First Flight

tonycondon

tonycondon

Gastons CRO (Chief Dinner Reservation Officer)
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Mar 9, 2005
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Wichita, KS
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Tony
I figured this deserved its own thread. The Cherokee had its first flight after recover today. I could really feel the nearly 50 lbs that was lost this winter between me and the glider. At one point I was smoothly circling in a medium banked turn at 40 mph indicated! It would never do that before without stalling.

The flight was good. 4850 field elevation with tow to 6300. Initial climb was a struggle but above 7500 it was easier. Then I circled with Adam in his Jantar and got up in the 8000ish range. Then Burt joined me in his dads Open Cirrus which was just awesome. We climbed to about 9000. He headed out to the south and I ran west to some good looking clouds that were streeting downwind of Mt. Livermore. Contacted some good lift and climbed at 400 fpm up to 10,200. I think that is nearly the highest the Cherokee has ever flown. I think I made 10,300 last year in western KS.

The glider flies great. I can tell that the CG is a bit further aft, probably mostly due to me actually sitting further back in the seat. And it seems that I can fly much slower than before. Circling down to 40 mph indicated without stall indications and down somewhere around 30 mph indicated in a wings level stall. The paint job looks nice in the Texas sun and several of the other pilots said the red stripes made a nice contrast for good visibility which was my main goal.

Forecast for tomorrow is better than today so I'm hoping to get an earlier launch.
 
Congrats!

It's a good feeling to find things working better than you remember the first time out after an extensive down time.

Btw, where exactly did this flight take place, Marfa?
 
Congrats Tony - I guess my gluing and shrinking must have held up.
 
jesse said:
Congrats Tony - I guess my gluing and shrinking must have held up.
Click to expand...

He still has another few days to break it.

Congrats, Tony!
 
Good deal, Tony. Can't wait to see it. We had good conditions up here yesterday, too, but not THAT good!
 
Awesome!

I still think you should have gone with flames and shark's teeth, but I guess there's always Leah's ride. ;)
 
Congrats, Tony. That's great. Are you moving right on do Leah's?
 
I love it when a plan comes together.
 
Congrats. Tony. Sounds like a good time soaring.
 
Steve - yes we are in Marfa for the week.

Yes this was my glider with a fresh recover job and paint on it. We've been working really hard to get it ready for this trip and are very happy that it all came together.

Flight time yesterday was only 1.1. I got a late launch as I spent most of the day assembling the glider and doing a few last minute prep things.

Todays flight was great. Solid high overcast but there was a convergence zone that set up and I took the first tow, not expecting any lift. Instead I released at 6000 MSL (1200 AGL) and in 10 minutes was above 10,000. I ventured out as far as 12 miles from the field and maxed out at 12,200 MSL. The new O2 bottle works good. total flight time today was right at 3 hrs after a lucky save at about 2:30 got me an extra 2000 feet.
 
Congratulations!!

It's a very satisfying feeling, isn't it? I still get a kick out of knowing, when I fly 94H, that I had just about every part of her in my hands at some point. Really connects you more with the aircraft, and it might improve your flying.

I would imagine the more-aft CG is what's giving you better low-speed performance... does it seem any different at higher speeds, or did you not explore that yet?

[EDIT]
Forgot the most obvious thing... lower weight yields lower "critical" speeds; probably more likely the main reason it will hang in there better when turning at lower-than-before airspeeds.
 
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Man, Tony, I am no glider pilot, but it sure sounds like something I want to do whenever I read what you have to say about it!
 
yea my minimum sink, stall, and best glide speeds have all probably dropped a little.

yesterday i flew 6 hrs over the marfa plateau after a 1500 foot tow. great lift and some tremendous sink. This is the longest flight i've ever had and the longest flight my glider has ever had.

last year i flew the glider 18:45 minutes all season. In the last 3 days i've flown it 10 hrs. Good chance i'll surpass the 18:45 mark yet this week.

Trace from yesterdays flight:
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=521572410
 
yep i am very happy with the stewart systems process and i'm sure that it helped my glider lose a lot of weight.

I didn't fly yesterday but did fly on Wedensday for 2.5 hrs. I didn't launch until nearly 5 PM! I helped out running wings and ropes most of the afternoon getting the other camp gliders launched. Jeannie stopped by and we visited a bit. Sorry that I had to work and couldn't talk more but it seemed that she enjoyed visiting with the other pilots and watching the operation.

The lift here is good and we've been soaring until sunset pretty much every day.

I'm thinking about doing a downwind dash today if the weather is as good as yesterday.
 
well i didn't end up flying friday. wind was howling which was great for my downwind flight but it seemed to be just right so that a down wave was parked right over the Marfa Plateau. It did look good downwind of Marfa, towards Alpine. But I wasn't going to head out anywhere until I could get a good climb upwind and over Marfa. Saturday was a total blow out so we wandered around town and packed up the gliders. Drove home sunday. Had a great week of soaring. 13 hours of flying and 1700 miles on the truck.
 
Nice, glad you guys had a great time!
 
Wow nice. Sounds like great fun.

Did I miss a thread with pictures of the new re-cover?

Edit: just followed the link in you sig. It looks really nice.
 
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yea i just got pics up on the blog late last night. more, higher quality, pictures should be coming.
 
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