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Hangola New Year's Day, 2002

I was out on the launch at Lizzy Ville and the wind was about 12 or so but the gusts were close to 25 at times today ! Not a soul showed up!

Clint LeRoy

Online Nic = Nflight

Arrived late at Smithsburg (noon) to find it blowin' like stink and crossing from the North. So we grabbed some lunch and then called to confirm that our ballon trip in Fred-neck was canceled.

Zoomed down to Woodstock-- it only took and hour and a quarter. Tried to radio other pilots once we got to Water Street to see if anyone in the LZ needed a ride back up top-- just dead air. Headed up to launch and saw a hg vehicle and a car coming down. It was a local couple who had been kind enough to help Gary Smith out at launch and then bring his car down to the LZ. We need more locals like that!!!

Gary was the only other pilot there. At launch it was coming straight in at 6-8. So Karen flew her XC for about an hour, 900 over. Some wuffos hung out to watch and agreed to stay around while I launched my bag-wing. My first inflation came up crooked and I had to dump it. It took FOREVER to clear the lines from all of the rocks and twigs. The big gloves I was trying out were useless and I had to abandon them. The wind was now crossing from the North. So it took me several tries to build a good wall before launching. And the lines snagged again while moving the canopy around. I finally launched a little after 4:00pm. Karen and Gary had both just landed. (Gary got 3 hours and 3K over-- Woo Hoo!) I had a passenger (a stick) stuck in my lines as I flew. But it didn't affect anything. So I just flew with it and tried to shake it loose every so often. I stayed low and out in front because I was worried about penetration. The lift band extended all the way out to the LZ. I love my speed bar!!! Everytime I felt like I was getting too high or not penetrating easily. I stomped on that baby and swooshed down and back out front.

While continuing to work on clearing the stick, I noticed a string or a piece of grass or something hanging from one of the lines. Upon further inspection, I realized that one of the lines had broken. It also had no affect the glider's performance. But by then, my fingers were frozen, so I headed out to land. Got 40 minutes and 600 over.

A fun day after all!

Matthew (where was everyone???? of Karen and Matthew)

Rich and I arrived at High Point around 12:30 to find the other pilots huddled in Marvin's car, gliders still on the roof. I checked out the launch wind and proceeded to take my glider off the roof of my truck. The other pilots said it had been blowing too hard before my arrival....

By the time we set up and Sparky was on launch, the wind was coming in around 28 mph (top speed) and he backed off. Around 2:30 he tried again and got off. Next in line was Marvin who was using Rich for wirecrew. When walking to the launch spot, the glider started to take off and Rich couldn't hang on (Marvin should have had Rich on the nose wires for more control). Marvin tried to make it a real launch attempt, but failed and he and the glider ended up on the rocks on the left side of launch. Too much glider and pilot damage to attempt another launch. I went off next and dove it out before hitting some lift that took me up fast. JR took off in the same cycle. He landed about 15 minutes later. I stayed up for 35 minutes before landing. One of the tubes on my Tangent had come loose (I have them velcroed on) and wouldn't stick back in place - too cold for the sticky back to the velcro to work. My radio dial had also gotten turned so I couldn't talk to Rich as I'd promised to do. I got about 2650 msl without working anything. It took forever to get down as there was a lot of lift over the valley.

There were some bag wings at the Fairgrounds launch, including Pedro Tirado, Wayne Elseth, Marc and Ellis.

Rich and I left for dinner at Tucker's.

Christy

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This page last updated January 2, 2002