#341 #342 #343 Snowflake

Perfect conditions… Early bird gets the glass
Wrangler Dan goes after the Antelope


After I decided to quit for the morning Dan Paul and John continued. I should have as well because the thermals that would be expected didn’t start until almost ten. Ramon was out of the action so he stood around and kited. I used the opportunity to take out the Eden III and replaced the lines that were cut over a month ago. Maybe I’ll use it tomorrow when I fly at chatfield.

About 9:30 John arrived in a red Myata instead of flying. He had gone down with a slipping belt about 5 miles out and had to hitch a ride back to the LZ.


The two stroke demon was out in force this weekend
1. John lands right after take off with power loss
2.Greg lands out by the corn maze with motor out
3.Ramon brakes cord on pull start
4.John lands 7 miles out with slipped belt.

#340 Titan Chatfield Stealth Launch

Chatfield….Home Sweet Home !

It was O’ dark thirty when I pulled in and set up. Paul arrived at 6 followed by Greg.
I forgot how nice this LZ is. The hay has been cut, it’s flat and no bumps. What a pleasure to launch from. I took off right away, to the Marina, to shoot a few pictures, and then worked my way around the lake to the corn maze. There were 4 balloons that launched but it was too late for us to fly with them. Next time.
On the way out I saw a pilot go down over by Santa Fe and Titan. It turned out to be John Sieb who was still having trouble with his motor. Craig also had trouble…motor out somewhere…his wife picked him up. Those guys with the two strokes have all the fun!
We all launched and enjoyed mostly smooth air. Paul was dealing with high winds at 2500 but I was fine at 2000.

Density of Altitude

A surprisingly accurate rule of thumb (usually any error will be less than200-300 feet) for determining the density altitude is easy to remember. For each10-degrees Fahrenheit above standard temperature at any particular elevation,add 600 feet to the field elevation. (And, conversely for each 10-degrees Fbelow standard temperature, subtract 600 feet from the field elevation.)Standard temperature at sea level is 59-degrees Fahrenheit. For elevations abovesea level, subtract 3.5 degrees per thousand feet of elevation from the sealevel temperature of 59 degrees.For example, at Jackson, Wyoming the elevation is 6,444. Multiply 6.444 times3.5 for 22.55. Subtract this from 59 (59-22.55) for 36.45. The standardtemperature at Jackson is 36.5 degrees. If the existing temperature is 80degrees, subtract (80-36.5 = 43.5). Divide this difference by 10 degrees (foreach 10-degrees F above standard), and multiply 4.35 times 600 (600 feet per 10degrees) which equals 2,610. Add 2,610 to the field elevation (6,444) for adensity altitude of 9,054. Under the existing conditions (of our example), theairplane will perform as it would on a standard day at 9,054 feet elevation

#338 Simms & #339 South of Dicks

Two Flight Two Site Day

It was dead calm at 6am while I drove circles in the field trying to find the spot where the grass was low and the tumble weeds were scarce. The moon was setting behind the mountains and the cross on the hill was beautiful! As the sun got closer to the horizon the wind came up and I waited in the truck for 40 minutes till it came down enough for a good safe launch. I had to use the small American Flags for wind socks because I had forgotten my big one. Not to easy to spot when I’m trying to land but they worked well as long as I was sitting.
The launch was normal and the air was fairly smooth. The wind was switching from west to nil to East so there were patches of turbulence that moved around rather than hanging over a particular spot on the Earth. The temp dropped 3 degrees after the wind came up and didn’t start to warm until 7:15. I was starting to get chilled and headed back to the field where I saw an unknown SUV with a paramotor pull in next to my truck. I came in surprisingly hot when what I thought was no wind turned out to be a tail wind. No Worries.
The other pilot was John Sieb and if it had been a little earlier I would have gone back up with him. There was a balloon flying over by the Hog Backs that I had missed and lucky John was going up to play with him. I packed up after he made the longest take off run of his life….:)
Unfortunately the 2 stroke demon bit and he landed after 5 minutes with a loss of power.
The second flight was at a new site a mile north of Dicks. We were asked to leave by the local police at Dicks…They sent us ( Dan, Paul, Paul, Ramon and Me) to the other site where we were met by the Security of the adjacent Mall. We tapped danced and were given permission to get a flight in. The winds were NNW between 5 and 8. I literally Popped up when the wind picked up during the run out. The air was not allot of fun but I did several laps before doing a touch and go and landing. On final I was having a difficult time holding a smooth glide. I would drop 10 feet return to normal glide and drop again. I was still able to set down where I wanted but it was more challenging. beautiful sly with the skyline of Denver in the sunset and a huge full moon rising in the East. I would have loved to take some pictures but it was active flying and I didn’t feel comfortable going no hands.
I was glad we were moved because the goat head thorns were at their dry worst over at Dicks but the new field was clear with just some 1 foot weeds scattered about. They are grading the area so it won’t be flyable for long. Interesting that the graded area is 6 inches of really fine powder. I hope it gets packed before the next big rain.

#334 Simms

Foggy day with Low Cloud Base


This was a weird one, I woke before the alarm which I fully intended to switch off and ignore. When I went downstairs and opened the garage door I was surprised to see that we were completely socked in. The cloud base was very low. It hadn’t rained and the grass was barely damp. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go but I loaded up and drove down to the gas station for coffee and a sip of gas for the buggy. 30 minutes later I was at Simms driving in circles tying to find the place where the weeds were low enough to launch.

There were banks of fog in the area south of Red Rocks. I was wishing there was another pilot with me but the air seemed so still I had to go up and see what it was like. The launch was normal and for the first 30 minutes it was glass off. I went to 700 feet and started to lose site of the surface so I stayed there and kept a good eye on the ground. A couple of times the base lifted and them came back down…or maybe it was me but I was seeing the Denver skyline come in and out of the fog. The last 10 minutes the air started getting bumpy so I landed. As soon as I was down, I regretted it, There was a slight West breeze and with the thick overcast, I’m betting I could have flown past 10. But…It didn’t feel right flying in soup without back-up so i packed up and headed over to Chatfield. I spotted a couple of balloons through the fog and drove over to the port to see if I knew anyone. A couple of them had landed out so I drove over and assisted them in getting deflated.
Later I stopped at the old Titan LZ and was surprised to see that it had not been visited and seem to be dormant. I think the Rush Soccer Club has postponed the development which means that we will probably be able to fly out of the old field without anyone complaining. I’m going to go for it, even if it’s only once.

#333 Snowflake

Snowflake LZ
When I first arrive it was magic. Absolutely calm and the sun was just beginning to turn the eastern horizon pale orange. Mike and Craig arrived at 6:30 and we threaded our way around the buildings to the ultra lite area. There is a wide North South runway and a very narrow East West, that was made narrower by some recent grading.

No Worries…I kicked the worst of the clods out of the way and took off easily. It’s a little like flying down at the Springs. Very flat and not a lot of scenery. But i have to say… “that’s all right by me”, just getting up is good and the lack of elevation changes makes for smoother air. When I took off there was a light breeze from the West, after flying 50 minutes it had picked up considerably and the air was downright ratty. I don’t know what was causing the bumps…it was too early for thermals…we were way too far from the Rockies for them to cause a problem, but whatever it was, all three of us decided it was no fun anymore. That didn’t stop Mike from going up for a second flight :0 (No sweat…it didn’t seem dangerous…just bumpy.)

There is allot of air traffic in the area. At 3000+ are the big boys, I think they are coming out of centennial or possibly the air force base. Mike credits them for stirring up the air..I don’t know but they are right over us. There is also another ultra lite park around here. I saw a delta and a fixed wing ultra and on the way out there was a biplane tooling around. If I understand the rules, we have to stay below 700 feet to the West and South but can climb high to the East and possibly the North.

Snowflake has a couple of things that will bring me back, there is an old Titan Missile silo 5 miles east that I’m looking forward to exploring and it’s a pleasure to have a nice smooth runway.

#332 Simms

Beautiful sunset flight with Craig and Marek.

Smooth and warm!
Last night I remounted the Tac it’s easy to read but it’s not reading correctly. I’ll try again with a smaller gauge wire and if that does not work I’ll try finding a position that has a shorter run.
The take off was slow with lots of sink around the field. Tomorrow it’s off to snowflake.

Don’t buy a CT 4 stroke !

This year at the Salton Sea Fly-in I traded in my beautiful little FB Simonini Trike Buggy Classic for a hybrid CT Thumper Briggs & Stratton 4 Stroke on a Trike Buggy Deluxe. I’ve done some bone headed things before but this one is the worst.

I should have known this wasn’t going to work that first day on the Salton Sea. On the maiden flight I parablended my favorite cap right there in front of everybody. The 4 stroke was so quiet I didn’t think to put on my helmet and ear protection. Imagine….A machine so quiet you don’t notice your not wearing ear protection… until your cap goes through the prop. That’s a dangerous machine! Yea, I did go to idle the other day to use the cell phone… but so what?

Every day I find another flaw in this crappy machine. I used to love driving out to Centennial Airport for AV Gas. They let me drive onto the tarmac with the GA guys so I could fill my two 5 gallon gas jugs. I’d drive to the back of the line and wait my turn. Sometimes it took awhile to fill those big birds and when I got done reading the latest issue of Ultraflight I’d get allot of good thinking done sitting in the truck. Now, I don’t even need the jugs, I just stop at the gas station on the way to the field and fill the buggy right there in the truck. Where is the romance in that? And that reminds me of another thing. What am I going to do with those cases of TTS in my garage?
And speaking of the garage….my “Man Cave”… I haven’t had a good night working on the machine in months. Yeah sure, I can re-rig the footsteering or mount a strobe but mostly I just sit there and gaze at the machine. No changing tension springs on the exhaust or rebuilding the carb. Heck, I’m having a hard time finding a place that needs a little safety wire. It just isn’t the same I come in after 3 hours in the garage and I don’t even need to wash my hands. It just sucks!
And the flying is different too. Gone is that element of uncertainty, I sit down, buckle the seat belt and turn the key. There is no sense of accomplishment in that. No fooling with the carb or pulling on the starter till I’m bathed in sweat. The other day I flew 15 miles from the LZ and didn’t think once about what a drag it would be if I had to land out. Sure, I still keep an eye out for emergency landing sites but it’s really just an exercise anymore. I can still remember the thrill of an engine out, what a rush!

So take my advice, if you love the lifestyle, don’t by a 4 stroke.