Chilhowee Stories
4th of July Weekend at Chilhowee Gliderport
John


I thought this might be of interest to some of you. My son John and I spent the July 4th weekend at Chilhowee Gliderport. A few minutes drive Northeast of Chattanooga Tennessee, Chilhowee is a most enjoyable place to visit. All the folks there are friendly and helpful. Mike Reisman, the owner/operator of Chilhowee, made our visit there pleasant, fun and safe. He had two gliders to rent, a Blanik L-23 and a SZD-51-1 (Junior). Both were kept in very good condition. John just turned 14 and has just begun working toward solo. I very much appreciated the respect and acceptance that was afforded John by everyone there. Part of the fun of flying at Chilhowee is the tow plane, an L-19 "Birddog" painted in Army colors. The L-19 has plenty of power for a smooth, fast tow up to the ridge. Mike was the pilot of the tow plane for me and did a great job. For my first flight in the SZD-51 he took time to make sure I had been "checked out" on the 51 and then took care to brief me as to how he would adjust his tow for my first flight. As always he took me right to lift and signaled (as per my request) at a good release point. I got in one flight on Saturday (1.5 hours) and one on Sunday (2.3 hours). The Junior was exciting to fly. It is a great all around aircraft. It's well laid out cockpit, great visibility and quick response gives it a "sporty" feel. While the Junior is both forgiving and predictable, it did everything I asked of it, no more, no less.

The highlights of the weekend for me was to be able to soar with my son and to be able to start working on a little cross-country technique. The ridge lift was not "working" but the mountain was generating enough thermal lift to let me fly up and down the ridge until a really good thermal cut loose and took me to cloud base. I found cloud base to be around 4200AGL on Saturday and 3800AGL on Sunday. After about 20 minutes I spotted the tow plane and L-23 headed my way. After release, the L-23 began circling below me. I could clearly see John, intent on the job at hand, and his instructor in the rear seat. I turned and headed down the ridge with John in pursuit. For about 4 trips up and down the ridge, he first followed me and then I, him. Shortly, they headed back to the airport and left me again, alone.

Mentally, I found it hard to leave the ridge. I did want to work on cross-country thermaling but, I didn't want to cut my flight short. The ridge was a source of consistent, predictable lift and I found it hard to leave. Having taken another thermal to 3700AGL, it was time to go. I banked left away from the ridge and headed across the valley. Passing about 2 miles North of the airport and having dropped to 2700 feet I was delighted to spot Bruce in his PIK-20 in a thermal about a half a mile in front of me and 800 feet above. I entered the center of the thermal and quickly caught up with Bruce. We topped the thermal together and he broke West. Not wanting to impose on him I chose a Northerly direction that would keep me safely close to the airport and the security of the ridge. I had no trouble finding lift and quickly found myself miles north of the airport. At that distance I knew that, worse case, I was at my comfort limit to make it back to the airport so I decided I would turn east and follow the mountain back to the ridge I had been soaring earlier. The mountains seemed upset that I had left because on my return the hawks had left, the "cues" were gone and there was no good lift to be found. I worked what little lift I could find as I continued south then turned west to the airport. One more weak spot of lift got my hopes up but was gone after about three turns. Shortly after that I was on the ground having enjoyed my 2.3 hour flight. I guess I should have followed Bruce because, when he did show up at the airport an hour after me, he still had enough altitude to do a beautiful high speed pass down the runway, pull up into a normal landing pattern, land and roll to a stop right at the hanger.

Brad Kueven, (BKUEVEN@computerland.cybertron.com)
Meridian MS
Date: 1997/07/14
Chilhowee Gliderport, updated 2002-09-06