Alaska Mountain Soaring
and Classic Aviation Home Page

Pete Brown:  pdb@gci.net

  The Official Website of The Soaring Society of America

The private fleet consists of my 1-23G shown here at Birchwood, a Stemme S-10, and  Grob 109.  For '01, Jeff Banks, a NWA 747 pilot and I have a Russia AC-5m on the way to add to the fleet and   Eric Tasker has a Austria SHK under restoration.

In the summer of '00, Jeff and I began to explore soaring on the flanks of the Talkeetna Mountains
from Wolf Lake Airport  (elv. 500.)  Beginning in April, we always had lift at Wolf  Lake and were joined by John Nicholson, Eric Tasker, Johan Deutsher and  Brian Janzen during the summer. Glider pilots formerly condemned to the stable marine air surrounding Elmendorf AFB, the home field of the CAP fleet, discovered the joys of dependable instability of the Wolf Lake area.

The highlights of the year were an out and back flight from Wolf Lake to Talkeetna and return, a
distance of 210k  in May by Jeff Banks and   an absolute altitude of about 9,300 by Pete in
thermals over the Talkeetnas.

There's always lift at Wolf Lake, a mixture of thermal, shear line, and wave (maybe, we hope).

The Cap Blanik just off runway 33 at EDF, our normal operating runway for Cap training flights.
 

Errant tow plane on  cross country retrieve in Monument Valley, Utah.

CAP Blanik landing just over the barrier at EDF
 
 
 
 
 
 

Pete Brown and daughter Elizabeth with Pete's tow hook equipped C-170B.

Having the only privately owned tow plane and only privately owned glider in Alaska is sometimes problematic. I will have to wait about 8 years for Lizzie to be able to tow me.
 

Pete can be reached at:   pdb@gci.net