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Hangola August 20 - 25, 2002

Flight Reports

Joe/Karen, Doug,Shawn, & Myself. Semi funky air. Times to 2 hours. Gains to 4400+ feet. Shawn landed at Jacks ( the bar not the mtn. ). I really can't recommend their wings but the beer was delicious.

Hank and I made the long brutal drive through the countryside up to Jack's. Bruce Engin (back from Texas) was coming going up from Leesburg. BVH was meeting a few twos up there and David (Spoons) was there early, chopping at stuff in the slot.

Mostly sleds were to be had. The only H2 (almost H3) that I saw launch was Hank. He did a great job reading the slot conditions and picked the best cycle to take. Very strong run, he coulda launched in a tailwind. He even scored a 20min. soaring flight getting 350ft over!

I saw the rest of the 2's land and they all did well. Half the LZ is alfalfa and the other half is tall corn. Sorta like landing on an aircraft carrier and nobody missed the deck!

Terry

Pretty nice day yesterday at Jack's everyone had sleds EXCEPT!! Terry and Hank. And we must congratulate Howard on his first two mountain flights, Nice job Howard make sure you show that video to Gene

I don't think two wheels and a stomach count for a three point landing( jacks on wed.) But definitely a "no step" landing

George Tutor

Sitting at the office in suit and tie reading e-mail at noon yesterday (didn't read Tuesday - we were out late). Brian's already headed up to Jack's! Scrambled to punch out of work, get home, loaded and made the long haul to arrive at 5. Got a sled, but did nail the launch and landing.

Howard got his first two mountain launches and was really excited - nailed his landings, too from what I could see from launch. Had his whole family there.

Brian and I took pizza to Dave (Spooner)'s to see his geodesic dome house building project, got home at 2. I had to agree with Sallie that this is a form of insanity. Now I understand why schizophrenics don't take their meds...

Hugh

The only things I have to add to the posts are:

1. Much more corn in the field than I've ever seen before, but the landable strips are wider than they appear from launch. We were actually doing most of our landing on the other side of the dirt road, and parallel to it, with the option to turn left and land along a strip if needed.

2. The geometry is too complicated to be worth describing, but I think Howard's first landing demonstrated he probably has the skill to land in any of our fields, so that shouldn't hold him back from trying other sites.

3. There was about a 15 minute window when you could launch and get up. Terry of course launched in it, right after Hank. They both soared, the rest of us sledded. So maybe one of the secrets of a good flight is to launch as close to Terry as possible. In fact, maybe that's why Terry always has good flights, 'cause he's launching as close as you can get to this optimal time.

4. Spoons has a brother. (ulp!)

-Brian.

I remember reading stories of other first mountain flights at Jacks and how unbelievably steep the launch is and that feeling that it is impossible to run down such a steep slope. I felt all of that yesterday as I looked at the launch for the first time. My first launch was not the greatest. Weak run - popped my nose a little. Errors I haven't made on the training hill since my first flights. I think it was a combination of that steep slope and the apprehension I was feeling for my first mountain jump. Anyway, I did manage to get out safely and turned to the right to search for ridge lift - there was none. Turned back around and came the other way - there was none again - so I headed out to land. It was just so great to fly over all those trees and the farm - absolutely beautiful. Came in a little high - did an S turn to burn off altitude and had a one or two step landing - not bad. Now that my first flight was out of the way I wanted to redeem myself for that first launch. Did it all over again and had a nice launch - good run and didn't pop the nose. (Brian had me move my hands down a little lower which helped.) Tried to find ridge lift - once again there was none. Flew out and landed for another one or two stepper. Felt a lot better. What a fantastic experience overall. 8 hours of total driving for 10 minutes of flying, but worth every hour on the road. Many thanks to Brian for observing me - you were very patient and helpful. Thanks also to those who wire crewed. And of course I wouldn't be where I am now if it weren't for Richard Hays - foot launch instructor extraordinaire. Additional thanks to Steve at Blue Sky for the help with approaches and spot landings and Sonny and Chad at Ridgely for working with me on flying techniques at altitude.

Howard Wagner

Jack's yesterday was pretty good. I got 350 over and soared with Terry for a bit. Thanks Terry for taking me for the long ride up! I had a blast.

Took some time off work... sniffed the air, headed to Ridgely. Had the place to myself thursday. As expected, the wind picked up early and made for some trashy towing. No problem, good practice for me :) I was expecting strong winds all day, but to my suprise, they backed off, the sky cleared a bit and the thermals (weak as they were) got organised. Not bad.

Friday, JD and Nick showed up. They brought some improving weather with them. NW winds and some unstable air. Cloudbase was low (2600) to start, but lifted as the day went on. Thermals were 200-300fpm if you could find them. Not a rip-roaring day, but with the variety of conditions and just enough lift, it was extremely fun.

Now I've heard the stories, but have never experienced this till now... I was scratching around for lift, when I blundered into some rather oderous air... my vario starts beeping... "what the?.. Man that smells just like"!?... Holy, Shhhi... I done caught me a cowshit thermal! Bahahahahahaha. It was great! Forget the vario... you can SMELL the lift! It was so easy to stay with it. JD tells me he was riding a sewer thermal last week (AK!). I grew up in farm country, so I'll take a cowshit thermal over that any day ;)

Ellenville's up next :)

Gotta go fly with the King! Hope to see you all there.

Jim

Had a sweet day at Crestline. Very (or relatively) clear air this time. A week it was smog city. Anyway, I was boating around and noticed a fire maybe half mile east of launch. Could see the fire engines on the way. SOP is to get out of the air so I did. A few minutes after I landed there was some old tanker type aircraft bombing it with red stuff. Plus a couple of helicopters and a coordinater (I guess) aircraft. They would get it down to white smoke and no flame but a few minutes later it would be huge flames and black smoke again. Pretty cool to watch. Ringside seat.

As Hoped, when I arrived Ole Mother Ringtown was beaming a warm 15 kt STFI smile. Perhaps the fact that I spent an hour or so giving her face playful nips put her in a kindly mood towards me. My early (1300) launch was rewarded with an easy step climb to 4000' for a friendly face wash. The next two hours were spent boating from cloud to cloud out in the valley. Tops to 4500' over (6200 MSL). Alas, Ole Mother was niggardly with her charms, favoring the Johnny Come Latelies with a mixed bag of modest rewards. The supplicants included. Tom, TR, Jess, Christian, Kramer, Russ G, and myself...........Bob.

Here's a report from PG pilot Fred Hoffman who went to Woodstock today. Wow, Woodstock was great!!!!! Very good thermals from 2pm to about 5:00, I was able to get 2 hours in and was as high as 2100' over launch. Valdmir I think must have flown the longest (about 3 hours), and two HG's must have been up just as long....I also can report the tops of thier gliders were very clean. Stange was that there was a overcast layer most of the day. At launch the wind was strait in at 3-10 mph and it died by 5pm at altitude and in front of launch the wind had about a 10mph north componet. Matthew (I should have gone with my original call, of Karen and Matthew)

Nelson Lewis called me today (Saturday) to tell me he got 110 miles yesterday flying from the NW launch at Tobacco Row and flying towards Suffolk, VA. He said it took him 5:45 hrs as there wasn't much wind. He was flying with a newbie pilot who did 50 - 60 miles. Yee-haw!!!

This is the longest August flight I know of in Region 9. Nice job, Nelson!

Jim

Took two friends - a house-mate and an old grad school buddy to Ridgely yesterday. Told the second guy, who's always late, that he'd be flying at 2:30 then scheduled him for 3. Worked fine.

Nemer's a big guy, with lots of inertia, and he'd been out drinking till 3:30 am the night before. Took an hour and a half to wake him up. If I'd've known he'd pull such a damn fool trick I'd've warned him against it, but as it was he'd have to suffer the consequences.

So we get up there and wait for John to arrive as I set up the glider. John pulls up just in time to see Scott (of Scott and Ayesha) pile it in right after take off. Turns out he had a little shaky launch, then hit a wad of sink and never had a chance. It hadn't rained in a while, so he raised a righteous dust cloud which exxagerated the impact. As Scott put it "I looked up after slamming in and saw nothing but white. I thought 'Omigod - I'm dead!' Then the dust cleared." Suffered nothing but a broken downtube. Not a scratch on him.

Ayesha was kicking butt high in the air waiting to be joined by Scott. She missed the launch, so when she looked down just saw him hanging there far below. She knew she was doing well, but this was ridiculous. Eventually figured out he never made it off the ground.

Then Nemer goes up. Great sky, should have an amazing time. When he lands, John and I go scampering up to him. "How was it?" Nemer holds up an index finger and says quietly "I'll tell you in a minute." He stepped out of the harness, solemnly walked around behind the glider, leaned over and vomited. Then he said he really enjoyed the first five minutes. The thermalling demonstration did him in. He sorta camped out by the hose for the next half hour.

So John's seen a glider pile into the ground, and a tandem student come down and toss his cookies. I slap him on the back and tell him he's next. He went over without the slightest sign of hesitation. Impressed the hell out of me. When he came down he liked it, but wasn't addicted.

After all this entertainment I finally went up. All the clouds had dried out overhead and hit nothing but sink until I was downwind of the field over the silos at about 1000 feet. Light lift, but wasn't worth drifting downwind for to land a few miles away. I bailed and landed.

We went and dropped Tad's car off past Denton where he had landed about 15 miles out. Even after explaining the mathematics of glide ratio and wind drift Nemer had a hard time believing such things were possible - guess he was too sick to pick up half the lesson info.

So we were driving home stuck in traffic when Nemer suddenly starts giggling. "What?" I demanded.

"I really wish I coulda seen your face after you asked how the ride was and I leaned over and threw up!"

-Brian.

Just got back from vacating with the family in OBX, NC. Before I left, I was told that if I returned without some HG post, I'd be drummed out of the corps, if I haven't been already. For what it's worth, here it is:

Not having flown in...a year?...I opted for some tandem training at the flight park. It's weird how much easier it is to get away to fly when I'm on vacation than when I'm at home. Did two flights with a guy named Monty in very, as he termed it, "gnarly" conditions. The wind at altitude was blowing 180 degrees from the wind on the ground, which was a right quartering cross. Towing out of the runway over the trees was a really treat. Watch the tug get banged around, count three seconds and hold on. Repeat. Managed to tow through that junk uneventfully. Set ups and landing were ok but the switching wind was a challenge.

On the second flight, the instructor did the old "hide the release trick" forcing me to go to the secondary, which I did without hesitation. But I was thinking about this afterward. I've taken flight training in various forms of aircraft and you kind of get used to these tricks. There was no doubt in my mind what was going on when I looked over and didn't see the release. But I can't help wondering, if this were a real situation, how long would I spend searching for the release? Hopefully not too long. But hey, that's flight training, huh?.

Next day flew with Johnny. Conditions on the ground appeared the same as the day before. They weren't really mellow training conditions. We had a little chat about the conditions, and whether or not they were conducive to training, and whether I would recongize the full educational benefit from my flight if the conditions were too strong, etc. etc. I decided, WTH, let's fly. Turns out, although the conditions appeared "gnarly" from the ground, the tow out was very smooth. In fact, the whole flight was smooth including landing.

Johnnie instructing me to tell Sunny and Chad that, and I qoute:

My flying on tow was "excellent"
My flying in general was "excellent"
My landings were appropriate for a Hang 2.

So there you have it. Kicked off some the the rust. The trick now is to make it to Ridgley and capitalize on this.

Dave (OK, Matthew, happy now?) Z

I arrived on top at 10:15am to stfi@ 12mph. Joe and Karen thru me off by 11:10am and I was at base by noon, then 3400'over. It wasn't a difficult climb but I must have been real close to trigger temp as it had its moments. The clouds seemed to dry up really quick so you had to look for the whisps and go for them. If you went to a cloud that was already partially formed you usually showed up too late.

About 2hrs into my flight I crossed the valley out front and climbed back up to 3000'over. With thoughts of flying to Ringtown and joining the rest of the gang and then trying to coax them over the back and land at the sac. Unfortunately Old Man Sac would have nothing to do with that as he graciously reeled me back home where he sent me down gently for a 2.5hr flight with a max gain of 3750'.

As I was leaving Joe had just landed, he was up for awhile but claimed he didn't like the air. And Jackie W had just launched and was climbing out.

Doug.

Having been otb at the Pulpit only twice, I'd like to put the following question to the more experienced pilots. As previously noted there was a dearth of lift in the North Cross at the Pulpit. During my flight however there was some evidence of forming cumulus clouds under the high scuzzy cirrus. I was fortunate enough to get about 1200 over launch off of a low save near the top of the LZ. The drift to the SSE was strong and each attempt to gain additional altitude by pushing back out in front of the ridge was futile.

The thermals themselves seemed to be getting fatter and sweeter at elevation, and it appeared that I could easily climb at least another 500 feet, and perhaps much higher in any of the three that I was in. The "decision" thermal, while not particularly strong felt like a ladder to the base of the moderately developing cummies. Even in the worst case I know I could clear the back ridge, although I might soon be in rotor hell when I did so.

Here is the question, directed particularly toward any pilot who has dealt with the backside rotor encountered by entering the valley less than 500 (worst case) over the ridge. Would the hypothetical decision to jump under those conditions have been a bad bet? I'm fundementally interested in knowing if the potential rotor could have been serious enough to pose a significant risk of tumbling or breaking the glider or resulting in an unusually difficult approach to one of the numerous very large fields in the valley.

I appreciate any respondent's desire to err on the side of conservatism and will continue to add my own additional margin for error regardless of the responses. I will also respect the privacy of any response made offline.

Thanks,

Dan T.

PS, I enjoyed a great technical flight in challenging conditions. I wish ya all coulda seen the low save.

PPS, Thanks for the poem Matthew, you are a good sport!

Ridgely was quite nice on Sunday. I had my best climb rate ever at well over 900 fpm on the 30 second averager for 4 complete 360s....Norm said he had even better lift. I flew to Salisbury for 40 miles and Norm on his second XC of the day flew 36+miles to near Millsboro, DE. Had a couple of controlled encounters with cloud suck that was actually quite fun.

Remember, when in doubt......TOW! Speaking of the Pulpit, I am currently in Shippensburg visiting my Grandmother for a week and am hoping to fly there. I will be here until Sept.3rd and would love some company. Actually, I could use an observer considering how long its been since I foot launched. If anyone is seriously considering it call me at 410-708-4784 as my internet time will be very limited this week.

Ric

Ralph and I were quite happy with our sleds to the secondary in Falcons. Viva Los Falconeros!

Ralph - After checking my logbook, I now claim 3 good mountain landings out of 7, but only 2 in a row.

- Hugh

I flew to Denver and rented a car last week to visit friends and relatives. Brought harness and release. Tried to fly in Fort Collins at a tow operation that my cousin knew where it was. Turned out to be a sail plane port. Blown out for HGing anyway, so we watched the sail planes sled in the smoky air. Went and looked for the HG tow op, stopping to ask several times. Got the usual "Not sure where they take off from but I see 'em over there" response. Monday looked doable, Tom called me with the right info but it was too late, we had gone to see Estes Park.

Drove to Gunnison Tuesday and stayed with Bob Lowe who is recovering from his most recent crash. His garage and yard looks like a Ghost Buster junk yard, he's totaled 2 in the past year. One from the recent spin and the other from a vehicle rollover. Rusty Whitley was nowhere to be found so I couldn't borrow a glider. He took me up to Willow Creek launch and went arrowhead hunting. Several "flaking pits" were near launch and one could pick up chips from arrowhead production. Bob found a big arrowhead after about 20 minutes of hunting. But the tip was broken off and it's bad juju to take those things so he left it there. Went mountain biking the next day and for a swim in Blue Mesa reservoir. But the reservoir was full of algae so I didn't swim.

Went to see Crested Butte the next day. Beautiful restored old town with a launch overlooking it.

Drove to Salida and showed up at Jim Zeiset's ranch, the home of Monarch Manufacturing and the Green Team. Borrowed a Ram Air and rode up to Villa Rosa launch with JZ, Zoardog, Tip Rogers and AJ Murray, a woman pilot from New Zealand. After much knuckle busting due to very tight battens, I launched. And almost right away I knew I had a problem. The glider would nose over like it was stalling even though I was well above stall speed. I tried to turn in a thermal twice and the glider would go into a spiral dive. So I headed out to land turning on final at 300 ft so I wouldn't have to turn it low. I talked to the owner of it that night, he had gotten so scared by it that he hadn't flown it in 3 years. So it wasn't just me, it was the Ram Air from Hell, the one that gave them all a bad rep.

Played tourist for the weekend and on Sunday spotted a bag flying over Copper Mountain Ski resort. Watched him land and stopped to talk. The ridge was littered with bags. One specked out to 15K and went over the back. Got home in the wee hours. MC ---

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This page last updated August 27, 2002