A beautiful day for soaring
Our glider group, Wisconsin Soaring Society, has an active email discussion group. All week there have been discussions about how the weather during the week would be much better than the weekend weather. Today was beautiful for soaring!
I completed a major milestone at work Wednesday, on the critical path of our critical project. Since I have 4.5 weeks of vacation left and only a few months to spend them, I decided a day of flying was due. One of my friends and past co-worker is also in the club, so we drove together and shared the flying in the 1-34.
I had done the test flight for the year in the 1-34 and the airspeed and altitude were not working then, so Lee suggested that I take the first hour flight, just in case. (Everything worked just fine this time, except the vario was out for service.) With the lift today, I didn't need the vario. I could feel the swift kick in the butt when I rode across lift. I probably should have pulled the release at 2000 feet, but I've had short flights when I've done that so I waited until 3000 feet.
There was lift everywhere. I quickly found the cloud base to be at 4400 feet today. I explored the area, staying between 3500 and 4200 until I needed to come down so Lee could have his turn. This proved more difficult than expected. I got down to 2000 feet okay, but then couldn't descend, even pushing to 80 mph. Full spoilers took care of that, but even so I gained altitude on downwind in the pattern. I had to do a slip with full spoilers to make it down to the ground for a perfect landing. What a day!
I completed a major milestone at work Wednesday, on the critical path of our critical project. Since I have 4.5 weeks of vacation left and only a few months to spend them, I decided a day of flying was due. One of my friends and past co-worker is also in the club, so we drove together and shared the flying in the 1-34.
I had done the test flight for the year in the 1-34 and the airspeed and altitude were not working then, so Lee suggested that I take the first hour flight, just in case. (Everything worked just fine this time, except the vario was out for service.) With the lift today, I didn't need the vario. I could feel the swift kick in the butt when I rode across lift. I probably should have pulled the release at 2000 feet, but I've had short flights when I've done that so I waited until 3000 feet.
There was lift everywhere. I quickly found the cloud base to be at 4400 feet today. I explored the area, staying between 3500 and 4200 until I needed to come down so Lee could have his turn. This proved more difficult than expected. I got down to 2000 feet okay, but then couldn't descend, even pushing to 80 mph. Full spoilers took care of that, but even so I gained altitude on downwind in the pattern. I had to do a slip with full spoilers to make it down to the ground for a perfect landing. What a day!