Tehachapi News

Tehachapi Skywatch

The Tehachapi Valley is blessed with two public use airports – the downtown Tehachapi Municipal Airport and the Mountain Valley Airport located south of the east end of Highline Road. While Tehachapi Municipal serves general aviation aircraft, Mountain Valley serves primarily as a gliderport, towing gliders up to altitude and then releasing them for non-powered soaring along the ridges of the Tehachapi Mountains and beyond.

Powered airplanes generate lift by moving the aircraft forward with a propeller or jet engine.Air passing over the wings due to this forward movement generates lift to keep the airplane in the sky.

Gliders, also known as sailplanes, also generate lift by passing air over the wings due to forward motion. However, with no engine, forward speed is maintained by controlling attitude; that is, tipping to nose down enough (falling, actually) to maintain enough airspeed over the wings. Airplanes do the same the same thing in a power-off glide.

With no other forces at work, an airplane or a glider will slowly loose altitude until it reaches the ground — hopefully in a controlled landing. Airplanes use power generated by liquid fuel to stay in the air, while gliders use the power of the sun. The sun's energy is felt by a glider as rising air currents. This can be generated by the sun heating the land, and the land heating the air immediately above it, which then rises. Such a rising air mass is known as a “thermal.”

Another way the sun generates rising air currents is by causing winds to blow along and over mountain ridges. In good conditions, gliders can ride ridge currents to great heights for many hours.

Mountain Valley Airport is renowned for it excellent soaring conditions. According to airport owners Jane and Larry Barrett, “The phenomenal lift conditions generated by the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the north, the Tehachapi Mountains to the south, and Mojave Desert to the east, have produced countless spectacular, record-breaking flights.”

Hawks and turkey buzzards help pilots find the best lift spots, and will sometimes fly along side your aircraft; and with no engine, you're as quiet as they are.

Mountain Valley Airport is a privately owned, public use airport. The airport hosts a full-service glider flight school, hangars, maintenance facilities, a sandwich shop and RV park. The airport is home to a number of vintage sailplanes. There are two paved runways. One is wide enough for small airplanes, while the other is used by the gliders and is the narrowest runway I've ever seen! The airport is proud to host an annual fly-in for the Experimental Sailplane Association.

The Skylark North Flight School offers flights from as low as $60, and can provide instruction all the way up to a private pilot license. The flight school has ongoing contracts with the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School and the National Test Pilot School, giving pilots experience with high-lift, low-drag aircraft. It's probably fair to say that most of the Astronaut Pilots who have come from the U.S. Air Force have trained at Mountain Valley Airport. Skylark also works closely with NASA on various aviation projects. 

So, the next time you're cruising down Highline, pull into Mountain Valley Airport for a bite, or to book a quiet flight over the beautiful skies of Tehachapi.

Manned Space Watch
Space Shuttle Atlantis is preparing for a mid-March mission to continue construction of Space Station Alpha.
Night Sky Watch - Venus gets brighter
With a new moon having passed last Saturday, dark skies will prevail in the evening for the first part of the week.  However, Weather.com says our skies will likely be cloudy most of the week.
Venus continues to get higher and brighter in the southwest each evening, and can be seen well before dark. As yet, no one has let me know that they've been able to spot it before sunset.  Will you be the first?  Tell me at hawk@ieee.org.
Mercury is rising higher each night and can be spotted with binoculars to the lower right of Venus just after sunset.
Saturn rises in the east in mid-evening.
Jupiter and Mars rise in the early morning this week.
Sunrise/Sunset (PST)
6:41 a.m/5:35 p.m.