SOARFARI! SoCal's premier group of
not-too-formal cross-country soaring safari pilots
Updates
07/24/2010
Event Plans (some details always in work) for the 2010 flying season:
Completed events and any stories to go along with them have been moved to the bottom of this list.
UP NEXT
Event 3.) FIRM: Hurricane, Utah - General Dick Stout Field Airport (1L8) - Friday July 30- Monday Aug 2 - Be sure to get a current Las Vegas sectional chart-almost all flying will be on that chart!
John Templeton (Maule Tow) has been confirmed for tow service. Honcho Larry Tuohino. $75 sign up fee, check made out to and sent to Larry Tuohino. First ten (10) pilots who send the money get "Rotating Launch Priority". Subsequent pilots get in group 2 for the entire four days.
Already signed up/paid: Larry Tuohino, Rick Barber, John Medley, Doug Levy, Carl Czech, Thomas Bjork, Stan Foat, Dan Gonzales, Bob Backer, Rick Leffingwell - That's 10! More are allowed to come though.
Some helpful information:
Gate access code is Hurricane's NEW CTAF: 123.05. The airport is at the end of the 700 block in town.
Camping at the airport is OK. Camp in the gravel just behind "Terminal One" shown below. Terminal One has A/C, water, flush toilets, DVD player, trees and bench. Group BBQ may be available from the friendly airport manager, Art Granger. No airport wifi or shower.
The closest motel is the Super 8 on the corner of 700 St. 2 queens are 54.95 plus tax. Pool, wifi, breakfast included. Phone 435-635-0808 now to reserve. Alternative motel is Rodeway 435-635-4010.
The airport manager is hoping to arrange O2...if anyone has a quick-fill adapter that they can bring that would be very helpful. O2 IS available at St George airport. Below is Terminal 1 at Hurricane.
Event 4.) CHANGED: Inyokern (IYK) (not Lone Pine) on Labor day weekend (Sept 3-7+)
Honcho Wayne Walker. There is planned to be an out-and-not-return to Minden on Saturday with return to Inyokern on either Sunday or Monday. Minden will ferry pilots to town/hotels as necessary. Rotating launch priority in order of sign up (No fee for IYK) with Wayne Walker.
Already signed up: Wayne Walker, Tom Bjork, Dan Gonzales, Paul Robinson
Further information on these events will be forthcoming when the honchos get final plans in place and provide that info to the webmaster!
History:
Event 1.) Completed: May May 21-23 Inyokern (IYK) <<Click this link for important NEW info about IYK for 2010
Attended (physically): John Medley, Stan Foat, Larry Forqueran, Paul Robinson, Bob & Lois Nyman, Matt Herron
Well... IYK this year was a BLOWOUT. We are always at the mercy of Aeolus (Greek god of the winds) when we go to IYK. The forecast for Friday showed strong winds but with probable good wave all the way up the Sierras. Several people cancelled and did not come. Others planned to wait until the Saturday forecast and come to IYK then. Nevertheless, Stan Foat, John Medley, Bob & Lois Nyman, Paul Robinson, Larry Forqueran, and Matt Herron were at IYK on Friday morning. Things were looking pretty good at 10AM so everyone started rigging their ships. Paul held off a bit. The wind was tolerable coming from due East...strange direction...possibly rotor on the ground. The Sierra soaring tow plane took a flight and found some rough air directly above the airport but it shouldn't prevent good tows up to the mountains. Paul started rigging his ship. After he got one wing on, in a period of about 10 minutes the wind shifted 180 degrees and picked up substantial steam. Paul aborted his rigging and quickly stowed his plane. Everyone else was too late and had to scramble to secure their assembled planes in place. Looked like no flying unless the wind died down. We could see lennies forming to the North. Paul decided it was a no go and left to go home for the weekend, leaving his plane in trailer to pick up on the way to Lone Pine with the Caracole Soaring group for their normal Memorial Day weekend event. Everyone else stuck it out. After a few hours it was obviously not going to get better, John and Matt took a drive to Kernville and Lake Isabella where, no kidding, there were 3 foot curling white caps on the lake. The IYK AWOS stated winds 35 with higher gusts. Late in the day the visible lennies had formed all the way further South than Inyokern with multiple downwind wave lennies too. No incidents occurred with the planes. We all decided to wait and see if the winds would subside a bit for Saturday morning as predicted and decide what to do then. We took a drive to Ridgecrest and had dinner at Casey's Bar-b-que...keep that place on the list!
Saturday morning dawned without the expected lull in wind speed. Already blowing from the West at 25-30 at 7AM. After everyone got up or arrived at the airport there was general consensus that we should all help each other safely stow our planes in our trailers in the high winds and be on our way home to salvage some of the weekend for other things. This was particularly disappointing to Matt Herron who came all the way down from the Bay Area to try out some SoCal soaring. He had not been south of about Bishop flying out of Minden, Truckie, and other NoCal locations. Unfortunately he still had to take his plane to back to Tehachapi to leave it there for his father to use next week, before heading back to the Bay Area.
Looking at the OLC showed that Jim Payne flying from his home in Rosamond had managed a 3.5 hour OLC Classic-scored 710 km flight up the Sierras right in front of us at an average speed of 209 km/hr, or OLC League-scored 247 km/hr...All AFTER work on Friday! Jim also flew Saturday and secured a Sage 2 Wave clearance to FL200 from Joshua Control and flew another 889km (this time only 127 km/hr average). Both his flights were the longest for both days in the world. If we could only have gotten off the ground safely, we would have at least had fun trying to compete!
So for the record 2007 and 2010 at IYK were blown out, but other years were good to great. In fact a bunch of the Soarfari group came to IYK just the weekend before this and the conditions were "epic" with cloud streets everywhere, but no wave, and Paul Robinson recording 731, 909, and 605 km on three consecutive days. We'll be back. In fact the Labor Day weekend Soarfari event was recently moved to Inyokern from Lone Pine.
Some photos from the 2010 IYK event Beware! moderate resolution
Event 2.) Complete: Bishop (KBIH) July 3 through 6 - Honcho Rob Morgan
Josh Knerr towed with a 235 HP Pawnee. He flew in July 3 and towed from July 3 to July 6.
10 pilots showed up: Paul Robinson, Rick Leffingwell, Tom Bjork, Rick Barber, Dan Gonzales, Jeff Byard, Wayne Walker, John Medley, Jim Whitelaw, plus the honcho Rob Morgan ......the only guy not taking any tows.
We had a full roster of 10 registered pilots prior to heading to Bishop. Nine pilots were able to attend. Two new pilots joined the Soarfari group, Tom Bjork, and Jim Whitelaw.
Arranging a tow plane for the Bishop safari was a bit of a challenge this year after our original tow pilot disclosed he was no longer to going to make the event. We ended up finding Josh Knerr to tow us with a 265 hp Pawnee which had a constant speed prop. Josh did an outstanding job, easily pulling up the DG-500 and those carrying water.
Weather proved to be good on first day, and improved after that.
Launch on day 1 (Saturday July 3rd) began at about noon. Average distance for five of our pilots (representing the OLC Hole in the Wall gang) was 467 km on day one. There were a few cu’s, and conditions improved as the day went on.
Day 2 (Sunday July 4th) provided slightly better conditions and an earlier launch than day one. A few more cu’s filled the sky than the day before. Average distance for the 5 pilots of the Hole in the Wall gang was down to 328 km, obviously due to the desire to make the BBQ, listen to the band, and watch the fireworks later in the evening. As usual the Bishop fire dept did another outstanding job with a great 20 minute fireworks display right at the airport for everyone to enjoy.
Day 3 (Monday July 5th) was probably the best day of the 4 day Safari. Sailplanes were cruising north and south on both the Whites and the Sierras like they were freeways. Some pilots were heard on the radio reaching altitudes in excess of 17,000 ft. We also saw aircraft from the Minden area, as well as a number of sailplanes that came up from the south (Inyokern and Mtn Valley Airport). Wayne Walker managed to navigate his Libelle to Boundary Peak and back to Bishop, having to land a bit early to deal with an oxygen issue. The average distance for the OLC Hole in the Wall gang was 667 km, with Danny Gonzalez leading the way with a flight of 872 km - the highest scoring classic OLC-logged flight in the world that day! In fact the five Hole-in-the-Wall members present were all in the top 13 out of 332 total OLC-logged worldwide flights that day.
Day 4 (Tuesday July 6th) was almost a repeat of day 3. The launch was again early for Bishop (11:00 am). More cu’s were evident than day 3, especially late in the day. Some OD and virga was evident by about 3 to 4pm. The Hole in Wall gang averaged 656 km per pilot, with Rick Leffingwell leading the way with a flight of 794 km
The Bishop Safari this year was without a doubt a great success. We found a good tow pilot and towplane that we may be able to call on in the future. Nine of the 10 prepaid pilots made the safari, the weather provided great soaring conditions, the evenings cooled down nicely for sleeping (for those camping), and the BBQ/band/fireworks were as usual, a lot of fun. Alpha Uniform (Jeff Byard) and his crew, Allison, as well as 2 Sierra Echo’s crew, Kathy, played hooky from the soaring one afternoon and cruised (rafted) the Owens River for about 3 hours. There appeared to be quite a number of river rafters on the Owens especially on the two weekend days. Between the 10 aircraft we had at Bishop (9 sailplanes and the Ximango motorglider, our group flew a combined total of approximately 25,000 km in the four days of the safari.
Bishop honcho for 2010 was Rob Morgan.
We had a large turnout for the 2010 Soarfari planning dinner on February 21, 2010
, c
At least 25 pilots, friendsrew, and interested parties showed up
Doug Levi, Dan Gonzales and Larry Tuohino were introduced as the three Soarfari pilots with the three highest OLC-classic scored flights during any of the 2009 Soarfari events. Larry Tuohino won the case of beer. In addition to that same informal OLC scored distance contest again for 2010 there will ALSO be a contest for the FASTEST handicapped 2.5 hour period during the 2010 flying season at a Soarfari event (details to follow). Again a case of beer (winner's choice) is the prize.
Soarfari T-shirts are sold out for now<<But check out the models
Clarification on Deposit Rules 5/21/07<<This is a link to the explanation page. Any updates to this process for 2010 will be added when available, but the basic idea is correct as is.
Rotating Launch Grid Plan<<This link takes you to a web page which describes this program and you may also optionally download the file;
On Soarfari trips where we take a tow plane this plan should provide fair access to launch times, preventing everyone from having incentive to run out to the runway two hours early for no real reason. This process (or some derivation of it) was used reasonably successfully at Soarfari events the last few years.
for PREVIOUS years' fun check out the
Our Purpose: SOARing SaFARI
<<Some of us (in 2004?)
Note from Webmaster: I have found that these pages sometimes do not automatically refresh even though they may have been updated. Try hitting your web browser REFRESH button every now and then to make sure you are not pulling from a cached page on your hard drive.
We are a small Southern California (and one from UT) group of glider owners that
enjoy getting together 4 to 6 times a year for trips to mutually selected sites
to enjoy soaring and fellowship. We use established FBO sites in addition to
other desirable fields, taking a tow plane with us when needed.
The only requirement to be on our e-mailing list is a variable annual donation
($5.00 for 2009) to cover the cost of web hosting(primarily), postage(rare), materials, and for
any necessary announcements and incidentals. Tow and tie-down fees are each
individual pilot’s responsibility at the sites visited. Please go to the
"Contacts" link above and e-mail me if you would like to join us!
We do welcome guests. However it should be understood that in case of heavy
attendance, and the soaring safari is serviced by an arranged tow plane,
signed-up members will have towing priority.
Also emergency notifications and invitations email will be
sent to members only.
Click the Soarfari Schedule link for event info.
Email addresses and contact information of Soarfari members on this web site
will be displayed in jpeg format to help protect privacy. Unfortunately that
means you'll have to write it down and type it in by hand.