I hadn't expected to see any lift, but went to the field hoping to do my season check, go up and down in a club ship, and just futz around with the new (to Nicolas and me) LS-8. As it turned out, there was good lift with cloud bases well above 6500 feet in places. Season checkout with Peter Stauble in the L-23 included a climb to 6500 MSL, spins, and loops. Then I got the B4 76PS out, not expecting much with the thickening cirrus, but it turned out to be a very nice flight. I went to 495, then back to Sterling and radioed GBSC Ground. Lucky me! No customers for the ship, so on to Worcester and Fitchburg before the lift quit for the final glide home.
Bill Hall
All the Duo partners were going to Sterling for 3 take-off and landings, and also to check out our new partner Bill Brine on Duo assembly/disassembly/flight.
I headed out with the Duo and got there at 8:15 but Sterling was deserted. Forecast had changed to rain starting at noon, Newman bugged out, Juan bugged out, and Gerry opted to go fly a Pilatus (the kind that burns kerosene). Eventually Bill showed up, but still no tuggies (we'd been expecting Gerry to tow). So I reviewed the book with Bill, and when a tug pilot showed we rigged the Duo - but I wasn't current. So Bill flew his '28 and I had the Duo to myself all day !
Turned out to be a great Soaring day, after the overcast backed away there was good heating, and even after the upper cloud came back over us the good lift continued. I saw 7 knots on the averager at one point ! I flew south past Worcester, down towards Marlboro, and back. Too many gliders waiting for a tow, so I climbed back up, flew to Wachusset, Fitchburg, Devens, and back. Still a line of gliders, climbed back up and flew down south-west of Worcester and back. Only one glider on the line and the towplane parked, so I landed. Oops, no gas in towplane, can we put this trainer in front of the line ? Then a rope-break practice and a tow back above pattern altitude, climbed back up, chased Bill Hall in a Pilatus around a thermal for a while, flew down southwest of Worcester, and then did a high- speed glide back with Bill. Amazingly there was still decent lift under the gloom, we came back because it was getting cold ! So I got my 3 take-off and landings and around 3.5 hours of practice.
Lets have a few more rainy days like Sunday. See you at the gliderport,
Dave Nadler
On Saturday, I flew 6 instructional flights and 4 demo flights for Epic Soaring. What! You don't know about Epic Soaring? It is a new commercial soaring facility located at New Smyrna (FL) airport. They have a 150/150 tow plane, which is a little underpowered but it works, and a Blanik L-13 of the same vintage as ours. Epic will receive another L-13 in 2 weeks and is working on reworking a SGS 2-22. Looking forward to getting back to GBSC in June.
Dave Batson