Allen Stanish <<email>> writes:

After breaking up the ice in my driveway and salting the walkway, I decided that I had earned a well deserved break and it was now time to fly. I jumped into my Swift-Light for a quick aerotow. The weather looked promising with light winds and scattered cu's at 9000 ft., thermals predicted to be quite strong. The tug plane was a Quicksilver MX Sport, the ride up was turbulent but uneventful. I pinned off in a boomer and rode it to cloudbase.

I compiled a short video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3R_-JBuvFM

X-Plane-9 was the flight simulator used on my video. It can be found here for $39.00: http://www.x-plane.com/about.html  This is the same software used to train pilots (the FAA approved version is slightly different). By far the best simulation out there. I can set the weather conditions, strength of thermals, gust fronts (if you wanted), birds, traffic etc.

The software comes with a good assortment of aircraft choices. Many other aircraft types can be downloaded for free on the web. I had to search for the QuickSilver Sport tug plane and had to pay $13.00 for the download, but well worth it. It is also fun to be towed by a Boeing 747 . The video was edited in I-Movie. A fun pastime in between shoveling snow here in the North-East