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Hangola August 15 & 16, 2000

Ladies and Gentlemen: I have crossed the Edinburg gap....in a falcon.

Not through any great skill of my own, but by virtue of temporary conditions which caught me by surprise but were too good to pass up. The hard part was actually coming back, and I have to say I muffed it somewhat.

Anyway, wednesday was one of those days calling for 15-20 mph winds during the day backing off to 5-10 in the evening, which is the best call for woodstock because you have a whole spectrum of conditions to choose from.

I waited until it had backed off to about 10 mph, and launched around 4:15. I immediately discovered I had a wedgy, which has to be the most infuriating thing you can have in a pod harness. Had to live with for the next 2 hours.

Everyone else was sky high, but I found that once I was a few hundred feet above the ridge I couldn't thermal becasue each 360 pushed me back faster than it let me go up. I contented myself with shimmying back and forth in lift while pointed into the wind, never getting much above 1000 feet AL (above launch).

About half an hour of that got old, so first I tried heading to Strasburg, but after hitting some amzing lift which pegged my vario I slipped over into equally amazing sink. I lost 500 feet in about 30 seconds as I turned tail and ran. Gave up on strasburg and headed for edinburg.

At the edinburg knob I encountered widspred lift which contnued out from the ridge. I followed it out, going up until I was halfway across the gap, 2400 AL, looking DOWN on short mountain.

Well OKAY, I thought, and headed for it. Hit widespread sink and bailed back to my lift. Decided I was heading in to wind shadow, so regained altitude, moved out so I would come around the shoulder of the mountain and tried it again. Still sink, but ot so much, and easily made it into the lift band of Short Mountain.

Christy and Doug were on my frequency, but I couldn't raise them, so decided to come back before my magic lift went anywhere. Spent a few minutes gaining back altitude to 1500 AL while scratching my memory for what people had said in the safety seminar about making the jump back. Couldn't recall a darned thing. But I'd be flying downwind into a lift band; maybe thaey hadn't said anything because it was a cake walk. So I headed back through the sink, expecting it to turn into lift halfway just like it did 5 minutes earlier. When I didn't hit lift at the halfway point I took a nervous look back at the closest field way out front: upwind through sink; didn't look like I could make it. I examined the house in the gap where I assume John Muldoon made his tree landing. Looked like a better bet since that guy at least would know what to do.

With that as my sorry-ass bailout, I still had alitude left to attempt the ridge, though the sink was still with me. About 200 yards out from the ridge the sink stopped setting off my alarm, and at the ridge I hit zero sink...but no lift. I had barely enough altitude left to search along the ridge (I hit it 1/3 of the the way below the crest) until I finally hit lift 200 yards further down, and 1/2 below the crest. Intermittent chirps turned into a comforting steady tempo, and soon I was above the ridge again, heading home.

In retrospect I made very poor decisions on trusting that magic lift to still be there even 5 minutes later, and should have gained another 500 feet before heading back, if at all.

I tried another run to Strasburg, but hit sink 2/3 of the way past launch and came back to land right after doug. I asked him why no-one ever mentioned return techniques from the Edinburg gap.

"Probably because no-one ever does it" he said.

I undid my wedgy.

I later found out that Matthew had done the out and return trip about a month earlier, but without sink problems. A few others had done it as well, but I don't know the details. I'm on my way to file an incident report....

Brianvh.

Finally some decent airtime! We had nice conditions at Woodstock yesterday. It was blowing pretty good from the NW as I drove down from Harpers Ferry to meet up with Brian and Matthew in the LZ. Doug also showed. Up on launch we found Tom just about set up. Before launching some of us cleaned up the higher stuff in the slot, which for me turned out to be a Good Thing. I needed that extra space!!

In addition to the ridge lift, there were thermals working. I got around 5K msl before the battery in Tangent went. I have to start charging that puppy more often, esp when I go long periods without flying.... I flew for another half hour after it died, then landed in hopes that Gary Smith would show up. He'd said he'd take off work early so I had expected him before this. I had the glider on the truck and was sitting there reading for about 5 minutes when here comes his beat up blue Toyota truck (not to be confused with his beat up Taurus station wagon that almost died on the top of High Rock) with his funky rack, looking like a missile launcher. Matthew had landed about this time, so the 3 of us headed up to get Gary off in the magic conditions.

Before he launched I recommended that he aim for just over the crest of the LZ which would put him about at the crest, since the gradient was pretty nasty on the slope. I told him to land when he saw me out in the field. (He had a radio on him, but being in the front pocket of his harness probably wouldn't be too audible.) He had a good launch and got right up. I drove his truck down the mountain at a leisurely pace (first gear most of the way), then stopped in at Mr Fishburn's, then when I saw Gary coming out to land (he must have mistaken someone else out in the field for me), raced down to watch him put it down in a perfect landing just past the crest of the LZ. Went back and chatted with the Fishburns before heading out to the Strasbourg Inn for a bit to eat with Gary. Coincidentally we were sitting next to a table with 2 guys from the same company Gary works for who were in town for the quarterly meeting. Small world.

Christy

Well,

You've already seen Brian's post. I just wat to point out that my gap crossing was as the end of April, not last month as Brian mentioned.

As for me, I get high with a little help from my friends. Like an idiot, I left my vario and radio in my office at work. But Doug lent me his Flytec (he now has a Tangent) and Tom lent me his extra radio to use in case I ended up sinking out somewhere. BIG BIG THANKS TO BOTH OF YOU!

I could have probably stayed up without a vario since the lift was widespread. But with it I was able to get 3K over and flew for 2.5 hours. I never went to far (just a couple of fingers North and South) because I didn't want to land out with other pilot's equipment. Conditions glassed off at the end of the day and I was flying around a lot hands off and flapping my arms like a bird and trying to weight shift by resting my head on the base tube.

It was a small crew-- me, Doug, Tom, BVH and Christy. Gary Smith showed up late after dealing with a flat tire and Christy and I helped him launch. He's a GOOD hang 2 who brings out beer for his observer and other pilots-- not like the rest of you slackers!!! Gary got right up but only soared for about 20 minutes since Christy was his Observer and wnated to make sure he landed safely-- but she didn't want to get home too late as it was a school night. She told him to come into land when he saw her out in the middle of the LZ. But BVH had walked out to the middle of the LZ before Christy made her way back down and Gary mistook BVH for Christy and came in to land.

Matthew (we all had a wonderful, wonderful day, ya should have been there, of Karen and Matthew)

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This page last updated August 17, 2000