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The days are still hot, so I decided to fly north, to the Oroville airport, where it would be a few degrees cooler. After an early start, on the way out I stayed over the foothills and passed the permanent “TFR” of Beale Air Force base to the east.

Over the foothills looking west

Oroville airport with its two runways

When I arrived, a Sportsman was doing pattern work on the long runway 20. The wind was calm and I would have liked to land on runway 31 for less taxi time, but I followed his lead and used 20.

Caro 1 parked on the wide empty ramp in Oroville

Have you ever wondered where the guys who work on powerlines get trained? Next to the airport I found the answer to this question.

Training ground for powerline workers, part of the “Northwest Lineman College”

I went for a walk and on the return flight I decided to fly west around the Beale airspace. That brought me close to the largest landmark in the Valley:

This pile of rocks can be seen from a long distance. It is the only one in the otherwise perfectly flat valley. Now I had the sun in my face and it was hot in the cockpit even at 5500 ft. To get back to the foothills, I flew though the corridor between Beale and Sacramento airspaces. Sacramento is a very crowded area on the ground, with buildings for many square miles, that seem to spread out further every year. Ugly!

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I had the opportunity to visit the Heppenheim airfield during my visit to Germany. This is a grass airfield mainly used for glider flying, but there are also a few airplanes, ultralights and motorgliders belonging to three clubs based there. I participated in the flying activities on a weekend and was able to go on several different flights with club members. Flying in a club allows access to a number of different planes at fairly low cost, but every member is required to help with the work of getting the gliders into the air.

This is one of the hangars where several gliders are stored hanging from the roof to save space. It is easy and convenient.

This 2-seat motorglider is an ASK-16, which I was invited to fly on a short cross country flight. It is quite rare, only about 20 of them are still flying. It has a steel tube fuselage, wood wings, a retractable main gear and a 3-position propeller attached to a Limbach engine.

The gliders are lined up for a winch launch, on this day to the north. The first two are ASK 21, the last one is a Duo Discus, all of composite construction. They are used for flight training. I flew both models.

The older ASK 13 is of the same construction as the motorglider and with its lower weight and slower stall speed it was great fun to fly in the thermals. I did two flights in it, one from the back seat and one from the front. I managed to stay up for 45 minutes in rather weak thermals and only had to land because the club member I flew with had an appointment.

The launch altitudes that can be reached on a day with no wind are about 1000 ft, more if there is a head wind.

Winch launch in the Duo Discus, looking east towards the Bergstrasse, during the initial phase of the climb. The wheel is only retracted after the rope is released.

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I flew my Pulsar to Oshkosh and have written a trip report.

I also made a video with flying scenes and shots from Airventure:

https://youtu.be/P0Ls1hitLNc

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Even though it is late in the season, there can be days with thermals in the foothills. I went up with the long wings and found some decent ones, up to 6000 ft msl. There were no clouds to mark the tops, so finding them depends a lot on luck.

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