Conference!

Day 1 of SPW6..... lots and lots of talking.....

SPW6 Conference Hike

I was designated as "hike leader" for the Solar Polarization Workshop 6 tour.... It was nice getting to know some new people and I really needed the exercise.

More Fishes.....

Another long swim.....

Data data data....

I've got 400 observations of the same lamp to reduce.... amazing what you have to do to count 100,000,000 photons using a single pixel.

Hiking Haleakala

Got some exercise walking down to the first cinder cone.... and needed it since I had a giant dinner with Pascale upcountry.

Stargazing

Pascale and I flew over to Maui and headed up the mountain. We spent a few hours of the night looking out the "Haleakala Amateur" telescopes.... it was my first time seeing what I think is a planetary nebulae with my own eyes. Pretty cool.

Sunday Plotting

A sunday spent at home, enjoying figure making, basking in data, and sorting out squiggles....

Sharks Cove Snorkel & Rope Breaking

Pascale and I headed to Sharks Cove early for a long snorkel. I brought my wetsuit + extra "shirt".... finally I was warm in the water. Clear water, no waves, and lots of tasty... I mean pretty looking fish.

After the swim we went to Dillingham and proceeded to try to launch the Lark with some rope and my car. Yes, it sounds ghetto, but my car totally had the power. It's just that the rope was junk and broke every time the Lark got up to 20-50 feet. Cliff basically had to do 4 rope-break training flights. We ended up getting a tow from Elmer mid field. Cliff thermaled up to 2500 and I got to do a Clover Leaf. Then I caught one up to 3500 and Cliff quarter-cloverleafed in to inverted a couple times, then we clover-leafed it down to land. I think the rope breaks scared Pascale off flying for a while.

Hanauma Afternoon

Think little mermaid..... and that damn orientation video....

Pascale is such a fish - before I finish taking a picture she's half a mile off shore. But it was nice to get in the water.

Geeky Spica Video

Ok, these tidal models are pretty cool.....

plotting plotting plotting.....

Ever plotting data.....

Paper Writing

It's nice to have many projects to work on but.... well, I'd rather be doing this.....

Flying the Crater

Sat May 8th:

Joanna's brother Tomek and his girlfriend (also named Joanna) went on one of the most fun flights I've done so far. Well, depends on what kind of flight but anyways, we took off from Honolulu, landed on Molokai (Kalaupapa), landed in Kahului, Maui, then landed in Hana before climbing up over the Haleakala Crater. Flying by the windward rim of Haleakala was fantastic. We were 10,500ft up and got to cruise high all the way back to Dillingham. Joanna picked up the crew and I flew back to Honolulu via Kalaeloa later that day. What a ride.

Tomek took some fantastic pictures and videos. I've put a few of his shots here:

Auto-Towing and Looping

Today was packed full of stuff. We did auto-tows to launch the Lark. It's a weird thought but all you need is a pickup truck going 50ish to get yourself up on the ridge. Cheap and you climb like a kite 45 degrees up. Very cool. So I did 6 training flights and got my auto-tow endorsement so I can do that with friends now. Fun times. Now, an even funnier thing is that we actually broke a rope and I had to do an emergency landing. But, since I was doing training flights, the instructors usually pull that on you at some point. I thought Doug was just messing with me. Come to find out, it was for real. At any rate, Brad and I went up and were able to soar for quite a long time. I got in 8 loops, 2 clover leafs and a few other goodies.

Lark Looping

I went up to the airfield to take care of a few things and meet with Steve & Billy. I pick up our repaired engine Monday and needed to grab the carbs for rebuilding. I took the opportunity to get checked out in the Lark for loops & cloverleafs "with friends".

I wish I got handed checks this big every day....

A Maui Day

Spent the day in lab, meetings, and my favorite of all, making video....

Calibration Sequences

Spent a very long day on the summit getting calibrations going so I can make a pretty slide or two for the upcoming SPW6 meeting. Got to "prove it" to the international audience.....

LoVIS Day

Spent the day compiling & reducing data..... And making plots. Trying to map out how to write up all the cool upgrades, calibrations and new directions.