On Saturday, Lance and I headed to Hollister to fly the DG-1000 in the morning. The plan was to get a few dual flights in (trading off the front/back seat) and then each take a Pegasus after that to go looking for lift.
We flew two flights in the morning. I flew the first from the front seat and then we reversed for the second. Each flight was about 30 minutes, with tows to 5,000 feet or so. Nothing fancy.
Then, we took a bit of a break while others flew. I was hungry and wanted to grab some food. Lace got a Pegasus ready to fly. Just before I started to eat, Peter finished his back seat checkout in the DG-1000 and wanted to go up again. Charlie asked if I'd go with him, so of course I did!
I gobbled down my turkey burger and hopped in the back seat. Several other gliders were already up in mixed lift about a mile off the departure end of runway 31 near some clouds. We towed out that way but Peter wasn't anxious to play in the lift with them. So I kept an eye out for the other gliders while we wandered around.
After we landed, I noticed that most of the other glider were up. I could have flown the 1-34 but wasn't keen on the idea of doing the pre-flight checks for what was likely to be a short flight anyway. Instead, I checked the reservation schedule and noticed that nobody had the DG-1000 after Peter. So I took it. :-)
I convinced Peter to ride in the back seat and we went up again looking for lift. I didn't find much (it was late), but there was some 1 knot and zero sink in the normal evening convergence area (highway 156 (or 152?) and Pacheco Pass). We had a roughly a 30 minute flight.
I later realized that it was my first flight with a BASA flight committee member in about half a year. How time flies!
Posted by jzawodn at December 13, 2003 09:34 PM
