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Hangola May 16, 2002

Flight Report

It was blowing like stink outside my office in Arlington, and I was beginning to wonder if once again the weather guessers were screwing the pooch. Not wanting to waste a perfectly good hooky day, I headed out at noon and arrived at the Woodstock LZ about 1:45. Steve Kinsley was in the process of launching and Bruce Engen, Paul Tjaden, Gary (insert last name here), Joe Schad, Terry Spencer, and Hank & Karma (Insert last name here) were up at launch in various stages of setup. They dropped of their vehicles and we did a shuttle to the top and I began to setup as well. Winds were gusting pretty good and often cross, but as I assembled my glider, they started to slowly back off. Joe and Terry got off successfully and both of them climbed out easily. About 4:00, Gary, Bruce and Paul launched and reported that the air was "textured" but not to rowdy. Steve Kinsley had landed and was ready to throw off Hank and I and was reporting the windsock to be limp in the LZ. Getting a PIREP from Paul found that it was pretty cross at altitude, but the lift was everywhere. Cycles were coming in regularly and launch conditions were getting pretty nice. I had a strong launch at 5:15 and did a right turnout and hit the big green UP button on my glider. I stayed pretty close to launch until I got to about 300' over and then headed over to the North finger. I had knocked my line off of the Velcro that zips up my harness so I was staying in my pod by pressing against the base. Worked some great ridge lift and got up to 650' over and got a great view over the back. My feet were beginning to go to sleep as I was really straining to stay in my harness Started hitting sink as I was working back towards launch so I headed back to the North finger. Caught a thermal off of the rocky area and did a couple of 360's and got back up to a personal best (which is pretty easy since I only have 4 flights) and max altitude of 768' over. Held that altitude for a little bit and boated around between launch and the North finger until I was really beginning to get tired from my harness problems. After my back started to get in on the groaning, I decided I was getting pretty tired and wanted to have some energy left for landing so I head out to prestage over the LZ. I had lift everywhere and as I headed out to the valley, my vario was screaming at me at a pitch that I hadn't heard before. I arrived over the LZ at launch altitude and actually had to work to get down. Set up a good pattern and worked a rough figure-8 on the base end of my pattern to get down to final altitude. Misjudged a bit and had to roll out in the middle of one of my figure-8's to turn final. Pulled in for speed and hit a pretty good gradient just before my flare, held a partial flare and rolled in on the wheels. Ended up completely exhausted, but had a 47 minute flight. If my harness would have been zipped up, I could have stayed up for hours I think as good as the lift was. Everyone else ended up landing soon after I did, most people got between 1.5 - 2 hours of flight. Completely awesome day that made my week!!!

Batman

Christopher McKee

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This page last updated May 20, 2002