HIGHLIGHTS:
 

1. It was definitely a busy day today. Although we had two landouts, Mario landed out after nearly completing his goal of flying the Alby sculpture all the way to Tehachapi. The Alby, named after one of the greatest soaring birds of all time, the albatross, is seeking to be carried by glider all the way across the United States and back again. You can follow his adventures by linking to his website: http://albysvoyage.blogspot.com/2008/06/albys-story.html and see how far he's been traveling. He carries a spot satellite receiver/transmitter to have real time information sent back to his web site as he is being carried to the next destination. Here is Mario's story of his attempt to reach Tehachapi:

Hi Sergio,

I had been watching the 3-day forecasts everyday and Saturday was looking good.  Driving to Avenal from Fresno the sky looked very hazy, without clouds, not your typical good looking soaring day.  We assembled early and I intended to be in the air about 1 PM. I was hoping I could get to Tehachapi early so I could fly back to Avenal.  The RUC forecast showed that at 2 PM conditions could be good in the valley. The two pilots who had flown on Friday said the forecasts had been too optimistic and where skeptical of this one.  However when Steve Schery got off tow around 12:30 he called that he was climbing through 5300' msl.

I took off at 12:46 and took a 2000' tow then climbed to 4600' msl in my 1st thermal and by this time Steve was at 7000'.  The day looked very promising.  I headed out toward the southeast, a little to the right of the course line at 1:08 with an altitude of 5900'. I wanted to check how the air was between the mountains and the valley. I found a thermal and went up to 5800'. And while cruising my netto showed we where in a convergence. Things were looking good and the forecast seemed to be right on.

When I found my next thermal I was going to turn toward the east and head for Tehachapi but I continued sinking and found nothing until I was down to 2000' agl with Begrudge off to the west. Here I climbed slowly back up to almost 3900' msl. This was beginning to feel like a day when you are in this area where  you have to stretch your glide to get away from the green fields and make it to the barren dry areas near Elk Hills. Once you make it past the fields below you head for Elk Hills for about 10 miles going SE keeping your left wing looking at green fields and the right one looking at barren dry ground. Usually you will find a shear line, and if not, at least a thermal along this line.  About 3 miles out I again was down to 2000' agl until I found a thermal and slowly climbed back to about 4500' msl.

The mountains 30 miles off to the S and E looked terrible and I decided to continue going SE to Buena Vista, a man-made lake about 3.5 miles long with a combination of bare hard ground to N and cultivated fields to the S and E.  Again, a shear is usually lurking here somewhere even on the weakest of days. I arrived at at about 2300' agl  and the shear got us back to 4000' msl.

We now headed E and glided about 6 miles to I-5 Freeway getting down 2500' agl. None of the fields gave any sign of lift and so I turned SE and flew down the freeway slowly losing altitude for about 4 miles until I finally caught a thermal where we crawled back to 2300' agl. While climbing I had noticed some small dust devils close together about 2 miles to the SW and went for them.  They got me back up to 2700' agl.

I then headed W again toward the 99 Freeway 4 miles away and climbed in a thermal to 3200 agl along the way.  At the 99 we only found a little bump so we continued on. At this time the air felt less buoyant. Looking at the NAM forecast after the flight it shows here is where I would be going into an area of reduced lift.  (I will have more respect in the future for NAM)  I glided down going to the ENE 10 miles toward the town of Arvin and landed there at the J and J Crop Duster strip at 3:27.

I looked at Bear Mountain looming down on me to the east with Tehachapi hidden behind it. I was 20 miles short, and I will have to try again.  Over the years it has always been a great adventure trying reach this goal. It is indeed possible. The 1st time was in my Blanik when I thought anything was possible, then the Nugget and the ASW20 when I knew better.

The crew at J and J were very friendly and hospitable, and I could not had made this attempt without the assistance of my crew, Don Van Wyk, who gave up a day of flying at Avenal where they were topping out at 8300' msl.

Mario

P.S. There is a possibility that Alby wants to spend a little more time with soaring ravens of Avenal.

2. The other landout was Rich Miller who, after touring the mountains north of Avenal all day, got low near Priest Valley and picked a nice pasture to set down his LP-49. Here are two stories of the day and the retrieve. First Alex's story of March 28 and 29.

Hi Harold,

I flew on Saturday with Jerry Keeler. He had ridden out to Avenal on his motorcycle to go gliding after seeing the website. He actually grew up in Avenal.  His father owned the Tomer  Drugstore, so he knows the area very well. He had flown in a Cessna a few times but did not fly at Avenal airport when he was growing up. He was most excited about viewing everything around and in Avenal from the vantage point of the glider. He said he wanted leave handling the controls to me this time, but he may try it the next time. We did get a good ride, with a climb to about 4800 ft. Then we caught a couple of other smaller thermals and stayed up about 35-40 min. I didn't have a camera with me to take his picture, I hope you got one.

Later, Joe Anastasio and I flew the Blanik. We had to work pretty hard for a while with 1-2 kt lift, but then worked our way back over the mountains and finally were able to get into the convergence zone where there was a long cloud street of  cu's developing heading northwest along the mountains. Once we got in that, we shot up at about 5-6 kts to 8400ft and then were able to follow the cloud street northwest to almost even with Coalinga, but we were further west than Coalinga, over the spine of the Diablos. We could go straight for most of the way without losing any altitude and only had to stop for the very strongest lift for 2-3 turns and would then be back at cloud base. At the end, we made a long glide down to Highway 41 and back to Avenal where we landed after a 2hr 10min flight.  I'm attempting to attach a screenshot of

a Google Earth view of the flight trace that I uploaded from my flight recorder to the OLC. You can see how we had to circle a lot at the beginning, but once we hit the shear line and the clouds, we flew a long ways without circling very much at all. 

The other exciting event of the day was Rich Miller landing is LP-49 in Priest Valley. He took off early heading north. He hit the convergence and got to over 7000ft and was heading north along the spine of the Diablos. There were some early clouds starting to form along the convergence line and he saw some north of highway 198 as it crosses the Diablos. He was about 20miles west of Coalinga and realized he was not going to be able to make it to the clouds he had seen and still be able to get to a safe landing site if he did not contact lift. So he elected to land in the Priest Valley. I have flown over this many times but had not really checked it out from the ground. After Joe and I retrieved Rich, I can say there are quite a few fields there that will accommodate a glider, even the Nimbus. But there are cattle and barbed wire fences and wires in the area, so one would need to be very cautious, and have the ability to put the glider exactly where you want it.  But it is a reasonable place to mark as a potential landing area. Joe and I had just gotten the Blanik ready to fly when we heard Rich landed, so we naturally decided to take our flight and then worry about retrieving Rich after we landed. This meant we got of to a bit of a late start, but fortunately, we arrived in Priest Valley just before dark and could see the glider in the field by hwy 198 and then spotted Rich sitting in a folding chair the ranch family had loaned him. They also gave him water and some cookies.  We were able to drive Rich's trailer towed by Joe's truck right out into the field and disassemble the LP-49 in the dark with 2 flashlights. We then had a pleasant drive back to Coalinga where Rich bought Joe and I dinner at Perkos. The Perkos lady was closing but she felt sorry for us and stayed over a bit later to feed us. I hope Rich left her a nice tip.  The drive up 198 to Priest Valley was beautiful with everything green and wild lupine growing on the side of the road. It was quite cold up there once the sun went down, and I had neglected to take a jacket. However, lifting the wingtips on the LP-49 generated enough body heat to keep me from getting hypothermia. Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera to record where Rich landed. But I can show you on Google Earth.

On Sunday, Bart Klusek came down from Davis. He had already soloed in the 2-33 and the Blanik, but it was extremely windy with crosswind from the right on Sunday, so we just did 2 dual 3,000ft tows to get some experience in the conditions for him. There was some 0 sink, but we were not able to climb. It was quite rough on tow. The wind was out of the North. There may have been some ridge lift by Tar Canyon, but we were afraid we might not be able to glide back into the very strong wind from there, so we didn't try it.  We thought we might have been able drift  backwards over the ground when flying into the wind,  it seemed that windy, but we were still moving very slightly forward over the ground with an indicated airspeed of 40 mph, so the wind was probably in the lower to mid  30 kt range at altitude.  Lemoore NAS was reporting steady 29kts wind  with gusts to 39kts. It didn't seem quite that windy at Avenal.  There was a lot of dust blowing off several farm fields up by Coalinga.  Bart did very well handling the X wind take off and landing and got to experience the effect of the wind gradient,  which is accentuated as you get down low on final approach with the right Xwind at we had at Avenal, because of the turbulent wind coming over the trees and buildings along the right side of the runway.  He will be coming out again soon, and is ready to fly as often as he can and  make the push towards getting  his license.

Alex

Now for Joe Anastasio's narrative of the day:

Harold,

I feel pretty foolish for not taking pictures of the retrieve.  First of all, it was beautiful out there, secondly, it was kind of fun.

I'm sorry we got separated.  I had to stop for gas in Coalinga, a good thing I did too!.  He was 25 miles west of Coalinga in Priest Valley.  We kept driving, looking for that 72000 something address.  Watching the numbers I was shocked at how slowly they increased .  (Typical conversation, "Say Alex, that was 35032, what number did you say? 72000-what?)

He landed in the best field for miles around.  It was soft-had been disked prior to the rains, but firm enough for my pickup and the trailer.  We did have to use some plywood scraps I had from the last retrieve to get the glider up high enough to get it on the cradle.  Since it was past sunset when we got there, we worked by flashlight.  (Between us we had 2).  Alex was great.

This is the first retrieve that I actually got a steak dinner.  We got back to Coalinga around 10:00.  We found a Perkos that stayed open long enough to feed us.  I guess we looked pretty desperate.  We got back to the clubhouse around 11:00, I got home at 12:30.

Joe Anastasio
 

3. Yes, there were other people flying today. Two men traveling around the western U.S. decided to go for a demo ride. Steve Harris from New York City and Jamie Lipman from the United Kingdom arrived at Avenal hoping to go aloft. It took awhile because it was that busy here today, but we finally got them both aloft.They flights weren't too long but enough for them to enjoy the time in the air.

4. Jeff Lowe, Jerry Smeltzer, and Julie Butler all flew the 1-26. Norm Lambert flew the 2-33 getting closer to his solo day, while Bob Stroup also flew the 2-33 working toward his solo as well. Julie and I flew the Orange Crush for a refresher flight and a renewal of her solo privileges. Morgan Hall flew the ASW-20 for several hours and arrived early evening. No problem since he and Julie were planning on staying overnight anyway.

5. Alex and Joe Anastasio flew the Blanik high and long, returning late afternoon in time to retrieve Rich Miller from Priest Valley. Steve Schery flew his Discus and was aloft more than four hours.