Sunday
Ok, 3 different airports in one day, c’mon! We picked up James at DIA and then dropped him at Centennial for his flight lesson. Then we dropped Joel at Boulder airport for his glider flight……….all before 11am. There was a different commander at the glider flight and he must have been in the AF at some point. The cadets were lazing around and he came up and yelled, “Attention! What are you doing?! Clean off those hands, I do NOT want popsicle stains on my glider skin! Get up! We need to move this plane NOW!” There were cadets from 4 squadrons (and Joel was the only one from Dakota ridge) so I told him he’d better be excellent and show what a good squadron he’s from. You get a further back view of the flatirons from this airport.
They always do glider flights out of here because they have a separate runway for them.
We left Joel there to bake in the sun and headed to Celestial (to buy tea of course!) Then we went to Longmont. The museum was closed until 1, the bookstore was closed until 1 and Main Street was dead. I did see these signs (1 on each side for 6 bocks of main street.)
What is cruising? Is that traveling above the speed limit down main or just going back and forth on main? Did they have such a problem with it that they need 12 signs? I think I may call and ask why they have so many signs and what is cruising (because in ‘Cars’ they cruised down the main drag slowly, maybe that’s it.) We ate and then found a thrift store that was open. We were just about to go to the museum when Joel called. The skies were clouding up and he didn’t want to do another ride, so we headed over to him.
When we got there Joel regaled us with stories of vomit (not his) and steep banks. Seems some of the cadets had too much crap in their belly before flight, but they made it into the vomit bag in the plane. Vomit at 8,000 feet in a closed cockpit, not a pretty sight. They aired the plane and continued on with the flights. Here is the glider being towed up.
They did stalls (bet you thought you couldn’t do that in a plane that has no engine.) The pilot asked Joel what would happen if he nosed up, Joel said stall and they did. Then they went straight down before pulling up which gave them enough lift to be back at the same altitude. They also did major steep turns and Joel said it was hard not to look down when you’re pressed up against the window. The problem with glider flights is they take forever. You don’t know exactly when they will land or how long they will stay up. Joel got to be wingman when they pushed out the plane and was commended on how level he kept the plane, that thing is very tippy too. On the way out we saw the USAF glider cover.
We picked up James from his flight (which was in a simulator) and headed home to relax. We quizzed Joel on his syllabus from both flights and even I came up with some of the answers. You know you’re a plane nut when you can banter about VSI, load factor and the 4 forces of flight.