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Hangola March 7-11, 2002

Pilots from all over converged at Daniel's today. Lots of 4x4 monstertrucks went to the top, and only one was left in the LZ for the retrieve.

Two PG pilots were there, and Jim was the first to launch. Immediately, the winds picked up and went cross from the West. Jim put on a good show and valiant effort surfing the ridge rotor in a PG before landing short of the LZ.

Fred, the other PGer, after seeing Jim's flight, was in no hurry and instructed Jim to drive back up for another crack at it.... (in the only monstertruck left in the LZ)

In spite of the beautiful conditions in the sky, no one was in a hurry to be the first HG off, given the switchy wind in the slot, and the West cross out in front. Many hanggliders had to be pushed to the side to allow Steve Kinsley through to the slot. He's the man! The only one will the skills to get up on a ratty day and the balls to be the first to try!

After Steve surfed the rotor for a few minutes, he managed to find a good one that took him well above launch. The rest of us piled off in a very timely fashion. Everybody soared and the conditions were very pleasant once above a couple hundred over. It was Springtime conditions and I got 700fpm on my adverager.

Terry

Flew Ridgely yesterday. 20-25 minutes (no watch). Textured lift. Gained some altitude (no Altimeter)>

Adam flew the Ultrasport and test flew a new Eagle. Sonny flew the Stalker (rigid wing) twice. It was a beautiful day with highs in the low 70's.

john

Blown-out. No aviation was committed.

B1RD's were well tucked and getting kicked around. Probably survivable but too strong for prudent flight. However, it was a beautiful day to be in the mountains and a boo-waa social day. In order of arrival.....John H, Bob B. Shawn, Joe & Karen, Dave F. TR, Jesse, and Keith O. For you accountants, departure was FILO.......Bob.

Today looked too strong for forward PG flight so we headed for a spot with lots of backwards dragging room. Winds were a solid 15 with gusts to 20 at 3:00pm. We had multiple extended soaring flights to 50'+ over launch right up until dark. It was a great day for high wind PG practice. I can't imagine what the local farmer will think when he sees his field etched with long peculiar streak marks going up and over the back of the hill?

Severe flight deprivation convinced me to play the wag from work and head to 501 today. On the verge of setting off, I checked the weather one last time and saw SE everywhere (except Jack's - but of course). So it was off to Kirkridge, where I had never again flown since my first high flight there almost 5 years ago. A bunch of HG Water Gappers showed up: Gus Johnson, Bill and Allison Watters, Randy Leggett, and a couple more after we launched (including Jack Eckert, I believe). There were also a bunch of guys flying without battens, including Steve Onstad and Wind Rider Matt Hill.

We arrived around 2pm to find pretty straight-in and smooth 15mph. Everyone with battens scrambled into the air and went up. I got Lenko thrown off and then joined him with the help of PGers for wire crew (thanks guys!). Strangely, the wind backed down a bit once we were up there, but the combination of ridge lift and gentle thermals kept us aloft as long as we wanted. Once the bagwings got into the air it got a bit crowded, so most of the drivers of battenful craft chose to land.

It sure felt good to be flying.

Bill hey,-who-needs-Florida-anyway? Buffam

I got to E-ville about 4:30 to work on L&L. From RC sock the winds looked like they were straight up although I knew better since some wind was coming through the trees at the parking lot. Got to the top and they were SE. I waited for more south and got 3 flights. Bumpest air I have been in but I was ok with it. There was some lift. It was a day for speed. It was also a day for understanding what weather is all about wind direction, rotors, gusts, and turbulence a good learning day.

Long story short- Governador Valadares, Brazil is too damn far away to go for just one week or even 8 days. Two of the days we expected to fly were lost in the process of getting there and getting back. The 4-hour drive to and from the airport was more like 6.5 hours. The quaint little town of GV is also neither quaint nor little. It's a mid-sized city and has all of the traffic and other problems that plague South American cities. Fortunately, we stayed in a quaint, little hotel "on the island" instead of one of the older high-rise hotels. And being a vegetarian in Brazil is no easy task! The flying, however, was okay. Not great or life changing as everyone said, but good. We only got skunked one day and I lost another day doing an instructional tandem that was a complete waste of time. Can you say sink out??? We also spent a great deal of time para-waiting, which was made easy by the beautiful scenery and good company.

The flying conditions were very similar to the mid-summer conditions here-- low cloud base with slow climb rates and hardly any drift. But I flew four days and went XC each day - 14.5 miles being the best one on our last real day there. Karen did a bunch of tandems and some extendos and got her P2. I only ended up with 7 hours & could have had a few more if things had been better organized and I could have flown a second time on three of the days. I landed outtwice with Nigel. (He's still down there soaring his little British ass off.) I also learned a lot about pitch and roll stability and not flying my bag like my hang glider. Though I still think crankin' and bankin' is a better way to find the core than all of this flat-turn nonsense.

Matthew (still love my hang glider best, of Karen and Matthew)

Hi Everybody, The end of a relationship can often be painful, but the close of this one was particularly grim. Yesterday (Friday), Paul and I traveled to see our buddies at Ridgely Airport, by Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It had been months since we'd seen them.

Sunny Venesky and his girlfriend Kristen greeted us there. We hugged Lisa Cain - my hero, who not only pilots hang gliders but also tows you perfectly behind the Dragonfly plane she flies - and also Chad Elchin, my instructor. I like him so much because he always resists the urge to insist I take up shuffleboard. His brother, Adam, welcomed us too, exposing his dry, quick wit that we had missed all winter. But it was difficult to be pleased. It would be the last time Ms. Target (my glider) - and I would fly together.

Now, Ms. Target escorted me on my first solo aerotow, and I learned to foot launch with her, too. She's partnered me the two times I've leapt off mountains, and she took me soaring both times, in spite of my limited skills. In light of her generous spirit and easy handling qualities, I have become somewhat attached to Ms. T. I have a hard time viewing her as just a kite, fashioned from bits of Dacron and aluminum.

However, I never owned Ms. T. She was only leased from Chad and Sunny, and they needed her back. The Ridgely season had begun, so the time had come to part ways. But I had a brand new Eagle waiting for me at the airport, to soothe my battered heart.

I have to admit it made me feel better just to examine her. "Ms. E" is colored black and red and white, and has a cool fin adorning her tail that pokes up into the sky. As faithless as a seventeen year old boy being offered a tumble with a playmate, I stripped the shoulder pads off of Ms. T and decorated Ms. E with them. Then I watched Adam fly Ms. E. She looked even better in the air, like a cardinal banking against the wind. Adam had tested her the day before, but he wanted to change her tow point until the bar pressure felt just right. But I thought I'd better quit admiring her and take advantage of the quiet conditions. I needed to do a sled (just coasting down from my release point from the airplane, instead of thermaling to catch lift)or two on Ms. T, since I hadn't towed since early December.

I felt rusty flying Ms. Target, and over controlled the first time, but I didn't embarrass myself too much. However, in spite of the fact that Ridgely is flatter and bigger than Kansas, I landed short. I didn't wind up in the ditch or anything, I just didn't land by the picnic table, where you should be. I opted to try one last flight in Ms. T. since I wasn't performing great and I'm so familiar with her.

The second flight, I vowed not to start my approach too late. So, of course, I did it too early, instead. But the Ridgely runway stretches out longer than an uncoiled Boa Constrictor, so I wasn't worried. I tucked the bar to my ankles to lose altitude and screamed towards the ground.

I try to always land with speed, but I don't think I've ever been quite as successful drumming up that much pace before. When I tried to transition to standing up from the prone position, I got a shock. The nose popped up when I shifted my hands, with more insistence than a hungry baby screaming. The ground looked ugly as a dog turd from twenty feet high in a full blown stall. It never happened that way at the training hill.

I tried to pull in and get my wings level, but it was too late. Ms. Target plummeted down with no more grace than a bale of hay. She threw herself between the ground and me, saving me from any harm. However, while I strolled away without a scratch, Ms. Target wasn't so lucky. I bent her downtube so bad it looked like an old clothes hanger, and it appeared a Sumo wrestler had slept on her speedbar. I whacked her so hard that she wouldn't even rest on my shoulders properly while I carried her back - head down in shame - to the group by the picnic table.

As usual, everybody acted nice anyhow, ignoring my mangled glider. Lisa asked if I wanted some water and Chad asked if I was okay. Sunny explained how I could avoid the problem of changing position with that much speed (simplest way, fly the approach hanging upright) and promised that he could help me enough that folks would be asking me advice about landing by the end of the summer.

Sure. He's good, but I don't know if anybody's that good.

Anyhow, cheered by my friends, I dumped Ms. T by the side of the runway. She's going to need some surgery before she flies again. Then, I hooked into my new glider. I imagined I felt Ms. E shudder above me. Only, before I could get attached to the tow plane, the winds shifted and howled in from straight across the runway. The air rapidly became way too cross and rough, so Ms. E didn't have to fly with me after all. I'll have to take her to the training hill and scare her there.

It wasn't quite the return I'd planned. However, the day wasn't a total loss. We flew kites with Mike Balk and Julia, and windsailed with Steve. We spun Julia in the airchair and caught up with the Ridgely crowd's news. We feasted on seafood with Julia and Mike, and even viewed the oldest oak in the United States.

Still, it makes me insane to finish on such a terrible note. I'll have to fix that next week. Though I guess I can add one more first to what Ms. T and I did together. My first whack! Coulda missed that one.

Lauren Tjaden

Got up Friday with every intention of dutifully going off to work. At 7 AM, shaving in underwear, diverted from coat-and-tie track to jeans and loading glider on car. Lauren and Paul's post earlier in the week about possible Ridgely Friday before the winds got strong had planted a seed. At Ridgely, Chad rigged my Falcon for towing, while Paul, Lauren and Mike had first flights of the day. Sunny towed me up a little after 11 with surface wind about 5 mph but quite cross. Not much turbulence on the way up, but large period altitude excursions where the tug would get a lot of lift and I had to push out to keep up. My first time flying with a (borrowed from Highland Aero) vario. Once released, I never achieved better than 350 FPM sink until encountering some 250 FPM lift at around 1000 feet over the trees and aprons south of the runway. Meanwhile the wind had picked up quite dramatically (probably to 15 MPH). I was crabbing along the runway on final - so much so that Sunny looked worried I might land ON the parked tug, but the famous Falcon down button brought me in right at the picnic table - then I had trouble putting the glider down - the wind wanted to take it back up. Mike Balk tried another tow, but released as his weak link broke at 50 feet.

Hey, Mr. Flight Director! Does my perfect landing at Ridgely count for the contest? Mike said there was some noise about landings at flight parks not counting for H2 and above... Packed up and headed for home - my beleaguered wife was caring for two extra kids and had many honey-do's for me - but the devil on my left shoulder made me stop at Bay Bridge Airport to see whether they still had a Piper Cub for rent. No such luck, but guess what - they have Diamond Katanas (the same that I got checked out in a couple of weeks ago at Leesburg - Bay Bridge is closer for me - and the rates are marginally cheaper) - AND a Diamond Star - the new four-place big brother of this Austrian designed, Canadian produced, all-composite speedster (140 kts at altitude) - GPS moving map too! This is one of only four examples that have been imported so far. I need a cross-country bird to take the family to Louisville next month for a wedding, so I signed up for a checkout on Saturday.

Saturday was blustery, needless to say, but we went over to Easton for landing practice with 20 kt wind 30-40 degrees off the runway heading. Landings required close attention, higher speeds and little or no flaps, but were quite doable - but the wind would be 60 degrees off the runway heading back at Bay Bridge. One of the owners of the FBO had driven over to Easton and let us know we could park there and get a ride back, but after some discussion, we elected to fly back. Had two missed approaches before finally getting it down at Bay Bridge - mostly from attempting non-standard patterns to avoid rain squalls and getting blown too close to the runway while on "downwind" (actually upwind). "That which does not kill you is an adventure." - Hugh McElrath

I thought I had the weather figured out for Monday. Forecast showed light north west in the morning and shifting rapidly to the south by mid afternoon at best five knots. Bruce Engen called and tried to get me to fly but I figured it would probably not be good anywhere today. So I opted not to fly.

With the afternoon open I went for a hike up to Dickey's Ridge and low and behold found Steve Kinsley setting up. With only a puff of air coming in on a very infrequent basis I figured Steve might get a sled if he even launches. Wrong Wrong Wrong

Steve launches in the second puff that comes in and slowly sinks. At the far southeast end of the ridge at best 700 below launch Steve hooks his first thermal and climbs above launch. Looking for more he heads north along the ridge only to sink and head toward the LZ. But, south of the LZ at what looks like 500 over the LZ Steve does it again but this time goes up and up and up. My guess was 2-3000 over launch. I watched him for a half hour while he repeated these feats a couple more times. What a beautiful day.

Moral of the story:

1. IF Steve is going to fly, go with him.

2. Never hike to launch without your glider.

Joe

Add one more to moral of the story:

3. Always fly with bar mitts or gloves even if you think you are going straight to the LZ.

Played hookie (along with Bill U) and went to Cedar Ledge today. Wind was mainly L&V but there was just a bit of umph coming straight up the hill... a few thermal cycles helped at times too. The heat of the sun brought a 30's day up into the 40's and made for some fun sled rides. Practiced stalls all day.

Note to self.. rethink this whole "job" thing (is it REALLY necessary?)

Jim

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This page last updated March 11, 2002