On Saturday (11th) I flew N8579 to Truckee for a day of soaring. This
would be my first day of "real" Truckee soaring, after Larry checked
me out two weeks ago.
The day in San Francisco was clear and sunny. I planned an 8:30 take
off and 1:45 enroute, but driving down the peninsula towards San
Carlos I could see a fog bank to the south. It looked shallow -- tops
around 2500. Sure enough, KSQL was firmly in the fog, with the ATIS
saying 600 overcast.
KSQL is on the shore of San Francisco Bay. The CA/NV high-resolution
satellite image Buzz had posted (*) showed that the fog was confined
to the bay, and Sunol Pass was clear. If I could get out, I could
climb above the fog before crossing the bay. Finally at 9:30 the fog
had retreated a few miles south of the airport (but Sunol Pass was
still not visible), so I fired up the engine and asked for a
southbound departure. "The field is IFR, say intentions." Surely
you're joking! The sky was clear and blue and the sun was shining.
"Ok, request Special VFR." When I got to the run-up area, "579, a new
ATIS will be coming out and conditions will be VFR. Do you still want
that Special?" Sometimes I just don't understand controllers.
The Class B floor was at 4000 above. The Citabria was climbing better
than 1000 fpm so I was at 3500 well before Palo Alto. The tops were at
2000 but I had to continue south to Stanford Stadium before turning
left, to pass directly over KPAO: Class B to the left of me and Class
C to the right of me. Then a step climb under the Class B to 9500, my
final altitude. The rest of the flight was just scenery viewing and I
landed at KTRK at 11:15. After I parked the airplane I realised why it
had been hard to taxi in -- the tailwheel was flat. NOOOOooooo!
Time to worry about that later, now's the time for soaring. I got 81C
ready, and after waiting a bit for all the contest gliders to go, I
launched at 1:00. Applying a principle from Thermal Camp, I had
decided that above 8400, I would pull the release if I saw 10 kt for
more than 2 seconds. At 8200 the needle pegged: close enough! By the
time I released we were already at 8300. I continued climbing in a
right turn; it took concentration to stay in the lift and to try to
center it. (I remembered at Thermal Camp the instructors and some
experienced pilots saying thermalling is the time to relax, eat a
sandwich, and look at the chart. Ha!)
I got up to about 12k before I fell out for good, or it died, or
something. Oh well, time to go hunting for more. I headed for the bare
rocks near Frog Pond and after some fierce sink, connected with a nice
8 kt. Staying in lift was much easier higher up, and I remembered
reading that too. Soon I was passing 12.5k so I started the 30 minute
countdown. O for a working oxygen system! Pretty soon I was at 14k,
time to leave the thermal and fly around for a bit taking pictures.
There was some very impressive looking overdevelopment over the Carson
Valley. After I got back to 12k it was time to go searching... and up
we go again! It was much stronger that time, and I could see a Cu
forming above providing some nice shade. At 14k I had to open the
airbrakes and push, but the lift seemed endless.
Finally it was 1:45 and my 30-minutes were up, so I popped the brakes
and went back down. I flew around at 10k for a while, and everything
was going up. Damn, I'd promised Kit I'd land by 2:30 so he could get
some flying in too. I finally found some sink and circled down, and
was on the ground at 2:15.
Now back to the flat tyre... The folks at Soar Truckee were very
helpful. The Citabria and Pawnee use the same size tailwheel so they
were hopeful, but alas, they didn't have any spare tubes. A very
helpful gentleman named Bill Shields even carted the compressed air to
inflate the tyre just in case it was a slow leak, and then took me
over to the FBO on the other side of the airport to see if they had
any tubes. After that I started calling around at all the FBOs in the
area, and finally, SoaringNV happened to have a tyre and tube of the
right size! Luckily my girlfriend had driven up (she isn't ready to
ride in a small plane yet), so the next morning we took a little
road-trip to Minden. There I happened to run into Mike Schneider, who
commiserated and welcomed me to the joys of airplane ownership. He
also told me about the fierce thunderstorms of the previous day.
Then back to Soar Truckee, where Bill Shields taught me how to change
the tailwheel tyre and tube as he did it. He used to own a Citabria
some years ago, and told me about things to look out for. I then spent
a little time helping out on the line, and then back in the air for
the quick 2:00 flight home at a stately 90 kt.
Thank you Soar Truckee and Soaring NV, and special thanks to Bill Shields!
* High-res CA-NV satellite image -- Buzz posted this link to the list
a few months ago:
http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/sat-bin/display10.cgi?SIZE=full&PHOT=yes&AREA=pacific/eastern/sierra&PROD=vis&TYPE=ssmi&NAV=epac_westcoast&DISPLAY=Latest&ARCHIVE=Latest&CGI=epac_westcoast.cgi&CURRENT=20120811.1415.goes15.vis.x.sierra.x.jpg&MOSAIC_SCALE=15
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