From: Tim Duty
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 2009
Subject: Tim's Sunday Report from Beverley Airfield, WA
To: CGC List
Howdy Folks!
Sorry to hear about the foul weather there. Just thought I'd fill you in on
my Sunday flying during my vacation here in Perth.
I drove out to this morning 1.5 hours east of Perth to fly with the Beverley
Soaring Society.
Summary: Totally fantastic soaring conditions!
First I went for a extended check ride of 1 hour in a Puchacz, after a
modest tow to 2000' AGL. We covered just about everything including
incipient stalls and fully developed spins, in between regaining our height
in thermals.
At the beginning of our flight we soared pretty easily up to 5500', where
the lift started to weaken. We could see the haze of an inversion layer just
above us at 6000', but by the end of our flight this had disappeared as the
day warmed.
After this I made a second short flight with the instructor to shoot another
landing in the Puch, which turned out to be even shorter than I expected
since the instructor pulled the release about 500' above the ground, and I
had to do a modified circuit to land. Then he signed me off to go solo in
either the Puch or the ASK 21.
After lunch, the ASK 21 was free, so that's what I took after a pre-launch
familiarization. Gee, what a comfy aircraft! I took a tow to 3000' AGL, which in retrospect was way overdoing it, but
whatever. Before I knew it, I was happily riding a thermal up to 7000'!
I played around then, losing a few hundred ft, and then finding another
thermal...back up to nearly 7000'.
Now, what's a guy to do with all that lift and altitude?
Well, I did some sight-seeing....checked out the town, looked at the Avon
river, some salt lakes, a sea of endless paddocks.
Gee, I could have stayed up until....heh, heh,
heh ... the cows come home! But I didn't feel like being a pig with the aircraft as a visitor, so made
my way down, trying out different airbrake settings a little to get the feel
of the new aircraft.
The club made 22 flights that day. There were two private members and
aircraft that made a ~3 hour cross-country task. My flight of 1hr 25 min was the longest "club" flight, followed by 1 hr 21
min for my instructor and another club member.
The rest of the flights were about half and half check flight and AEF's.
Best of all, I'll going back tomorrow since they are flying on the Monday
holiday.
Forecast for tomorrow: Even better conditions, lift expected up to 14,000'
(sorry folks, I know you don't really want to hear this...)
Better luck next weekend!
Tim
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