time to go

The last dinner was beautiful. Delicious steak, bottle of red and a smoky dessert. Steaks are one of the things I'm missing the most. It's really hard to get a good steak in Europe while in the US you can basically do nothing wrong ordering one.

dessert

We got up on Sunday and all we could see out of the window were dark clouds and rain. Nevada was crying cause we were leaving - said Zig. Hmmm, I felt like this as well. We stopped at Joe's for the real american breakfast (bacon & eggs + potatoes). The serves were just huge and we had a hard time to eat as much as we could not to upset the waitress (it still looked like we didn't like it). But we did!

how am I gonna make it?

Reno Airport authorities took their task seriously and prepared a nice "good bye" for us.

KRNO says good bye

I always feel sad leaving Nevada. It wasn't different this time. Although the weather didn't want to cooperate at all we had a great time. It looks like August is already a bit late in the season. This year has been weird all over the world and everybody was complaining about unusual weather patterns.

We don't say goodbye to Nevada, we literally say: see you very soon! Our Minden Ranch is already booked for July and we're definitely coming back hoping for some better weather.

I would like to thank every and each one of our friends for your help:

- Bogdan & Darek for letting us fly your SZD-55

- Devin for the Ventus 2B and all your help and entertainment

- Tom and Jan ... for everything

- Mark and Cherry for taking good care of the SZD-55 when we were not there

- the whole Soar Minden staff for good service

- Mike, Serge, Chuck - you know exactly what for

Forgive me please if I missed somebody. That's because of my jetlag that is just killing me today.

There is one more person I would like to thank. Ziggy - thank you for the vacation of my life ...

There are only 3 months left and the Australian adventure will start over. It's about time to start preparations for this trip. I'm leaving for Australia in December and will fly the Australian Club Class Nationals in Benalla in January. The blog will continue ...

Reno

We put the glider in the box yesterday and left it with Mark. We managed to finish all the record paperwork and left it with Tony.

The world is really small and it turned out that Ziggy knows the guy from Australia who is interested in Berry's ASW22. Berry brought the 22 to Tom's and Ziggy had a closer look at it when we delivered our boxes full of s... that stays here till next year. We managed to reduce the number of boxes though and got rid of the stuff we won't be using anymore.

40 hours total time, 5 hours on the engine ... and years in the box

We had a beautiful pasta dinner with Tom and Jan at Antochi's watching deer having their dinner on the golf course. They didn't seem to care at all. OK ... I have to admit ... I maybe had one glass of white to much. The night ended up in the Genoa Bar. Ziggy played the designated driver and saved my life taking me home before I managed to order another Corona. Thank him I got up this morning with no signs of hangover whatsoever.

wave in Minden

The winds were blowing all night long and we got some magnificent looking clouds this morning. We stopped at the airport to say good bye to everybody. Minden West Wave Window was already open and somebody reported 15 kts on the averager at 22k ft ... looks like a monster wave to me.

Welcome back Reno!

It wasn't easy to find a room for the last night in Reno. No wonder - Saturday. The Peppermill (where we stayed after arrival) was all booked out. 2000 rooms - all gone. Unbelievable. We finally found a room in Harrah's, which is nice cause it's right down town Reno. This is the first room with the beautiful view we got during this trip. We are looking directly at Reno Airport and all the lenticular clouds that are covering the sky all day long today.

window view

All we have left to do is to repack our luggage and try to squeeze all the purchases in it ... it's not gonna be easy and Zig got one more bag today to fit everything he bought. I should be all right. I've learned already and came with my suitcase half full. It's filled up now though.

We'll have a nice steak for dinner and enjoy some life music in the club.

Zig is now lying and just said: "I'm in heaven now. 17th floor, beautiful view, remote control in my hand, box channel, glass of white, almonds and olives." It doesn't take much to make him happy. Our flight to LA goes tomorrow at 1:30 pm ...

wind fighting with thermals, paperwork and nice dinner at the lake

The wind started blowing already in the early morning. There were some clouds in the east which overdeveloped pretty quickly. The valley and the Pine Nuts basically stayed blue with some rotor-like clouds over the Sierras. The surface winds were blowing mainly from the south and were pretty steady. We started working on all the papers and will finish it tomorrow morning.

... I wish ...

Lake Tahoe

Since it's been a pretty hot day we decided to drive up to the lake for a nice dinner at the Edgewood Golf Course. The food was just beautiful (we all got steaks) and the view was irreplaceable. The winds were really strong up there and the lake kind of looked like a sea with all the waves.

windy day

Edgewood

Edgewood

Zig and Ludmilla after a huge meal

let's make the best of it - two national records

Three days to go ... Weather turned out to be better than everybody expected. I declared a 200 km triangle (south end of the Pine Nuts - North Mono Lake - Mount Grant and back) and made it with 128 kph - good enough for a polish feminine record in 15 meter and open class. I know ... this might sound kind of not serious enough but after all the bad weather we had it's better than nothing. Everybody was desperate to fly today and got rewarded for that. It's been a nice day with Cu's (!!!) here and there. I think that the task was a bit too short but as I said - predictions for today were much worse than the reality. I'll be flying tomorrow as well but have to consider that we have some paperwork to do. I've posted todays flight on the OLC.

Ziggy also succeeded today - he got out of the Valley for the first time!

Mike watering up this morning ;-)

Mt. Patterson

as long as the sun is shining

beer time!

shopping tour

I'm not gonna write anything more about the weather. We've been to Reno today and checked out the shopping malls. I had a few specified needs but Ziggy was all over the place looking for stuff he might eventually need. I got quite a few pairs of Levi's jeans and nice winter shoes. Ziggy has been out for anything he could find even one more of the funny Moshi clocks. We also discovered a nice truly american diner where we had huge old fashioned burgers for lunch. We finished up in the Tail Dragger with all the boys and then in the Genoa Bar ...

Joe's diner

give me my burger!

blue as it can be

It is even hard to stay up in the air ... Chuck sniffed again.

Chuck studying for his BFR

Tom & Zig

mirror

what are the winds doing down there?

lunch at the lake

hahaha

cooling required

yesterdays update

Since we both were pretty tired last night the post was short. I decided to write something more about the weather since it was interesting. The wave looked really good early in the morning with beautiful lennies marking at least 3 waves. The winds were picking up as the day progressed and there were more and more unusual cloud formations. It all looked kind of unorganized and hard to figure out. The dynamics of it all were impressive and the whole sky pattern has been changing within minutes. We got Ziggy ready and sent him up as around 11 am. He got off tow just below 9000 ft and got into wave pretty quickly. After just a few minutes he called in and asked for the wave window. As usual this was no problem whatsoever and he got cleared to 28000 ft till 5 pm loc. In the meantime I was performing all the hectic activities getting ready for my attempt. Filling up the Ventus was easy and quick ... declaring the task was hard cause nobody could tell how the weather is gonna look like in 10 minutes. I finally decided what turnpoints I will use and jumped in. Although the winds on the ground were already pretty strong and gusty take off from 16 was no problem. The glider flies just beautiful in every conditions. I went off tow about 8000 ft and had to fight in the rotor for another hour or so to be able to contact the wave. I finally managed it and tuned to Reno Approach where I heard Ziggy reporting that he's descenting through 19000 ft and will be clear of A airspace soon. I was really happy to hear that cause the conditions were far from easy. The clouds (mostly lennies and some rotor clouds) were at around 13000 ft. The reason for the unstable and unorganized wave was the wind that was coming to much from the south. I was showing winds out of 200 at 40 kph and not much gradient with the altitude. But still ... there was some wave. I finally climbed over the clouds and decided to go for the first run on my triangle to mark the wave. I went all the way down to the first turn point and "draw the line on my PDA". Going down there took me like for ever. With 110 kts IAS I was showing 140 kph on the GS ... I came back to the start line in no time though and started the task from 16200 ft. The run to the first turn point was pretty straight forward since I already had the line marking the wave. I was pretty slow on the GS and had an average of ca. 165 kph on the first turn point. I turned and the ground speed went up to 340 kph (!!!). Things were going just fine and I had 190 kph on the 2nd turn point that I reached after 7 minutes (the leg was 35 km long). I was heading for the finish and my speed went up to 203 kph 7 km short of the finish line. I was missing 1500 ft altitude and was pretty positive to regain it in the spot I marked before I started. The wave already changed again and my good lift was gone .. there goes the record. Well no need to be upset. You just keep pushing it and hope for the best. If I go slower to "save the altitude" I will be to slow anyways ... It's been a nice and interesting day though. Ziggy already landed on the 16 at that time and I was getting ready to do the same. The clouds went sort of vertical and started pouring freezing virga and it was about time for the beer. I landed at 16 with almost no ground speed on touch down. The wind was blowing from 190 at 30 kts at that time.

The wave is gone today. There are still some pretty strong winds aloft that are fighting the thermals. Chuck just went up in his 27 and we're waiting for him to give us some update on the conditions up there. Ventus is watered up and ready to go if it makes sense some time during the day ...

Chuck - our sniffer today

let's get him out of here

"glider tow rolling 16, left turn out" 

Ziggy's Diamond Altitude!

As we said - today was the day. Ziggy went up in Mr. TW and completed his diamond badge. He climbed up to 27.150 ft. Congrats on that Zig!

the beer after

I filled up Mr. 00 and tried the 100 km triangle for speed. I almost made it ... almost is not enough though. I was showing 203 km/h till 7 km short of the finish. I was missing 1500 ft altitude to fulfill the altitude requirement and was hoping to regain it in the primary wave that was working perfectly before. Too bad ... the plan didn't work out ... the clouds got thicker and started pouring out freezing rain ... no lift whatsoever. This leaves a bit of bitter taste since I was soooo close ... again. I'm happy for Zig though and we had a beer or two to his achievement.

beer or two

I guess I'm ringing the bell tonight

"no, Devin it wasn't me!"

morning sky

and the evening sky

lake tahoe

... off we went ... up to the lake. It's been nice and cool up there.

We got back to the airport for the evening beer and asked Mike how it was: "Horrible, I didn't even make it to the Pine Nuts". Well, when Mike says that ... The problem is ... Ziggy thinks now that he has a clue about the weather over here. He was absolutely right when we headed to Las Vegas and he somehow was right today again. He's going now with his nose way up high ... it's gonna be a tough evening ...

It really looks like wave tomorrow, so I have to keep Zig from "eating" one more beer and force him to get ready if he really wants his diamond. Sleep time!

weather prediction

The first thing Zig said this morning after he opened one of his eyes was: "Weather is not gonna be good today. Why don't we go up to the lake for instance". After I asked him how come he knows something nobody else knows he said he can smell it. The blipmaps seem to just acknowledge the Zig-Smell-Forecast.

Wave prediction for tomorrow is getting serious. This might be the day for Zig to get his diamond altitude and I am thinking of filling up the Ventus and ... Nobody knows if the wave is gonna be strong and high enough to reach this high but we need to organize an IGC loogger for Zig since I want to go up with mine as well.

We're still thinking what to do today and waiting for somebody to take the first tow to see how it really is up there...

a bit of flying

The time is going by so fast and we've got a bit more than a week to go. Today was blue as it could be but we decided to fly anyways and went for a sort of competition - just to have a goal and not just goof around. We both declared a 100 km triangle in the valley and flew this. Both flights are on the OLC. It's been fun since there is no weather for anything else. We're planing on something similar tomorrow.

getting ready

Devin on the flight line making sure that I'm good prepared to fly his Ventus

Zig ready to jump in

Mr. TW

00 instrument panel

...

Virginia City and secret pilot meeting in the head quaters

Virginia City

We decided to explore some of the local culture today and drove up to Virginia City, an old gold mine town. We figured they should not allow cars to park along the street there since they are disturbing the atmosphere.

a little bit higher up than Minden - nice and cool 

Virginia City

Ziggy in his element

Tom organized a secret pilot meeting in his shop this aftenroon. Mac Ichikawa somehow got to know and flew in from Tokyo today not to miss the opportunity to chat with one of the best glider pilots ever - Zig - the thunder from down under. They've been discussing tactic for the Dalby Competition in Australia in October this year. 

Mr. Z, Tom, Mac and Billy during the secret meeting today