good and I got off tow right in a 5-600 fpm thermal and climbed to about 8000 feet. Flew over Hutchinson and just ran north. Lift was good and sink wasn't too bad. I was averaging about 35 mph with a 5-10 mph tailwind.
I called Salina tower to make sure that the restricted area was cold. It was, which was good because I was headed right through it and didn't want to have to circumnavigate. I noticed the wind was shifting more out of the southwest so about the time I crossed I-70 just west of Salina I turned northeast. Shortly after this I hit my low point of 2900 MSL, which must've been around 1500 AGL. yikes! But I flew over a nice area of brown/black fields and caught a 600 fpm thermal back up to over 8000 feet. The next 4 thermals I caught were progressively higher, the next one I caught at about 4000 ft, then 5000, 6000 etc. Pretty soon I was booking from cloud to cloud, thermalling under about every 3rd one and generally averaging about 7000 feet. I was around 4 hours and starting to get cold, had passed 120 miles which was further than my previous best, and feeling pretty good.
I noticed that the clouds behind me were starting to die but it was pushing 6 PM and the sun was getting lower. There was still good looking clouds ahead of me so I kept cruising. I was watching the GPS and creeping towards the nebraska border. The idea of making another state really sounded good. At one point when I was about 15 or 20 miles south of the border i tuned in the weather at Beatrice and learned that the wind there was out of the NORTH and gusty. Interesting. Where I was the wind was out of the south and there was a line of rain between me and there. I also noticed a really killer looking street of clouds on the south edge of the rain. I put 2 and 2 together and figured that the opposing winds were converging along that line, so I decided to work my way towards it. However there was too much of a gap to make a straight run so I just stayed in the good clouds and eased my way over.
The last 40 or so miles were the fastest. I contacted the convergence area, initially with reduced sink but I was running at 50 mph and losing ~100 fpm. Altitude was still 7000 on average. I was down to about 6000 when I really got into the convergence. Turned parallel to the clouds the best I could figure and started climbing at 400 fpm while flying straight! I did this for about 10 or 15 miles I think and gained 1000 feet or so when I flew out of the lift. by this time I was up around 160 miles and gold distance was starting to seem like a possibility.
there wasn't a lot of lift indicators out ahead of my but I was a bit over a mile AGL and about 25 miles from my goal of 186 miles. my glider is 23:1 in calm air and it seemed to me that the sink had been not so bad or even "reduced sink" where i wasn't climbing but i wasn't sinking as much as i should've. I ran at about 50 mph for the final glide, slowing slightly if i would find a nibble of lift or something. Once I got to 175 miles and was still at 3 or 4000 AGL I figured that I had gold distance in the bag.
Turns out I was more or less headed right for Falls City, NE and they've got a nice airport there so I planned to land there if I could make it. I passed the 186 mile mark and let out a bit of a victory yell. Still at about 2500 feet at that point and 7 miles from the airport. The air was dead smooth, and actually had been quite smooth for the last several hours. A sort of magical condition that happens late in the day where the lift is still strong but the sink isn't to bad and the turbulence all softens up. Matt and I call it the "Magic Hour". In this case it was the "Magic 2 or 3 hours".
I arrived over the airport at about 1500 AGL and did a pattern and landed. Could've maybe stretched it to 200 miles but the convenience of landing at an airport after a flight where all goals had been met trumped the unknown of landing in a field. I had tried to alert my crew where I was going although one wrong turn and a fiasco at a gas station had left them far behind and out of radio range. Nice thing was I had good cell reception. They were about 50 miles behind when I landed, at 7:30ish, right around a 6 hour flight!
I now have more hours in my glider in the last 2 weeks than all of last year.
We got everything loaded up and were on the road shortly after 10 PM. Got to my apartment about 2:30 AM. I was in bed by 3:15 AM. One of my crew had to drive to hutchinson, she had school at 7. I think she got to bed about 4:30. ouch.
all in all it was a great flight, i couldn't have asked for much better. We'll download the trace tonight and do the paperwork for my Gold Distance claim. Now I just need to get a 3000 meter altitude gain to finish the Gold Badge. Also, I should be able to establish several state records that are so far unclaimed with this flight so I'm looking forward to that. There's also a fair chance that with my dogleg course and handicap I could win the day on the Online Contest which would be monumental I think. Most importantly, I think this will be a really competitive claim for the annual Wood Wings trophy for the longest flight by a wood glider in the state of Kansas.
Edit: Found an updated link for the newspaper article I wrote for the Falls City Journal about this flight. Enjoy: http://www.fcjournal.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=228:soaring-to-falls-city&catid=71:general&Itemid=112
It was a good flight. I never thought it was going to happen. Yesterday was "one of those days" at the airport. We got out about 10:30 and put the glider together. A few friends showed up and we needed to put Leah's glider in its trailer to free up space in the hangar. So we got to started on that and it took about 5 times longer than any of expected or wanted. Finally finished it about 12:45 and the sky was already exploding and the glider still wasn't quite ready for flying. I had promised Leah some flights in the 2-33 before we went but she graciously realized that the lift was good and I should go fly, so she freed me from that obligation. I finally launched about 1:30.
experience shows that my glider is about a 30 mph glider when flying cross country. In order to fly the 300 km (186 miles) required for the gold badge I would have to fly something like 6 hours which I immediately assumed was going to be impossible. So I figured I'd just head downwind and try to fly further than I had ever flown before. Shea and Summer, two of my students, were crewing.
I initially flew straight north as my GPS was figuring the winds out of the south. Lift was good and I got off tow right in a 5-600 fpm thermal and climbed to about 8000 feet. Flew over Hutchinson and just ran north. Lift was good and sink wasn't too bad. I was averaging about 35 mph with a 5-10 mph tailwind.
I called Salina tower to make sure that the restricted area was cold. It was, which was good because I was headed right through it and didn't want to have to circumnavigate. I noticed the wind was shifting more out of the southwest so about the time I crossed I-70 just west of Salina I turned northeast. Shortly after this I hit my low point of 2900 MSL, which must've been around 1500 AGL. yikes! But I flew over a nice area of brown/black fields and caught a 600 fpm thermal back up to over 8000 feet. The next 4 thermals I caught were progressively higher, the next one I caught at about 4000 ft, then 5000, 6000 etc. Pretty soon I was booking from cloud to cloud, thermalling under about every 3rd one and generally averaging about 7000 feet. I was around 4 hours and starting to get cold, had passed 120 miles which was further than my previous best, and feeling pretty good.
I noticed that the clouds behind me were starting to die but it was pushing 6 PM and the sun was getting lower. There was still good looking clouds ahead of me so I kept cruising. I was watching the GPS and creeping towards the nebraska border. The idea of making another state really sounded good. At one point when I was about 15 or 20 miles south of the border i tuned in the weather at Beatrice and learned that the wind there was out of the NORTH and gusty. Interesting. Where I was the wind was out of the south and there was a line of rain between me and there. I also noticed a really killer looking street of clouds on the south edge of the rain. I put 2 and 2 together and figured that the opposing winds were converging along that line, so I decided to work my way towards it. However there was too much of a gap to make a straight run so I just stayed in the good clouds and eased my way over.
The last 40 or so miles were the fastest. I contacted the convergence area, initially with reduced sink but I was running at 50 mph and losing ~100 fpm. Altitude was still 7000 on average. I was down to about 6000 when I really got into the convergence. Turned parallel to the clouds the best I could figure and started climbing at 400 fpm while flying straight! I did this for about 10 or 15 miles I think and gained 1000 feet or so when I flew out of the lift. by this time I was up around 160 miles and gold distance was starting to seem like a possibility.
there wasn't a lot of lift indicators out ahead of my but I was a bit over a mile AGL and about 25 miles from my goal of 186 miles. my glider is 23:1 in calm air and it seemed to me that the sink had been not so bad or even "reduced sink" where i wasn't climbing but i wasn't sinking as much as i should've. I ran at about 50 mph for the final glide, slowing slightly if i would find a nibble of lift or something. Once I got to 175 miles and was still at 3 or 4000 AGL I figured that I had gold distance in the bag.
Turns out I was more or less headed right for Falls City, NE and they've got a nice airport there so I planned to land there if I could make it. I passed the 186 mile mark and let out a bit of a victory yell. Still at about 2500 feet at that point and 7 miles from the airport. The air was dead smooth, and actually had been quite smooth for the last several hours. A sort of magical condition that happens late in the day where the lift is still strong but the sink isn't to bad and the turbulence all softens up. Matt and I call it the "Magic Hour". In this case it was the "Magic 2 or 3 hours".
I arrived over the airport at about 1500 AGL and did a pattern and landed. Could've maybe stretched it to 200 miles but the convenience of landing at an airport after a flight where all goals had been met trumped the unknown of landing in a field. I had tried to alert my crew where I was going although one wrong turn and a fiasco at a gas station had left them far behind and out of radio range. Nice thing was I had good cell reception. They were about 50 miles behind when I landed, at 7:30ish, right around a 6 hour flight!
I now have more hours in my glider in the last 2 weeks than all of last year.
We got everything loaded up and were on the road shortly after 10 PM. Got to my apartment about 2:30 AM. I was in bed by 3:15 AM. One of my crew had to drive to hutchinson, she had school at 7. I think she got to bed about 4:30. ouch.
all in all it was a great flight, i couldn't have asked for much better. We'll download the trace tonight and do the paperwork for my Gold Distance claim. Now I just need to get a 3000 meter altitude gain to finish the Gold Badge. Also, I should be able to establish several state records that are so far unclaimed with this flight so I'm looking forward to that. There's also a fair chance that with my dogleg course and handicap I could win the day on the Online Contest which would be monumental I think. Most importantly, I think this will be a really competitive claim for the annual Wood Wings trophy for the longest flight by a wood glider in the state of Kansas.
Edit: Found an updated link for the newspaper article I wrote for the Falls City Journal about this flight. Enjoy: http://www.fcjournal.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=228:soaring-to-falls-city&catid=71:general&Itemid=112
Cherokee Gold!
Don't have time to do a full write up but just wanted to post notice that I flew Gold Distance yesterday. Made it 193 miles northeast of Sunflower Aerodrome in Kansas. Landed at Falls City, Nebraska in the extreme SE corner of Nebraska. More details to follow
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