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Hangola June 2 – 3, 2001

The weatherman lied. Saturday morning there were two bands of storm clouds in arcs across country. Indications were that the first band would pass over Ridgely in the morning, and the second band late afternoon or night. That should have meant a window of fliability starting mid to late morning and extending well into the afternoon. It was not to be. I talked to Sunny shortly after 8:00 and he agreed with my conjecture. We both figured soaring conditions were not likely, but we ought to be able to fly.

I left the house at 9:00, planning to follow the storms eastward. First indication of a bad weather interpretation on my part: I caught up with very heavy downpour at Annapolis at 9:30. Pulled off to park under cover at a filling station and roll my glider bag over to zipper-down position. It had already collected a quart or so of water and needed dumping. Once the rains had moved on I resumed the trek to the Eastern Shore. The sky stayed grey and totally overcast all the way out. I arrived a bit before 11:00 to find Sunny, Bill, and Bruce Satatis in the shack, Barb S. relaxing in the van, and the tug still parked in the hangar. Low, threatening clouds made it clear there was no rush to set up any aircraft. We talked about flying. We talked about the dogs. We played with the dogs. We watched four sailplane pilots hose down and scrub off the old yellow trainer. We talked about lawn mowers. We realized it has gotten bad when idle chat at an airpark degenerates to household and yard care instead of flight tales. Kristin arrived to join the hang-waiting. She made a sandwich run into town. Bruce and Barb made a lunch run. Chad arrived. Dan Tomlinson showed up on his motorcycle. Brudew and Barb came back. The clouds stopped threatening and actually rained on us. The rain stopped and the dogs rassled in the grass. We chided big old black Lab Jack for not defending himself against the feisty German Shepherd puppy Emily. Hogan the sheepdog tried to herd the lawn tractor and any truck that dared to drive by.

Chad decided to take the tug into the sky for an air check. He reported loss of reasonable visibility at 500 feet and a 1,000 foot ceiling. He put the tug away. Finally at 3:00 Bill, Dan, and I all gave up and headed toward our respective homes. Bruce and Barb stayed on to socialize, and maybe to fly?

As Dan and I headed west, we saw patches of blue sky and real sunlight appear. Dan tested his new boom mike headset; he should have radio comm in the air again, now. Since one lane of the Bay Bridge was not in use, we contemplated setting up for a bridge-launch for landing on a passing barge. Could have made a good article for the magazine, eh?

Dan left Route 50, heading south on 301 to enjoy his bike ride the long way home to Woodbridge via Fredericksburg. I made it home by 4:30 in time to assume my duties as pre-Senior Prom parental unit photographer. Dan stopped off at Taylor Farm and found John T. finishing class with three students.

At least SOMEONE flew on Saturday!.

Cragin S.

I was there on Sunday. Lot's of people flew. Several did not, including myself. The wind was crossing from the South and sucker punching the launches. I probably saw at least six that were technically sound launches and still too close to being an accident to be comfortable.

Some of the early launchers flew for hours. I don't think anybody went XC or had big altitude gains.

Dan T.

I went up to the Pulpit launch around 12:30PM yesterday, and it was blowing straight up the new ramp at 12 to 18 MPH. The sky was ugly-looking though. Same sky at Woodstock?

Bacil

Exceptionally Good Day. Didn't look all that great standing on launch. There were nice cumis out in the valley but it wasn't coming in at all and when it did it was cross from the west. But it was booming. I was at base at 3400 over very quickly. 6 up was a typical reading on the averager. Thought about XC -- drift was due east so p40 wasn't a problem -- but I am a wuss. I needed INSTANT DRIVER. Oh well. Eddie M showed up late.

Woodstock Sunday. Hey Spark. I think the sheer number of pilots in attendance (there were probably at least 10-15 of us) deters any attempt to summarize the day. Also it was a tough day to summarize. I thought it was great (although the highest I got was only 1700 over). Went up to the reservoir with Pete S and Matthew. Watched Pete go too far and get swept off the end (or maybe he planned it that way). Watched Matthew go too far but fight his way back (Good Job Matthew--Thought you were toast). Came back and "landed" to complaints from Christie and Bob Radcliffe that there was no lift while at the same time there were folks on launch packing it up because it was blowing too strong. So take your pick.

Hey Gang,

As 1st. to go on Sunday I got cold and tired after 2hrs. so when I saw Steve K. go North, There go I! I called Tom M. said I was cold and tired and would land at the North point. They were cutting the hay in the normal barn field so I landed in the next field North blowing 15-20 when I came in got bounced 100' or so over but had a good landing... Despite the winds at launch it was nice once you got out of there though going South was a challenge.

Sunday went to Ridgely in the AM to find it was in fact blown out. Left for Woodstock following Mark Fink and we picked up Pete Lehmann on the way. Spent several hours kicking rocks. It was flyable under wave clouds that eventually closed up leaving no clear sky and soon-to-be-wet looking conditions, although it didn't rain while we were there. Four or five pilots flew before Pete and I called it quits about 3:30. Gliders never left the vehicles.

Monday at Ridgely was a good day. Doug Rogers and I flew under about 10% cumies. West wind was varying from maybe 13 to maybe 18 on the ground but it wasn't gusty so the conditions "OK" but not ideal for towing. Winds at altitude were pretty strong, up near 30. Strange air in that some thermals were very rough and others were were quite nice except that they were moving around a lot. The second time I came back upwind to the field I got there low after tucking my tail and leaving two consecutive thermals. I decided to land before I bent the runway rules too far. 43 minutes, 3800 ft.

Doug was up long after I was in the Litespeed. It was the first time I've known what the conditions were like, and then really watched a high performance topless going upwind at high speed. I have a better feeling now for why people move to them. Doug looked like he was flying in low wind despite the 25 mph or better headwind . From the ground I couldn't tell really, but I thought he might be making 30 mph over ground, if not more. He didn't appear to lose much altitude at all. I was impressed.

Best Regards,
Richard Green

Jeez, Steve, when is commenting on the conditions one encounters mere commenting and when is commenting complaining?? I didn't care for the turbulence I encountered and would have much preferred a soaring flight. And I suspect just about every pilot would feel the same.

When I launched it wasn't blowing too strong on launch. In fact I waited a bit until a little something was coming in. Launches were tricky because the slot wasn't filling due to the cross conditions. It also made for low rides out the slot with a turn into the wind on exit. I was expecting the turn, so it wasn't a problem. I found absolutely no lift between the fingers when I was in the air, but I did find plenty of -350 or so down. I was unwilling to get really close over the trees because the air was turbulent. (A pilot later reported that the worst turbulence was between the fingers, low down.) I spent a minute on the finger to the right of launch riding the meager ridge 'lift' created by the cross, while slowing sinking out since it was still in the negative. There was a bit of time before Mike C launched after Bob sank out and the sun had come out some and probably sent off some thermal lift. Mike said he had no trouble getting up over the ridge.

Christy

I wimped out and decided not to even bother setting up my glider at Woodstock on Sunday.

Conditions on launch were clearly borderline for the most of the day, very strong and cross from the southwest. Although several pilots stated that things were great once they were in the air, I wasn't willing to ignore the launching and landing risks to experience this (not to mention the meager outlook for thermals).

Thankfully it never did, but conditions could have easily blown up as evidenced by the several showers and lenticular/cumi formations that sprang up over the course of the day. From what I observed, I think that we were very lucky that there were no mishaps on launching and landings that day.

Marc

I didn't do as well as Steve suggested. I got 1800 over, made it up past the reservoir to that last finger and overall had a nice 90 minute flight. But I ran out of gas about 3 miles North of the LZ and landed in Maurtown. After seeing Steve zoom by me and then sink like a rock to ridge level. I hung out for a while just South of the reservoir to gain some altitude and then continued to work every little patch of lift as I continued South. But I finally sank down to ridge level and headed for a sunny spot near a bunch of fields in front of one of the fingers. I was able to work some lift off the finger and climb back up to a couple hundred over a few times. But the drift was due North. Everytime I tried to head back to the ridge I'd hit sink and end up back below the ridge. Each repeated attempt brought me lower as I returned to the finger. So I gave up and tried to find some lift over one of the buildings but only found sink and landed in a cow pasture.

The landowner wasn't home when I landed but showed up as I was breaking down and then gave me a ride back to launch. He had had another hang glider land in his property the previous year and a sailplane landed in one of the adjacent fields a couple of years ago. Though he lived there and previously in Woodstock and had seen gliders flying along the ridge, he had never seen one launch. So he came up to launch only to watch John Middleton stand at launch for twenty minutes and then back off due to the light winds, which were 90 degrees cross. Karen also decided to bag it at this point. So the landowner still hasn't seen anyone launch.

A surprising number of pilots also decided not to fly, including Dave Proctor, Pete Lehmann (who drove all the way down from Pittsburgh), Doug Henderson, Gary Smith, Marc Fink, Joe Brauch and Dan Tomlinson.

Brian VH and Joe Shad launched about 20 minutes prior to John getting on launch and had extendos. Tom, Greg DeWolf, Mike Chevalier and Terrry all flew and seemed to be having fun in the sky.

Matthew (High Rock Friday??? of Karen and Matthew)

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This page last updated June 5, 2001