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Hangola March 14, 2000

Billy Vaughn, Claude Hall and I arrived at Daniel's at noon yesterday with cumulus clouds already well developed, high above the Blue Ridge and stretching to the flats five to ten miles to the east. At launch, the wind was blowing south a consistent 5-7 straight up the slot and the clouds were streaming from the west.

I was elected first to launch, Billy being a little shy from his early sled ride at our last outing, especially considering it was only 1:00 and the general consensus that Daniel's is a late site. Of course, once my glider was sitting on launch, a large cloud shed it's shadow on the entire mountain and persisted for ten or fifteen minutes and the breeze dropped off to 0-3.

The cloud moved on, the sun shone, the thermals again pumped through launch and I watched for five minutes to ensure there was some consistency. At 1:18, launching, I figure eighted in light, consistent lift till above the ridge then 360'd in and out of a 500 fpm core drifting straight over the back. Losing the thermal I headed to the west and encountered a large, 500-1000 fpm boomer which turned on a couple grand above to 800-1500 fpm.

The core was bouncy, but not really turbulent, but in lift that strong, and expecting to punch through a shear any moment, I was way too nervous to take my hands off the base tube to position my barmitts for insertion, despite the freezing air that was beginning to numb my hands. Finally at 4000 feet above launch, having not experienced any exciting turbulence nor surprisingly, any drift, I managed the task.

I topped out the thermal at 6350 feet over launch or about 8050 msl, the highest I have ever been on the east coast and still had experienced no drift. I flew towards the top of Hightop to the NW because that was the first point on the circuit that we had talked about making, but reconsidered when I realized that it was into a fairly strong quartering headwind and that there apparently "due to the lack of clouds" was no lift in that direction. I turned WSW and dolphin flew at 35-40 mph to Flattop Mountain, encountering only broken lift under ragged clouds, in what appeared to be a 20-25 mph headwind, arriving at about 5000 msl in strong sink.

Turning tail to the wind, I pointed at Parker Mt. circling only momentarily in vain search of elusive lift at the halfway mark, arriving at Parker with only 2300 msl. Both Billy and Claude had launched slightly earlier and were struggling to work light thermals in front of the shadowed Daniel's. Parker basked in the sun and I climbed a thousand feet, drifting quickly due east. Claude, after a valiant 1500 foot save from a couple hundred feet over the LZ, landed, while Billy climbed out a grand above Daniel's while drifting straight north.

I dove for Billy and encountered a moderately broken, 1000 fpm thermal between the ridge and Billy in his HP II, and quickly climbed 500 feet. Billy headed for me and arrived at my altitude, but veered off to let me tangle with the turbulence alone, then attempted to enter the lift below me. Alas, he was out the front side of the thermal and sinking fast and at his limit over the back of the ridge, and unfortunately the sink continued all the way to the LZ.

I stayed in the air another hour, flying back and forth to Parker and out into the small valley in front of Daniel's, climbed a couple times to over 5000 msl (where the thermals got ratty and unpleasant) and drifted due east to Stanardsville and once straight north to 33, and beat my way back. It would have been a great day for straight line XC to the east, but I feel I learned a lot about the penetration capabilities of my glider, speeds to fly in sink and headwinds, places to find lift and had a ball doing the circuit of Daniel's, Flattop, Parker, Stanardsville, Daniel's.

Today is looking like another good day, but I don't think I can get out.

Greg DeWolf

I was headed to Daniel Mtn Tuesday given the South forecast but the clouds were coming out of the west. No wind to speak of on the ground. I hung around the 66/29 junction for awhile -- what to do, what to do. Anyway I decided to try Dickey Ridge instead.

It was a little cross from the left but not much. I hurried to launch before a wall of clouds shut everything down. I was in the air only about 10 minutes, managing about 1,000 over in light lift, before it got totally overcast. The air was still very bouyant. I flew off to the south a bit and hit this unbelievable boomer. I was screaming up. 1000 fpm. Pegged. But I'm not Greg and I was more worried than elated. The sky was light gray with no real dark spots so the source of the lift was unclear. I didn't like messing with something that strong and started trying to find the exit ramp. Found it and almost immediately sank out. Total airtime, probably 30 minutes..

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This page last updated March 15, 2000