THE FOLLOWING TEXT PREPARED BY MORGAN HALL.

PICTURES COURTESY OF MIKE SIMPSON.

HIGHLIGHTS:
 

1. I appreciate the story provided by Morgan Hall who keeps providing so many other things for the club, we should be embarrassed by now that many others of us have been a bit lax keeping up with Morgan's contributions. Here is his story:

Hi Harold,

I figured I'd give you the recap of the day.  I will have to see what I can collect as far as pictures go.  I only took a couple, but my friend Mike came out and he took quite a few.  Maybe I can get him to put some on a jump drive and then I can sort them out and send a few your way. (And Mike did provide the pictures)

Saturday was a pretty busy day at Avenal.  We had a visiting pilot, Todd Robinson who normally flies out of Williams and Crazy Creek.  He came down with his ASW-20 to visit me and give Avenal a try.  Todd, my friend Charlie and I camped out in the clubhouse on Friday night for a little more social of a weekend.  Saturday morning was crisp and clear with calm conditions.  These filled in a bit out of the NE, but nothing like the winds seen in the previous two days with morning winds generally less than 10mph.  Alex's RASP maps were calling for lift in the 4-5 knot range and the top of lift at around 5000 in the valley and 7000 over the mountains.

By 10:00 people started showing up.  Jim Burgess, our officer of the day was present bright and early as was Alex.  Todd and I were busy replacing the Mylar on the horizontal stabilizer of GD.  While I soak and scraped my way through years of adhesive, Todd set up his ASW-20F, TR.  A nice guy by the name of Yutaka Buto came out to join the club.  I was busy cursing the fortitude of the adhesive on my stabilizer and didn't get his complete story.  From what Alex told me, Yutaka is a commercial pilot flying smaller transport and cargo runs from the Bay area to Burbank.  Hopefully we will see him out more regularly and get to know him as he is our newest member.  Later in the day he had a couple of flights with Alex and did great, taking the whole tow on the second flight.  Apparently he has a bit of time in gliders from years back, but is very solid.

Frank Owen and his friend Christoph from Munich came out in Frank's Cessna 150 and they went up in the 2-33.  Julie drove out a bit later and brought another friend of ours, Mike Simpson with the hopes of getting an introductory flight.  By noon we had light and variable winds and some dust devils rolling through.  Another potential club member came by.  Candice lives over in Visalia I believe.  She's retired and just a few months ago got her glider add-on down in Arizona.  She's looking to join the club and learn to soar.  Additionally, she is interested in towing.  We talked a bit before I launched, I hope she got the information she needs and will be joining us soon.

Frank and Christoph were the first to go up in the 2-33.  I'm not sure how high they towed, but they worked some light and disorganized lift, staying up for at least a 40 minute flight or more.  Steve took his Discus and disappeared for the rest of the afternoon. Julie flew the 1-26 and worked some lift for a few hundred feet but the non-round thermals gave her a bit of trouble and she came down all too quickly. Todd took the next tow and was surprised when Loyal took him off to the right instead of out towards the mountains.  Over town they hit a solid thermal and Todd released at about 1200agl which he quickly cored out and began working his way towards the mountains.  Bart was next up in the Blanik, launching around 1:30 or so and was doing very well.  I slipped in the launch line after Bart and took the next tow.  It was a bit rowdy down low, but there was at least lift.  After dancing with Loyal for a few minutes I released around 2700 to sniff out my own lift.  

I quickly found the last thermal we'd bumped through and began to climb.  Nothing too strong, but solid all the way around at 2-3knots or so.  Bart and Todd were working in the same area and we all worked our separate cores up through 5000.  Todd headed to the mountains and Bart seemed to head toward the Kettleman hills.  Julie took another tow and last I saw was crossing underneath me on the way towards Tar Peak.  Todd and I worked toward Black Mountain, appreciating the legs that our ASW-20's offered. The lift in the mountains was a bit ragged, but a few climbs to 7000+ were possible, most topped out in the 6700 range.  Todd and I got separated and although I loitered for a bit, he eventually returned to the valley to head towards Coalinga.  I stuck to the mountains and had something of a repeat of last week's flight.  I pushed across Priest Valley and up the Diablo Range north of Coalinga to about 7 miles shy of Hernandez reservoir before turning and heading for home finishing with a 36 mile final glide from about 6600.  Todd made it most of the way to Coalinga, working lift along the highway to about 5k.  

From what I understand Bart continued to work and climb in the vicinity of the airport finally succumbing to responsibility and pulling the dive brakes in order to return the Blanik to Alex for more training flights.  He apparently found this "Avenal Effect" I keep hearing about and was only able to achieve about 3 knots descent with full dive brakes and a slip.  Too bad he won't get that lift back some day when he will really need it.

Alex took Daniel Solis up for a flight in the Blanik.  I'm not sure if that was Daniel's first Blanik flight or not, hopefully he enjoyed it.  Late in the day, just after I landed, Mike Simpson got his first glider ride.  Mike is another hang glider pilot and did very well.  Alex put him into a late afternoon thermal and they climbed out to over 5000 after 5pm.  On the way down they did some stalls and slow flight.  Alex even let Mike land and it was a fantastic landing.  I joked that "Mike must be landing" because it was too nice of an approach and landing for it to have been a first timer.  The joke was on me.  Alex took another flight, possibly with Yutaka and then Bart took the last flight of the day and had a nice flight in the dwindling hours of daylight.

Overall it was a nice day and everyone had fun and probably learned something new.