Friday at Lake Placid and at Pendleton

Lake Placid - low cloud and rain.  New oxygen cylinders - 300 cu ft at above 2200 psi - were delivered Thursday, and a lot of pilots availed themselves of the opportunity to refill their cylinders. I decided to call it a week, and 2D is back at Pendleton. 

Pendleton, from Douglas Laurie-Lean:

 

GGC Members:

 

Today was cold and bleak but turned out to be another good training day. The sun came over the horizon through my bedroom window brightly at 0600 hrs, under a blue sky. However by the time I was driving to the airfield it was overcast and cold, and the initial ceiling was at about 2,000 ft, rising up to 3,000 ft., by the afternoon. We had 17 training flights. Nine in IFX and eight in the 'Bluebird'.

Robert Pelley and Nathan Leung, each had two training flights in IFX, and John Schmidt had two solo flights in it. Jeff Schneider had a couple of solo flights and then I gave him his Glider Pilot Licence Flight Test, which he passed with 'flying colours'. He just needs to have Wolfgang, as CFI, complete the form and paperwork and he is a licenced glider pilot  -  WELL DONE JEFF.

Nathan, although very softly spoken did two very good flights without much need of instructional input. Phil Kerrigan did about six solo flights in the 'Bluebird', with one instructional check flight.

Thanks again for Simon Dufour as our trusty TOW PILOT.

 

Regards,

 

Douglas

Lake Placid Wed and Thu

Rain and low ceilings on Wednesday were problems; however, we did the 50 hr lube plan on the Puchacz, and reloaded the display software on the PowerFLARM as well, and tested it with one of the other glider's flarms. A new configuration file is in it too.

Thursday's morning forecast looked promising (for wave), and we got an early start.  A stiff crosswind was challenging, and the clouds came and went. There were two tows, for the MSC Duo Discus and the Champlain SZD-55, both around 2 hours, before landing.  Periodically, the low fast-moving clouds would open, and strong lennies were visible, but with the moisture, it was too dangerous to risk getting caught on top.  The diamond climb on Monday had the OO paperwork done, and only the requirement to calibrate the ClearNav barograph stands between the pilot and his Altitude Diamond - a 5209 metre climb easily meets the 5000 m requirement. Great flight!

We're also poring over computers, comparing traces, and seeing what worked best, and those things that didn't work well at all.

If the rain and cloud hadn't arrived around noon, we think that significant wave flights were possible:

1000 AM Satellite shows wave through NY, VT, ME, and southern QC...

The weather from wunderground.com looks promising for the weekend, though Monday is questionable - but the forecast can easily change by then (probably a wave day tomorrow):

I am leaving for home tomorrow; probably this is my last post on the camp. I'm very happy with the flight just over 18,000' (gain of 13278' - FAI Gold (3,000 m) climb - but I already have that one) in wonderfully bumpy weather, and learned a lot - that's why I come to the camp!

Lake Placid Day 4 - Tuesday 7 Oct

The forecast was not encouraging, so we had a slow start; it rained for most of the morning. We did some maintenance. We organized new 300 cu ft containers of Aviator's Breathing Oxygen (the old bottles were from 2006 and 7) to be delivered Thursday.  The Powerflarm in JCZ had a display problem (they didn't work) although the transmit/receive was ok; after some extensive troubleshooting using a known good flarm and display, the problem was traced to both displays dumping their programs... very odd.  In any case, current software was installed and is working.  The master display (changes ranges etc) is in the back, and the one in the front is slave.  We also pulled the file and did a range analysis, which turned out to be quite good (5.3 km average):

Puchacz PowerFLARM performance

The Pawnee got some TLC as well; a new tube was installed on the left main gear, by the always handy Martin.  Andre Pepin from MSC also leant a hand:

No rest for the wicked!

Dan Duclos sent some pics from Sunday's flying (nice to be the second in a two-seater and have the time to do this):

Town of Lake Placid

Airport - you can see the tiedown area to the east

You have to believe in something....

We like the Puchacz - JCZ

Just after takeoff

The leaves are at peak.  Lake Placid

Oh yes - the weather broke in the early afternoon, some golfed, some hiked, and we met for pizza at the main st pizza place (recommended), although they're not licenced (gasp).  Tomorrow's weather is looking rainy, but breaking around noon, with pretty well identical winds to Monday - so we expect to assemble and fly immediately after the rain stops in the hope that the wave is up.  Here are the climb traces for Monday's wave flying (click the pic to enlarge).  Pity the low clouds came in in the early afternoon; had it been blue, we would have had a lot of 5000 metre climbs.  Really, why aren't you here?

Altitude vs time for Monday's flights - one 5000m climb - Diamond claim!

It is currently raining (5 AM).

Dan

Lake Placid Day 3 - wave.

One probable Diamond climb, one over 21,000', another just over 18k. More after the paperwork is done. An amazing day. A few pics:

Just as we came out, lennies started popping over Hart Lake:

Climbing early in the day, through 8400', at 2 kts.

Through about 10k, strong rotor clouds under nice lennies... but there is more moisture...

Half an hour later, almost fully overcast, and ceiling lowering... though a hole opened the next Valley over... I decided to land in light rain, first of four (least courageous of four).

End result - one Diamond climb (MSC), one to over 21,000 (Champlain), and mine over 18,000'...

That's why we come to Lake Placid - about a year's worth of experience in one day.  And, the week isn't over!

Lake Placid camp day 1 and 2 - updated

Day 1 - Saturday

It rained.  We had dinner at Lisa G's.

Day 2 - Sunday

We assembled M7 and the Puchacz...  MSC assembled the Duo and a DG-300.  Private owners assembled. M7 flew twice - Rob Williams for 1:09, then Tim Tuck for 1:21.  Dan Duclos and Tim Tuck had a short :24 in JCZ, then turned it over to Martin and Dan Duclos for 2:05.  Jacques Asselin flew for 1:43 in YW, and Roger Hildesheim flew 2:53 in AT.

The highest flight was 11,000 in early wave, which was broken up by very wide and smooth thermals.  Scattered cloud was around 5,500', increasing to 7,000' as the day went on.  Winds were south westerly.

Here are a couple of pics of Roger landing just after 5 pm... and JCZ dominating the flight line.  Tomorrow looks equally good.

Shadow, Roger, and the Ski Jump from the 1980 Winter Olympics (circuit goes right over)
Wish I had something other than an iPhone...

The sky was a bit confused today...  Wave clouds, some rotor, some good Cu - just like it was flying:

XS over the Lake Placid golf course (looking down from JCZ) Photo by Dan Duclos (with Martin's camera)

Oct 1 Flying

From Douglas:

Today started out with an overcast sky, but with some holes in the clouds as the morning developed. It was not a great thermalling or cross-country day, but turned into a good training day. The cloudbase was initially at about 2,500 ft., with some blue holes that we were able to fly up through, and in the afternoon it turned into a sunny, blue sky day, but with minimal lift.
It was, as I said a successful training day with some 18 glider flights. We had 8 in IFX; 6 in BQN; and 3 in the L-33 (Tango Romeo).

Robert Pelley had 3 flights in IFX, Derek Casselman also had 3, and I had two as P1 myself, taking Robert and Derek up as passengers to enjoy the scenery.  Phil Kerrigan is enjoying himself with 5 solo flights in BQN, and Wally Wilson had a solo flight in BQN.  Peter Bauer had 2 flights in Tango Romeo, and Wally had one.

The highlight of the day was the last flight in which Luc Savoie flew his newly acquired Pik 20 for the first time and although not ascending to great heights, was high on oxygen (His competition call sign is O2, and the registration is C-GFUN) - so figure that out.

Simon Dufour, as usual was our trusty TOW PILOT (MANY THANKS), and Ron Smith did the last tow for Luc Savoie. John Wyman did one of the instructional flights, and by way of volunteerism spent a lot of the day splitting logs for the Club - THANK YOU JOHN.