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Hangola May 10 -11, 2002

Flight Reports

Well I continue to be amazed at how many people can fly mid-week. At least 10 hang gliders, and at least 2 paragliders were there. I launched first, I guess around 2pm, and had to fight and claw my way up. It was barely ridge soarable, and the thermals weren't too cohesive down low. Terry joined in the fray, and Tom soon followed. After probably 15 minutes of not knowing whether I would be landing imminently or not, things started to get a little easier. Now instead of bouncing +-200 feet above/below, we were bouncing around 300 over +-. Then more and more people dove off the ridge. Everyone was able to stay up. Ric Niehaus and Terry decided to go north, with Tom a mile behind. Ric and Terry both landed out. Tom decided to hang around launch for a little longer.

After two+ hours, I was plum tuckered out, and came out to land. 1300 over for me, but others reported 2300 over later on. Tom and John McAllister landed in Strasburg, Tom with 3 hours. Everyone else (I think) landed in the main LZ. What fun!

-Mike Balk

Good turn out yesterday at Redwing. Despite various forecasts conditions stayed soarable from a little past noon up until 6pm and maybe longer. Altitude gains of 4400' and flights up to the 2hr range were had by many. Thermals were illusive and hard to follow for the most part but there were the occasional 3-400fpm phat textbook thermals got you high and cold. It was easy to see Philadelphia in one direction and the coast line to the east. Ed Messina brought his son and soon to be X/C driver fresh with his new drivers permit. Judy M showed up to fly but when she took the bag off her stored winter glider she noticed a family of mice chewed holes in the sail. She rebagged it and helped out on the flight line while she considered some options, (hmmm.... fix old glider or up grade to something different)? Russ Gibson is back in the air flying Bob's Saturn yesterday. Russ had a really nice launch coming out of the cart smooth and quiet. During Russ's tow Jim and Rodney were waiting patiently for him in a late day thermal that all 3 got to enjoy as soon as Russ let go of the rope. John W and Tom C got to fly together in local cell tower thermal, its really nice to see John flying and enjoying the xtralite! Miles kept everything moving smoothly always there to lend the helpful hand. Rodney was test flying a TRX for another pilot and by the looks of it he liked it alot. Jim M fixed the harness problem which plagued him last weekend and had a nice flight on the new litespeed. Bob S had the fastest witnessed decent rate of the day after he jumped out of a perfectly good airplane and landed safetly at the airport. Norm. Bob S. Jim S and Rodney were the Tug pilots

Pilots who attended: Paul B. Rodney. Jim M. Miles. Russ G. Ed and son. Jim S. Norm and Pam. JohnW. Tom C. Bob S. atleast that's all that comes to my foggy mind this morning.

Thanks for the Tow's!!!!!!!!!

Doug.

It was indeed nice to see John flying, but his enjoyment of the Xtralite was merely in watching Tom Curbishley fly it close by in the same thermal. 8^) For those that have no idea what we're talking about, Tom bought (and flew) Doug's Xtralite...

But yes, a good day surprisingly. Fairly rowdy tow, big sink down to 1400, then a good one back to 3700, landing smoothly after almost an hour. Very clear views of the city, the AFB, up the Delaware towards Bucks County, and to the coast.

john wiseman

Yep, I'm the guilty party on Doug's old Xtralite. It was way cool to share the air with John and his very brightly colored Eagle. He took a chance on some lift on the other side of the field, while I stuck with the light lift over a horse track. I ended up on the ground watching John. :-)

Tom Curbishley

The high cirrus scuzz which was encroaching on MFP from the South, dissapated and turned blue, so ManQuin was blessed with soaring conditions all day!

Quite a few pilots were there. Steve had a number of scooter-tow students, so more 2s on the way!

DeWolf was the first to soar, followed by JK, Steve Valdez, and me. The lift seemed to be light and topped out around 3500ft+. The sink was very strong.

John Claytor was the only XCer. He had a 2 thermal hop and made 10mi. Bruce was hoping to scratch himself off the deck and landed out. Everybody else landed in the park. It was a fun day. Nice to get 2hrs in marginal conditions over the flat!

Terry

It was working again at Ridgely yesterday(sat). Bob Beck, Ric and I were only Windriders present. Probably 20-30 pilots in all. Ric Niehaus only pilot to go W-C (flew to Sudlersville). Fred and Raean both had excellent flights. The sad news is they are really moving. They bought a house near Quest and are leaving for the sunshine state on Thursday. I've learned alot from them over the years. They've always had a kind word and a gentle pat on the back while I've been relearning the subtleties of this fantastic sport. I wish them the best.

john

All in all, a banner day was had by most at Ridgely. For me, I garnered permission to fly midday conditions there for the first time. I wasn't sure if I should be pleased or horrified, and just the idea sent me to the pot for half an hour. But I did okay.

I actually was having a blast after I got off the ground the first tow 'cause it was kind of wild but I was hanging on all right. The tug plane was jumping around like it was getting stung by bees. However, right before I got the signal to release the turbulence got worse and I was very grateful to pin off. Nothing like some rowdy air to smack humility into you.

Talk about a sled ride, though -- I dropped like a brick. I never hit any lift. My vario was so quiet I wondered if it was broken.

My second tow I abandoned the sensible upwind site where Chad deposited me, and flew downwind to where the hotshots circled in thermals. By the time I arrived there, though, I'd lost too much altitude to do anything but head back for the airport as fast I could. I came in too low and turned right over the ground. Bad decision. Things can go to crap really quick when you're flying. My wing came way too close to the grass. I got away with it so it was a cheap lesson. I tried to hide but Matthew and Adam and everybody in the tow park came over to tell me that my landing was less than brilliant. I hate it when I screw up.

Later, I tried again. And I thermalled! Not long, but I was up for 35 minutes. I never did that before! I was stumbling around the sky like a blind man, but hit a few columns of air anyhow. Whoopee whoopee whoopee! I promised myself I'd get to the landing field with lots of altitude so I left for "home" at 1000 feet. I screwed up my flare timing when I landed but at least I made a decent approach. I was very happy. BTW, my sincere thanks to all the amazing folks who always take so much of their time and energy to help me try to fly safer and better -- Reanne, Matthew, Sunny, Adam, Bruce. You guys are great.

I'll let everybody tell their own stories in detail but Matthew broke his "Ridgely curse" and flew for hours. Brian stayed up, too, and bought a glider. He whipped up his famed mint juleps for all of us who stayed late. They're tasty, but I'm still more of a lighter-fluid fan (you know, gin).

Paul flew twice and got over two hours of airtime. But that's not all he got. Matthew gave him his Hang 3 rating. Whoopee whoopee! We arrived home at 1 AM with work to do (I'm not kidding, shots to give and animals to feed) so I wouldn't say we're rested, but neither of us is grumpy, either. I could stand more days like yesterday.

Lauren Tjaden

Fcsts for the day ranged from scattered cu's @ 8K to an inversion @ 3k. It turned out to be the average. Clear skys with a rather undiffined inversion @ 5K. It was soarable from about noon, and when i left at 1745 there were still a couple boating around at maybe 3K. The thermals for the most part ranged from 20 to 200 FPM but were long lived to the point were I was leaving them out of boredom ( read tiredness ). There were a few really nice smooth cores @ 500-600 FPM to near 5K but most were a slow climb to about 4200'. It was deffinately a sink management day with the LZ waiting for the unwary. Most however got all the flying they wanted. Sad to say goodbye to Fred and Rae they are out of here on Thursday.......Cheers.......Bob.

The old mythologly of banishing your curse by stating it to the world seems to have worked. I had a great day at Ridgely yesterday. Flew 1:20 on the first flight and got up to 4600'. Could have stayed up a little longer. But I was getting tired from circling over the same spot and thought I could find another thermal upwind. Well, that didn't work! But the thermal I had been working petered out anyway and my thermalling buddy Joe Gregor came into land about 10 minutes later. A bunch of folks then sledded out, packed their bags and left. THE FOOLS! It turned back on again about 3:30. Karen wanted me to see how I liked her XC. So I took my second flight in the XC at a little before 4:00 and promised not stay up for more than an hour. I broke my promise by only a few minutes. I didn't want to head into land until I climbed above Joe. Topped out at 4300' and then came into land with 1:05.

Karen had a headache and didn't want to fly again. So we pumped her full of Advil and sent her up for the last remnants of lift for the day where she got a 30 minute flight.

I was having such a good time that I lent my glider, harness and helmet to Ralph, who had shown up at a flying site without his glider. Something is wrong with that boy! He had a nice 30 minute flight and didn't whack my glider.

The wind then turned to the NW and smoothed out. So we spent the last hour of the day kiting our paragliders before having mint julips care of Brian.

Matthew (off to Hawaii, of Karen and Matthew)

Outstanding day. Blue skies, but plenty of thermal acitivity. Plenty of sink, too, but if you stayed out of the potholes (and your neck muscles were up to the task) you could have stayed up all day long. Later in the day it went as close to magic as I can imagine out in the flats. Spent a half hour after I had decided to land: finding a little something, deciding "what the heck, take a few turns," finding myself getting back up again, leaving it to go land... repeat. Finally did a few wingovers to force myself to stop thermalling and get into approach mode. Nice. Two more decent landings. Even nicer. Some tug work followed by one of Brian's patented Mint Juleps (TM) at the end of the day. Can't beat that.

2+55 TOT, 4600 MSL.

-- Joe G.

Hey! "That boy" left his glider at home because his harness is down at Manquin, getting some work done on it. And, the forecast was for partly cloudy with chance of precip, didn't look like it would be a very flyable day. And Mathew was going to be there, GUARANTEEING that there would be nothing by sink! So why bother? I only came out at all because I won a certificate for a free tandem flight from Ridgely in the raffle at the Pulpit fly-in last year. (Which was going to expire June 1st). I brought out one of my dance partners who "wanted to try something different" to introduce her to the sport. (She enjoyed the flight BTW, but it wasn't exactly her cup of tea. She's definitely more comfortable with her feet firmly planted on the ground. Oh well - can't win 'em all.) Since I gave her the certificate as a birthday present, my expectation for the afternoon was to provide moral support for her (as she was a bit nervous) and be around to take pictures for her to remember it by. And I didn't want to take a chance on missing that because of flying. So I left my gear at home, and didn't even bother to dress for flying. (It was nice out - I had shorts and sandals on; definitely NOT appropriate footwear for flying.) So, how much trouble could I get into, without my gear? Plenty as it turned out, with Matthew's help...

After severely twisting my arm (Ok, not that severely), Matthew talked me into taking a quick spin (er, flight) in his Ultra Sport. Borrowing his harness, helmet, gloves, and Karen's vario, I jumped on the cart for my flight. The US tows like a dream! It seemed a bit heavy and it's roll response, but I'm a bit lighter on it than Matthew is, and I suppose that's just the nature of higher performance gliders anyway. By the time I got up, the magic conditions were starting to shut down, but I was able to work some weak thermals for a 30 minute soaring flight. Considering MY track record at Ridgely, that's actually pretty good! I was able to set up a good approach; but rocked the wings a bit as a transitioned upright. For all that, I was able to level it out, and with Matthew yelling at me exactly when to flare, I was able to pull out a 2 step landing, with the glider off of the ground! Not too bad for a glider that I'm not familiar with... In any case, I was very satisfied with my flight. I got down *just* in time to see my friend heading for the tandem glider on the runway, so I parked Matthew's glider and ran to get my camera, without even taking time to get out of the harness. At least I *did* get there in time to take some great picture of her hang gliding adventure!

Anyway, flying the Ultra Sport was a real treat; thanks Matthew!

R2

Dan Tomlinson and I were planning a tow day when we heard that Pete Lehmann and Larry Huffman would be at Bill's. Heck, if the Pittsburgh skygods thought it worth a try, how could we disagree?

Arrived at Bill's to see a bunch of gliders set up,two paragliders ready to spread out on launch, and Allen Sparks doing loops and turns over launch with his zagi. Ellis Kim volunteered as wind dummy with her bagwing. Pretty much a sled. New to the club Polish PG pilot Michal Grzemowski followed Ellis, and succeeded in marking two small thermals out near the LZ for an extended sled. That was enough for Pete to build on, but the best he could do was use them for an extended sled. Reports from pilots at Fisher Road were straight in, compared to the right cross at Bill's, so many of us set off for the alternate site. Mark Cavanaugh and Chris McKee broke down their gliders to load for the trip, while Dan, Michal, Ellis and I headed out. Larry, Allen Sparks, and Shawn MacDuff all decided to take their sleds like men at Bill's before joining us at Fisher. Allen wanted a big unobstructed LZ for his new Litespeed, and Shawn looked forward to two new sites on one day.

At Fisher we found Joe Brauch, Tom Flynn, Jim Rowan, Mark, Sheila & Bridget Gardner, Adam Arkfeld and John McAllister. Adam, Homer, Ellis and Michal took early sleds, this time Ellis on her hang glider. JR was on his Falcon, and took part in the sled party. It began getting better, and Pete and the Gardinator showed that it was in fact soarable by about 4. The line formed. The rest of the afternoon was a lot of gliders. Pete got up and back, and waited for Larry to join him... last report I got was they made it about 25 miles. Mark G had a good flight, but stayed in the area instead of taking an XC. That allowed Sheila to get a late afternoon flight when Mark was back at the top for daddy duty.

Dan succeeded in a ridge run in all thermal conditions, landing at Richey's Knob. He was ecstatic. Late in the day, after cruising around the bowl for over an hour, Mark Cavanaugh also made the run to Richey's. Chris McKee logged his third mountain flight, and even got in a few minutes of soaring for 100' over and 15 minutes. He was very happy. Sheila and Ellis were the last launches of the day, joining Cavanaugh in the sky, but not high enough to make the ridge run with him.

I launched about 4:50, right after Dan. Found no ridge lift, lots of small thermals. One got me to 800 over, but finally sunk out and landed with just shy of half an hour. My first landing in the new primary, and it was very clean no step.

Meanwhile, Michal launched just after I had, his third bag flight of the day. He found a comfortable pocket just south of the bowl and spent over two hours cruising around about 200 over. I was jealous. Early sledders all launched again, except for Sparky, who still did not want to test the tree-lined LZ as he dials in on his new blade wing. He had a good time with the zagi. Shawn logged two new sites.

Another great day. Lots of flying. Successful landings. Plus, it was a family day Fisher, with Brenda Huffman, Bridget, Ellis's offspring Damion , Adam's Elena,and Joe Brauch's wife all out for the day. Dinner at Bob Evans for some of us afterward, where Bridget was the star of the evening, doing an impressive Perfect Baby impersonation all evening. New waitress Bethany thanked our rowdy table for being her nicest customers.. see, pilots CAN have class!

Cragin Shelton

I was about 250 over and actually got to look over the backside of the mountain. Great first soaring flight. Stayed in ridge lift the whole time but let one of my turns pull me to far outside the lift band and began to sink out. With more experience, and MUCH more confidence I could have gotten back into the lift band, but I thought it more desirable to head out to the LZ to land with extra altitude. Fisher's LZ was a bit interesting to me as it looked pretty small from my perspective so I wanted to time to set up my first approach into it. Had lots of stinkin' lift on the way out to the LZ and once again played the second guess game thinking about 360'ing around in some of the thermals but once again had less than enough confidence since I had never landed at FR before so I bounced thru the lift and maintained my heading out to the LZ. Had a good approach but made a 180 onto final and didn't have enough energy to flare as I touched down. A pretty roll in with only a little dirt on the belly of shame. Confidence is slowly filling into the gaps with each good approach and am really starting to relax in flight. The views are great and each flight is getting longer and longer although Victoria questions the logic of 4 hours in a car for 20 minutes of flight. I just tell her its a bird thing....

Christopher McKee

Decided to head to Bill's Hill Saturday partly because I never flew there and heard a group of pilots were headed there as well. The site is about 2hrs from my front door.

Got to launch with a bunch of pilots already setup and winds straight in but light. By the time I set up the winds were coming from the South. Some pilots broke down, others never setup and headed to Fisher, and some of us decided to give it a shot. I wanted to fly 2 new sites in 1 day so I got in line and took my sledder like a man and then followed Sparky to Fisher.

Got to Fisher with many pilots in the air. Found out later on that Larry and Pete went XC (they flew Bills early in the day) and got 23 miles! After walking the lz with Sparky, we headed to launch. STFI @ 10 and soarable as hell. Due to prior commitments, Sheila and I had to be on the road at 5:30PM and it was 4:45PM. I set my glider up in about 12 minutes and launched and went straight up. Flew with all the locals including Cragin, Chris, Joe and many others who I never met before. Landed and broke down just as fast and headed home.

Both Bills and Fisher are really nice sites. Fisher reminds me of the Superbowl...both have bowls on the left of launch. Local pilots were very helpful with site protocols...I'll definitely be back on an easterly day!

Shawn

Congratulations to Dean Betler for getting his Signoff at Oregon Ridge yesterday from Richard Hayes. He had a great day... Perfect launches and landings on his huge 225 Falcon. We'll wee ya in the mountains Dean...

Congrats... Keep up the great work.. Knew you could do it...

Frank Sherman

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This page last updated May 12, 2002