How About Story Time

Maybe this is a good opportunity for some of us to share some stories of our experiences.
I'll go first.-

During the regional at Harris Hill in 2013 I was flying K21 with grandson Calvin Mampe, Rachel Conklin, and her sister Michelle. All 3 had flown multiple contests with me before, 2 having done so before they were old enough to solo.
Half way through the contest, my wife Dianne had a terrible fall and ended up hospitalized with some very serious injuries. All 3 of the juniors had good flights with me earlier in the contest so I told them to just keep on flying.
On Friday, Calvin and Rachel flew but decided to abandon the task part way around the course due to rain. They did not want to land out and take the ship apart in the rain. Smart!
The next day Rachel and Michelle flew together. About 4:00 I was in the ICU with Dianne when Calvin called. When I answered, he simply said “K21 four miles�. Our 2 young ladies had flown the course for a reasonable score. To my knowledge, this is the first time two young sisters had ever flown in competition. We had a seriously great group hug that night. This may be my best ever moment as a supporter of youth soaring.
Following up- Michelle is now an A&P working for Textron and just finished her first restoration, a 1-26E. Rachel is instructing at Flight Safety and soon will have all the requirements for her ATP.

UH

OK I have one that may be interesting because it is somewhat unusual.
I started glider training December 13th, 1996. I had been wanting to learn to fly for many years after watching gliders take off and land at Fremont glider club in CA. Which was close to the Fremont drag strip. I lived in the area and would go to the glider port just to watch take offs and landings, thinking it was cool how the gliders dumped their water ballast on approach. At the time I did not have the money to take flying lessons, but I always had the interest.

So in December 1996 I decided I could afford to start taking some lessons. I had heard about Minden NV which was about 3 hours from where I lived and made the appointment with Soar Minden, Tony Sabino's soaring center, for my 1st lesson and drove up.

Arriving at Soar Minden they confirmed I wanted to take lessons and not just get a ride, and I was assigned an instructor and we did some ground school then went out to get in one of the Grob 103's they had. I was asked how much time I had and if I'd like to do a regular one hour lesson, or take an extended flight. I said, let's do the extended flight. My instructor Mike, then told me to get in the glider and wait for a few minutes.

A few minutes later, over comes this older gentleman who introduced himself as Hod. He said I was to get an oxygen briefing as conditions were good for wave flying. "Wave?" I thought "what the heck is wave?" He stated he had done wave flights in the area to over 30k feet on a few occasions, and proceeded to give me a very thorough briefing on the use of diluter demand oxygen systems. I was thinking, "wow this is going to be cool".

So to make a long story shorter, we get on tow, instructor lets me fly the tow after we are stabilized, and we pull the release around 3400 ft AGL.

I'm doing OK so he has me fly some turns and gets me headed toward the mountain west of the airport, where we start getting good lift. He takes over and shows me how to turn figure 8's and stay in the lift line after which he lets me take over.

We end up flying to 22,600 feet in the wave that day. My first flight ever. At the time I did not realize what a rare event that was. I do remember calling in to Reno approach to open the wave window, which he had shown me on a sectional during our pre-flight. It was very cool looking down on jet liners on approach to Reno from CA and seeing them divert around our window.
Also I'll always remember how smooth the lift was. It was quite the flight.

We ended the flight getting by descending into the very heavy sink right next to the mountain at Heavenly Valley ski resort. My instructor buzzed the skiers on the slope at what had to be around 500 ft AGL as we pushed east away from the mountain heading towards the airport.

Very cool, and embedded in my memory forever. And I suffer from C.R.S.

Mike

Yep Mike that first flight set the hook deep!! The “mike� that was going to fly with you must have been “mountain mike�, he was quite s character when I was flying out of there.
Dan

Fantastic UH, now that the living definition of “goid parenting�.
Dan

On Saturday, April 4, 2020 at 6:39:24 PM UTC-6, wrote:
Yep Mike that first flight set the hook deep!! The “mike� that was going to fly with you must have been “mountain mike�, he was quite s character when I was flying out of there.
Dan

More of a character than Hod Taylor?

Frank

Dick Johnson once told me that my ASW-19 (my second ship) was the
prettiest one he'd ever seen.

On 4/5/2020 7:36 PM, Frank Whiteley wrote:
On Saturday, April 4, 2020 at 6:39:24 PM UTC-6, wrote:
Yep Mike that first flight set the hook deep!! The “mike� that was going to fly with you must have been “mountain mike�, he was quite s character when I was flying out of there.
Dan
More of a character than Hod Taylor?

Frank

--
Dan, 5J

I remember Dick and his big 602 at a minden contest. That big mutha was ugly, all rough sanded ( better for laminar flow, he would be out sanding wings every morning. Ugly yes, but she sure did scoot!
Dan

Correction 604

On Saturday, April 4, 2020 at 12:40:32 PM UTC-6, wrote:
Maybe this is a good opportunity for some of us to share some stories of our experiences.
I'll go first.-

During the regional at Harris Hill in 2013 I was flying K21 with grandson Calvin Mampe, Rachel Conklin, and her sister Michelle. All 3 had flown multiple contests with me before, 2 having done so before they were old enough to solo.
Half way through the contest, my wife Dianne had a terrible fall and ended up hospitalized with some very serious injuries. All 3 of the juniors had good flights with me earlier in the contest so I told them to just keep on flying.
On Friday, Calvin and Rachel flew but decided to abandon the task part way around the course due to rain. They did not want to land out and take the ship apart in the rain. Smart!
The next day Rachel and Michelle flew together. About 4:00 I was in the ICU with Dianne when Calvin called. When I answered, he simply said “K21 four miles�. Our 2 young ladies had flown the course for a reasonable score. To my knowledge, this is the first time two young sisters had ever flown in competition. We had a seriously great group hug that night. This may be my best ever moment as a supporter of youth soaring.
Following up- Michelle is now an A&P working for Textron and just finished her first restoration, a 1-26E. Rachel is instructing at Flight Safety and soon will have all the requirements for her ATP.

UH

4 miles. Nice story!

I remember one time when I was a kid flying out of minden, a couple of us guys decided to fly down to bishop where a regional was happening. Great day, we got down onto the whites mid day and fell in with a bunch of the racers who were heading back south on a leg of the task.

I was flying a pilatus b4, not exactly a speedy bird and remember flying along with walt cannon, karl streideck, my bro, and mike adams. I was able to hang in with them for awhile but they eventually all ran away.

That evening at bishop we were all together and I was telling them that “wow I never flew so fast xc!�, I was so impressed with nyself, when walt turned to us guys and said rather non chalantly, “ gee guys .... wasn’t that leg along the whites really slow today?� They all heartily agreed. Bubble burst.
P

Dan