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Hangola May 4, 6 & 7, 2000

Arrived at HR at 11am, followed by Brian Hardwick, Rob Millman, and Mark Cavanaugh. Brian was first to launch at approx 1pm and hung out for awhile with some moderate gains. Mark was next and got above launch for awhile before heading out.

I was off next (after potato'ing launch) with a fleeting gain and quickly sledded to the field. While I flew, an open-cockpit low-wing motorized aircraft buzzed launch. It looked like an old military trainer. As I headed out and hopefully worked some lift over the RR tracks, the same aircraft buzzed emmas' at my altitude nearby. Distracted and annoyed, I gave up my struggles and landed.

Rob launched shortly after me and cored the lift out front I'd missed with a gain to 1500' over. After awhile, he joined us in the LZ.

Back on top for the second wave, Rob was first to launch (approx 3pm) and quickly sky'd out under nicely formed cu's. Brian followed. A wuffo (Walt) and I launched Mark next. I made a run to Ft. Ritchie for cold beverages, not really planning to fly again. When I returned to launch, Rob and Brian were specks and I learned Mark had landed after a respectable gain.

I decided to keep the beverages on ice and drove to retrieve Mark, desperately needing launch crew. While I was in the LZ, Brian and Rob landed. Both reported gains of ~3k. Brian, Mark and I headed back up. When we arrived, Eddie Miller and Kelvin Pierce had arrived. Bob Gillesie also showed up planning to fly his recently repaired TRX. Thanks to Brian's offer to drive, I was motivated to set up, launched a 4:45pm and quickly climbed to 2800 over. Kelvin and Mark followed soon after and we all spent nearly an hour between 500 and 1600 over.

While we were bobbing about, the same aircraft returned and buzzed launch, making several passes and high banked 360's near us. Kelvin headed to the LZ and so did I.

On our fourth and final trip to the top, Eddie Miller was seen floating about in the evening glass off. Bob chose not to fly his TRX, as it needed some additional work.

Nice day .... 'cept for the motorized interruptions.

'Spark

Another mediocre day at Ridgely.... will it ever be bulletproof when I'm there??? Mike C. again had the flight of the day with 21 miles and 1:30. Most everyone else had sleds, extendos or 30-40 minutes flights. It was hazy almost the whole day there and we could see cummies off in the distance. But if you turned your back on them for a second, they'd disappear before they reached the field. With a line of 17+ gliders all day, there was quite the long wait to get into the air. I launched at about 3:20 after being in line for well over an hour. I saw Steve K. circling in the haze and joined him in a weak thermal. Ever so slowly, we climbed and drifted to the SE. At one point Steve decided to reverse direction and fell out. I stayed with it but it soon petered out anyway. At only 2700 feet, I didn't want to cross the river so I headed cross-wind to the North and found another weak thermal, but I saw Steve zoom across the river low with no problems towards a big brown field. Ah, he thinks it's going to kick off a boomer. So I made the classic mistake and left the lift I was in to follow Steve. Needless to say, there was no boomer and we were both soon on the ground for a whopping 4.5 miles and a 35 minute flight. But it was fun going XC with my buddie Steve.

I can't remember who was all there, but here goes.... Joe and Janet, Judy-Judy, Mike Balk, Tom, Geoff, Fred and Raean, Danny, Jose (John's new two), John M., Steve Vogel, Marc, Lynn Barnes, Robert Sweeney, and a plethora of mysterious towheads. And big thanks to George Tutor for the speedy retrieval!

Matthew (off to Punta Cana, of Karen and Matthew)

High Point

Usual crowd: JR, Larry Ball, Gardinator, Doug Wakefield, Marvin Presley, John Myers, myself and guest pilot Lori Allen from Lookout. Also joined later by Steve Krichton. Larry and JR launched first around 1-1:30 and sunk out after some passes. Marvin then took his chances. Same fate. Luckily there were plenty of 4WDs in the LZ so they got back up for more airtime. In the meantime, the Gardinator launched around 2:30 and got up after a bit of a struggle. We all followed shortly after 3. Everyone stayed pretty much on the High Point end of the ridge, but I couldn't seem to find much there after I launched and ended up at the far end of the ridge past the Fairgrounds launch. Found some lift and eventually worked it up to cloudbase with Lori on top of me towards the end. Where did she come from?? I drifted back with it, turning down the radio so I wouldn't have to listen to the Gardinator and Steve talking about the sink they were getting as they headed southeast. I stayed with the lift until it petered out and then started a run for the cloud to the south I'd been eyeballing on my way up over Fairgrounds. Lost about 1500 getting there, but it had plenty of lift so I was off again, this time heading more easterly to another cloud near the highway dome field. Saw a glider on the ground far below which turned out to be Steve. I could hear Mark and Steve talking, but couldn't see them. Heard Mark talking about Lori, so she'd also decided to head over the back. Finally spotted two gliders way below me - Mark and Lori. The lift petered out so I continued southeast toward the next cloud which was near Paw Paw. Got back up to cloudbase again which for my altimeter was reading about 7300'. Lori in the meantime was losing it and heading to land in a field in Paw Paw. Mark continued on over the ridge east of Paw Paw and eeked it out to a field in the middle of the 522 valley for 28.8 miles on his GPS (yup, he had it this time). I turned south to follow a paved road across the valley and ended up landing near the intersection of Rts 13 and 17 for 32.0 miles (2 hours total airtime), the furthest I've been yet over the back. Bagged the glider, then borrowed the phone from the house I'd landed beside and called a couple of cell phones. Got John Myers who had finished bagging his glider and volunteered to come and get us. Found out when he arrived that Lori had been carted off to the emergency room - dislocated her shoulder on landing. She said she didn't let go of the downtubes when her basetube hit the high grass. On the way back we stopped by the field in Paw Paw and bagged her glider. Dinner in Cumberland at 10:30. JR, Lori and Doug showed up at the restaurant around 11 - closing time so they missed a good meal. Home by 1:45.

Christy

P.S. Jeez, I can't even get the date right. On my post for the flying this weekend at High Point, it should have read Saturday, 5/6/00. And as long as I'm writing... Strength of lift was normally in the 400 fpm range with some sustained 600 fpm. Remembered to do everything Mike Barber told me: worked the lift strings, decided on next cloud while climbing preceding one, left lift when it started getting much weaker, etc. etc. Love that Tangent.

Christy

After exhausting ourselves bushwhacking at the Sac, a few hardy souls trekked over to Elizabethville. It was kinda light - not much happening. Doug and Joe decided not to fly. In the end, 4 hangies (Jenkins, Buffam, Harrison, Gorrie K) and 3 baggies (Donohoe, Eckardt, McLaughlin) gave it a shot. I launched just after 5 pm and got 30 min and +367, which I believe were the day's top numbers. Keith Olena showed up as we were breaking down and decided to drink beer rather than race up top and sled. The baggies landed happily in their newly bulldozed LZ - which looks dime-sized from up top.

Bill still-sore-from-jungle-clearing Buffam

Unseasonably hot afternoon temperatures in the low 90s and light wind conditions, both surface and aloft prevailed @ the Manquin Flight Park, VA on Sunday as a small cadre of hang pilot desperados tried to exploit the steep, springtime lapse rates. Despite the crispy topped, hard bottomed, 6500' based cumulus surrounding the LZ, most fliers had to endure multiple sleds or consolation extend-os through a milky, mid-summer like haze.

I launched my vintage, 1987 Wills Wing, Sport American 167 a little before 4 PM and was off tow a mile upwind of the field @ ~3K' where the wind aloft was ~10 knots from the West. After trolling perpendicular to the flow for five minutes or so under the spreading dark shadows cast by the moderately towering cumulus, and not finding so much as the slightest burble of lift or a luscious, intoxicating whiff of fresh cow manure, I banked downwind toward the LZ in search of a more better sunlit pasture.

Convective cloud elements tend to organize more or less into streets, even in light wind conditions, although the effect is much more noticeable when the wind direction varies only slightly with height and the maximum wind speed is located below cloud base. With this in mind, I vectored my flight path directly toward the nearest downwind cumulus, which was about two miles away, and was lucky to find a puny, yet organized thermal ascending toward it @ a mere 0-50'/". Drifting slowly to the East and crossing the LZ, I was able to wrap up into an occasional 100 '/" core. During the course of the 45 minute flight, I topped out at 3300'. Not a great flight, but it sure beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Cast: Greg, Terry, Jay, Joe, Ray, and maybe one or two others.

Submitted by Jim Keller
Petersburg, VA

(...snip...)
On a lighter note: I had some business in Frederick Sunday morning. Checking out Mark C's weather links I saw that despite the SW forecast it was still occasionally blowing W/NW. Sure enough, the flags in Frederick were showing NW so I put off the work and headed to the rock. I launched at 12:30 and hit nothing but sink until I was 200' over the LZ where I managed to core (well bobble in and out of) of a thermal that took me over launch. I lost it as quick as I found it and I was on the ground in 15 minutes but had a ball.

-Brian Hardwick

Whew! Its been a busy week. Have not had time to write up last weeks flying. Let's see, Thursday May 4th Dave Fink was desperately looking for someone to fly 501 with. I had just returned from a trip down south to Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland. On the way home it looked plenty south but also plenty strong. I didn't give it much more thought until I heard Dave on the radio. "I'm standing on launch at 501, winds are straight in about 5 to 10"! That's all I needed to hear. I was at launch 1hour later, around 6:00pm. Dave and Shawn McDuff flew for about a 1/2hour before getting flushed to the horse farm. I watched as they landed and the horses gathered around them. The winds had backed down considerably. Since I was already set up I thought I would give it a few minutes to see if the magic would turn on. Around 6:45pm the winds picked back up to about 10 to 12 so I launched. Kenny was right behind me. We both climbed right up to about 200' over. Conditions continued to improve, we later climbed up to 400' over in glass smooth magic air. I figured this would be enough altitude to make the preferred l/z out by the road. I arrived at the l/z and was still 800'agl, the air was really buoyant. Set up and landed in the grassy part of the field. Shawn was there in 10 minutes and gave us a ride up to get our vehicles (thanks Shawn!). I guess we flew for about an hour and maxed out around 400' over.

Saturday May 6th. Sac work party. I arrived around 9:30am to the sound of buzzing weed whips. I headed to the right side of the chute and worked with Wayne Tshudy. We went at it for the next two hours until we reached the bottom. What a beautiful site that last tree line at the bottom of the chute. I hiked back up to the top where Joe and Karen invited me to lunch and a free shower. Ahhh the shower was great and the food even better (Karen, your the best hostess)! Thanks for everything. Wayne must have headed home, Bill and Lenko arrived for the second half and Gerry Donahue was there also. Around 1:00pm I left for Elizabethville, an easy 1/2 hour drive. Ken Harrison and Mike Jenkins were already there, so I picked them up in the l/z and headed for launch. We all set up and watched the cumies build, and build and build, until they looked like storms cells. Conditions on launch were straight in 10 to 15, but because of the build up everyone stayed put until things cleared out. About an hour later the sky cleared and things looked better. But for some reason I don't know why, that little voice in my head was telling me not to fly. I struggled with it for awhile but eventually gave in, I broke down on top. Something I very rarely do, but something just did not feel right. I stuck around and helped people launch and watched them soar the ridge. Bill Buffam, Ken Harrison, Gerry Donahue, Ziggy, and Johnathon all got up and enjoyed the evening air. It was really neat to watch the paragliders out front landing in their new l/z. I think it was Ziggy who hit the bulls eye!

Doug.

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This page last updated May 12, 2000