Drew's Solo and Snow in Tucson

It has been a busy few weeks. On January 13th, also the day my brother turned 25, Drew was cleared to fly a glider solo. I am very excited for him and he has been flying safely by himself ever since.

Here is a picture of Drew with his flight instructor Kurt going over all of the paper work. Kurt is another wonderful instructor with the Tucson Soaring Club that Drew and I have both really enjoyed flying with.

Here is a picure of me with Drew right before his take off. I think he was kind of nervous but I knew that he would do great and I was just really proud of him. Flying solo is a really liberating experience, as cheesy as that sounds. Anyway, it was really fun to watch Drew solo becuase unlike me he was a bit more aggressive. Drew was able to actually do some stalls on his first solo flight that me and the other instructors could watch from the ground. But to summarize his flight in short I will just say that both his takeoff and his landing were perfect, not that I expected otherwise. After he landed, I got to cut off the back of his shirt, which is now hanging in the clubhouse right next to mine.

This last weekend Tucson actually got snowed on. It was very odd. I tried to go mountain biking with my friend Jenne but by the time we reached the trail head, which was up near Oracle, there was already several inches of snow on the ground. If that was not bizarre enough, by 7pm that night it was snowing and sticking in central Tucson. There was even enough snow accumulation for Drew, [m] and our friend Lan to make a small little snowman.

Riley with Snow on her back. She looks like the inverse of a dalmation.

These are the palm trees in my back yard with snow. I never thought I would see this.

My First Solo Flight

Warning: [M] you may not want to read this, it contains explicit details of me flying a glider.

For the past few months, Drew and I have been spending at least one weekend day with the Tucson Soaring Club at the El Tiro gliderport receiving instruction on piloting a glider. I have posted on this previously. Getting a pilot's license is not a small endeavor, there is a lot of information that you must know, in addition to acquiring the mechanical skills necessary to fly the glider safely. Anyway, the first rite of passage on one's way to getting their glider pilot license is the solo flight. As of last Saturday, I have taken about 50 flights all with an instructor in the back seat to help me out and give me pointers. This changed Saturday morning when I got cleared to fly the glider sans instructor. The Tucson Soaring club has several wonderful instructors and I have flown with most of them. The first instructor I flew with was Randy Acree. Therefore, I really wanted Randy to be the instructor to endorse me to solo. Randy was very patient with me while I was learning and I am very thankful for his instruction. I managed to break two tow ropes in the first month I was flying, both with Randy, and he was nice enough to claim that both rope breaks were not my fault. Although I am pretty sure that my inability to stay in the correct position behind the tow plane during my first month of gliding was the reason for the ropes breaking.

Saturday morning Drew and I drove out to El Tiro around 8:00 am. It was cold and windy. There was around a 6-7 knot wind coming out of the Northwest and I was a little concerned that the wind might keep me from getting to solo. However, I took one quick flight with Randy around 11am, after he had completed all of the necessary paperwork, and he said I was good to go. It is a really odd experience climbing into the glider and not waiting for your instructor to get in. Then I went through my pre-flight checklist, which was also odd because I am used to saying it out loud for the instructor to hear. I then waited for the tow plane to wiggle their rudder, I wiggled mine in reply and we were cleared for take off.

Here is a pic of my first solo takeoff. The glider always gets off the ground before the tow plane. As the glider pilot, you need to hold the glider just a little off the ground until the tow place can catch up. This is very important because if the glider gets too high it can pull up the tail of the tow plane, which is no fun for anyone. Once the tow place is off the ground both aircrafts can begin climbing together. At this point, if the tow rope breaks and there is little to no runway left the glider must make a desert landing. If the rope holds to 200 ft, however, the glider will have enough time to turn upwind and land back on the runway. For this reason, it is always important to make a 200ft call. I made my 200ft call out loud even though there was no one else in the plane with me. But the rope held and I stayed with the tow plane up to 3,000 ft above ground level (an altitude of 5,100 ft above sea level). Then, I looked to my right to make sure that there was no other traffic, released the tow rope, turned to the right and I was gliding solo.

I was only up in the air for 16 minutes although it felt like hours. I was giggling to myself most of the time because I could not believe that I was actually alone. Usually when I take a 3,000 ft tow I play around with some airwork and practice stalls and steep turns, which I love because you can really feel the G forces. But on this flight I did not really do much except look for lift. I did not find anything and when my altitude decreased to about 1100 ft above ground level I entered the pattern to land. The landing was the scariest part about my solo flight. I knew that there was at least 10 people on the ground waiting to watch me land, including Randy, and I really had to get this one right. Landing long, or bouncing my landing was not something I wanted to do with this particular audience.

Here is a pic of my final approach. You can barely see me in the distance. My glider is crabbed a bit to compensate for the wind. Also notice the wind sock, which is off to the right indicating the crosswind from the north. You can also see some of my spectators. Here is the picture of my touchdown. It was perfect! I was centered on the runway and landed almost exactly where I wanted to. What a relief!Here is a picture of me with Randy, the certified instructor on the ground for my solo. In addition to this being my first solo flight, I am the first student that Randy has endorsed to solo. After I touched down, I think we were both very relieved. You probably cannot tell from the picture but I was shaking from a combination of nerves and excitement. Thanks Randy, for hanging out on Saturday to endorse me to solo when you did not even have duty instruction!It is tradition that after your first solo flight, a piece of your T-shirt gets cut off so your instructor can sign and date it. It is then hung on the wall of fame in the El Tiro clubhouse. Here is a picture of Drew cutting my shirt to give to Randy.

So now I can fly a glider all alone, which is awesome to say the least.

Christmas and New Years...a bit tardy

This Christmas was great for many reasons. First, Drew and I did not have to travel. Since we had to work, my parents and brother came to us in Tucson. Second, we had the perfect Christmas tree. It had no gaps and was perfectly proportioned. Anyone who knows me, understands that I am obsessed with Christmas trees. I have been known to return a Christmas tree to the lot if it does not meet my rigorous standards. There will be no 'Charlie Brown Christmas tree' in my house. Here is a pic of our tree. Although it was perfect, I had to pay 80 bucks for it because we waited until December 19th to get our tree and most of the lots in town were already closed. The one remaining lot had jacked up the price of trees. Monopolies suck.

For Christmas Eve dinner we had a Mexican feast of tamales from St. Mary's and carne seca from El Charro. I managed to buy the last dozen tamales from St. Mary's on December 23rd. The place was packed because Christmas tamales are a tradition in Mexico and I think I pissed off a lot of people when I gleeful walked away with the last tamales. It probably did not help that when my number was called, I anounced that I was the "big winner".

For Christmas dinner, I made a turducken, as per my brother's request. For those of you that do not know, a turducken is a chicken stuffed in a duck, which is then stuffed in a turkey. The recipe requires that you debone all three fowl. I deboned the turkey first. It was easier than I was expecting thanks to Lisa's blog on making a chickham that includes pointers on deboning a chicken. One of the great things about this recipe is that there is a layer of stuffing between each of the birds, which affords the opportunity for 3 different types of stuffing. I put a traditional stuffing inside the chicken and between the duck and the turkey. Between the chicken and the duck, however, I put a cranberry pecan stuffing that turned out to be my favorite. The cranberries were a perfect compliment to the duck. The picture to the right shows the turducken just before I put it into the oven. You cannot even tell that besides the legs and wings on the turkey the entire thing is boneless, which allows it to be sliced right through the breast. Each slice contains all three types of meat and the different stuffings. My family and I managed to devour at least 2/3 of the 20 pounds of poultry over Christmas and the following days. It was awesome and I definatley plan to make it again. The genius of the turducken was that the duck fat made the turkey breast extra juicy and tender. So in addition to all of the goodies inside, the turkey by itself was the best I have ever eaten. After dinner, we continued to drink beer and wine and played trivial pursuit with our friends Jenne, Sean and Zaneta. My dad was on Jenne and Sean's team. Zaneta teamed up with my brother, and Drew and I made up the third team. We were savagely beaten by Jenne, Sean and my dad.

For New Year's Eve, Drew and I had some friends over the traditional boozin'. I politely requested that everyone wear cocktail attire becuase I felt like dressing up. All the women came through and I got to wear my bride's maid dress from [M]'s wedding.

Here is our friend Melinda with her boyfriend. She came back from California early so she could join us for New Years and wear her new sexy red dress.Here are our friends Jenne and Sean, who also joined us for Christmas dinner. They are my favorite vegans and Jenne is one of running buddies and teammate from the Tucson marathon relay. Zaneta brought a tradional Czechoslovakian dish that was beautiful and really good for people like me that love eggs. Scout also liked it and snuck away with one when we were not looking.
Here is a pic of our buddy Zaneta (right) talking with our friend Bevin (left) who is also married to Drew's best man in our wedding. All in all it was a good holiday and I did not get out of bed on New Year's day at all, which is either a really good sign or a really bad sign depending on your perspective.