Great Soaring Day!

May 26, 2012 was a great day for soaring!

We arrived at the field at about lunchtime and I got my name on the list quickly, and proceeded to go shoot the crap with anybody that would. It is a lot of fun hanging around an airport, and anybody that is infected with the flying bug loves to BS with others that have the same affliction.

The sun was out, the breeze was not too strong, and the puffy clouds starting to build. A perfect day was brewing!

About 2:30 in the afternoon it was my turn to go, there were several volunteers including my wife to help me get into the glider, and within minutes they had my butt in and organized. We took off shortly thereafter, Bob Hagen in the back and me in the front. The turbulence was quite bad on tow so there were a few times that Bob saved the day as my arm strength was not quite up to the task of levelling the glider after some of the bumps. At 5200 feet we released from the tow.

“Which way should we go Bob?” I asked.

“You're doing the flying, pick a cloud,” came the reply.

Spring Thermalling

What a weekend!

The weather was warm, the thermals were strong, and the gliders were available for flight!

Sunday we took off at about two o'clock in the afternoon and got towed to 3000 feet in the Puchacz, a Polish-built high-performance glider. Immediately after release from the tow plane we banked towards some dark cloud, and underneath the lift was incredible! We went from 5000 feet to 8000 feet and what seemed like no time! And we spent the next hour touring around and sightseeing, and every time we needed some lift we just circled underneath one of those clouds! Up we went like an elevator, what an incredible flight! Some of the other club members did cross-country flights that lasted between five and six hours, it was a perfect soaring day. After a little over an hour we decided that we had better not hog the aircraft anymore, so we had to hit the spoilers and descend down to our airport.

Disability Horizons: Adaptive Fishing In The Great Outdoors

Click to view article Adaptive Fishing In The Great Outdoors

Here is an article that I had published in Disability Horizons. It is a story about a day fishing with Dale Baden last fall. What a great day that was! Springtime is here, it is time to get out and enjoy the great outdoors once more!