2016 Soaring Summary

I had another great soaring year in 2016. While not quite as many flights, hours and total distance as 2015, I did manage to improve my average distance and speed by 5%.  The map below shows traces from 61 cross country flights in my ASW27, totaling 21,886 miles (35,223 km) and 363 hours, averaging 358 miles (577km) per cross country flight, at an average speed of 61 mph.  The flights spanned most of California, Nevada and Utah,  including visits to Oregon, Wyoming and the Grand Canyon - Arizona.  During those trips I visited 13 airports.

Highlights from the year:

• 1st place in the OLC-USA all flights category
• 5th place in the OLC-USA Champion category
• 10th place in the OLC-USA speed category
• Had my longest Parowan flight (1207km) and my longest Panoche flight (820km)
• Had fantastic flights from Parowan, Tonopah and Truckee in some of the strongest conditions I remember , including a 1000km flight from Truckee, and multiple flights to Whitney and Shasta.
• Had 6 flights over 1000km (3 back to back from Tonopah, 2 from Parowan and 1 from Truckee) - my highest number of 1000km flights in one year.

Some of my favorites photos from 2016:

Santa Barbara Coast

San Jose

Lick Observatory

Escalante, UT

Escalante, UT

 

Grand Canyon, AZ

Zion Canyon, UT

Cedar Breaks, UT

Monument Valley, UT

Mount Whitney

Mount Shasta