Hangs & Paras Welcome!
Scheduled for May 24, 25, 26. Meetings every morning in the LZ at 9am. Get to the LZ by 8am the first day (Sat) to download waypoints and hear overview of flying Villa. Pot Luck barbeque Saturday night. $30 entry includes custom long sleeve t-shirt. Come out and see the newly graded road to launch! (Remember to drive in 4WD low range to minimize damage to our improved road!)
Read more about flying Villa Grove here: http://www.rmhpa.org/site_guide/villa.htm
Get to the LZ by taking Colorado Highway 285 to the town of Villa Grove, located in the north end of the San Luis Valley. The town is only a few blocks. On the north side of town, take County Road LL57 east about 3 miles until you see a 30 ft tall flag pole with a 10ft by 10ft flag. You have arrived!
We will be setting several fun flying tasks every day geared to different pilot skill levels, including a spot landing contest.
Turnpoints/Goals and Coordinates
Click on this link to extract a Villa Waypoints KMZ file to display the turnpoints in Google Earth Villa Waypoints.kmz
Click on this link to extract a Villa Waypoints GDB file to load into Garmin's Mapsource software to download to your Garmin GPS Villa.gdb
Click on this link to extract a Villa Waypoints FW5 file to load into Flytec's Flychart software to download to your 6030/5030 vario Villa.fw5
Click on this link to extract a Villa Waypoints GPX (GPS Exchange Format) file to import into Flychart software and other GPS's Villa.gpx
All Turnpoints/Goals:
Turnpoints/Goals Near Villa Launch:
Primary LZ:
N 38 16.115 W 105 53.894, elevation 8070ft
Villa Launch:
N 38 17.509 W 105 52.949, elevation 9735ft
East Side of Villa:
N 38 14.967 W 105 56.816, elevation 7980ft
Craig's Hanger:
N 38 15.973 W 105 57.044, elevation 7950ft
Grant's Cabin:
N 38 14.271 W 105 52.907, elevation 8037ft
Gravel Pit:
N 38 12.262 W 105 56.376, elevation 7893ft
Bat Cave:
N 38 12.624 W 105 48.876, elevation 9500ft
Valley View Hot Springs :
N 38 11.465 W 105 48.947, elevation 8612ft
Whale LZ:
N 38 19.842 W 106 2.815, elevation 8973ft
Whale Launch:
N 38 19.660 W 106 5.958, elevation 1210ft
West knob Hunt's Peak:
N 38 22.792 W 105 57.798, elevation 12009ft
Saguache Airstrip:
N 38 5.901 W 106 5.259, elevation 7718ft
Moffat School:
N 37 59.869 W 105 54.596, elevation 7570ft
Crestone Golf Course:
N 37 59.302 W 105 45.486, elevation 7650ft
Salida Airport:
N 38 32.223 W 106 02.860, elevation 7450ft
Johnson's Corner:
N 38 48.749 W 106 6.117, elevation 7863ft
Harper Pool:
N 37 46.842 W 105 51.208, elevation 7550ft
Monte Vista Airport:
N 37 32.026 W 106 2.663, elevation 7618ft
Blanca:
N 37 26.133 W 105 30.839, elevation 7762ft
If you have not purchased a GPS enabled vario like the Flytec 6030, 5030 or Brauniger Compeo, there is another reason now must!
A European company has created an amazing software tool called IGC Google Earth Flight Replay. If you have a GPS enabled Vario with the ability to create IGC files, you can now replay your flights just as if a video recorder was aboard!
Here is the software you need and it is all free!
Here are a couple screen shots to peak your interest. Being a European based software, the flight statistics are listed in meters and kilometers per hour in the box on the lower left side of the window. On the bottom of the picture, Google Earth displays the GPS coordinates, elevation of the ground below in feet and what they call "eye altitude" in feet. This is the altitude of you and the glider! Watching my own flights, I could actually remember flying over certain mountain faces. It is almost like I recorded a video!
This one is looking back toward the Dinosaur launch from about a mile west.
This shot is from a spot halfway between Villa launch and Crestone.
There are a few shortcomings. Because the satellite shots are taken at different times of the year, you will see some areas nice and green and others a reddish brown. Sometimes one mountain will be snow capped and another at the same altitude is not. But this is common if you have ever used Google Earth. The other issue is sometimes if your flight took you very close to the terrain, the Flight Replay software puts you underground! It seems to default the view a little high for this reason, so after landing it appears you are still a hundred feet or so in the air.
New Photo Gallery posted. Check it out! If you want to upload photos, and are a club member, you will need an account: Contact webmaster@rmhpa.org.
RMHPA is a club for free flight pilots in Colorado. More about RMHPA...
