Back to Main Page Back to Archive 2002

Index to weather maps

Hangola June 18 - 23, 2002

Flight Reports

Had a great time at Redwing yesterday. Finally got some altitude via towing in my PG thanks to the hardwork of Brian Stoltzfus and Bill Umstaddt. They both spent a lot of time checking and double checking everything and everyone. Look forward to doing this again.

The waiting is finally over....I soloed at Ridgley yesterday! Had 1 checkout tandem & then 5 solos. It felt great to fly at altitude without an instructor.

I've been trying to get here since last December. Now all I need to do for the AT sign-off is to setup my own glider, for tow and have it inspected by Chad or Sunny. Should be able to do that in a few days. Didn't bring my glider down because I didn't expect that stipulation, or for the calm conditions to last so long.

:)

I flew from 7am til about 9am.

Very calm in the morning.

Picked up just a little around 10:30. Still less than

10mph all day.

Ya, I should have bought my wing.

=====

-- Pat F.

I've posted my pics and a video.

Many thanks to towmaster Brian and his sweet rig!

Pics....

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?m=84469295403&n=2040450962

[requires registering with ofoto.com to view]

Video....

http://www.geocities.com/loardzaphron/115-1561_MVI.AVI

Jim

Sunday, stranded on a rock at the top of Woodstock Mountain, I felt as disappointed as the kid on Christmas morning who discovers nothing but coal in her stocking. Although weak, conditions were safe enough. But I hadn't foot launched in over six weeks and the grass in the landing field had rocketed up since my last trip there. My mouth drawn into a thin line, I weighed the possibility of catching my basetube in the weeds (when landing) against the thrill of flying. I opted to wait instead of fly, but I wasn't happy about it.

Paul, on the other hoof, felt fine. He launched fine, and soared fine, all the way down the ridge to Strasbourg, and accomplished his first cross country. It's not that I minded picking him up at a mansion tucked in the hills of Virginia. I'm thrilled for him. I just don't want to be only a groupie.

So, I made the trek to Ridgely yesterday, with the intent of turning my landings - which are mainly on my feet now, say 3 out of 4 - from run-like-hell affairs into more organized, shorter ones. After four tows, including a weak link break, I was fairly pleased. Although my first approach was the short one that I swore to Sunny I would never do again (I lied), I was at least together enough that I could consider hand position and body position and when I was rounding out over the ground.

My fifth tow, conditions started to look promising for thermalling, so I asked if I should fly another pattern or try for some fun instead. Cindy and George said they wanted to watch, so I flew a pattern (this is their fault). My vario reported lift, so instead of focusing on landing, I looked at the sky. Finally, too late, I aimed at my staging area. I still woulda been okay if a plane hadn't decided to do a fly-by right then. I needed to turn off course, since I didn't feel like getting knocked out the sky by the plane's prop wash. But I made the wrong decision, turned away from the runway before thinking, lost altitude. Coming out of the turn, the windsock field was my only option. Unfortunately, I didn't make it.

When I saw that I was aimed straight for the ditch, I pushed out, willing Ginny upward. Nevertheless, my airspeed ran out at the crest of the hill leading into the creek. We briefly hesitated before we plummeted over it, down the slope and into the water.

Everybody ran over but I was standing up. Mud squashed in my bra and ground into my jeans. Black seaweed decorated Ginny's basetube and down tubes. Slime ran from her nose, andmine, too. My vario was having some kind of a stroke so I turned it off. I pulled Ginny's nose from the water, and a frog leapt from under us. (I only wish I was kidding.)

Ginny and I were fine. However, I had to shower, buy a new shirt, throw out my underwear, and change socks. Thankfully, I'd packed spare jeans. My vario had to be dissassembled and dry in the sun and my parachute needed to be repacked. I washed my harness for half a hour but it still has scum pulverized into it. I had to borrow a harness and a vario (from wonderful Chad and Sunny, of course) but I finally got to launch again. Was kinda shaky but didn't land in the creek. The next pattern was better. I tried to follow Sunny's instructions towing -- to be smooth - and pinned off at 1000 feet in a great thermal. Ginny reached for the little cummi cloud above, and at 800 feet per minute, she spiraled upward, until we skimmed the bottom of it at 2800. She is so great. I didn't even have to touch her; she just stayed banked all by herself. Got to watch the bay and the soybean fields and be happy while she flew herself to heaven.

Then the wind started to slap us around and I wasn't sure what to do. I never got close to cloud base before. I flew out of the lift and that was it. I plummeted down to find the wind was gusting strongly. I managed to approach well (though since it was rough I was too chicken to go upright early) and even landed on my feet (the benefit of big headwinds). Definitely time to quit.

By the time I bathed Ginny (oh, she was filthy) and let her dry, packed her, dealt with a hailstorm on the beltway, and arrived home, it was 9:00 PM. When I strolled in, Paul was on the phone with Matthew, laughing, nearly in tears. Explanation: I dubbed myself the "Sky Goddess " a few months ago. Somehow, at the Ridgely fly in, this changed to "Air Bitch". I kinda liked the change - the new name suited me better. But last night Matthew and Paul decided I should be the "Swamp Girl".

The boys need to remember, payback might be painful.

Lauren Tjaden

Got to MFP at 3:00pm. Skies were full of cumies and the only pilots that were enjoying them was Billy Vaughn and Greg DeWolf. I hurried and set up. I'll guess that Tex was pulling me into the air at 3:30. Wild tow! First flight on the Fusion SP in quite a while. Found myself over-controling and PIOing all over the place.

Pinned off and started working weak lift. Really slow climb and significant drift. Noticed Billy's Superfloater setting up to land. DeWolf was just above him. It was flushing to the North.. lucky me.. I was to the South! At 3-3500ft, the climbrate improved and my patience was rewarded with a quick trip to cloudbase.

After only an hour and half, I got cold without gloves and only a T-shirt. Went exploring upwind and got flushed. Not bad.. a very pleasant afternoon.

Terry

I just got back from C.L. I got there about 2 P.M. and waited for the winds to pick up. I was the only pilot there. I had my girlfriend with me to act as a saftey person so I did get to fly. Very light winds. The first flight was a sled run but very smooth and pleasant. The second flight yeilded a 5 minute soaring flight. I didn't feel like setting up the glider again so I called it quits about 6 P.M.

I going to try to talk the girl freind into going tommorow (sunday) as well, so maybe I'll see ya'll there. It looks like the morning is the best time before it crosses from the west in the afternoon.

JD

Kid had a swim meet so I had to suffer through midday bridge traffic to get to Ridgely. Lots of scattered cumulus, light west wind. Sunny said there was moderate, widely-spaced lift. Several hang-gliders circling close to the airport. Finally got set up and on tow at 3:20. Lisa towed me up through some light thermals. At 840 feet I noticed the tug was high and rising so I pushed out a bit to catch up. Broke the weaklink and stalled since I was so nose-high. Headed east to set up for a landing but saw a gaggle just south of the windsock and joined it. Was primarily worried about proper protocol for joining a gaggle, but there was lift! Intermittent (I was blundering around - couldn't really visualize the shape of the thermal, so I was probably flying in and out of it) and "moderate" as predicted, but always there. Slowly drifted east, but comfortably close to the airport for a Falcon. Got to 3200 feet before it seemed to fall apart - all the other pilots scattered searching, but didn't seem to find anything. On the landing, I finally broke the code that I need to keep a hand on the control bar almost until the flare instead of putting both on the downtubes - I just can't comfortably pull in enough from the downtubes alone. Shifting my hands back and forth between the downtube and the cross bar caused a bobble on final, but I flared and landed well. Anyway, I was really pleased with the 2350 foot gain - this is what it's all about! I had 5-10 minutes of thermaling at the Ridgely fly-in, but this was about a half-hour of it. Went back for the rest of my tow and found only sink. Extended my downwind to try and hit the center of the windsock field but found myself on long final over the trees and landed in a sailplane parking place. Got a tag-team 20-minute ass-chewing for being slow on final. Oh well! - Hugh

I arrived at Fishers on Saturday and waited with the others for the magic winds. We waited until 6:30. We all flew and had extended sleds. It was really fun even tho it didn't last long. Have not had any mountain flights lately so I really enjoyed it. Thanks Everyone!!!

Frank Sherman

As was the case last weekend, deep layered east wind and chilly air temperatures aloft combined to produce excellent flying conditions at the Manquin Flight Park. Campers, who had awaken to dense fog, saw abundant and low-base Q pop around 10 AM. As the air temperature warmed during the afternoon, Q based lifted toward its daily maximum of 6500'.

Wind stooges Ray Mitchell on his Eagle and Steve Valdez on his Exxtacy launched behind the truck and tug, respectively, shortly before 1300 and found conditions had not fully developed to where were it was stay-upable. I launched at 1330, released at 2500' after an uneventful tow, quickly found a robust thermal beneath a rapidly developing Q that took me to base at 5100' where I got my face washed, then spent the next four hours hopping Q2Q coring smooth 3-500'/" lift. On about the 3:30 TET mark, having decided to descend from my mile-high perch and land, I encountered another fat 500'/" core at 1500' over the pond, and made one last climb, topping out at 6300' AGL.

Almost everyone soared and flew for as long as they liked, with some pilots setting personal best records for duration.

Thermal Snoopers: Ray Mitchell, Steve Valdez, Chris Cioffi, John Claytor, Jim Kingsley, Josh, Tex Forrest, Jim Carrigan, and four scooter tow students.

JK

was one of the personal best for duration. 2:53, got to 5800'. A very fun day. Most people were having flights in the 1:30 to 3+ hr range.

JK's time and max altitude don't count since he's always the outlier. :>

Chris

Quite the crowd down at MFP. Again.. I know I'll leave plenty of folks out because my mind is getting old and feeble, but the group included: Ray, Chris Cioffi, Jim Keller, Jim Carrigan, Steve Valdez, Tex, Terry Spencer, ... man... I know I'm leaving a ton of folks off my list. I'm gonna have to start making taking roll call part of my log book entry:-)

In any case... I rolled in at about 1000 with cummies already starting to pop. Steve has a few folks taking scooter tow lessons so I went about setting up my Sonic. Got that taken care of and the lessons were still going strong (great conditions for lessons this morning!). But... not to worry. My stomach was encouraging me to go in search of lunch before taking to the air. Terry offered his BMW to me for my lunch run, so not only did I get some air time logged, I got to take his bike for a nice little jaunt. Nice bike... a totally different experience from my Duc, but.... very cool. I may have to get a touring bike one of these day. Thanks again Terry! Next time your down there and I come down on the Duc... its yours for a spin:-) but I digress....

So, after attending to my stomach, I got back and saw that the crowd had grown. No one was taking to the air though. I was finally coaxed into being the wind dummy, so off I went. I think I got to about 1100 off the truck and managed to scratch my way up to a little over 1600 ft, but... I only lasted 13 minutes for my first flight.

Not to worry... I came down, hydrated, and got in line to go again. Ray was the next one off the truck and he had a nice LONG flight (I think the longest flight of the day? Congrats Ray!).

So... flight number two has been entered in my log book as yet another first. Duration: 46 min (previous best was 38), Max Altitude: 4600 ft, and ... it was my first time reaching cloud base! Wow... what a blast. I had SOOO much fun up there. Was interesting stuffing the bar and spiraling down to get away from the cloud and I didn't descend quickly despite my efforts:-) Lots of company on this flight... I think there were 9-10 of us working the same pockets of lift? Very cool. Nice to have company up there (more opportunities to work "right of way" type of issues, though no real issues were had). Anyhoo.... before I knew it, a flush cycle had commenced and down I went.

After hanging out on the ground w/ all the other pilots who'd been flushed, I had a decision to make... start breaking down my glider like many others had decided to do or go again.... Since it was still early in the day, I decided to go again. At 1650, I announced "Go to cruise" to Steve for my third and final flight of the day. Sadly, there was no one but turkey vultures to play with on this flight. I broke the weak link at about 800 ft, but managed to find some meager lift and eventually climbed to 2600 ft. The vultures saved me once when I started getting low, but I was only able to stay aloft for 35 minutes.

All in all... a great day. 1 hour 34 minutes in the air, my first cloud base experience, and 3 more good landings. Now the only question I have to answer between now and next weekend is "Ball M19 or Brauniger IQ Comfort?" Decisions, decisions...

For those who were down there w/ me... thanks for another great day of flying and I look forward to flying with you again soon. For those who weren't there.... come check it out. Great people, great times, and great lift too!

Holly

Pilots in attendance:

Gary, Me, Ken, Brian, Nathan.

Ole Ma Nature wasn't going to cut us a break today. Showed up at 10am to a light east cross in the LZ (0-3mph). Headed up to launch around 11 or so to find 2mph straight down the slot! So much for 5-7 WSW ;) A local NE wind was blowing over and around the mountain. Flying would be delayed.

After a good bit (hours) of hangwaiting/parawaiting, it did go SW@5. We all greatly enjoyed some sleds. The LZ gods claimed one of Nathan's downtubes though. Ken got in an other flight while the HG'ers shuffled cars, but Brian's wing collapsed and snagged a tree (tearing it).

With everyone else gone, me and Gary waited out some ominous T-boomer clouds, debating wether to fly. Fortunately the boomer passed to the North and the winds stayed calm/steady so flew. About 1/2 way down it started to rain. All I can say is that flying into rain SUCKS. Packing up in rain is no fun either ;)

But, all in all, we got to fly... which kicks the crap out of not flying!

Jim

John and myself were getting good flights on Friday, Saturday and today with light prevailing winds. Thermal conditions were very good on Friday and Saturday with cloudtops past 4000ft AGL. Altogether, I logged 4.5h of airtime and had a personal first to fly a thermal together with an adult bold eagle. - very impressive

Regards, Chris

Well, I hear that Saturday was the day. All youse guys who flew that day can thank me for that, as I had obligations that day. It got me motivated to go back on Sunday, even though I was tired and it promised to be HOT, as these things (good days) tend to clump, in my experience.

Small crowd.

Looked very promising; until I got the glider all set-up and ready to go. Thoughs of "who can I get to pick me up if I wanna go somehwere" changed to "guess I'll work on tuning my glider a bit." Next to last step in the set-up phase was discovering that my helmet had somehow become detached from it's customary position (clipped onto the right harness sholder strap) and left somewhere (almost certainly back home). Luckily, I was at a full-service flight park and was able to obtain a loaner nugget-protector in quick order.

Pinned off in next to nothing at 1800' on the first tow to an extended sled. Very smooth tow. Yea, lets play with the glider (and perhaps take a polar later today) kinda smooth. Borrowed some tools and lowered my sprogs one turn to see what effect that might have on the handling. Noticeable reduction in pitch pressure. Perhaps a little bit more responsive in roll, slight reduction in yaw stability (surprise), and increase in spiral instability (surprise). Perhaps. Couldn't tell for sure because it had turned on by my second flight and the good parts of the thermals were a tad bit gnarly. Have to see what I think after a few more flights.

Anyway, blue sky or no, you could stay up pretty much as long as you wanted in the afternoon. 1+55 on the second flight, 4500' MSL or a little more in one that forced its way into the bottom of the inversion layer. Very comfortable t-shirt/shorts flying; even at base. Nice day for touring around the local area.

-- Joe ("Long pants are a crutch that people use that prevents them from perfecting their landings") Gregor

Decided to go to Avonmore on Sunday instead of Fishers. Avonmore is so much closer. Only about 1/2 hour from my house. Arrived at Avonmore Sunday afternoon and Larry Huffman and his wife, Pat Brooks and Pete (new H2 also) were all there. Everyone took sled rides to the LZ but it was fun. Thanks again to Larry Huffman and Pat Brooks for observing for me. Great food at the Lone Star afterwards. Great Day.

Frank Sherman

A work party was held on Saturday at Hyner to cut the launch face. Pilots who showed up were:
T-bone, Robert and Steph, Keith Olena, John Wallen, Will Perez and myself. Afterwards, few of us stuck around to watch a wedding in the setup area and then flew only to be rewarded with doggers...No good deed goes unpunished.

Thanks to everyone who showed up for the work party. Launch was cut low for the PGs' to keep their lines free. Another one is needed this year to clear near the tree line. This should be done after 1st frost.

Rumor has it that John Stewart, LZ/Bar manager is having a 4th of July Show bigger than last year. Anybody who was there knows it was very impressive. C'mon out with the family and enjoy.

Shawn

Saturday the 22nd drew me back to Ridgely for another aerotow flying day. I left Alexandria at 9:30 for the 85 mile drive, and ran into a 5 mile backup approaching the Bay Bridge toll plaza. That put me in Ridgely about 11:30. Later arrivals reported it had only gotten worse as the day progressed.

A moderate crowd of pilots gathered at Highland Aerosports for a day of small, tricky thermals. I launched about 12:30, and never really got higher than the 2,500' that the tow plane dropped me off. However, I did spend over 20 minutes working light punchy lift between 2,000' and 2,500'. I lost those thermals just west of the airport, and was working back toward the field when I stumbled into a small thermal at 1,000 over the house near the Highland display glider. I stayed aloft another 20 minutes, all between 900 and 1,100 in that house thermal. Eventually I sunk down to 700' and headed over to the landing area to be safe. I put the glider into the extended waiting area next to the runway with a clean 1-step landing to close out a 45 minute flight, and walked right back over into line again.

Once more on the launch cart, I was dragged back up to 2,500' and this time found good lift immediately. I worked up to 4,500' spending a lot of time reading the AEROS sign on the top of Mike Chevalier's Stealth as he circled below me.That was fun. Several gliders were in the 4,000' to 4,500' band just west of the runway, with Ellis Kim spending a lot of time flying past me. I stayed with the drift to the north, and at about 4,200 left that region to try to join three gliders I saw about 5,000 northeast of the field. I rushed over to them, and never could find the thermals they had been in. Sinking back down while searching for wispy clouds, I once more turned back to the landing zone. This time I found lift over the fields behind the runway at 1,600' and worked back up to about 1,900'. That didn't last very long, and I had to work back closer to the LZ. I gambled that the trees and swamp would be working next to the field - they were. I played up and down in the 600' to 900' range for nearly ten minutes, for my third low save of the day. I landed in the windsock field reasonably close to the spot, claiming 35 minutes on that flight.

Other pilots did better than I. I heard that Tom McGowan completed a 15 mile out and back trip, and Mike Chevalier and another pilot made it about 28 miles. Steve Kinsley, Mike Balk, Dave Proctor all had good flights. Paul Tjaden flew his Pulse early, and tested Bob Buchanan's Ultrasport late in the afternoon. Lauren flew, as did Jeff Harper, Ken Church, Lenko Kovach, and other Windriders. Alana was there, but I am not sure if she got in a flight. I also met visiting pilot Tom Graham, currently stationed with the Army in Oklahoma, but going through a seven week course at Fort Lee Virginia. Tom has been flying for 17 years, and done a lot of scooter and truck tow. Saturday he was working on his aerotow rating.

Saturday was another fun day in the sky. Good tows, some improvement in my thermalling skill, multiple low saves and satisfying landings. And the drive home across the Bay Bridge was fast and easy.

Cragin

In case you are trying to figure out what a good time would be to cross the bridge on a summer Saturday morning:

8:45 I got stuck in the bridge backup. At that point the backup was at least 2 miles. Next time I'll have to leave the house earlier.

Also, if any of you take the back way through Bridgetown, forget about it for a while. The road is closed before Bridgetown. I think they are replacing/widening the bridge.

-- ellis

p.s. had a good flight, but *still* didn't make it to cloudbase. I don't think i ever will. max altitude: 4500. did hit the top of the hazedome though, just couldn't punch through. time 2 hours.

Just wanted to publicly thank Bob for letting me fly his almost new Ultra Sport.

Chad and Sunny have a 147 they are going to let me fly, but I fit more nicely into the 166 regarding hook-in weight. Really don't know Bob well at all and he marched right up Sat. afternoon and asked if I'd like to fly his glider. Chad had told him I was eager to fly the big US. Pretty nice guy to offer a ride on his spotless new glider to a new H3 with about 20 minutes of intermediate glider time. So of course I turned him down. (Oh sure! I was in my harness and hooked into the US before he had a chance to reconsider.) It was late in the day so I expected a sled or extendo at best. The tow was totally non eventful. Stayed right on the tug with very little effort. Pinned off at 2500 and almost immediately found lift. The US was great in the thermals with light bar pressure and very little high siding necessary. Was also able to really push out and slow down without stalling or loss of control. I guess I'd better not get too far into a "glider review" but I loved it.

I really didn't intend to stay up so long but I'm such a slut for lift and I surprisingly kept stumbling into lots of it. Finally, after about an hour I figured Bob would probably like to get his glider back and go home so I blew off 2000 feet of altitude and (thank the sky Gods) managed a nice 1 step landing.

So thanks again Bob, If you ever need a favor, let me know.

Paul Tjaden

I had a couple of sleds at Fisher on Sunday at the end of the day. It was just on the edge of going magic-- blowing in steady at about 5. I flew along the ridge till I lost about 150' on both flighs before heading out and had no problems reaching either LZ. I landed in the new primary (old tertiary) on the first flight and the secondary on the second flight-- arrived at each LZ with about 350'. Flying over the expanse of trees was actually far less scary than flying over the trees on a sled from Bill's. But it was bouyant end of the day air.

I'd never try a sled at Fisher in the middle of the day when the sun was out. I've hit unbelievable bar ripping thermals, turbulence and sink when flying my hang glider in the afternoon at Fisher. And twice I've kissed the ground after landing. I would not contemplate flying a bagwing in these conditions.

But if it was cloudy and the winds were good, it might be doable mid-day at Fisher. But you might want to send someone else off first to see if the sink monster is lying in wait.

Flight of the day was Carlos Weill with his 15 minutes of soaring out in front of launch.

Matthew

Cragin Shelton wrote:

> Saturday the 22nd drew me back to Ridgely .............I worked up to 4,500' spending a lot of time reading the AEROS sign on the top of Mike Chevalier's Stealth as he circled below me.That was fun. .........

Yeah, I spent a little while struggling and tried running south to another thermal where gliders were really high. Couldn't make it so came back to the thermal over the road, low. Got up to 4600. Dave Proctor was coming back from a foray to the north after not finding lift. We topped out and headed north, spreading out to find lift. Spent the next couple hours jumping cloud to cloud. And we both got the required low save to make it a good XC flight.

Trolling for lift over a big brown field and getting low. A farmer driving a commbine (sp.) saw us, stopped and got out. We waved. I found lift over the road and called Dave over, who was down to 600 ft when he got to it. I was at about 800. We take it all the way to 5300 with the farmer watching. Not something he sees everyday.

At 18 miles out, the clouds dissapeared and the lift began to wane.

About 24 miles north we passed over a grass airstrip and I realized that it was John Williamson's place. I could see a bagged glider and a launch cart. By then the thermals were light and only topping out at about 3000 ft. We jumped thermal to thermal with each topping lower and lower. We both landed seconds apart in the same field, 28.1 miles according to GPS.

MC

	previous page	back to top	next page

This page last updated June 25, 2002