Ultralight or Part 103 trikes
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Ultralight or Part 103 trikes
group is for discussion of part 103 trikes or flying part 103 trikes
Soaring at the 2014 Polson fly-in
I was fortunate enough to have a few great soaring flights at Polson last month. I attempted to capture some of the highlights in this video. I hope you like it. You might want to watch in HD.
Comments
nice one joe was a pleasure to meet you there.looks like you had a lot of fun when I left.i flew 5.5 hrs in 3 days that's great weather for flyin
That was amazing...I loved your video...you got some mad skills...that was so beautiful that now I want a soaring trike too :D The scenery is beautiful too.. And then the airport by the river is just amazing. Glad you had a great time.
Great video Joe! Really nice match with the music as well. What a fun flight.
Your light touch makes it look like you are playing music more than flying a trike. :) Inspiring.
I really appreciate all the feedback!. Dean the pleasure was mine. I really enjoyed chatting with you. Rizzy, given right conditions and suitable trike, soaring can be a real blast but for those that don't enjoy getting bumped around it may not be for them. Ken thanks for the input and comment about the music. I do like the blues. Heather I appreciate your comment too. I happen to think a light touch is very helpful when attempting to soar. thanks again.
really nice joe, bravo.... i really enjoyed the video, and being a part of it (although far below most of the time) that was an awesome flight and i learned a lot from you that hour and a half! thanks for sharing buddy
j
I watched your video multiple times and I have a few questions, might sound silly but since I don't know much about thermals....how to you know where the boundary of the thermal is and what radius is that thermal. How do you know that there is life. I am pretty sure a variometer helps with that but if a pilot was searching for thermals what are they looking for? Someone once told me that the two best ways to find thermals are to look for soaring birds (eagles) or if the sky is pretty clear with few very small clouds here and there, then fly under those clouds...Is that right?
hi joe this is white eagle logged in on my wifes account.just wanted to say yes it was a blast meeting all of you and what a good time we had. very impressed with your skills joe and I must add that this is one of the best demo videos ive seen for thermals in a soaring trike brovo . note that joes light touch on the control bar for feeling out the lift a very important skill for addressing milking the lift. and enlongating to the drift of the thermal.i must also say as this was johns and my reuinion trip from hang gliding years ago it was nice to see john below you scratching for the lift. kinda of enjoyed that view as 30 years ago it was johns view of me at paharito when I sunk out and had a long walk out of the mountains with a 70lb hang glider to carry out. but really john did a great job and as you know I had trouble with my soaring trike that day and had to fly my redback. but in this video I was at 10.5 above you guys and was just fully enjoying seeing my two good friends working the lift below.just wished I could of been in the circle working it with you. next year joe john the missions and will camp at that lake and catch some supper eh.
rizzy my friend is there any tike you don't want dude. your like a kid in a candy store. no really riz a soaring trike is the next best thing to hang gliding and you would really love it . my personal favorite type of flight. in finding thermals riz you one look for dust devils breaking,or patchesof green and brown earth . hot aspalt or large roofs heat sorces and trigger mech. things that will pop that big bubble of hot air exspanding it up into the air . birds circling is a good sorce and exspesially cummies and cloud streets. a good vario is a must . learning how to enter and exit and to judge the intensity. a large thermal can be as big as a football stadium and pitch you around pretty good. called boomers. ther are also string thermals witch are generaly small and hard to manage like bubbles rising ona soda bottle.alot has to do with being able to visualize the air and imagine what its doing and it does take good piloting skills and feel to get proficient. joe does a great job here. the next day john and I spent quite a bit of time working some ridge lift that is also a lot of fun. I was able to thermal my redback a bit as well but I couldn't completely drop my rpms though.unfortunately riz I had gained about thirty pounds and my soaring trike was not getting a good climb rate that day , I kinda felt like a turkey so I flew my redback and am now set to losing some weight. low wing loading is everything in soaring riz.
next year joe you john me and Nathan the mission range and once again I love what you demonstrate in the video and thanks for all the intence effort with my soaring trike .
rizzy a bit more I think it is at about 5'16 thru 5.21 you can see joe almost get kicked out of the thermals edge a term called going over the falls. joe very promptlyl feels it and you can see him kick it back in to the core nicely done. where there is strong up air in the core of the thermal rizzy there is down air on the edges . when you get on the edge of the thermal your wing tips are the indicator the cor side will roll up while the falls sibe will roll down. very important for entering or finding the lift as well . when hunting the thermal a sudden pitch up in the wing tip will tell you to turn in that direction. into the lifting air.
joe you forgot to mention that for that hour or so you were throttled all the way down and returned to the airport only using a half gallon of gas amazing beauty of a soaring trike
Hi White Eagle, thanks for explaining the concept of thermals, you are right I want every trike out there....If I won the lotto which is like 196 million right now, all of my close friends here on alltrikes will have their major debts paid and a brand new trike of their choice. I will buy a hangar with "all trikes" in it :) and most of you will get a job just organizing fly ins and just hanging out and having fun....POOF...Ok coming back to thermals, I have always loved the idea of soaring trikes. My skill level is no where close to soaring. In fact, despite my 140 hours or so of flying, I feel uncomfortable in rough air or in thermal activity. But there is a beauty in understanding the air around you and soar like an eagle.
Beautiful job Joe! Debbie and I were sitting here in the living room watching you soar and reminiscing about the great people and great times the Polson fly-in was. Hope we meet again!
Thanks again for all the comments every one. Rick, I too hope we meet again and maybe even fly together. John, hey it was really great to be able to share this flight with you. I certainly hope you and I will fly together some time in not too distant future. I really enjoyed having a chance to meet you. Rizzy that particular flight was a combination of orographic (ridge) and convective (thermal) lift. Some of that thermal lift was drifting up the ridge. It takes many years to learn to efficiently fly thermals. I still do not consider myself an expert at thermalling although I have improved my skill in recent years. I think you need to be part "bird brain" to really do it well. Many novices think thermals are geometrically uniform cylinders of rising air. More often they are more like amorphous bubbles that drift according to prevailing wind. As W.E. correctly pointed out they vary alot in size and intensity. It takes lots and lots of practice to soar thermals well. W.E. yes wing loading is very important but "sink rate" is king. Of course sink rate is correlated with wing loading but some wings perform better with an equivalent wing area due to efficiency (L/D) and over all handling than other wings of similar area. In any case, soaring can be a heck of a lot of fun.
yup agreed joe they both go hand in hand. and thermals will be triggered by those big bowls you were flying over. a great way to learn about thermal flying is a rc sailplane. john and I have years of experience with rc sailplanes . I don't concider myself an expert on thermals but I got a lot of experience flying a switzer 2-32 and 2- 33 sail plane at sandia peak. but in a soaring trike or hang glider thermaling is even more fun because you can smell and sometimes hear the thermals. in new mexico you can even see the big boomers rising up . there so big that you can see how they work by the dust that goes with them and lots of times will be paper and trash floating up as well, thermal breaking is what causes thous pretty little tornados called dust devils.it should be noted that when a thermal bubble breaks from the ground it is very violent . not a good idea to enter them at low agl.talking about bird brains I flew my hang glider at point of the mountain with jim lee larry toudor and jc brown. watching those guys work lift was a real work of art . 20 pilots scratching for lift and lee jc and larry up through the middle of them all over the top of the wasach range and gone they were.being a good thermal pilot as which I admit iam not is a real talent. joe you should give yourself credit that was not monsterous lift you were in and you did just a fantastic job with that 4000 ft gain dude.