Author: Dave Garwood
Edition: Model Aviation - 2009/02
Page Numbers: 126,127,128
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Soar Utah 2008: Three great flying sites and one great event!

Dave Garwood [[email protected]]

SOAR UTAH has been an important slope-soaring event, run by the InterMountain Silent Flyers (IMSF) club roughly every other year since 1995. A visit to the Great Salt Lake area has elements of a vacation-destination trip, so it’s not a surprise to see traveling slope pilots spend a few days in town before and after the event. Soar Utah 2008, the seventh in the series, was held August 28–September 1 near Salt Lake City, Utah. Last year, the IMSF hosted 64 registered pilots from California, Georgia, Colorado, Idaho, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Wyoming, Canada, and Switzerland.

The mountainous topography near Salt Lake City is well suited for slope soaring, with three notable flying sites in particular.

Point of the Mountain (POTM)

Point of the Mountain ridge (a sandbar formed in prehistoric Lake Bonneville) projects westward from the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains out onto the plateau between the Great Salt Lake to the north and Utah Lake to the south. POTM itself rises about 400 feet above the valley floor and makes an excellent slope-flying ridge on both the north and south sides, not only for RC sailplane pilots, but also for hang glider and parasail pilots. The north side of the POTM ridge features a City of Draper flight park, and the south side has a State of Utah flight park. We don’t see this much government support of RC flying and other airsports in every city and state.

Francis Peak

Francis Peak is traditionally a Soar Utah flying site farther north in the Wasatch Range. It is soarable in west winds, which blow most afternoons as the high desert to the east of the ridge heats up. Francis Peak’s elevation is about 9,000 feet—nearly a mile higher than the Great Salt Lake at 4,000 feet—and it features an incredible view of the lake and the lands on both sides of the Wasatch Range.

Antelope Island State Park

Antelope Island State Park in the Great Salt Lake features antelope and buffalo herds, along with a few roads and hiking trails to get around the island. In addition to the museum where there is evidence of human habitation on this island going back more than 10,000 years, the road to Buffalo Point leads up a ridge that is flyable on both sides, with winds from both the north and the south. In previous years I’ve seen dynamic soaring flown on the north side in a south wind.

Four New York Slope Dogs made the trip to Soar Utah 2008: Joe Chovan and Fred Maier by automobile, and Jim Harrigan and I by airliner. Below is a brief chronology of our trip, including the scheduled RC soaring events.

Trip chronology and event highlights

Wednesday, August 27 Jim and I traveled and arrived at Salt Lake City International Airport by 11 a.m. The Southwest Airlines flight, Thrifty car rental, and UPS’s shipping of our models were flawless, so the trip got off to a good start. We are indebted to Russ Young of the IMSF club for handling our large-box shipping needs, and we got our airplanes unpacked in time to fly Wednesday afternoon from the western ridge of POTM. Jim flew a Dream-Flight Weasel, and I flew a SkyKing RC Products DAW Schweizer 1-26.

Thursday, August 28 With a forecast for 5–10 mph north-to-northeast winds, Jim and I headed up to Antelope Island, where we met Joe Chovan arriving by car. We shared a pleasant afternoon flying a Leading Edge Gliders Fox and SkyKing RC Products DAW Schweizer 1-26s. In the early evening, we met other early arrivals for a reception at Erik and Candice Vogel’s home. It was great to spend time with old and new flying buddies, and the reception made for a great start to the weekend.

Event Day One — Friday, August 29 (Aerotow Day)

Aerotow Day was held at a dry-lake site in Grantsville. Conditions were excellent for aerotow: bright sun and little wind. We saw perhaps 40 big scale sailplanes and about 10 tow models. It was great to see these large sailplanes flying with the Utah mountains as a backdrop. Registration was held at POTM Friday afternoon and evening, where Steve Reed and Clarence Ashcraft served fried turkey on the slope.

Event Day Two — Saturday, August 30

Saturday dawned mostly sunny with a 10–15 mph south wind building—great conditions for flying on the south side of POTM. An agreement with the hang-gliding club gave the RC fliers the entire slope face for two full days.

Scale flight judging held during the day provided an air show for pilots and assembled onlookers. Judged flight scores were added to scale judging and pilots' votes to determine the winners.

Modern scale gliders flown included Larry Bennington's DG-800S, Everett Smiley's Schempp-Hirth SHK, and Sam Cook's ASW-28. Vintage scale flights were made with George Joy's Habicht and Ian Frechette's Red-Tailed Hawk.

PSS (Power Scale Soaring) flights included Fred Maier's Focke-Wulf Fw 190, Phil Herrington's Kawasaki Ki-61 "Hien," Vic Trucco's Bell P-39 Airacobra, Greg Johnson's Bedek Aircraft Company BD-5, and others. Highly memorable were flights with Mike Neal's English Electric Canberra and Dave Nash's huge Lockheed P-38 Lightning—an amazing building and finishing project.

Clarence Ashcraft completed his League of Silent Flight (LSF) eight-hour slope flight Saturday with an MM Glider Tech Marauder XC. Mark Howard and George Joy were official observers.

The LSF Soaring Accomplishments Program includes progressively more challenging tasks, both slope and thermal, culminating on Level V, with an eight-hour slope flight and a two-hour thermal flight. This is impressive sailplane flying, and I enjoyed talking with Clarence during the day and being there for the landing and successful completion of the LSF task flight.

Friday evening included the awards barbecue dinner, presentation of awards, and raffle at Falcon Park. Many thanks to the makers and manufacturers who contributed generously to make the raffle a success. The sponsors are listed at the end of this article.

Event Day Three — Sunday, August 31

Sunday saw more slope flying on the south side of POTM, with even higher winds of 20–25 mph, sometimes reaching 30. Fred Maier measured 35 mph, gusting to 40 in the early afternoon. Yippee! It doesn't get much better than that.

The IMSF staff cooked lunch again for us on the hill. I spent most of my time with a SkyKing RC Products DAW Schleicher Ka-6 and an experimental "fat fuselage" DAW Schweizer 1-26.

Saturday was the day for half pipes. Although we saw some traditional slope-scale fiberglass warbirds, even more Leading Edge Gliders (LEG) 60-inch-span EPP-foam warbirds were tearing up the sky.

The lift was epic on Sunday. I'd have the 120-inch Ka-6 parked way up high at the top of the lift, only to have a warbird streak by on a ballistic climbout to a stall turn in the classic "Slope Scale Party" pattern.

Event Day Four — Monday, September 1 (Labor Day)

We were scheduled for alpine soaring at Francis Peak, north of Salt Lake City near Farmington. The morning skies were full of lightning and thunder, rain, and hail, and Jim and I stayed indoors most of the morning.

Near noon, we saw on radar the last band of storms crossing the lake. With a forecast for south winds at 10–15 mph, we headed again for Antelope Island.

Ian Frechette, Cody Remington, and Nick Strong were at Buffalo Point, grabbing a last flight before heading home to Colorado. Joe Chovan, Jim Harrigan, and I flew an LEG Arctic Fox and DAW Schweizer 1-26s until after sunset—a relaxing end to a great trip to Utah.

The IMSF did a great job of planning and presenting Soar Utah 2008. Among many others in the club, we are particularly indebted to Tom Hoopes for CDing the contest, Everett Smiley for registration and administration, Tom Bean for T-shirts, Russ Young for carving trophies and handling shipping, Brent Woods for honchoing the Saturday dinner, Dick Bean for contacting vendors and securing the flying facility, and Steve Reed for taking care of impound duty.

Credit also goes to Clarence Ashcraft for the fried-turkey dinner and Erik and Candice Vogel for the Thursday-evening social event. Thank you folks for another great Soar Utah to remember.

Soar Utah Scale Event Winners

Scale Sailplane

  1. Larry Bennington: DG-800S
  2. Everett Smiley: Schempp-Hirth SHK
  3. Sam Cook: ASW-28

Power Scale Sailplane

  1. Phil Herrington: Kawasaki Ki-61
  2. Mike Neal: English Electric Canberra
  3. Vic Trucco: Bell P-39 Airacobra

Vintage Sailplane

  1. Ian Frechette: Red-Tailed Hawk
  2. George Joy: Habicht
  3. Pete Petrowski: RFD 1931

Soar Utah Premier Sponsor

Soar Utah Sponsors

Sources

Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.