WEATHER Visibility: Far   Wind: 0-15, from all directions Altitudes: around 5,000 out over the valley floor Time Aloft: hours Max Lift: Decent Temperature: 70s - NICE! Tow pilot: Karl K Tune-Up Time at Avenal.  Tuning up new gliders, old tractors and everything else on the field.  There's a work day coming soon to spruce up the place for the spring contest in a little over a month.   Richard mowing...   Karl towing... Perfecting patterns... Ollie checking out his new ride - https://www.weglide.org/flight/367149   All photos courtesy Mark P ..read more

Are you ready? Are you current?  Are you proficient?  Are you looking forward to it?  Spring is coming soon.  Bottom Photo courtesy Mark P ..read more

Wishing for those 100+ Degree Summer Days?   This year's wave season has brought a good variety of flights, both pre-frontal and post-frontal, in our neighborhood.  (Note:  Some of the WeGlide posts have good commentary and photos.) In late December, Philip visited Avenal and turned in a 400 km, O&R flight to the north. OLC WeGlide In early January, Buzz visited Coalinga and had a fun day in some weak and blue, post-frontal wave. OLC Morgan had several good flights out of Santa Ynez in the last few months.  OLC  WeGlide  OLC  WeGlide  In late Janua ..read more

WEATHER Visibility: Far  Wind: Light Altitudes: Tow release     Time Aloft: Enough Max Lift: Occasional zero     Temperature: ~60 Comment: Tow pilot: Jim Rickey It was a sweet and mellow early winter day today at Avenal.  We had around a dozen members out at the field.  Brandon, Mark, Russ, Kevin, Jim, Larry, Richard, Joe, Kris, Ollie, and maybe a few more that I missed. The lucky five of them flew while the others fattened their club karma accounts by working on any number of projects around the gliderport. Larry brought 100 gallons of 100LL and ..read more

This past Saturday saw conditions that were more like springtime than the summer solstice.  Look at these flights last weekend: https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3.0/gliding/flightsOfAirfield.html?rt=olc&sc=&aa=AVENA1&st=olcp&c=US&sp=2023# Then, today, Zach became our newest CFIG!  Dan was the examiner administering the practical test. Morgan provided the tows. And a few weeks back, Brandon celebrated his first solo flight and has repeated the feat several times since then!  Get on the schedule and take advantage of the great soaring right now.   ..read more

Snow on Castle Mountain (photo by Martin, when returning from SSA convention)   The calendar says the vernal equinox is still about 10 days away, but spring-like conditions have arrived.   Well, springtime with a bit of snow and relatively huge amounts of rain.  Wildflowers are out on the hills and plains around Avenal.  Everything is lush and green. That rain might make operations at CA69 a bit messy, so Zach & Morgan moved 05U and 13F over to New Coalinga.  We're ready to operate without worrying about mud at CA69. Members are getting their ships annual-ed ..read more

WEATHER Visibility: excellent, unlimited,  except for the dust behind the tow plane on the first part of the take off roll.  Wind: Light most of the day.  It was out of the ESE early, but shifted to the N later in the afternoon. It came up a bit more as we were tying down the gliders.  A "cut off low" was parked over our area today,  and appeared to be moving slowly SSE as the day progressed.  The surface  wind  direction shifted around several times, making it a good day for students to check the wind direction indicators,  and be thinking about ru ..read more

WEATHER Visibility:10+ Wind: Up to 15kts next to the convergence line Altitudes:13,000 ZY and 5H North of Santa Paula Time Aloft: 6 hours ZY Max Lift: 8kts+ Temperature: 80F Comment: Beautiful spring day with lots of action at Avenal Tow pilot: Chris Banys, Logan Stevens, Kyle Hyde View uploaded flights HERE  Saturday's forecast delivered as promised, with marked lift, ripping convergence and great local thermals well into the afternoon. It was great to see so many members adding their names to the schedule throughout the week and we ended up with our most active day this season. ZY, CZ ..read more

WEATHER Visibility:10+ Wind: <10kts Altitudes: 6k Time Aloft: 5hs Max Lift: 7kts Temperature: 65 Comment: Amazing early season valley day Tow pilot: Kyle Hyde, Chris Banys Kyle Hyde, newly minted 1-26 driver Cus popping at 9:45 Chris, Piper, and Kevin arriving on the Avenal Express  Southbound towards Bakersfield Good end to a great day ..read more

WEATHER Visibility: 10 miles, very hazy Wind: Light andVariable Altitudes: Release Height Time Aloft: 15 minutes, maybe? Max Lift: Pawnee induced 10kts+ Temperature: Chilly, probably 50s with fog early Comment:  Tow pilot: Morgan in the Pawnee Final Instructional day of 2022.  Thanks to Kevin for coming out to provide instruction for the two students and to perform a 1-26 checkout for Chris O. Larry was at the airport early in an attempt to continue clearing the remaining brush from trees at the arrival end of 30.  Kevin and I were trying to arrive around 9:00 in order to assi ..read more