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Hangola April 20-22, 2001

I knew it probably wasn't flyable at High Rock, but I was totally bored with Hangsim and decided to check it out about 1pm. I took the Moyes GTR 210 since winds were light. At launch the wind was tailing (as expected) with a few calm cycles. With keel assistance from Bob Gillisse, I launched in a slight lull. It was a classic HR no-wind dive-out. I encountered a bit of lift over the RR tracks and a bit more over the LZ worth a few 360's. Landed the big bird into 5mph S winds.

Bob flew glider and powered RCs in the LZ for awhile, then we both stopped in for a chat with Emma and Harry Harry appears to be fully recovered and in much improved health following his recent hospital stay.

'Spark

Well, ye of little faith, Mother Eville lifted her bodice and let the faithful few suckle at her bountiful breasts of lift. STFI at launch, perfect velocity, scattered to broken clouds in the afternoon. Smooth ridge lift sprinkled with delightfully light thermals, ending with evening magic to 2600'. You could have soared a beer cooler. Eight pilots drank their fill at her grand smooth orbs of worldly delights. Remember the first rule of soaring..........If you don't go you don't know. Cheers.

Pilots in attendance:

Bill Buffam
Joe and Karen Gorrie
Bob Beck
TR
Jessie
Jeff and Alana Harper
Shawn MacDuff
Ken Such---watching Jeff soar his new Eagle

Lots of tows. Dan koch flew his millennium on saturday. Bruce flew his exxtacy on sunday. Mostly extended sled rides on sunday except for Ric Niehaus, who pleasantly worked for over an hour, in who knows what. 5-10 cross all day. Beautiful weather.

john

Small crew at Ridgely on Sunday. Winds were 90 degrees cross and strong most of the day. But despite the poor conditions, tows weren't scary-- tandems ran all day, including one taking up a photographer from Chesapeake Life Magazine for the article I'm writing.

Ric Niehaus was the first non-tandem to tow and had the flight of the day, staying up for about a half hour. I took three tows. Each time the tow was quite a handful and required corrections from the time I left the cart until release. Had a 100 foot gain on the first, on the second I managed a few minutes of circling in zero sink and then I blundered into a small thermal in which I climbed from 1300' back up to 1870'. The third was a straight sled in fairly buoyant late day air. Winds didn't calm down until 7:15, after everyone had stopped flying.

Karen, Joe Gregor, Marc and Ellis, Ed Reno, George Tudor, and Mike C. all flew. A mysterious man on a motorcycle showed up and towed Daryl's SX in conditions that Marc and I thought were too gusty (we had both backed out of line). No one knew who he was. Janet came out to drive for us and was bored by our lack of get up and go.

Matthew (off to Utah, of Karen and Matthew)

Sunday, 22 April, Ridgely:
cast: Matthew Graham, Karen Carra, Joe Gregor, Janet Gregor, Marc Fink, Ellis Kim, Ric Niehaus, Mike Chevalier, Aisha (don't know her last name), a photographer from a glossy Chesapeake magazine (Chesapeake outdoors?), George Tudor and a bunch of tandem students. I might have forgotten some. I hope not.

Winds 90 degrees cross. Marc and I got there around 10:30 and there was no towing going on. The winds were way too strong aloft. I pulled out the bagwing and practised some kiting. The photographer went to interview the highland guys. When Matthew and Karen showed up it still wasn't flyable, so they pulled out the bagwings and kited them around, too. Chad went up and checked again around noon, I think and it was still no go. Finally around 1:00 or so it started looking a little better. We set up. I set up Janet's Falcon, since my Spectrum was being worked on in Manquin (I am trying to tune it up a bit). Marc bought a Target(!!!) and set it up. Ric was the first one to go. It didn't look encouraging. He scraped around and put up a valiant fight, but no mileage for the XC master. So we all waited around a bit some more.

Finally, Marc couldn't handle it any more, was itching to try out his new Target and lined up. I lined up behind. I was curious to fly the Falcon. Haven't flown one since training hill days. Towed behind "the Beast" (the new red tug which climbs 1100 fpm). Had to pull in all the way, using some long dormant muscles. Ouch. Had trouble releasing, so Sunny gave me the line. I hit a couple of teeny bumps, but was so concerned with the line, that I didn't work them properly. Dropped the line at about 1000 feet and spend an hour looking for it unsuccessfully after landing. Someone else (forget who - George?) flew off with the second line.

Gave up looking for the line and towed again. No more bumps. But a little bit buoyant, so my sled wasn't all that short. I think Matthew reported getting a 100 foot gain. Probably the record for that day. I think most of us went twice hoping against hope it would get better.

Someone found George's line and Marc landed smack on my line. I had *not* looked in the landing area, thinking the line had landed on the other side of the runway.

Photographer took a bunch of pix from the ground and later from the air as well (tandem). He seemed to like his flight.

-- ellis

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This page last updated April 28, 2001