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#1
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Cherokee out and about
With excellent soaring conditions forecast for today, I decided to
take the Cherokee on a trip. Sure wouldve been nice to put more miles on, but I fell out of booming skies after about an hour and a half flight. Made it about 50 nautical miles to a really nice field. Here is the report copied from another forum: The flight was really good. I got off tow in some pretty good lift, and got up around 6000 feet before departing to the south of Ames. I was definitely hopeful for a good day after about a 400 fpm climb at the airport. I did declare a goal to somewhere in MO that wouldve given me the state record. I was never really confident that I would be able to make it there but figured what the heck might as well have a goal. After departing the airport I cruised for about 15 miles before picking up another thermal. along the way lost around 2000 feet. caught another nice strong thermal, which seemed well organized and was generally easy to stay in. I veered to the east a little to make sure I avoided Des Moines Class C airspace and saw a few airplanes out flying around. Heard a train as well. As I passed directly east of Des Moines I caught the best thermal of the day (for me). It was so incredibly good that I was even able to stay in it while turning to the right! The vario was wobbling between 600 and 1000 fpm up for most of the time in the circle and I felt like I was on an elevator. That is where I saw the corn leaves, mistakenly reported as cornstalks. I continued to the south, over Red Rock Lake and in the general direction of Knoxville. caught a few more good thermals with strong climb rates, but also suffered from the associated sink. I eventually found myself down around 1500 AGL headed towards a large area of black fields followed by some not so friendly creek bed and trees. I decided that if I was going to get some lift it was going to come off the fields and otherwise I was going to have to land. I worked all over the fields but couldnt find anything that would give me a lift so down I came and landed in a nice uphill area that had been recently tilled but not planted yet. I made a quick call to Matt and my crew and took a few pictures. no one was home at the house I landed by so I walked down the road to get another landing witness for my Silver Distance application. The old fellow was really friendly and came down to check out the glider and helped derig in the field. That was really appreciated as the wind made it somewhat challenging. All in all it was a great day. Probably didnt take full advantage of all the soaring that couldve happened but any day that I get to land out and make it back for supper is a good day. Here are some pictures from the day. The only in flight photo was crossing red rock lake. thats a lot of water to be over without an engine! http://picasaweb.google.com/cherokee373Y/Soaring51808 |
#2
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Cherokee out and about
The FSDO called Friday and I hope to have my amended operating
limitations perhaps this coming week. I'll have 10 hours to fly off in the Iowa City - Muscatine area. After that, I hope to come up to Ames and tag along some day and let you teach me to go cross country. Good job on your flying. I was up today for a bit in the KR3 but the lift was ragged and I couldn't stay in it. |
#3
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Cherokee out and about
On May 18, 9:11 pm, Jim Meade wrote:
The FSDO called Friday and I hope to have my amended operating limitations perhaps this coming week. I'll have 10 hours to fly off in the Iowa City - Muscatine area. After that, I hope to come up to Ames and tag along some day and let you teach me to go cross country. Good job on your flying. I was up today for a bit in the KR3 but the lift was ragged and I couldn't stay in it. Lift was a bit better north and east of there today. We drove under the edge of the system about an hour before arriving in Faribault, MN, from the SW at 1pm. Jim Hard flew his 1-26 from Faribault, MN to Pontiac, IL today, around 350 miles. Frank Whiteley |
#4
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Cherokee out and about
On May 18, 11:01 pm, Frank Whiteley wrote:
On May 18, 9:11 pm, Jim Meade wrote: The FSDO called Friday and I hope to have my amended operating limitations perhaps this coming week. I'll have 10 hours to fly off in the Iowa City - Muscatine area. After that, I hope to come up to Ames and tag along some day and let you teach me to go cross country. Good job on your flying. I was up today for a bit in the KR3 but the lift was ragged and I couldn't stay in it. Lift was a bit better north and east of there today. We drove under the edge of the system about an hour before arriving in Faribault, MN, from the SW at 1pm. Jim Hard flew his 1-26 from Faribault, MN to Pontiac, IL today, around 350 miles. Frank Whiteley thats awesome! I was figuring that it was a perfect day for Jim to do a long distance flight. |
#5
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Cherokee out and about
I got the Cherokee back out today as conditions looked good and my
schedule was free for the afternoon. I discovered a few things that all of you people know. 1) I need to fly faster. dawdling in sink in a steinway sailplane is a bad idea. 2) I basically need to take every thermal, and take it to the top. For a while I was thinking I was some hotshot racing pilot in a racing glider and would only work a thermal until it started to weaken, or skip a "weak" thermal altogether. probably why my average distance last year was something like 20 miles. So today I wanted to fly but had to be home for a powered lesson at 5 PM. headed west to the airport next door and worked up to 5000 AGL. decided to make a run northeast to a small town and then make a turn south with a very light tailwind for the trip home. Using the brainwaves mentioned above I had a successful, and necessarily slow flight. In fact its the first real triangle that I have ever completed in the Cherokee. 46 nautical miles total in a mere 3 hrs 10 minutes. Lift was strong and so was the sink. A few times I pushed ole 373Y up to a whopping 70 mph! I was always rewarded with another thermal. Final glide was fun too. I managed to get to my highest altitude of the day over the last turnpoint. 6100 AGL with 18 miles to home. I heard other club gliders having trouble finding lift at all near the airport so I knew I should get as high as I can while I still had 500 fpm thermals. some high cirrus were moving in from the west and partially obscuring the sun down there. I was pretty much on glideslope the whole way back. I finally broke down about 4 miles out and 1700 AGL and spent a few minutes circling to try to better my position. I managed to improve it slightly but not much really. I got to the airport with plenty of altitude to do a pattern. The good ole cherokee managed a solid 18:1 ratio on the final glide, with basically calm winds. Maybe, just maybe, im starting to get the hang of this. Or I just got lucky, cant really tell. |
#6
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Cherokee out and about
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