76: Mountains Mishaps & Milestones

Our guest pilot today, Mitch Thomson, started his soaring journey 15 years ago picking up RC gliders after years of flying powered RC planes and building scale airplane models, he realized quickly that he wanted to scale up from RC into his own glider when the opportunity presented itself.   Soaring in his own glider was something he put on his bucket list for over a decade, and culminated in an orientation flight at Warner Springs California back in 2018 where his first flight took him up into winter wave and so much altitude that he and his instructor in the backseat got to do some fun aerobatic maneuvers on the way back to the field. At that point he was hooked.  After they landed, he signed up on the FAA website for his student certificate and then started a rigorous training regimen at the Soaring Academy, finally taking his glider solo flight in Oct 2019. After a Covid virus delay in the Spring of this year, he took his checkride and got his glider private certificate in May.   Mitch is now soaring out of Crystal Airport, Charlie November 46 on the Los Angeles Sectional, located in the high desert of Southern California just Northeast of Los Angeles, and is enjoying his days flying his ASG29 in the San Gabriel mountains. Today he will share some interesting stories about his learning journey, mountain soaring, and a couple of mishaps and learning experiences that happened along the way! For Our Saftey Soaring Segment segment today we are joined by Aerobatic pilot & World Champion Luca Bertossio from Italy. For Our Soaring Tips and technics segment today we are joined by Barbora mariftava from the czech republic as she discribes soaring in wave  www.justsoaring.com  https://www.redbubble.com/i/mug/Soaring-The-Sky-by-Soaringthesky/41128254.9Q0AD Try Skysight  free for 17 days coupon code "SOARINGTHESKY" Condor coupon code HSGT-01 gets you 20% off the Simulator. Code expires October 31, 2020