Message to my brand new nephew Caiden!

 And Congratulations to Michelle and Todd Pelham!

UPDATE

   Well, I have been very busy the past few months. Upon completion of my Commercial Single Engine Addon I got on the horn and began calling around trying to utilize my new certificate, and my high(ish) tailwheel time. Within 2 days, I had an interview lined up in south Florida with Aerial Banners Inc. I drove all the way down to Ft Lauderdale, FL and started training. The drive was long, but not without hiccups (see attached pic).

   My training was completed in about 2 weeks, and consisted of some training in a Cessna O-1 Birddog, and doing alot of practice picks. A 'pick' is the maneuver the tow pilot uses to catch the banner with his hook. it consists of a steep descent followed by the addition of full power and a swift pull up and level off just above stall speed. It is quite exciting, if I may say so.
   I have been working for about 3 weeks, and have been getting about 20 or so hours a week, PAID. I am just still baffled that someone would pay me as much as they do just to fly over the beach all day. Its crazy. In addition to the hours flying I have been working in the hanger towards my A&P. I hope to finish that up in a year or two.
   More updates, pics and videos will be up soon!

Unedited Agwagon Flight

I posted a flying video to my YouTube channel of a typical 3,000' tow of a Blanik glider with the Agwagon. I decided to put up a video to show the entire tow procedure, without any edits or music. Great day to be flying!

Invasion

Today was a beautiful flying day for powered aircraft, clear blue skies with cooler temperatures than usual for this time of year made for a pleasant towing experience at the Soaring Club of Houston. Not so much for gliders. Flat, with little thermal activity lasting beyond 3pm. Only a few gliders were able to remain up after the big rush at 1pm. It was a brief flying day, everyone queued up for a 1pm launch. After about 3pm, when everyone was up, and all the re-lights were back into the air I go ta chance to relax and sit in the cool shade of the dispatch bay. It was there that I recounted the frightening second tow of the day... Pawnee 2 was flying great. Its a PA-26/235, equipped with flaps. The wind on this day was stiff, but right down the runway, and I shouldn't have had much trouble, but I have not been know for always taking the path of least resistance. The treeline on the approach end of the runway made form some bumpy landings on my part, and the flaps never help me. Flaps on the Pawnee are merely a tool for making me look like more of a fool when I'm trying to make a wheel landing. They always seem to force me into a nose high attitude on touchdown, and I get to do a 3 point landing at wheel landing speeds. The roughness of the field doesn't help either, launching me into the air right when I think the flight is over. Overall it was a safe flying day and I learned a lot, even if it was not very flattering to my image as a pilot. On the second tow of the day, I was towing a PW-5 to 3,000' straight out, just to get upwind a bit. At roughly 250' I noticed a wasp crawling on my right arm. I do not usually give much notice to sting insects, but when I am trapped in a cockpit flying that low with a glider in tow, it had my full attention. It crawled around on my arm, probably enjoying the coconut scented sunscreen layering my forearm for roughly one minute before flying to the window on my left. Without giving it much thought, I snapped up the only "un-stingable" object within reach, my Iphone, and smashed the wasp to bits on the plexiglass with the Apple devised miracle device. Later I found 4 more dead wasps in the cabin, and then found the small nest which I quickly hosed down with my favorite insect killer: Brake Cleaner. So let me experience remind everyone flying this summer to make a conscious effort to not only preflight for regular aircraft damage, but also unusual things like beehives and snakes inside the cockpit. Things like this can be devastating if you are surprised with them during a critical phase of flight. I shudder to think what it would have been like if I had an engine failure while a wasp was on my forearm at 250'. I imagine it would have been a very rough landing in the field upwind of the runway, and I would have likely been covered with welts from a furious wasp. Stay vigilant with the preflight inspections out there!I did not have a picture of actual wasp I killed, as he was mooshed into a thousand pieces, but here is one of the several wasps I found while searching for the nest:

Glider Towing Vid

    I put together another Towing video filmed in the trusty N8045V, our beloved Cessna Agwagon C188 out at the Greater Houston Soaring Association (GHSA).  I would have liked to have more footage from the glider, however soon after release from the tow, the suction cup on my camera gave up and it filmed the sun for the remainder of the flight.  The mount has a hard time sticking to the chalky paint on the Blanik Gliders.  I am very thankful I decided to use paracord to tether the camera to the ship, otherwise it may have been filming its demise and slow decay in a corn field somewhere.  Enjoy the video, I had a good time filming!  The next video will have much more glider flying.

10,000' in the Citabria

Decided I would fly up to 10,000' just because.  It took too long to climb up there, but was pretty fast on the decent, mainly because I was in a spin...  I didnt get any video this trip, as I forgot my memory card for the GoPro at home (D'oh!).  Maybe next time.

So it begins...

   The gliding season is almost in full swing, and I have been towing alot more in the past few weeks.  The season usually fires up this time of year, when the temperature is higher, and the heat from the sun can rocket some strong thermals higher into the sky.  Prime time is usually from about 1-3pm, which is typically when you have the best thermals.  It takes a few hours after the morning cloud cover burns off to heat up the ground enough to push some good thermals skyward.  What this means for the tow pilots, is that the schedule will be very light all morning but right when you're ready to take a break and eat lunch, everyone wants a tow and they want it right now.

The next 2 hours of the day will be non-stop towing.  Students and instructors in training ships, leisure pilots in whatever is available, and the competition oriented guys in their hotrod ships all waiting on you.  I like to have a 2.75 liter Camelbak to drink from during this 2 hour period, it reaches 110 degrees in the cockpit and can be alot of work if there is a student or novice on tow.  

Anyways, that is roughly how a busy day towing will look from the cockpit of the Agwagon/Pawnee.  I also took some more good video clips with the GoPro, and hope I can finish up a video with it soon.  I only have one camera, so to make one video with several angles takes quite a while.  Mainly I because I cannot stop after one tow and move the camera, there are usually 4 or 5 more gliders waiting for a lift.  I might only get one or two different angles in a day.  Anyways, I think I have enough angles to get a few more videos put together.  I'll post them up as soon as I get them finished.  Thanks for reading!