QQ Panel Upgrade

 During the COVID-19 shutdown in March through April 2020, I spent a lot of time and money to upgrade the instrument panel for my glider. 

When I first bought the glider, QQ was equipped with an ILEC SN-10B.  The ILEC SN-10B is quite old as far as flight computers go, but it's still quite capable for doing many navigational and contest tasks.  However, when I got the flight computer, there was a small problem with it.  One of the pins in that flight computer's serial cable had broken, which made it impossible to upload information into the SN-10.  I replaced the SN-10 with an LXNav 8080. 

I installed the LX8080 a few days before my first contest at Mifflin, and quite frankly had no idea how to operate it on the first day of the contest. By the end of the contest, I had figured out most of the things I needed to do to make it useful.  Over the next 3 years, I grew to master its function, and actually got to like it.  It was much better than the old SN-10 that it replaced. 

Around September of 2019, I started realizing that this flight computer, although capable, was rather small for my aging eyes.  It is only the size of a standard 80mm diameter flight instrument.  While this size is quite convenient for making it a drop-in replacement for most other instruments, it's really not a good size for many of the new features that are in the later models of the flight computers from the same manufacturer. 

I had ordered brand new blank instrument panels from the glider's manufacturer in August of 2019. By December 2019, I had ordered all of the equipment for the replacement panel.  Items started showing up in January and February. I had a friend do most of the work in cutting out the holes in the panel with a laser cutter, a router, some drills, some files and sandpaper. 

I spent many evenings wiring up the back of the panel. I sent a nightly email to the certified aircraft inspector who decided to mentor me through this whole thing.  

By June, I was flying with the new instrument panel. The whole task of doing the panel upgrade was a huge effort and deserves a page of its own. 

Functionality test to ensure all components got power
(and nothing caught on fire)

After everything was installed, we performed a weight and balance. I created a Google Sheets document to simplify the task of handling all the data for weight and balance (W&B): pilot mass, parachutes, wing water, tail water.  There are many things that have to be verified when handling the weight and balance.  If there are any items out of the required parameters, the checklist shows a warning or an error bar.  All of the numbers show up on steam gauges on the spreadsheet. 

Weight and balance for two heavy pilots, still flyable!

Final installation, front seat

Final installation, rear seat

Sunday's Post-Flight Analysis

Dear Steve,

I get a lot of information about my flying by doing an intense post-flight analysis after every flight. 

I grab the IGC file from the PowerFLARM or the Nano, and upload it to OLC.  Our flight on Sunday was a really interesting flight with some low saves. When it's a really interesting flight, with some low saves, I'll convert it to a KMZ file to look around at the fields I was looking at in flight.  This builds a collection of off-field-landing insights that adds to my repertoire.  

Follow along with me.  

Install Google Earth

Download this KMZ file 

http://members.skylinesoaring.org/FLIGHTS/traces/2016-08-07T15:27:26Z-611.kmz

The OLC has an IGC to KMZ conversion program, but it's kind of ugly.  They don't include many points on the track, and there's no detail about the thermals. I made the above KMZ file with a program I wrote, that's hidden on the members-only section of the website.  I wrote it before OLC was a big thing.  I had grand visions for it, integrating into our instructional program, but those visions faded away. You can convert IGC to KMZ with the link:

http://members.skylinesoaring.org/TRACES/

Pull up the KMZ file in Google Earth. By default, the Google Earth shows everything in an absolute top-down view.  I find it more useful to look at the flight in a somewhat oblique angle.  View everything at an angle in Google Earth by holding down the Alt Key (Windows) or Command Key (Mac), while moving the mouse around on the screen with the left mouse button clicked.  Zoom in and out with the Mouse Wheel.  Once you get a feel for navigating around with Google Earth, go find our low point, which was next to the town of Tenth Legion, VA.  Each of those blobs are clickable, with the information that was recorded in the IGC file for that datapoint. 

During our Sunday flight, our low point 2178 feet MSL (!)

The field we were looking at -- the one that's at Tenth Legion -- looks like it definitely would have been long and flat enough for us to land in.  I wonder what the story is for this field. 

The field is at 1100 feet MSL, at 38º34'35.68"N 78º43'35.66"W. 

You can use the ruler tool in Google Earth to give you an idea about relative distances. Use it to draw a line on the ground, and it'll measure the distance over the terrain.  Let's see if that field sucked, or if it really was long enough for an outlanding. 

According to Google Earth's measurement tool, it's 1200 feet by 85 feet. 

It's a good thing that we found this thermal when we did! My "We gotta land if this doesn't work out" spider sense turned out to be right.  We were down to 1100 feet AGL over this field I was favoring. 

Let's take a look at the field you were looking at: 38º33'43.45"N 78º42'22.97"W

Hey! It doesn't look too bad!  It looked kind of lumpy to me from the air, but the altitude differences weren't that much around the field.

You can figure out the elevation of the terrain by moving your mouse around and looking at the readout for altitude on the bottom right of google earth.

The other low save wasn't nearly as low; even though we were in an interesting position. On the Eastern side of the Blue Ridge, near Syria, VA.  Low point of 3100 feet MSL. The mountains immediately underneath made it look lower than we actually were.  We had a lot of distance we could cover to find more lift or a landout field. 

While we were seeking that solid thermal to get us out of that mess, the field I had in mind looks pretty good. 1600 feet long, but complicated by trees on the approach.  The trees would reduce the usable length of the field, so that's a demerit. 

Landing it on the diagonal would have given us another 200 feet, which is what I probably would have done. 

There were many other options slightly to the north, between Peola Mills and Etlan, VA; just east of Old Rag. 

Here's the crummy photo I took from the iPhone when Romeo-Whiskey was turning too much for a good photo.  I couldn't get out the phone in time for us to fly with the Bald Eagle over Front Royal. 

Finally, there was a really really bright light that distracted us for a while.  What the heck was that light? We wondered if it could have been a helicopter with a landing light on it, pointing right toward us.  We flew toward it, I turned to the side, and there was no horizontal relative motion; then I turned back toward it.  The lack of horizontal movement means it was really far away. Shane quipped "It's a fishing lure", and Chuck suggested it might be that laser that they use to tell an aircraft that it's flying toward FRZ airspace. 

I found the part of the flight trace and projected the distance out.  

Projecting the distance out... it's pretty much right over the middle of the city.   I wonder if it was a building that was just pointed out the right way, reflecting all of its glass at us, or if it's really something more laser-y.  It's conceivable that it was a building in Rosslyn. Not likely to be Tyson's Corner. It could have been a glass building at Reston Town Center. 

I don't think it was the FRZ laser system.  That's supposed to flash red-green-red-green.  This was a solid bright yellow-ish white. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_DC_Metropolitan_Area_Special_Flight_Rules_Area#Laser_warning_system

I bet it was some perfectly aligned building. If I had some photos of the light, I could probably figure out which building it was with some triangulation, while using the GPS information. 

One of the cool functions of OLC is showing where you were flying with other gliders nearby.   Here, on our flight trace, you can see Romeo Whiskey following us along the blue ridge, and November Golf flying around us after we flew with that Bald Eagle over the town of Front Royal.

I hope you enjoyed the flight and found it to be educational and memorable. I hope it gave you some sort of idea why cross-country soaring is so much fun -- way more fun than grinding about, around the pattern all the time. 

My First Glider Contest

The launching grid at my first glider contest in Mifflin, PA

Armed with a freshly installed LX-Nav 8080 flight computer, I drove off to Central Pennsylvania for my first contest. I really was unsure as to what to expect from this.  Sure, I've done a lot of cross-country flying before, but have never tried to fly fast.  Only fly far, and keep from landing in some random person's field. 

Day 1

Sister ships, N483KS "QQ" and N484KS "KS"

"QQ" is ready for the first contest day! Evan is copilot in the front seat

 The practice day was washed out by some serious rain.  I spent the time pitching my tent.  I've heard stories about tents being blown away on the ridge days. I've heard stories of porta-potties blowing away, too.  To prevent my tent from blowing into an adjacent farmer's field, I placed the newly-purchased extra spare tire for my trailer in the tent.  The Coleman tent had a perfect spot for it, too.  The spare tire was still in its shipping box, so none of that nasty rubber stuff would rub off in my tent.
On Monday, our first contest day got underway.  I had to learn how to program a task into the flight computer.  Reading the manual wasn't particularly helpful.
Thankfully, Dave Weaver is an LX expert.  He claims that he should be paid by LX as a service consultant, and that he's convinced many people to choose the LX over the ClearNav.
Although there was no more rain, there was still a great deal of moisture in the atmosphere, and the morning didn't look like there was going to be any flying. A thick fog filled the Mifflin valley, and threatened operations on Monday.  
The fog burned off, and the cumulus clouds started forming at around 11:30.  The gliders were told to go to the runway as early at 10:30, for a noon-ish launch.

I was somewhere in the middle of the pack of gliders.  Far enough back that I got to figure out how this contest launch thing works. There is no time to mess around.  Once that tow plane lands, a ground crew runs over, picks up the rope, and within 10 seconds, you're hooked up.  If you haven't finished your checklist by the time the rope comes taut, you're going to have a rough take-off. No rudder waggle, no "are you ready?" You're assumed to be ready if you do the hookup of the cable.

Once airborne, and off tow, we quickly realized that something was wrong with the new flight computer.  The variometer, while doing indications on the ground when breezes went by, was stuck at zero.  The airspeed indicator on the V8 variometer was zero.  The LX-8080 thought we were still on the ground, at the field elevation of 820 feet.  That's no good.   Thankfully, I had a backup variometer on board, but only had one unit in the front seat. The backup variometer had an audio tone, but it's really not very loud.
The conditions were pretty marginal, to say the least.  I got to the start height, and decided to start the task anyway, even if the flight computer isn't 100% operational.   I exited the start cylinder.  The flight computer refused to cooperate.  "Dude, you're on the ground.  It says right here, the field elevation is 820"  It refused to start the task, no matter how many times I pressed the "Start" button.
I was no longer able to fully concentrate on the task of flying into cloudy, rainy weather, with a new system, with a broken variometer, with a flight computer that was refusing to navigate.  I whined, whimpered, and went back to the airport for a score of ZERO points for the day.
I had a lot of time to think about how I might have messed up the tubes to the new unit, and while all of the other instruments continued to work properly, there were a few possibilities of oops that I made for the new system.
The good news is that for that first day, many others also got zero points.  The day was devalued, and the top competitor in the sports class, Karl Striedieck, got only 505 points instead of the regular 1000.  So I picked a good day to get zero points.  And I wasn't at this contest to be competitive, anyway; just to do some good cross country flying and have a good time.
After landing, I opened up the instrument panel, figured out what I did wrong.  I asked around for a spare piece of tubing, and connected the total pressure tube to the right place on the V8 variometer.  After everything was in good working order, (or so I thought), I asked the contest director (CD) for a re-light.  "I realize that it's unorthodox to ask for a re-light as people finishing the task, but I need a shake-out flight". The CD agreed, and a quick flight to 2000' showed a working variometer, and a flight computer that didn't insist that we were still on the ground.

Day 2

Pete and Evan are trying to figure out the LX-8080

Tuesday was shaping up to be the best soaring day of the entire contest. Pete Maynard was the co pilot for the day, and did a great job of planning out everything on paper. We did what was a Gold Distance flight, covering most of the terrain around Mifflin.
The final turnpoint was to the northwest, at a place called White Pines.  The territory in this area was not ridge and valley, but more like eastern Kentucky.  Lots of small hills, not many fields to land in, and a fracking pad every few miles.  The thermals here were quite honest, taking us up to 10,500' at maximum.
I had a lovely 45 mile final glide from this turnpoint back to Mifflin, with a nice tail wind along the way.

Northwest of Williamsport, PA.  Truly unlandable terrain as far as the eye can see.  The blue squares are fracking pads.

Day 3

The humidity was starting to climb, but the soaring was still good.  I took up Evan for the Day 3's flying.  We had a 3.5 hour flight that had a good distance, but not as far as Tuesday's flying. Day 3's task was a MAT,  a Modified Area Task.  After the first four turnpoints, I got to make up my own turn points for extra distance.  Unfortunately, the sports class was one of the last few classes to launch, and we didn't get a full day in.  My last turnpoint at Sawmill was the last point that I saw any lift.  I pretty much did a final glide for the last 20 minutes of the task, and landed 7 minutes before the minimum time on the task. 

Day 4

 Evan and Pete Maynard had left for home, and replacing them were Chris Carswell and Bill Bank.  Chris Carswell got into the front seat, and we had an aggressive task called on what looked to be a marginal day.  It took a long time for the thermals to start developing.  Many of the sniffers launched, and came back.   We passed the time on the ground with umbrellas to keep the sun off. We were toward the middle of the pack.  The standard class launched first, and Hank Nixon called back saying "These are really marginal soaring conditions"  I made the mistake of sitting in the glider before it was actually our turn, and got sweaty for no reason at all. Thankfully, Evan left behind some beach umbrellas.  "QQ was the envy of the fleet" with its colorful sunshades. 

Finally, we got to the skies, and I couldn't wait to go onto our course.  We got a decent thermal in the start area, and once the class opened up, I was on my way. We headed northeast toward the first turnpoint, when the heat of the day turned into overcast, and no more thermals.  Other gliders passed us underneath.  I found one last thermal, and worked its mighty 0.5 knots until it gave no more.
One of the nice things about having a two seater is that the person in front can look at all the fields, and I can consider, accept, or reject them. One of the nice things about soaring in this part of Pennsylvania, is that there are a LOT of landable fields, and the valley we were stuck in was no exception. Chris and I agreed to the top 3 fields that we liked.  Some were rejected after closer inspection (hay bales), (wires), (fences), but there was one that looked utterly spectacular; bigger than the airport we usually fly out of. I watched Dave Weaver land in a field, and India Mike (Marty) land right next to him.  We still had altitude to make it into the next valley to find one more thermal to get us back to Mifflin. 

I told Chris that we were going to cross this valley to that... cloud... way ... over there.  If that cloud didn't work out, we'd be landing in that field that we agreed was the best option. 

That cloud, like all of the other clouds in this valley, gave no lift.  I made the decision that it wasn't going to work out, and switched to "land-out-mode"

We flew a nice wide pattern around the field, getting as good a look at the field as we could muster. 

Google Earth view of the landing in the field. 

As we approached the field, a car was driving along the road.  I would have liked to touch down in the first 20% of the field, but the approaching car was on a collision course if I just scraped over the road.  I closed the brakes for a moment and made a high enough approach to clear the oncoming car. We made a perfect landing! 

Chris is still in the glider after our off-field landing. 

I was pleased to see that the landing roll-out was short, and that I managed to miss all of the corn crop, which was not much more than "sprout" sized. I'd like to say that I planned it that way, but I guess it was just luck. 

Bill Bank had just arrived to Mifflin, and was quickly on his way to retrieve us. 

While we waited, the friendliest people came to see what this big white plane was doing in the field.  Two young Amish men, Daniel and David approached us with a team of horses and a hay bailing machine. They asked the typical questions one would ask after seeing a glider for the first time. "Well, we have to get back to work!"

"Hey, can I ask you guys a favor?  Can you help us push this glider out of the corn field and on to the grass field where those hay bales are? "
"Sure!" 

We pushed the Duo up a very slight incline, about 100 feet from where the horses were quietly munching on the hay bale they were about to load on to the cart and take back to the barn. 

We quickly realized that maybe the horses wouldn't like the site of this big white bird thing coming up the hill.  One of them got freaked out, and the whole team of horses turned around and ran away, down the dirt path. 

David and Daniel ran after the galloping horses with a speed I've never seen before. David attempted to hop on board the hay bailer, and Daniel attempted to "head them off at the pass."  I felt awful about this. 

They caught the horses, and brought them back.  I apologized profusely, that a city boy wouldn't ever think of such a reaction from horses.  

The soaring was so terrible on Day 4 that my class had the day get cancelled.  The points that I would have gotten for going out into the undiscovered country and landing out didn't count.  I landed that glider in a field for nothing! 

Day 5

I learned a valuable lesson: don't get into the glider until the sniffers have confirmed that the thermals were working.  We all hung out in the shade of the Duo's wing until it was a sure thing that the lift was working. 

The soaring day was much better than I had expected. The task called for a Turn Area Task. With Bill Bank in the front seat, we set out.  I just blurted out of the start cylinder on course, and got as high as I could.  I spent most of the day streeting along, stopping to circle only when it was a really good thermal. 

We saw a glider struggling below near Beaver Creek. It was India Mike, the same guy who landed out on Day 4. "There's no way I'm getting that low"

I hate to downplay this flight, but it really was a matter of choosing nice looking clouds in the general direction of my task, flying to it, looking for lift, hanging out if it was good, leaving if it wasn't. 

Apparently, this was the best strategy of the day, because after Day 5, I was in second place in the Sports Class (after Karl Striedieck). 

Day 6

Enough people had dropped out, withdrawn, landed out so many times, or scored so poorly that I could stay in the top three, as long as I didn't mess up too badly. With Chris Carswell in the front seat, I set out to fly a task that didn't have any serious mistakes.  The conditions were much worse on Day 6 than on Day 5, but I managed to continue my "bop along cloud base" strategy most of the time.  There were two different times that I really settled for some marginal 1 knot thermals when I needed to get on course, but at least I didn't land out. 

QQ Returning to Mifflin on the final day

I was the last glider to land on the last contest day (but not the last to cross the finish line!). I didn't turn in my flight log in as quick a manner as the scorer wanted.  He drove up to me and gave me an instructional moment, "I don't want to bust your chops since you're new around here..." Message received.   I handed him my Nano, and he drove back to the club house to get the flight scored.
I managed not to screw up too badly, and placed third in the Sports class, behind Karl Striedieck, and John Good.  All three winners in the Sports class were flying Duo Discuses.

Region 2 2016 Sports Class winners:
Karl Striedieck (1st), John Good (2nd), Piet Barber (distant 3rd)

I honestly think that the only reason I got third place is because many of the really good pilots were flying as guests ( Mike Robison, Heinz W. ), and many dropped out or withdrew.   I'll still take the trophy and place it on my glider trophy shelf, hopefully with many more to come in the future. 

VASA Cross Country Camp, Emporia VA

This past weekend I attended the Virginia Soaring Association Thermal/XC Soaring Camp (week 1). All of the soaring clubs in Virginia meet once a year in January.  During those meetings, the presidents of each club (and a few key members) share ideas on how to grow each other's soaring clubs. We share tales of working with the FAA or the SSA.  At the last meeting, somebody opined that it would be wonderful if all of the soaring clubs in Virginia could get together to practice flying in thermals.  So we did.
http://virginiasoaringxccamp.weebly.com/
This event is spread over two weekends, and we just finished the first weekend.  Members from Tidewater Soaring Society (Windsor, VA), Merlin Soaring in (Ameila, VA), Shenandoah Soaring (currently in Petersburg, WV), and Skyline Soaring club (Front Royal, VA) got together in Emporia, VA.
I left on Thursday evening to drive my two seat glider down to the bottom of the state.  The drive was about 4 hours through the winding back roads to I-64, then I-95 to Emporia. The weather en route was terrible; heavy rain, poor visibility, and aggressive drivers zooming by me and my 2800 pound glider trailer.

If you ever wondered how to get a glider around, you put it in a trailer like this
(and tow it with a big enough truck)

Friday: We sat inside and looked at the cats-n-dogs of rain outside.  We spent the time constructively.  Jim Garrison gave many lectures about how to fly a glider away from the airport.  The lectures covered many topics such as: "Off Field Landing", thermalling techniques, what speed to fly when flying between the thermals, and there was also a lecture on the etiquette of flying in a thermal with many other gliders.

Soaring with another Duo Discus, "Tango"

On the final day of Cross Country Camp, we finally got some seriously good soaring weather. I took the Duo out for a 300k triangle, with Pete Appleby, JP Stewart, and Brandon Pierson from BRSS.
The first leg of the trip was from Emporia to Merlin Aerodrome.  From there, we were to go to an airport called William Tuck airport, right on the North Carolina - Virginia border.  Then back to Emporia.
The soaring was excellent on the first third of the trip, but much worse on the second leg.  Once we got to Merlin, the 6 and 7 knot thermals turned into 2 and 3 knot thermals.  I limped along between the two Military Operations Areas of Farmville and Pickett.
As I got south of the Farmville MOA, I looked at a blue sky ahead, and not many prospects for good soaring. I turned and headed home, 15 miles short of the second turnpoint.   The rest of the trip was pretty easy, with a 15 knot tail wind.

Installing the LX-Nav Flight Computer

Earlier this year, Shane convinced me to sign up for the contest in Mifflin. "All you have to do is not mess up, fly safely, make it around the course, and you'll be in the top third for the Sports Class."

Doesn't seem that hard.  I fly pretty conservatively, don't land out often (with a few exceptions), and can make it around most courses.  Let's give it a shot!

Four weeks prior to the beginning of the contest, I did my best effort to get the PowerFLARM Core unit installed, and acting as the GPS source for my ILEC SN-10 flight computer.  I spent two beautiful soaring days on the ground trying every wiring combination, scratching my head, reviewing the documentation for the SN-10 and PowerFLARM, and finally gave up.   After a consultation with Dave Nadler of ILEC, we determined that the problem might be due to a bad serial port on the SN-10. I'd have to send the unit to ILEC for servicing.

I was so frustrated with that old thing that I swore, "If it's coming out of the instrument panel [for servicing] It's not going back in to the instrument panel!"  I was so frustrated with the SN-10, that I was ready to jump up and down on it after its removal and re-enact that scene from Office Space, when the frustrated IT workers took a crotchety printer out to a field and ended it with baseball bats and angered stomping.

I purchased a brand new flight computer and set of variometers from Cumulus Soaring.  The new units were an LX-Nav 8080 with V8 variometer.  In the back seat, there would be an LX-Nav 8080D (that shares information with the main unit in the front seat), and an LX i8 variometer repeater.  There are units that are larger, but I really didn't want to cut a new hole in the panel, and I don't think there is any room in the front seat, anyway.  The LX 8080 is a drop-in replacement for the SN-10, taking up about the same amount of volume behind the panel, and taking exactly the same amount of square centimeters on the instrument panel.

What this means to somebody who isn't familiar with the products: It's a small color screen that displays more information about my flight than I really know what to do with.  The previous flight computer was designed in the 90s, and is almost 20 year old technology.  The interface is kind of clunky for modern computers, and the display is kind of like an old blocky Atari gaming system.

The SN-10 (as seen on my old LS-4) could only show monochrome graphics. Clunky and old-looking!

Every time somebody sat in my Duo, I'd have to explain to them that most of the information on the SN-10 wasn't valid. "There's no GPS source, so the flight computer still thinks it's in Cesar Creek, where Karl flew his last contest before selling me the Duo."  The SN-10 is complaining because there's no GPS source.   I've had enough with this dang thing!

The new LX unit didn't arrive until a few days before the contest in Mifflin.  Of course, I couldn't bear to fly that contest with the mostly-non-functional SN-10, so I arranged to have the glider in Shane's shop to swap out the old with the new.

Removing the SN-10 wasn't particularly difficult.  "Just keep unbolting things until bits start falling out of the instrument panel."   I spent one evening getting the fuselage into Shane's shop, taking out the seat pan, removing the instrument panel covers (front and back), and carefully keeping track of all the bits I took out to get the SN-10 safely extracted.  

Instead of battering the SN-10 into dust, or shipping it to ILEC for servicing, JP Stewart has asked for it.  I'll happily get rid of it, so it can have a new happy home at BRSS in New Castle, VA.

Installation of the new unit got much easier when we removed the nose wheel.  Fishing the cables down the throat of the cable hole, down under the seat pan is much easier when I can reach in where the nose wheel is supposed to be, and route cables through the front.  I wish I knew this when I had the PowerFLARM installed a few months ago.

Once all of the LX-Nav parts were installed, I had an A&P look over my work, and sign it off.  There was a brief moment of cautious confidence when we turned the whole system on.  Despite reading all instructions and installation manuals thoroughly, there's just that uneasy moment when turning on that sort of unit for the first time.  We called it "The moment of 'poof'", because if something got wired incorrectly, something was going to go poof and release the magic smoke.

Nothing went poof, so after we turned it on, replaced all of the instrument panel covers and seat pans, I put the glider back into the trailer and drove off to Mifflin on Saturday afternoon.  The contest's practice day was Sunday, but I wasn't likely to get any practice days to shake out any issues I might find with the new system.  A very big rain storm canceled soaring operations from Virginia to New York, and was doubtlessly going to cancel my shakeout flight on the practice day.

I drove to Mifflin in the rain, in the dark, with some pretty sketchy directions from Google, that took me over a very dark mountain.  I enraged many pickup drivers as I gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles and insisted on driving the speed limit on two-lane roads to the soaring contest. I arrived on Saturday at 11:00 PM, and once I dropped off the trailer, I headed to a Super 8 Motel in State College, PA.

Video along the Ridge

A few days before Christmas, I got to take some friends along the ridge for some flights in my Duo.  One of the passengers, Craig Sutherland -- documented the flight with his hand-held GoPro.

I also mounted my GoPro, but didn't look at the settings closely enough when I mounted it.  I have 5 pictures stored from my GoPro; each time a nice picture of me fiddling with my cell phone trying to get the video camera to start recording.  I guess I need to work on that technique a bit more.

Ridge Soaring the Massanutten 2015-12-15 from cu on Vimeo.

Saturday Soaring with Keith

With a brisk northwesterly wind in the forecast for the weekend, Saturday and Sunday were both shaping up to be a great weekend to be a glider pilot.  I wrote one of my former students, Keith, if he wanted to go ridge running with me in the Duo Discus. He quickly accepted the offer.
We arrived reasonably early, assembled the glider, and spent some time trying to figure out why the SN-10B still isn't talking to the NANO III flight computer.  Several things were pried open, checked out, and still no firm conclusions as to why the NMEA input isn't making it into the SN-10.  That's still on the things I need to get solved on my new glider.  The flight computer has limited functionality while there's no GPS feed, and I can use maps and the tiny visual display on the Nano for navigation.
Once airborne, I got the glider down the ridge.  We were the so-called "Ridge Dummies" -- the first glider up for the day, to test out the wind direction and strength on the ridge.  Once I confirmed that the ridge was working, I called back to home base, reporting that the ridge was working. We maintained 3000 feet at about 80 knots along the top of the Massanutten mountain range.  For a short while, we met up with 3 or 4 hang gliders, launching out of the Woodstock Hang Glider launch area.
The day was also shaping up to be good for thermal activity, too. I followed a street westbound, and crossed over the Virginia / West Virginia border.  We passed north of the Bryce ski resort, and I even got far enough west that I had the Grant County airport in sight. As we continued west, the thermals got more sparse, and had less strength. We descended from the comfortable 6500 feet down to about 4000 feet as we searched for lift.
Whenever I'm flying with somebody, I often ask them, "Still having fun?"  "How are you doing up there?".  Keith responded through the flight with enthusiastic rapid responses, "Doing great!" "Really enjoying myself!" As we approached our westernmost point, with ever decreasing altitude, I asked again:
"Still having fun?"
There were a few moments of nervous silence coming from the front seat.  "I'd really like to see the needles pointing upward" Keith was growing ever more uncomfortable with our situation. His comment indicated that he would rather we be in lift. The safety of flight was never in jeopardy: there were some magnificent, large fields 2 miles to the northwest, next to the town of Lost City, WV. If somehow the thermals abruptly stopped producing lift, that field next to the town center would have been longer and wider than the airport we took off from. We also still had plenty of altitude to make a downwind dash across the Shenandoah valley back to Short Mountain, next to Mount Jackson, VA.
I connected with the thermal that I was sure was located under a white puffy cloud, and climbed back up to a comfortable altitude.  Soon, we were headed west again, back to Short Mountain.
On the way toward Short Mountain, we hit a very minor small bit of turbulence. I heard a very loud noise. "CRACK!" It sounded like a lead weight had fallen off of a table, and slammed onto the bottom of the back of the fuselage.  Since I was in the back seat, it was especially loud.   I had a few moments of cautious discomfort, with images in my mind of the empennage suddenly disintegrating behind me; pieces of expensive fiberglass and carbon fiber departing the aircraft.   The controls still worked. Keith and I talked about it briefly, and got on with the flight, after determining that the aircraft was still apparently intact.
We did ridge soaring down to the southern end of the Massanutten mountain system, in close proximity to the Massanutten ski resort.  I stopped at a waypoint called "Laird's Knob", where Keith got out his camera to get some great pictures of the fresh fall foliage on the nearby mountain.

Just above the ridge top, where you can see the radio tower. Laird's Knob

Laird's Knob, and radio tower

Laird's Knob, radio tower, gravel rockslide; where there are no trees

After hanging out over Laird's Knob, I followed a cloud street eastbound, where the clouds looked best.  We connected with an incredibly strong thermal, and climbed at 900 feet per minute to as close to cloud base as I could legally get. We were so amazed about the 9.9 knots shown on the flight computer for average lift, that I had Keith take several pictures.  Unfortunately, the peak strength of the thermal was a few moments before this picture was taken.

The "8.9" in the upper-right corner of the flight computer indicates the upward velocity averaged over that last 30 seconds, in knots

The thermal was so strong, I asked Keith, "Hey, we could go down to Waynesboro!" The conditions were really that strong. Keith instead opted to go north, back to home base. We had been up for 2 hours, and I guess he was getting cold.

Along the way, we got some nice photos of Skyline Drive, along the Blue Ridge mountains.  It's near peak foliage, and Skyline Drive was packed with "LeafPeepers" -- tourists who wanted to see the National park in all its glory.

Looking North, towards Thornton Gap

That looks like an excellent thermal over there!

Looking East, towards Culpeper, VA

After a glorious flight along the Blue Ridge, where we just bopped along at altitude, without stopping to work lift, we did a final glide back to the airport.  By the time we landed, things were getting pretty overcast and grey.  The weather was much colder.

Final glide back to the airport, overhead at about 2400 feet MSL

Keith recorded my approach and landing.  We had a crosswind coming from the right on final, and I think I did a pretty good job practicing a side slip to attain runway centerline alignment.  I'm still trying to figure out how to land this new glider of mine. :)

Back on the ground, safe and sound!

 During the post-flight inspection, I determined the cause of the sudden bang in-flight. I don't normally seal the wing root with the fuselage on this glider.  The previous owner did a great job of sealing the joints with some foam.  This way, the air won't leak in between the fuselage and wing root, causing whistling noises in-flight.   One of the pieces of foam has come loose, and it causes the glider to squeak in some particular attitudes in flight.  So this flight, I taped up the wing root to prevent the noise from happening. The tape I used isn't much different than white electrical tape that you would find in a hardware store.
In flight, the conditions were cold enough, and the tape was stretched tight enough that the gap seal tape ruptured catastrophically.  The whole right wing had a rip up the seam in between the wing root and the wing.   I guess the next time I buy gap seal tape, I don't buy the cheap stuff.  Also, when I tape up the wings, I'll give a little room for the tape to stretch when the wings bounce around in turbulence.

While only flying for 3 hours, I managed to rack up 247 OLC points.  I'm pretty sure we could have made it to Waynesboro and back, without any stress about returning to Front Royal.

My flight [OLC]

Ridge Soaring with Missy

Ah, it's that time of year. The time of year when the winds come briskly down from Canada, deflecting against the mountains in Virginia, and making for some excellent high speed soaring along the top of the mountain. 

I had a GoPro mounted on Sunday's flight, and made this short video. 

My Duo Discus

It's been a long time coming.

Back in 2007, when I first visited Switzerland, I had occasion to visit the soaring club located in Bern.   There, I fell in love with their Duo Discus.  It's not the first time I fell in love with a Duo Discus.  I got a flight review in one when I was in California on a business trip.  I visited Williams Soaring Center, where Rex Mayes gave me a flight review in one.

SG Bern's Duo Discus, as seen in June 2007

I could not get over how a glider club could have so many fantastic gliders to choose from. Including a selection of Duo Discus gliders as well as ASK-21 gliders for training. It would not even occur to them to do primary training in a junky old SGS 2-33.

Fast forward to 2013.  

I saw that a used Duo Discus was suddenly up for sale, located in California. It was probably the same Duo Discus that I did my flight review with Rex Mayes of Williams Soaring Center. It appeared in the classified section of Wings and Wheels, and promptly disappeared from the market within a few weeks.  I might have said something like "If I see a Duo Discus come onto the market again, I'm going to seriously take advantage of that opportunity!" 

Fast forward to April 2015: 

Lima India, the Duo Discus featured in the movie "A Fine Week of Soaring" by Juan Mandelbaum, had gone up for sale. I discussed details about the glider with one of the four owners.  The glider was nearing 15 years old, with only 800+ hours.  The condition of the wings was rated 80% by the owner. 

Within a few weeks, the market for used Duo Discus gliders started to have more examples: A Duo Discus owned by Karl Striedieck, and a Duo Discus refinished by Rex Mayes, located in Minden Nevada came up for sale. A glut of Duo Discuses on the market!

A few weeks after that, the prices started dropping. Lima India lowered its price by a significant portion, followed by Karl Striedieck's Kilo Sierra.   The Duo Discus in Nevada hasn't changed its price. 

On Tuesday, 30 June 2015, I purchased Karl Striedieck's Duo Discus.  The following weekend, I had all the members come and help me assemble it, and gawk at its sheer beauty.  Of course, with all those members there, there were some people standing around long enough to take pictures of the first assembly! 

Getting Kilo Sierra's fuselage out of the trailer

The wings are still in the trailer

Left wing already mounted, right wing coming out of the trailer

Mounting the right wing

It was kind of stuck and not fitting into the slot without some force

Right wing almost mounted

Both wings fully secured, now to install the wingtips

OK, the wings are on, time to put on the wingtip extensions

Installing the left outer wing section

We tried to figure out how to inflate the rear tire

Fully assembled and ready to fly!

I got to sit in the front seat and see how it fit.  Seems to suit me just fine!

I got the whole gang to take a picture with the new glider

I had a flight instructor come along for the ride

I sure do look happy!

(All photos of the Duo KS were taken by Kaye Ebelt)

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The last photo was taken while the glider was lined up on the runway for the next takeoff.  The tow pilot came back and reported that the low clouds that had plagued us all morning long had gotten lower.  So I waited for a good 30 minutes for the clouds to give us a good clearance to continue flying.
Unfortunately, the clouds soon turned into rain.  Since this is a brand new glider (to me, at least), I wasn't really keen on putting the glider back into the trailer while the wind and rain was covering all of us, so I elected to put the bird away early.  I didn't even get to fly my new glider yet!
I'll get to have my maiden flight in my glider eventually!