Back to Main Page Back to Archive 2002

Index to weather maps

Hangola May 18-23, 2002

Flight Reports

Arrived at launch around 2:45P with XC driver in tow. OD'ed sky and winds 15 to 20 on launch. Dan T. had arrived just after 2P and said the conditions had strengthened since he got there. We leisurely set up and the winds lightened up in spots. John Middleton arrived after 4P. Terry Spencer and Tom McGowan showed up shortly after John. Took off around 4:30P, got up quickly to 500' over, and headed to the north point. Pretty much a total boat. Turned around and the trip back was a little more difficult. Passed under Dan, on his way to the north point, SW of Southfork. Got down to the deck more than once but was able to make it back to launch. Headed towards Edinburg Gap. Nothing working down that way. Got below the ridge, and had to scratch my way back up heading back towards launch. Briefly considered landing in the main field, but it was full of cows. Decided to stick it out in front on launch, and gained a few hundred. Dan was a few hundred above me, and heading towards the Gap. I decided to give it a second go, and ran out of gas about 2/3 of the way to the Gap. Landed in a soggy but huge wide-open field. Saw a young girl walking across the field a ways away, and hollered to get her attention. She looked at me from afar like I was an alien visitor from Mars. I was able to alleviate her reservations with waves of the hand. I asked if her parents cared if I landed in their field, and she said it was fine. Her parents were very nice and hospitable. Vectored my driver in for the retrieve from directions given by the landowners. We then fetched Dan, who landed further down, on the other side of the river from where I landed. He had a nice landowner as well. Ran into Terry, Tom, and John on the way back to launch. They went to the north point and landed in the main LZ. Terry mentioned getting 2.1K over when it went magic after the sky opened up later on. The best I could manage under an OD'ed sky was 750' over. I think Dan said he got 1K' over.

Bacil

Overcast post frontal skies usually make for very smooth and safe air. This was true at Woodstock yesterday once the winds calmed down a bit. Those of you who are fairly new to the sport and hungry for airtime might want to keep this as a reference point. The key to this is "post frontal." You want to be flying into diminishing wind speeds and clearing air.

By the way the slot is in better shape than I've ever seen it. Thanks to all of you who have been working on it.

Dan T.

Mixed bag of trixs today at Ringtown. Everyone who flew saw some action today, but Jesse CLEARLY smoked us all by getting stratified at 5500' over launch!!!!!! Definately spring conditions with strong up and down cycles. It looked like the direction got a little more north later in the day as Lenko and T.R. took advantage of some late day thermaling. Pilots who attended, Doug, Shawn, Christian, Russ G, Lenko, Keith and Rachel, and Jesse.

Hope to see you all at Hyner next week!!
Doug.

No responses to my Pulpit inquiry, and not wanting to rely on wuffo wire crew, I headed to Woodstock.

Up top at approx. noon, I was amazed to see only one pilot: Greg DeWolf, Greg flew first and was seen both high and low (excellent save from over the LZ) for several hours. I launched at 4pm and flew for a little over an hour, 1700' above in 500-600fpm thermals and a *first* no-step landing on my Moyes CSX5 into light wind.

I observed Rich Bloomfield for his first Woodstock flight. He launched his Falcon into smooth air at 7pm and enjoyed an extended flight.

Others who flew HG: Gary Smith, Randy Weber, Bob ___, Gary ___ PG: Marc & Ellis, several other PG pilots.

PGs outnumbered HG !

'Spark (let's use this list for flying info. How about a Cumberland report?)

ined the dark side for a day. Went out to a training hill with Bill, Dhimitri and 3 other PG students.
Wind was very light most of the day and generally straight up the hill.
The sun cooked up plenty of lift to make things interesting.
It was very fun. Not sure I'd ever give up my Glider for it, but I'll be grabbing a bag wing from time to time. I found it to be a very odd sport, mixing equal doses of mellow and adreanaline.
On second you're floating along in a lawnchair, the next you're listening to the air noise pick up and hoping you have altitude. Then it's a lawnchair again, then you'll hit some lift and up you go. What a crazy sport.

Later in the day Yuri, an HG student of Bill's, showed up with a new "preowned" 10M Pulse. After a good checkout and checkflight by Bill, Yuri took to the air in his own wing :) Needless to say, he had a good day..
I'm sure we'll see him in the mountains sometime in the future.
The only snag of the day was Dhimitri's wing got blown back on launch a bit and snagged a little in a tree right behind him. We extracated it and continued flying till the sun went down.

Saw those beutiful clouds up there, and a lot of hawks. Couldn' t help thinking of everyone flying in the mountains...
I bet it was a great thermalling day, hope you all got gobbs of up!
I will make many sacrifices to Hyner's weather gods and hope to see you all there this weekend!!!!

Jim

Ridgely was a mixed bag too. Windriders who flew Scott, Rich, me. We all worked are way up to cloudbase (5,100-5,600) sooner or later. Geoff Mumford had the longest flight.

john

PS sorry about passing along that virus hoax. I'm barely computer literate. I'll do my penance at Hyner.

Drove up to the pulpit, arrrived there a little after 11, winds blowing in nicely, but not a soul. Went to Kirshner's to foot launch the K-2. Was eventually joined by John with students... some were female so I decided to stay a while. Two of his near H-1's are doing quite well and will hopefully be H-2's by the end of the summer. Got in a few launches so I feel comfortable on the K-2, then headed back to the pulpit. No-one. Thought sadly about Ed and left.

Richard just missed me the first time, but also noticed the slantwise cloud track which belied the winds on launch. I'll let him tell his own sob story about his adventures which followed.

-Brian.

Arrived at the Pulpit ( 2 hour drive ) at 10:30am expecting NW winds and some pilots. Instead, there was nobody there and North winds coming in at a hearty 20 mph. Cloud track in the valley confirmed the cross direction felt on launch. So...being early, I decided to be a man and drive to the SAC. Two hours later ( now total 4 ) I arrived at the SAC to find beautiful conditions coming mostly straight in, sometimes a tad NW, and.....NOBODY THERE! AAGGGHHH! I waited for about an hour, watching hawks thermal out and one cool thing; a sailplane zoomed by overhead of launch at about 100 mph. He was only about 150 above and screaming! Neat sound. So....I headed home. First chance in almost a year for me to go flying "just for me" and got skunked at two different sites. Total drive time by days end was almost 7 hours. Airtime 00. Shoot me....

Small crowd. Geoff, John Muldoon, John Dullahan, Dave Green. A few others. My dad came out to enjoy the Wx and see what it's all about. Marc & Ellis showed up early but apparently beamed over to Woodstock. Wondered where they had gone.

I spent most of the day sinking out while watching Geoff soar the whole time. Three pulls through fairly rowdy air netted 3 extendos lasting 20 mins or less. Very frustrating. The sink was prodigious: -1880 fpm on the Brauniger. Made my head hurt. Three times, it did. Looked up each time (well, the last two) and there's Geoff, still up there.

This ticked me off enough to go for round four at around 4:15 pm. Pinned off in a certified thermal this time (thanks to Chad), and made it to near cloudbase. Time came to decide whether or not to sink out back to the field, or go to the SE where it was looking much better. Saw John Dullahan scooting on-course and, since he had already reminded me that I owed him a retrieve and he intended to collect, decided I might as well go with. Lift was much better to the Southeast. Clouds streeting up nicely in places. Base at 5200 now (COLD!). No push-to-talk, so I couldn't signal John to go East with me toward a GREAT LOOKING cloud. Finally broke off and followed John across a blue hole so that dad wouldn't have two people 50 miles apart to pick up at the end of the day. Came THAT CLOSE to sinking out in the process with John ahead and well above me by now. Not happy. Found a little something in the sun at around 1300 and decided to let John glide away and see what I could make of it. The gamble paid off. Back up to base again; clouds re-forming and streeting. Slowed to watch John fight the Battle Royal for an amazing number of miles before deciding that he would be unable to rejoin. Topped out and went into speed mode as by this time I was getting tired, teeth were beginning to chatter, and I had failed to bring a range-extender. Followed the clouds to another blue hole and just blew across it; thankful I didn't find anything that required I start turning again for honors sake.

Landed a little after 6:30pm. My dad came and got us both. I owe him a tandem.

2+15 on the XC. 5500 MSL. 37.3 statute miles.

That's three great Ridgely weekends in a row!

-- Joe G.

For completeness, I landed a few miles SE of Laurel, DE. Really nice guy came over around sunset and talked me into hanging out in his home next door while waiting for my ride.

-- Joe

Ok, so there has been a lot of talk about towing options at Manquin Flight Park. The fact that we have optional towing methods (aerotowing or truck/platform) is a great benefit to those who fly there regularly. Those who haven't tried platform towing should because of the amount of landing practice that is afforded by taking many successive tows in a day. The consensus at the Park is that there are days when the platform pilots just cant get up high enough to soar. In my opinion the platform tow pilot simply has less time to search for lift and this is the largest contributing factor to this consensus. Towing from Steve's truck is just like fishing, one has to have their hook in the water (glider in the air) when the fish (thermal) comes along. The fisherman has to bait the hook (relaunch the glider) hastily, as not to miss the opportunity to meet with the fish (thermal). Such was the case last Sunday...

After helping to launch three aerotowing pilots, I got myself and my equipment together and was on the truck at ready to tow at about 3:05. The tow was rendered sort of sick as I was towed through sinking air to a max of about 800 feet. Landing near the start point of the tow road Ray Mitchell took a pass on the next tow and I was back on tow at about 3:10. This tow was a little better (1000') though I squandered the tow in sink and found a thermal at about 200 feet and ended up landing soon for I was to low to stay with the drifting parcel. At about 3:25 Ray again passed on the tow and I was ready to give the "go to cruise" queue for launch at about 3:30. While on tow I could tell that good lift was with me and after maxing to about 1000', I turned for the thermal and found a rather large one going up at about 200'/" and settled in for a left corkscrew upward. Passing through about 3200' and the lift improving to 450'/", I saw Chris Cioffi swirling 500' above and 1000' south of my position. I was climbing up to his level as he came over to share the stronger lift. Topping off on the vertical fuel at 5500', I left Chris behind and pointed off to the southeast along the Pamunky River. Boy, was it cold up here, about 30 degrees to be exact. The view was excellent, probably the clearest it has ever been. Details of the plant at WestPoint and the York River could be seen for 40 miles. Continuing southeast hoping under each cloud I had to maintain my distance around the Richmond Int. Airport (RIC) Class C airspace so I was not able to just quest downwind. Having only to turn in strong lift I was able to simply fly slow in moderate lift and speed up in areas of sink to follow a somewhat undefined street. Losing maybe 1000, over an 8 mile glide. Keeping an eye out for distance from RIC, I started to turn my route southward and pasted about 1 mile east of New Kent County Airport, just at the eastern edge of the Class C airspace. Getting to about 3000, I found another nice thermal and hitched the ride to 5300' pulling in to keep from getting any higher/colder. Saw a big open area ahead and raced towards it getting there with the bar tucked it was the Colonial Downs Racetrack, large open area but not a good place to land. Found a few light thermals and steadily descended while selecting future LZ's got down to about 1600' and had a wide open field to land at near Route 60. Concentrating on my approach and scanning for obstacles I was grabbed by a force that rolled my glider 90+ degrees to the right and went weight less as I was plunging toward the field. Horsing my glider back to upright I did a quick left turn into that force and beamed up to 4400' in 4 minutes showing 820'/" on my averager. Ok, now I was off to the south again and I was amazing close to Hopewell and the large James river. Now tracking kind of southeast I had to think about crossing the river and I had flown a little dirty cause staying up was not a concern. So I had about 2500' in the bank as I was nearing Route 5 and thought that if I landed here I would have a store nearby as well as an easier retrieve. Then putting those negative thoughts behind me I continued down a paved road and ended up at the north bank of the James with about 1000' with the muddy river about 1 ¼ mile wide. Circling in a light thermal that a Bald Eagle showed me, I held my position over the barley field LZ and the north bank of the James. Gathering upward forces to about 1600', I made one more push to the southeast, This would be it for me as I came to a place called Sandy Point where the Chickahominy meets the James. This is where I had painted myself into the proverbial corner. I had to cross a river, fly upwind or land. I opted logically to land at about 5:20 into a field of 1 ½ foot high corn. My hands and feet thawed out after about 20 minutes. Great flight!

Looking back at this flight, I have a lot to be thankful for. Most of all I am thankful to Chris Cioffi, for his willingness to drive the 65 miles each way to get to my landing zone (130 miles total). We arrived back at MFP at 8:45, and he still had to break down his glider. What a guy. Other than that, I did not have to risk crossing the river so I did not do it. Over the course of the flight I flew very conservatively and only would press on when I had ample altitude to get to the next possible LZ. The cold had me shivering for about the last hour and I did not carry any water with me. I felt that these two physiological defects would hurt my decision making when choosing an LZ. This I will surely improve on in the future. Total straight line distance 34.2 miles, max alt. 5500', 1:50 flight time.

John Claytor - Richmond, VA

Richard

Sorry to hear 'bout the bout of driving. Ready to drive 4+ hours to Hyner this weekend? The weather gods are sure to have mercy on you after your hang-driving efforts. Hope to see a good showing of CHGA/MHGA types there.

That sailplane you saw overhead most probably originated from M-ASA Fairfield (near High Rock.) The task yesterday was Fairfield to McConnelsburg to Luckings (10 miles SW of McCburg) to Skulkyll County Airport (just off the ridge near North Site), back to Burnt Cabins (near McConnelsburg) then back home to Fairfield. You probably witnessed one of about 6 pilots on task on the way to or back from Skulkyll.

The ridges to the north of McConnelsburg eventually end at the Susquehana (sp?) river but pick up again across the river to form the Mantango range. North site sits on the Mantango. The ridges were "comfortably working" yesterday and thermals were solid.

It was a booming day with plentiful lift everywhere. The day started early (I launched at 11:30) and went late getting better all the time. Cloudbase was at 5K MSL early up to 7.5MSL later in the day. I climbed up the face of a cloud at one point hoping to connect into wave but either missed the window or maybe there just wasn't any wave. Temperatures aloft (5isK MSL) were 0 degrees C. While the clouds showed North and the wind on the ground looked North, at mid altitudes the flight computer indicated around 330 @ 10.

Danny Brotto

Sunday was basically bullet proof at Morgantown. Didn't have time to travel to Hang glide so I flew the sailplane from 3-5 pm and had to find sink to get down. mostly between 5-6000 feet, cloudbase at about 6500. (I of course maintained the legal 500 foot clearance below clouds. At times doing 70 mph staight under cloud streets still climbing. Under canopy only had to wear jeans and a long sleeve shirt. One of the other club members did a 250 mile out and return.

Dennis Monteiro

I arrived at WS launch about 1130, quite surprised to find no one there. I had expected that it might be very north so I climbed the tower. Other than thermals rolling through there was no wind. I had a driver, so I got my equipment and set up, launching at 115. I hit lift immediately and climbed to a couple hundred over then fell back to the top of the ridge. For the next 2.5 hours I spent between 2000 over and 300 below launch--probably 45 minutes.

Then it turned on and I climbed to almost cloudbase at 7000 msl. I flew south from cloud to cloud, mostly bar to my waist between and pushed under the clouds until I hit a blue hole at New Market over Rt 11. My driver was standing out in a short grass field with a beer in her out stretched hand and my neck was aching from 3.5 hours in the air--longer than I've flown in a decade--so I ignored the scattered lift and landed at 445 and went and ate dinner.

It was a very satisfying day.

Greg

I don't know what everybody's stats were since I wasn't there (too cold to take Bridget) - but here's what I DO know - Pete Lehmann went 62 miles, Mark Gardner 46 miles, Larry Huffman 28 miles, and Tom Flynn 7 miles. I know Larry Ball, Homer and Adam also went XC but don't know how far.

I know there was a cast of millions including Tom and Tracy, Larry Ball and Lisa, Homer, Adam, Dave Proctor, Terry Spencer, Pete Schumann and others. Hopefully somebody will do a quick write-up . . .

Sheila

There were incredible flights to be had at Cumberland Sunday, but I didn't have one! Though, my flight was very good! After a 30minute slugfest on the deck with 5 other gliders before finally getting up, I decided not to go "over the back" for a number of reasons....dead radio, cell problems, lack of altitude, low cloudbase, soaked ground,shadow, intimidating terrain, rain, and plain stupidity!

Instead, I chose to play it safe and land in the Primary LZ, where.... I completely botched my approach! Coming out with 2000ft. I bled off waay too much altitude. Luckily, my glider didn't fall through the gradiant until after I eeked in over the powerlines! Flying way slow, I was able to sling my glider around 180 degrees to point into the wind. Lucky again that my wingtip didn't hit the ground and ball me up! With Steve and Dave watching and waiting for the big crash, I went upright and on the DT's and pulled a really nice flare right outa my A**

Whew!!

Terry

Really really nice day at Ridgely. Hadn't planned to fly after getting home after midnight from Cumberland but Tom McG called and suggested I take a look at the forecast. Wow! Good climb rates and light winds. Got there about 12:30 -- Sunny and Adam were already playing around at base. Launched into a spectacular sky about 1:30, climbed out to 5400 and headed for the beach. The day was not totally idiot proof -- large areas of serious sink. Got under a street at one point thinking "boyoboyoboy" and either couldn't figure out how to work it or it wasn't working. By the time I gave up and made it over some fields that weren't in shadow I was down to 1000. But the fields were working and I got back up. Cloud base was either 55 or 65. Interesting. Couldn't figure out what was up with that but it made for some great fly bys of cumis. Unfortunately, it totally od'd when I got near the coast. Landed SE of Georgetown for 38.4 miles. Fortunately, I remembered Joe Gs advice about landing near the beach and did a few drift circles before putting it down into what I assumed was prevailing light west -- SE at 10!! Damn! Thanks Joe. I think if I had gotten up and on course an hour earlier I might have avoided the od and made it a lot further. Retrieve by Sunny and girlfriend. Even made it home for dinner. Pretty civilized flying.

Flew about two hours Tuesday. Will post pictures on my web site when I return. Only got up about 500 ft. above launch, but at the coast, this means being able to see the whole Bay Area, the GG Bridge, etc. from the air. Flew up north along coast about 1 mile and back again to the dumps. Wind was light so had to launch from upper "Walkers" launch. Today (Wednesday), I haven't been out yet, but the wind talker says it's 280 degrees (STFI) at 10mph at 9AM (almost perfect) so another report will follow after today.

The first couple of days I was here (when it was raining) I planted a whole bunch of grass seed with fertilizer and planted a lot of wildflowers too. Hopefully it will grow better than the last batch. Otherwise, lots of huge daisies and other wildflowers are already everywhere at the dumps. Very nice place to fly. Once you get altitude, you can go out over the ocean for a while and then just turn back into lift band to stay up.

Coastal air is often so smooth and consistent that it's like flying in glass-off all day long. That's what it was like yersterday. Also, the air tends to be a lot denser so the lift can be very good with less wind speed. Great for dancing above the ground and picking wildflowers with your boots.

Jerry

launched at about 3 pm in a nice cycle down the runway. air around field wasn't too bumpy. caught a couple of thermals to about 2000'. then sunk back to 1000' within the next 5 minutes or so under full throttle. eventually got out of the sink and flew over to Robisonia hoping that the town would be kicking off some thermals. Hit paydirt. Still at 1000' AGL took one thermal to 4000' AGL!!! It was not even bumpy but just a nice steady climb never climbing at less then 400 FPM to about 700 FPM max. At 4000', light winds aloft over Robisonia and fuel getting low, shut off engine and coasted back to the field. found some more lift at about 700' AGL just north of field and played around for another 5 minutes or so.Winds were shifty so set my approach up a couple of times till commited. After commited, winds were right down the runway from the west at about 5-10 mph for a soft landing.

--

Brian Stoltzfus

I was able to fly twice while in Arkansas on my family visit.

Saturday, May 18 I joined a number of local pilots, as well as a couple over from Tennessee, at Mount Nebo State Park. Nebo has three launches, facing NE, E, and S. Saturday was NE, so we used that launch just behind the park Visitor Center. Big, wide slot, about twice the size in width and length of Woodstock. Launch winds were good, but soaring conditions were iffy. LZ is a long glide, so when I didn't get immediate lift on the ridge I headed out. Locals told me that tree landings are way too common there, with about 7 in the past two years. Half way to the LZ, over a power line cut, I found a nice thermal and got back to 400 higher than launch twice, but could not sustain or get back to the ridge. Had a perfect no-step in the main LZ with total time of 15 minutes. Brother, sister-on-law, and nephews enjoyed the day on the mountain watching the flying. Flight of the day was Mark Poustinchian in his ATOS, up to 3000' over and around 4 hours.

Tuesday, May 22 looked nice, but most of the locals had to work. I did tempt instructor Tony Middleton to join me with his new (to him) TR3 topless. But then, he does live seven minutes from the park / mountain there in Dardanelle. We watched thermally skies most of the afternoon, hoping for late day magic conditions. The valley never went magic, but we did have ridge lift with occasional small thermals. I launched from the East launch at 5:50, an open slope with sharp drop-off at the end of the run. Easy launch into ~15 mph, and got up to 950' over launch. Flew with a lot of vultures and a few hawks. One bald eagle had passed high over us before we flew. Tony and I shared the ridge and had a great time. Flight lasted 85 minutes, and finished with another great no-step landing. I really liked not embarrassing myself as the unknown visitor.

Lots of helpful and friendly pilots in Arkansas. Beautiful scenery and great location with choice of wind directions. I heartily recommend the site if you are in the area.

Cragin

Yesterday was an epic coastal day -- just what I've been waiting for. Flew for about 5 hours total. Very buoyant air, pretty much straight in an gradually picking up during the day and then switching to northwest and getting strong at the end.

Did lots of touch and go landings at Lemmings. Strong enough to launch and land there repeatedly. Great for practicing big ear landings and then stiff-wind kiting. Got about 1000' over launch, better view of airport and bay, clearer day. Flew furthest north I've ever flown, right next to Fort Funston's Hang Glider launch (and took pictures of it for the hangies).

Great day for daisy-grabbing and lots of low and high flights. Great place to fly when the wind is right.

Pictures to follow when I return.

Jerry

Went to Tollhouse for weekend (Sierra foothills) and flew a one-hour flight in good thermal conditions. Got 1,200 ft over launch. Great campground with facilities -- owned by a local hang-glider pilot. Unregulated site, P3 recommended, don't know about hang rating. Pictures when I return.

Came back yesterday and flew 6 hours at the coast (The Dumps). Very smooth, boaty air. A flower-skimming day -- also able to get up high enough once again to see entire Bay Area and up and down the coast. Landed face first into large patch of daisies once while attempting to make it from one point to another (scratching) without having to walk up from lower road. Another time I was trying to pull my wing up from the side of a slope and fell into a large hole and rolled backward onto my back like a turtle (I have a large harness). Couldn't move for a while. Felt kind of helpless -- somewhat comical. Finally was able to roll over... launched again...

Here's a site put together by one of the local describing Tollhouse:
http://www.flyzephyr.com/tollhouse.htm

Jerry

	previous page	back to top	next page

This page last updated May 30, 2002