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| Volume 4, Issue 5 |
September, 2005
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HI-YO SILVER. AWAY! On August 22nd I did my first Cross Country flight. I took off from Alexandria and landed at Terry. Then I was towed back to Alexandria. This is the story in a nutshell. Sometime in mid-August, Ron Clarke started to talk about the good weather for XC flights. "The cold fronts are about to start and if you are ready you may be able to fly your Silver distance". Well, I was "ready", but I wasn't really READY. I mean, it was allowed for me to fly XC and I had been flying the little triangle for months. I had also planed the flight and had developed enough confidence in my flying skills. BUT...flying beyond gliding range of Alexandria needs a little mental preparation, and flying beyond VISUAL range needs a leap of faith. It was forecasted to be a good day, with good lift and cumulus clouds and wind blowing South-West, perfect for a XC from Alexandria to Terry. It was a weekday, so there was no problem taking the PW5 up for several hours. I drove to Alexandria from Carmel at around 10:00 in the morning. The sky was totally blue, without a single cloud. However, as I got closer to Alexandria, I could see some CU's developing further to the North. They should be arriving to Alexandria in an hour or so. I pulled the PW5 out of the hangar and did the pre-flight check, then I pulled its trailer out of the hangar corner, tied to it all of the glider fixtures and elastic cords and got ready to go. Ron Clarke recommended to me to wait an hour or so after the clouds reached Alexandria so I would find markers all the way to Terry. There were other pilots at the airport, their ships rigged ready to fly too. They all think that the day is going to be great. I hope they are right. While I wait to fly, the other pilots take off. Terry Wools goes up, Ron Clarke, Gerry Whitson and others. Suddenly I realize there's nobody left on the ground to hold my wing on takeoff. I talk to Lynn Joyce, the tow pilot of the day, and we decide to take off unassisted from the grass runway 09, because there would be no wing runner and because the runway lights are still on the runway. I also ask him to fly straight upwind, and I tell him that I will be releasing at 2400ft MSL. This is necessary because of the 1% rule: 50km => 50 000m => 1% = 500m => approx 1500ft. Lynn and I move the PW5 to the runway and I sit in the plane and take a couple of minutes to do my pre-flight check list, breathe deeply and get into the pilot mood. By radio I ask Lynn to start taking slack and then to go ahead and take off. Then things start happening very fast. The rollout is somewhat bumpy, takeoff normal, then, in what seem to me only a few seconds, we have reached release altitude and I pulled the yellow knob. I start my right clearing turn and I become very nervous when I see how far and how flat Alexandria airport looks. With only 500ft above landing pattern, and a couple of miles away from the airport, I fly directly back to the airport hoping to find a thermal in the way. What do you know?! I do find a thermal, but I am so low that my attention is split between centering the narrow thermal and staying close to the airport. After a couple of circles I find myself too low and I go directly into base, land, and roll to the exact point on the grass from which I had taken off just 10 minutes ago. Needless to say, I wasn't feeling very triumphant, but I wasn't feeling very bad either. In the few minutes I had been in the air, I had noticed great visibility, lots of clouds, and I had found thermals as low as 800ft. Also, having failed miserably in the first attempt, the pressure was off for the second attempt. I rationalized that a different tow would probably be the answer. I get out of the plane, walk towards the hangars, and find Lynn filling the plane with gas. He is surprised to see me back so soon. Without much of an explanation, I ask him to get ready for a second tow, this time to release closer to the airport. We take off, the tow plane flies straight for a few seconds then turns left, makes a 180 and flies right under a great cloud. We are still below release altitude when the tow plane shoots upwards and I hear Lynn on the radio: "That's your thermal Mario!" I hesitate for a second: should I release now and try to work this thermal? or should I wait to reach release altitude? Thermal or tow? Now or later? To be or not to be? What the @#$%! I release and make a hard right turn. YESSS!! The thermal is a strong one, it is on my right side and I center it in my very first turn! I reach my intended release altitude after a couple of circles, and I reach 4500ft MSL in a few minutes. Now I notice I have drifted a little south of the airport. I see a plane circling, it is Gerry Whitson, he's circling higher, but try as I may, I could not climb to his altitude. I fly North-West to stay close to my flight plan until I reach Alexandria, take another thermal and head straight West. At this point I take a look at my GPS and I find that I had forgotten to switch it on: "Wait while tracking satellites". I fly straight for a few minutes towards a good looking cloud, hit a weak thermal and let it pass, then a few minutes later another weak one, and I ignore it. I am getting low and decide to circle in the next thermal. I fly to a good looking cloud: nothing. Then the next: nothing. Finaly I find a thermal under a big, black cloud. I work it as high as I can but gain only 500ft. Oops! The conditions are not as good as they look. Exhausted clouds linger in the sky for a long time and they make finding thermals difficult for me. Also, the thermals don't go as high as I wish, and they are not very strong. The first thermal of the flight, that which I worked right after tow, would turn out to be the best thermal of the day. For the rest of the flight I couldn't reach 4500ft again. Soon, I come to that point when a glider pilot must "cut the umbilical cord." My GPS tells me I am 8 miles from Alexandria at 4000ft MSL, giving me about 2000ft to play with, which at 4 miles/1000ft puts me at the edge of safe glide distance to Alexandria. I push the stick and go straight until I am 10 miles from Alexandria. I look back. Bad Idea. I can still see Alexandria and for a second I have this thought that I can still go back. I decide not to look back from now on. Ron Clarke calls "where are you Mario?." He's looking for me to either accompany me in my quest for Terry, or most probably to see where I land out so he can relay my location to the retrieve team back home. I realize I don't know where I am: "Circling somewhere west of Alexandria and south of Frankton, I think." I try to give Ron some idea of my location but all I come up with is a couple of useless descriptions: "I see what looks like a recetrack, and there's this blue house, and some funny looking field." I am sure that Ron and everybody listening to 123.5 are laughing their guts out. Mercifuly, Ron says nothing. At medium altitude I fly west to a promising cloud; nothing. I continue west to the next cloud; nothing! There's no reachable cloud further west, I have to fly north, away from my goal, to the closest cloud. Very weak stuff. I stay and let the cloud take me south with it. After a few minutes the ride is over and I see that there aren't any reachable clouds in any direction. My altimeter shows I am getting low, I fly west towards a group of wide fields. A little bump...one circle...nothing. Lower. I choose a field a couple of miles in front of me for my first ever landout. Ron calls again "how are you doing Mario?." "Not good" I say, "I am very low and getting ready to land out." He gives me some quick friendly advice and I notice a trace of worry in his voice, "Make sure you choose a big field, and try to land in the middle of it." I imagine him also saying "and make sure you don't break a wing or scratch the plane too much." I use one word to re-assure him that my chosen field is big and safe, without obstacles, electric wires, farm animals, rocks or water, and that everything is under control: I say: "Roger". Then it occurs to me that I have not looked to see if there are any airports nearby. Using the chart is out of the question since I am not sure where I am. With a couple of button clicks my GPS unit tells me that Cruzan is straight ahead of me, 3 miles away. I can see it, but now I am barely 1000ft above ground. I won't be able to do a landing pattern. Fortunately I can enter final directly. There are a couple of good fields in the way there, so I can land in them if needed. The next few seconds, the air is as still as still air can be. I will probably reach Cruzan just fine and have a nice, smooth landing. The stillness of the air gives me a few seconds to think and suddenly I realize I am flying a plane. No, I never thought that I was flying anything else, or that I was flying with my own wings. It is just that through the flight I had been so concentrated that I didn't think about the plane at all. If I wanted to go left, "I" would go left, if I needed to circle right "I" would circle right. At this moment it is different; right now I think that I have to "land the plane" and not let the wind "make the plane drift." (Does it makes any sense to you? It was somewhat weird to me.) 800ft above ground...600ft...thump, swoosh, "beep beep beep" I hit an embryonic thermal head on. Cruzan is close enough so I give myself a last chance to save this flight. One circle to the right and no more. "BEEP BEEP BEEP", the vario is singing the most beautiful song of the year. I have to bank steeply to stay inside lift. A quick look to the ground to keep the airport reachable. I immerse myself completely in the task at hand. I thermal the best I have ever done. My eyes are glued to the yaw string, and the yaw string is glued to the canopy, my ears notice imperceptible changes in the vario tone, my right hand responds to the input with perfectly measured movement of the stick. A Zen master would have been proud at the "beautifully concentrated mind" I had just achieved. I feel the sweat running down my neck. I feel the grip of my left hand trying to crush my knee, and I barely manage to prevent my teeth from severing my tongue. The thermal has a strong, smooth core, and my beloved PW5 is dancing in it like a polish ballerina. "How are you doing Mario?" asks Ron Clarke, worried about the radio silence of the last couple of minutes. I can't break the concentration so I don't answer. A few minutes later I am still in lift. "Is everything OK?" asks Ron again. Well, I am working this thermal but I don't want to be rude to my friend. I look at the altimeter for the first time since I started circling: 3000ft! I take a deep breath, pick the mike and say "I'm working a thermal, going through 3000ft." Ron asks the dreaded question again "Where are you?". Well, I don't know exactly where I am, but this time I have a good idea. "I am very close to the Morse reservoir", and since I don't want to go through it I also say "I am heading north to the big parking lot of that shoping mall in Arcadia" (Arcadia doesn't have a shoping mall.) With medium altitude I give my beautiful thermal a good-bye kiss and fly north. I am flying upwind and my altimeter is going down again. I find the mall thermal; it is not very strong. I need the altitude so I circle in it. "I see you now Mario." says Ron finally. "I am aproaching you from the North-East". I see him. He's substantially higher than me. He finds lift and uses it to orbit around and observe my flight. I work my thermal as high as I can but I just can't get closer to cloudbase. I am at 3800ft when I reach the top of the thermal. Again, I circle in zero sink for a while and let the wind push me south to Terry. Then I see a nice cloud between me an Terry and I go after it. Ron leaves his thermal and flies parallel to me, about 1/4 mile at 9 o'clock. For a while we fly like that, in a straight line, dolphin-ing, maintaining altitude. It looks like conditions are better over here than further east. My GPS indicates that I am 12 miles from Terry. Now it is 11 miles...10 miles...thump, swoosh, "beep beep beep" a thermal kicks the fuselage. I circle. Ron is watching. May be he was convinced that it was possible to reach Terry flying straight, because he asks "What are you doing Mario? Did you find lift?" "3 knots" I answer. In a few minutes the thermal takes me to 4200ft. That was the last thermal of my flight. I resume flying to Terry. Ron tells me that he's going back to Alexandria. He probably believes I will make it. I myself am not very sure. 9 miles from Terry...8 miles... now I have just crossed the point of theoretical glide distance. I ask Ron to tell the tow pilot to fly to Terry to tow me back to Alex. "Have you reached US 31?" asks Ron, making sure I am not being prematurely optimistic. "I am well past US 31, and I am switching to Terry frequency". I am surprised to look down and see so many houses so close to each other, several intersecting big highways, buildings, schools, housing developments etc. For the last 2 years I have been flying over Alexandria where the view is a lot more rural. The rest of the flight goes smooth as a buttered baby. There's lots of lift all the way and I can fly without circling. I announce my presence to "Indianapolis Executive" traffic 5 miles out, then again 2 miles out. I reach Terry with still 4000ft altitude. I make one big, triumphant flight around the airport. The airport is quiet, the runways are clear. I enter the pattern and land on grass runway 36. "Papa Whisky on the ground and stopped" I radio. "Well done!" I hear. Ron Clarke has been monitoring the frequency and HE can breathe easy now. I stay in the plane a minute to enjoy the moment and the silence. I feel good, but somehow not that great. I would find out later why. A guy from the airport drives his pick-up truck, lights flashing, towards the plane. "Yaw rite in dur? Yanied hulp?". "No" I said, "a tow plane will be here in a few minutes to tow me out." "We din here yawn da radio." He drives one time around, scrutinizing the plane and goes back to the hangars. Their radio was probably off. About an hour later, Gerry Whitson flies in and congratulates me. We tow the plane back to Alexandria without incident, and also without a word because I was sitting on the microphone. I release a couple of miles west of Alexandria and use my altitude to make an 80-knots flight around and across the airport. I land long, but in the grass, I can't manage to roll to the hangars. Terry Wools shows up driving the golf cart. Ron Clarke is with him, holding his camera in his left hand and a beer in his right hand. Both are smiling and almost laughing. May be one of them just lost a bet about me getting out of the plane with dry pants, or they just admitted to each other that they didn't expect me to make it. I admit that I myself didn't expect me to make it. Other pilots join us. Pictures, beer, jokes about my dry pants...Now I see! That's why I wasn't so thrilled when I landed at Terry: There was nobody there! Now I was really enjoying the day; now I was with friends, with fellow pilots who one day also had to fly their first XC, and who are happy to see the club plane back in one piece. Now I was really happy about the day. The re-light, the first thermal, the low save, the view of the reservoir, the pick-up truck, the flight back, the congratulations, the beer, the pictures... ...and the Silver Badge! Let me know if you want to hear more about it. I'll be gald to tell you the WHOLE story :) 
Mario Lazaga |
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