August 12, 2006 - Soaring
The forecast looked promising for soaring this Saturday so Bruce and I flew the Citabria out to the Flying Cow airpark.  Below are the four gliders that flew this afternoon.  The two 1-26s on the left were flown by Bill B. and his daughter Guinevere. 
The motorglider that normally tows is out of service for awhile, so Jan towed us with his Tiger Moth!  The Tiger Moth doesn't have an oil cooler or an oil temperature gauge so he couldn't tow us very high.  I got off at 1,000 feet which is the lowest I've ever gotten off a tow.  But it was no problem, because I got off right in a thermal which took me right up to 3,000 feet.  I ended up flying 2 1/2 hours and got as high as 5,300.  The visibility this day was simply fantastic.  Best I've ever seen it in the local area.  I could see Leesburg and Dulles airports from the glider -- I don't believe I've ever seen them from a glider before. 
The Ka-8 is a great glider but it's not a very good platform for taking pictures.  The canopy is curved everywhere and the pictures usually have a bunch of window glare in them like below. 
Proving me wrong, the below picture of Howard's field came out great!
I can never resist taking a picture of the Citabria. 
On the way home, we flew over the Baltimore Ravens training facility.  They had played well the night before in their first preseason game so I guess they were rewarded with a day off because the parking lot is empty.
Again, the visibility was phenomenal.  We could see the Baltimore skyline on the west side of Frederick!
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