February 14, 2015

WEATHER
Visibility:         3-4 miles at the beginning of the day, 5-7 miles later.
Wind:             A gust of 11 MPH was recorded across the street--we never felt anything that strong..
Altitudes:        Whatever you released at.
Time Aloft:     15 minutes.  Max.
Max Lift:        Enough to decrease your sink rate.
Temperature: 70° -74° F throughout the afternoon.
Comment:      Leisurely day.
Tow pilots:     Dan, Harry, Nick.

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Dan started the morning with ground instruction for future towpilots Nick and Harry.  Nobody was ready to be towed before class, so the flying part of Nick and Harry's checkout was deferred until after class.

Dan is showing new tow pilots Harry and Nick details to look for when inspecting a rope.

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Dan gave a ground school about forecast products available and how to read them, air movement, stable vs. unstable air, why moist air is a detriment to thermal development, what happens to thermals after a shear line passes, and why the mighty Sierras don't lend themselves to ridge lift.

Dan starting the topic of "Mountain Wave."

Alex followed with a ground school about the RASP, Regional Atmospheric Soaring Predictor, which is of interest to soaring pilots.  Alex went into the nuts and bolts of generating the forecast, and therefore some of its limitations, then he went on to how to use the products generated by the RASP.

Alex explaining RASP map.

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Only two gliders, Orange Crush and the 1-26, made it to the launch area today.

Jaime Strickland is a Veterinarian in Tulare and a new member.  Here she is in Orange Crush getting briefed by Harold before takeoff.

Jaime.  Photo Courtesy of Skip Breidbach.

Jaime has started her takeoff roll.  Photo: Skip.

Good position on the takeoff roll.  Photo: Skip

Steve Valentine joined the club after an introductory lesson a couple of weeks ago. He's a good friend of Jan Zanutto's from the Fresno area, and shares a mutual passion for motorcycles with Jan.  Now it looks like he may have also been hooked by Jan with a fascination for soaring.

Alex adjusts the shoulder harness for Steve Valentine.

Alex gives Steve a preflight briefing.  Photo: Skip

Harry also has good soft-field technique on the landing.  Photo: Skip

Dan Clark is waiting for the towplane to return

Nick (orange shirt) had to leave before his flights for towpilot checkout were complete. 
Harry is walking towards the plane to begin the inflight portion of his towpilot checkout.

Harry has the nose up for a "soft field takeoff."

Jeff Richardson checking the airspace above the gliderport.

Allen White runs the wing for Jeff.

Jaime pointed out that Harold was giving real "ground instruction."

Allen White is ready for takeoff in Orange Crush.

Five minutes later Allen is landing.  Spectators in the launch area are closely watching, ready to move.
Allen's accuracy in rolling out to the desired spot was reminiscent of a Bob Hoover airshow landing.

Harry Davies is a new member.  Orange Crush must be quite a change form his job of flying F-18s at Lemoore.

Harry has completed his checkout in the towplane and is now trying the other end of the rope, which Richard has just attached to Orange Crush.

Jaime runs the wing as Harry starts his takeoff roll.

Not telling who is in the glider or who is in the towplane.  Doesn't matter--this is still a pretty sight for mid-February.
Photo: Skip

Around 3:30 there was a little bit of lift to be found.  Jim felt the left wing getting lifted over the circle crop and work it for about three 360° turns.  Did not gain any altitude, but did not lose any, either, staying right at 2800 MSL ± a few feet.  Probably could have worked it longer, but headed back towards the gliderport in hopes of finding something over the dry fields where a raven had found a little bit of lift.  Did not work, and there was no going back to the circle crop.  At 2000' MSL, about where one would make the downwind to base turn for runway 13, did get an actual climb and tried to stay in it, but that little bit of lift was surrounded by sink.  Time to come home.

Saturday January 24, 2015

WEATHER
Visibility: Hazy down low, but unlimited above the low inversion.
Wind: 5-10 kt out of the South
Altitudes: 3000ft. AGL - tow release altitude
Time Aloft: 25 minutes
Max Lift: None encountered
Temperature: 60ish (F.)
Comment: Very smooth air. Fog hanging over the top of the Kettleman Hills and over the Central Valley. But hazy sun at Avenal. Some fog South of the field at times,  but never over the field,  and it stayed clear to the North towards Coalinga, and to the West.
Tow pilot: Frank Owen came out from San Luis Obispo in the Aeronca. Frank left when it looked like clouds/fog might move in from the South. However, it ended up remaining clear over the airport.  Later,  Harold towed us.

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Tyler Bishop was out and flew at least three times in the 1-26, doing quite well with his aero towing, patterns and landings. There was no lift, or I'm sure he would have been up quite a while.

Steve Valentine, who is a friend of Jan Zanutto's from motorcycle riding,  and Sylvia de la Torre came out. Steve went for an introductory lesson and submitted this video and a number of pictures from his flight. He enjoyed it, and says he is coming back out. We hope so, with the proviso that he brings Sylvia with him each time.  I don't have any pictures of Sylvia, unfortunately!

You can see the fog bank hanging over the Kettleman Hills and the Central Valley was socked in with fog. You can see how clear it is above the low level inversion.  I'm told it did get sunny in Fresno in the afternoon. I told Steve he could put his feet on the rudder pedals, but he wasn't taking any chances, I guess, so he kept them in the middle of the floor!   

Looking NorthEast towards the Sierras,  and Fresno.

Looking NorthEast,  towards edge of fog bank hanging over crest of  Kettleman Hills

The Avenal Aerodrome and beautiful metropolitan Avenal,  looking East from just West of the field.

Holding Steve's Iphone while he gets situated in cockpit.

Getting ready to tow the Orange Crush to the North end of the field for take off on runway 13, due to the South Wind.

Just before we towed the glider to the take off area on runway 13.

Mutually admiring the lines and beauty of the Orange Crush, along with expressing kudos to the design genius of the Schweizer brothers!

Adjusting seat belts and shoulder harness.

Last part of the pre-flight briefing.

January 10, 2015 -- Excellent activity for the date!

WEATHER
Visibility:         Averaged 5 miles.
Wind:              4 MPH was the highest gust reported all day at the NWS station across the street.
Altitudes:        Whatever you were released at, save for Andrew.
Time Aloft:     Andrew, 1-1/2 hours.
Max Lift:        
Temperature:  54° @ 9:00, peak of 68° shortly before 2:00
Comment:      Good "shake off the rust" day.  Weather was fantastic, air quality was terrible. 
Tow pilots:      Dan Gudgel and Harold Gallagher.

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The RASP was not predicting much lift for the day.  Not a surprise for middle of January.  Peter Sahlberg said, "I got 120 FPM....for 120 milliseconds."

Andrew was able to go to the west side of the ridge and find lift.   Those of us on the ground were mostly talking about the "sled rides" and poor visibilities when somebody noted that Andrew had been gone a long time.  Talking afterwards he stated that he could have stayed up longer, but wanted to get down early enough so that he could leisurely disassemble the glider and put it in the trailer.

RASP was not predicting mush lift.  It was spot-on.

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Early arrivals came across a geo-exploration/surveying crew working on the gliderport grounds.  It was a little bit disconcerting, as none of owners present knew anything about it.  After some discussions, everybody seemed to be happy.  Dan even took the foreman, Rex,  up for a ride.

Some of the geo-exploration/surveying equipment between runway 7-15 and the south fence.

One of the pieces of equipment, probably the transmitter.

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Harold and Dan swapped towpilot duties during the day.

Harold about to do another launch.

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Dan Gudgel is giving Philip Gerfaud instruction prior to Philip's first flight  in our 2-33.

Graeme McIntosh is running the wing for Philip on his first takeoff.

Philip's first landing.

Just a couple of inches from Philip's third and last landing for the day.  Welcome to CCSC!

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For a day in January, there was an impressive amount of activity.  In the picture below are seven people, plus one in the towplane, plus one behind the camera.  Jan Zanutto and Martin Casakey were also out earlier looking at parts of the "Big Bird Project."  Eleven people that I can account for, and I may have missed others.

Seven people and (parts of) four sailplanes are in this picture.

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Tyler Bishop has just broke ground in the 1-26.

Peter Sahlberg has company as he awaits the towplane to return.

Six observers plus Andy Reistetter in the pilots seat.

Andy, the canopy and your hat look real close to each other.

Tyler Bishop is hooking up Graeme McIntosh.

Andrew Ouellet is all smiles and giving a "thumbs up" to launch his recently acquired sailplane

Traffic Alert!  Andrew's launch is held when the helicopter supporting the geosurvey is over the field and moving in a path that we cannot predict.

Finally Andrew gets to launch.

Overall, a pretty good day, and if you consider the date, January 10th, it was an exceptional day!

Big Bird Gets its Feathers plucked, Day 2

WEATHER
Visibility:         Hazy
Temperature:  Cooler than yesterday.
Comment:      No airport operations again today.

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A team gathered again to tear down Big Bird in preparation for the rebuild.  Saturday great big pieces were removed, Sunday was the small stuff.

Jan watches Andrew drill out rivets from the rudder..

Frank and Richard work on removing the seatpan which is riveted onto the frame.

John is removing the aileron bellcrank from the airframe.

Pancho is drilling out a rivet to free an aluminum "former" from the steel frame.

Frank is dosconnecting the last of the wires, etc., between the nosebowl and frame.

Several eyeballs are checking to make sure all of the rivets holding the nosebowl onto the frame have been found and drilled out.

The nosebowl is ready to be removed.

The nosebowl is off.

Many hands work to free a stubborn longeron.

 The first step of the preparation is to clean the airframe good.  Since sandblasting can actually peen over a small crack and make it invisible, any suspect areas are first scraped clean of paint.

Martin is using a knife to scrape paint off of suspect areas.

This is the right-hand attachment for the wing strut.  While not unsafe--yet--this is certainly not good and needed attention ASAP.

Right-hand wing strut attach fitting.

Rear wing spar attachment.

More rust.

More rust.

The consensus was that the dent on the tube below has been there for a long time, probably before it was painted the last time.  The dent eventually caused the crack and, and eventually would have been a complete break.
This tube is what holds the forward spar of the vertical stabilizer.

 Dent and crack on tube that holds main spar of vertical stabilizer.

Here is the frame at the end of the day.  No "attached" parts are remaining.