HIGHLIGHTS:
 

1. Great day to fly. Markers everywhere, lift strong, cloud base near 8000 msl and rising during the day, especially over the mountains. Only points out that we need another 2-33 and on some days like today, two tow planes and associated tow pilots.

2. Frank Owen brought the newest Mechanical Engineering Professor at Cal Poly out to introduce him to the wonderful world of soaring. Here is Frank's account of the day and his three-photo contribution:

The thermal switch was turned on in Avenal on Saturday.  I had two check-out rides with Harold in the Blanik before going up with a new colleague at Cal Poly, Hemanth Porumamilla, for a third ride.  And boy what a ride it was.  Lift everywhere.  Puffy clouds all over the place.  We were on tow to 2000 feet AGL, and Loyal dropped us off right under a cloud.  We actually didn't get lift right away but then it came, and came, and came.  We got about halfway between the airport and the hills and started going up, up, up.  We got into 4-5 m/s lift that kept going up.  There were plenty of flat-bottomed clouds, and we'd picked a good one.  Up to 6500 feet, right to the bottom of the cloud.  We would have gotten sucked up on into the thing had we not deployed the dive brakes and flown out from under it.  By this time, Hemanth was referring to the cloud as "that beast".  So we went on out over the Kettleman hills, just leisurely, just zooming through the sink and stopping for the lift.  We lost very little altitude and covered a lot of ground.  Who needs an engine?  We kept just floating around, burning up altitude back down into the 3000s.  Then back toward the prison, a little to the northwest of it, again an express elevator up.  We saw the 2-33 at our elevation in another thermal to the north of us, but ours was better.  We jumped up and saw the 2-33 abandon its thermal in favor of ours.  From the back seat lots of glee and again references to "that beast".  At 6700 we were again scraping the bottom of a flat-bottomed cloud that wanted us up in it.  Dive brakes, fly out from under the thing.  We felt like we had to come down to let people waiting have their chance.  So down we went.  Without the dive brakes, it was hard to go down.  What'll we do, find some sink and negatively thermal in it?  Harold never taught me that maneuver.  So it took a while to get down.  Over the IP we were still up in the 3000s, circling slowly and trying sometimes unsuccessfully to come down.  I told Hemanth, "Let's do a 360 and see how much altitude we lose in one circle."  So after 360 degrees were were 200 feet higher than we were when we started!  Too good to be true.  So finally we pulled the dive brakes and got down, despite all the attempts of Mother Nature to prevent us from so doing.  The result:  a great experience and the hook set in a prospective club member.

Frank

3. Morgan had a great flight in his ASW-20, over the mountains, and everywhere else. I think he was up more than three hours and had a wonderful flight.

4. Bruce McJunkin continues to prepare for his checkride, doing both flight and ground studying and training. He should be taking his checkride soon enough, when he feels comfortable with the oral portion and a few smoothing edges on the flight portion.

5. Mario enticed Morgan Hall and Don Van Wyk to go with him down towards California Valley. It was a nice flight, long and challenging, but good to get completely out of sight of Avenal. In the process, however, Don landed out in a grassy field, but Mario and Morgan managed to make it back to Avenal. Mario retrieved him but it took all day, so we didn't see Mario or Don for the remainder of the day.

6. Morgan and Julie brought one of Morgan's hang glider buddies to Avenal. Perhaps, like Morgan, Mike Simpson will decide that flying with Morgan at Avenal in a closed cockpit, and faster as well, will appeal to him more than hanging out, literally, beneath a fabric wing. Let's hope so.

7. Paul Hanson flew the 1-26 for his long flight, remaining aloft as long as he wanted and returning only so someone else could use the glider.

8. Jerry Badal and brother David used the Blanik to head over towards the mountains and, like everyone else, had a great flight, working the strong thermals, and going up as high as cloud base wherever they flew.

9. Jerry Keeler flew once today with Morgan, or Alex, I don't recall which. But Jerry has been out here before and seems to like the flights and the club atmosphere.

10. Julie Butler and Jeff Lowe traded flying the 1-26 all afternoon. Jeff also flew the 2-33 and both had rides they enjoyed.

11. Bob Stroup waited patiently all day long, in spite of my trying to get him aloft sooner. We launched in the Blanik trying to make it easier to not only get in the glider but to manage the controls. It seems that the Blanik is more suited to Bob's flight handling than was the 2-33. We'll continue to work with the Blanik with the hope that it will be easier for Bob to solo in it.

12. Mario finally got the Alby to Tehachapi on a great flight from Avenal. Here is what he reported and where the complete story is found.

13. Needless to say, it was great soaring all day long !!!!!!!!!!!!!