Hi all,
It was a poor day for soaring, but a red-letter day for advancing students in the club. We had two first time solos, Tom Schapp and Bob Arant. We started early, arriving at 10 AM and getting the first tow off at 11. Tom took a pattern tow, a simulated weak link break, and then was approved by Jaime for his first solo. His solo went off with a perfect launch, landing and hearty congratulations by all! I then went up for a 4000′ tow since there was no lift to try to milk out what I could. There was some low to zero sink up high and some “bug farts” down low. (translation, tiny little bits of lift that were not workable). I managed to eek out 34 minutes. On a personal note, I want to stress the importance of flying on days like this in order to refine your precision in sensing lift, controlling pitch and speed, and getting a general feel for the craft to be prepared for days when it is just a little bit better and you can stay up. Then Bob Dyer took a flight in the L-23 to 3000′ for a 19 minute sled ride. Bob Arant then took a pattern tow, simulated weak link break, and then was approved by Jaime for a solo. Again, Bob had an excellent launch and landing, followed by hearty congratulations from all. Bert came out with his new PW5 to work on familiarizing himself with the ship and took 3 tows and ended up with a very good feeling for the glider and was happy to have gotten “current” in his new glider. The day ended with Tom taking a second solo flight. We wrapped it up at around 3 PM before any of us suffered from heat stroke (just barely).
Mike
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