Mifflin is the MECCA of Soaring.

Smithcorp and Jamiroq if you ever get the chance go there.


For two seasons we have had ridge, thermal, and wave in the same day!!!!!!!

A friend of our club 2,000' above cloud base in wave

I haven't had much to contribute to this thread until recently, but yeah, I'm sore. You get bit in the face by a Black Widow spider, you'll be sore too. It'll give you two, three days of feeling like someone whapped you upside the head with a baseball bat, plus nausea.

So count me in. I now number amongst the sore!

Cheers!

Rick...

Soar, not sore. uh, you knew that...

Oh, SOAR! Oh, OK! Well, sort of. My father liked to soar. He spent a lot of time at Harris Hill in New York once upon a time. I went up a few times at his behest, but by that point the U.S. Navy had got hold of me, and I had become terribly uncomfortable with being in an aircraft with no engine sound, so I never really took to it. I might have liked it if I'd taken a tape recording along to play that featured the sound of an aircraft engine, but without that sound, it was sort of creepy and made me want to frantically scan the instrument panel all the time, trying to find the trouble.

Cheers!

Rick...

We just sold two blanik L-13's to the Soreing club of Annapolis

My limited experience in soaring, courtesy of my late father, was all in Schweizers, probably because you can stand at the top of Harris Hill and spit and hit the Schweizer factory, and several family members work there.

But I certainly admire the beautiful designs of the German sailplanes. They're pretty enough to almost lure me into flying airplanes with no motors. On purpose and all.

Cheers!

Rick...

1-26 eh?

..........if not must be 2-33

I've actually been up in both many years back when my father was still trying to recruit me permanently to the ranks of soaring enthusiasts. He used to live for that stuff. I think there's actually churches up there around Harris Hill where they worship the 1-26 or something. It's at least considered a religious icon of some sort.

My father passed away earlier this year, and I've since been disabled in the line of duty and retired, so not much chance I'll take it up again in this lifetime. But these modern sailplanes sure are nice to look at. If they'd looked that good back in the day, the old man might have convinced me!

But I don't think I'd ever have become used to no engine sound. Nothing but wind noise tells my brain stem there's something wrong at very primitive levels, LOL!

Cheers!

Rick...

I started in power planes.


I actually thought gliding was pretty stupid much to my chagrin.

Get towed up and glide down type of thing.

Then I met the group I'm with and let me tell you soaring is addicting.

Being able to find lift and stay up all day becomes consuming.

It's like you're always trying to better the last flight AND each flight costs between 15-25$ instead of 40-70$ an hour.

Here's some shots from some mid-week soaring I managed this week at my club in Camden.





Helping to rig the DG-303, which had been trailered back from a wave camp





The Club’s Astir being launched by one of the Club’s Pawnees





Established on tow





A glider waits to launch while another is towed back after landing down the strip






These clouds looked majestic from 3,000 feet






They look incredible and ominous from the cockpit






I was sharing a scratchy thermal here with an experienced pilot in the DG-303





He couldn’t make anything of the lift either

Magnificent Q shots!


Had to be a boomer, yes?

Strangely Uther it was a rubbish day. Those big Cus turned into Cb and we had a thunderstorm about 40 minutes after I landed. There was very little lift around.

smith

Virtual soaring.



Cheers!

Rick...

The pilot's bailed out!

I found this interesting landout video - shows some of the process of scratching my a competition pilot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBfNA5nhGQM

Worth a look in HD

Sound yet not too conservative thinking on his part Smithy.

Wondering about the right hand pattern though

Nice calm approach though

PPS I will upload last year's Mifflin ridge video as soon as I get the chance.


This year we ran the ridge low and the video looks like the agitation cycle in a washing machine.

Jack's Mountain just off Mifflin Co. Airport


Mifflin will be adding amenities, for showers and well, you know, this year.


Such an adventure to be at Mifflin!!!!!!

In a Grob 103