HIGHLIGHTS:
 

1. The headlines tell the whole story. Booming thermals, heights above 12,000 msl, long distances achieved, student pilots thermaling high, cool air aloft, and reasonably cool on the ground. It truly was an enjoyable time to be flying gliders at Avenal. And it looks to be the same for the coming weekends. We're in a cycle where the cool air aloft allows the heated air on the ground to rise faster and higher than it would otherwise. Since no one is sure how long these cycles will last, it behooves our members to head to Avenal for some great soaring fun and camaraderie.

2. Alex went aloft for his three BFR flights and now has another two years before the next one. The air was cool and the fierce thermals hadn't yet gotten to the point of strong turbulence. It was just a nice time to fly three easy flights.

3. Bart Klusek and Alex launched from the far end because the wind early in the morning had come from the southeast. They were getting Bart back into the groove for flying the 2-33 because that's the one he'll take his checkride in.

4. Mario Crosina and Morgan Hall prepared their gliders for what they knew would turn out to be nice high and long flights. I was fortunate to have towed them both aloft on such a great soaring day. Here is how Morgan told Jerry Badal about today's flight:

Hey Jerry,

I wish you could have been there yesterday.  Classic statement, I know, but it was a great day.  A little rough and ragged at the start of the day, but it just built and built for the rest of the afternoon.  After a low start in the valley and a push NW towards Coalinga, the call of the mountains pulled Mario and I in.  I headed for a forming cloud to the North of Black and found very strong lift.  10-knot average with a few spikes that were showing over 14 knots.  After that thermal started to back off I headed North to the next cloud about 12 miles away up towards Center Peak.  Connected with that climb and then pushed across to the San Benito Range.  There was a convergence line well defined with some clouds along the San Benito Range and I worked that up to just west of Panoche.  I was at about 9000 around Panoche and had a 19 mph headwind on the return so I played it conservative and didn't cross the Panoche Valley.  When I turned around I got into a little wave and played around in the glass smooth 1-2 knot for a few minutes.  There was much better lift along the convergence so the wave was just something fun to experience.  Heading back south I connected with Mario at San Benito Mtn and we followed the convergence SE for 20 miles or so before getting separated.  I took a long smooth glide down to Orchard peak and then back to Black as I was thinking it was getting about time to land (not knowing Julie and Harold were tooling around and going X-C in the 2-33 at that point).  Back at Black around 4000 I hit a 6-knot climb and couldn't resist coreing it up.  I took it to 6200 or so and decided to head north along the convergence line until I had a straight-in glide to Avenal with an extra 1000ft or so.  By the time I was north of Coalinga, I was at 7000 and stopped to climb because I saw Ethan in the Blanik overhead.  I circled up to catch up with him, then slipped down and around him to snap a few photos.  From there I continued north a ways until I had Avenal on a glide with 2000 ft extra.  I turned and headed for home flying around 110mph+ most of the way.  Even at 5:30 or so, there was still booming lift and a nice cloud street and haze domes along the convergence.  Alex and Ethan landed a half hour later or so.  Great day of flying though.

Hopefully we'll see you next weekend and get some good air.

Morgan

My OLC trace:
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-606471132
 

And here is Mario's OLC (On Line Contest) trace link:

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-560419666

Morgan reached 11,558 msl and Mario went to 12,040 msl.

5. Julie Butler and I launched early afternoon on the third of what were going to be just short training flights. Because the turbulence was rough down low, we opted to release at 2000 msl rather than endure the knocking around we were getting from launch to pattern height. From that point on, Julie snagged a good strong thermal and in practically no time at all we were looking at 7,400 msl. On the way up the variometer spiked up towards 8-9 knots of lift. She let me fly the glider at 7400 and I successfully managed to find 6400 msl all too quickly. But, back up to over 7000 msl once again, we headed first to the mountains to seek higher lift and finding none, we returned to just west of the field. Back up high, we headed to Coalinga. Arriving past the prison and just about to the Coalinga airport, we turned back southeast again to Avenal. Once there, she thermalled back up again to 6700 msl and we headed out into the Central Valley east of I - 5. Then we turned northwest to show her the Hale duster strip and back over to the Avenal prison. By this time my glutes were feeling the effect of being a passenger for what seem like almost two hours. Finally we decided to land and found out the actual time aloft was 2.7 hours and calculated we covered over 70 miles in our journey. Julie did a superb job of keeping us at those high altitudes. Yes, it was fun and instructive, and with visibility almost unlimited, the scenery was magnificent. "You should have been there".

6. On this wonderful day, Alex took the GAPA aloft and managed to reach 6800 msl in that tiny little sailplane. He used the tow plane to get to pattern height but took care of the rest on his own. Now that's something, looking down from that height, sitting out in the air, with only straps between you and the ground. Fun, though, and Alex had a great time.

7. Ethan Ronat took the Blanik, headed to the mountains, and hooked up with Morgan northwest of Coalinga. Ethan managed to reach 10,500 msl on his flight and was aloft for several hours.

8. Jerry Smeltzer took his Nugget back to Warner Springs so the folks there could readjust the control surfaces after Mario's rather interesting flight the week before. We hope they get it all sorted out so Jerry can fly his own glider soon.

9. Dan Gudgel did most of the towing, but I had a chance to get checked out as a tow pilot with the launches of Morgan and Mario, plus another simulated tow. It certainly increases one's appreciation for the difficulty of being the tow pilot and trying to keep the airspeed within limits and the turns shallow in such turbulent air. Dan also worked with Steve Schery today getting him checked out as a tow pilot as well.

10. Makynzee Balucas came out with his Dad and Dad's girlfriend and took two flights with me. We went to 3800 msl early in the day, then went to 2800 msl when the air became too turbulent to stay on any higher. He is progressing very nicely and expect him to solo within or less than the normal time frame. He should be a very good soaring pilot in the future.

11. The final note of the day: the 1-26 sat at its moorings all day, with no one flying it. Hard to imagine that on a spectacular soaring day, there weren't more members out here flying anything that had wings. Maybe people were caught short, not thinking the day would be so good. But the weather people were forecasting cool weather all week long before today and so there didn't seem to be any reason why our members took the day off. The weather pattern is here and hopefully more will take advantage of it.