Sarah Arnold, who owns and operates Chilhowee Gliderport near Benton, Tennessee, informs us that Chilhowee will host the U. S. Region 5 West contest in conjunction with a cross country racing and team flying camp during Labor Day week, September 1-9, 2012.
SoaringNV will be holding a Silver Badge Cross-Country Camp from Monday, July 23rd through Friday the 27th. The camp is designed to help the badge seeking glider pilot gain the skills, knowledge, and judgment required to safely and successfully fly cross-country.
DB flew yesterday for the first time with a full load of water — and, still not at gross weight. I did my best to take some air-to-air photos but this proved to be harder than I thought … or, I’m just terrible at it. I’ll try again today. The Concordia thermalled and cruised well…
I got the opportunity yesterday to take an early morning flight in parts of the southern task area of the contest and take a few pix to share. Think about 40 plus gliders flying over the terrain that you see in this post. We are headed toward Zion Canyon. The geology of the Zion and…
Wednesday, June 27 — “SOLO” in Chilhowee! Busy day here in Benton, Tennessee where hopes and goals soared beyond expectation and three women changed their lives forever by releasing connection to tow while in solo flight. As any pilot will tell you, that moment of intention to separate from the power source is dynamic and…
June 26, 2012 We experienced gusty turbulent conditions on Tuesday at the WSPA annual seminar at Chilhowee Gliderport in Benton TN. The temperatures were a few degrees cooler than the previous day, which made it easier to be at the flight line all day. The ridge, plus a few thermals, starting working for us mid-afternoon. …
I had the extreme pleasure of flying with Dick Butler today along side his new Concordia. His new ship is absolutely gorgeous! The weather was fabulous with a 6,000′ cloudbase, 5 kt lift and nice streets. Ted Beckwith gave us a tow and we were off flying in the local area while DB flies off…
Classic UK Comp weather today. Fog on the airfield as we prepared the glider (I’m crewing for one of the Open Class pilots), with briefing at 10:30. No task was set, and a fairly hideous looking weather forecast sheet for the day was distributed (see the Day 1 Photos). It looked like there could be…
The weather here changes so fast. Last night it was really windy and the morning was cold and blowing. But, by the 10 am pilots meeting it had died down and was looking like a pretty good day. We set a 410 km chevron shaped task with the first turn at Westpoint (where we clear…
Today looked promising for thermal strength but with a real risk that high winds would blow the thermals apart. I launched second in line and got off at 1.4 AGL into a great 7.7 kt thermal that took me to 10.5 K altitude. I set out on course – and that was the last good…
