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Hangola April 6-9, 2003

Flight Reports

Bob can tell a better tail. I'll just say it was "I need a cigarette now" good. :)

Great to be out with everyone again sharing great air.. what a way to kick off the season! Jim

The sac was workin good today. Many faces wore perma grins as the gliders trickled in the L/Z one by one after a full day of soaring. Launches began, well you would have to ask Bacil I think he was at the Klingerstown Gap before I even got the glider of my truck. The second wave launched by noon and continued the rest of the day. Altitude gains of 3000' over and flights of 2+ hours were bagged. Lotsa soar muscles in the L/Z.

Hey Jesse did you and T.R. fly Jonestown today??

Anybody fly Little Gap?

Doug.

The switch is on at the Sac..!!!! Great airtime and big smiles in the LZ. Everybody got what they came for------airtime, and there was plenty for everyone. Even one late arrival, Christian, soared for quite some time @ 2500 AGL.

Present were:
Bill Buffam
Doug Rogers
Lloyd Wilcox
Jim Rooney
Bob Beck
The Gorries
Gary (forgot your last name, sorry)
Pat F.
Shawn MacDuff
Bacil
Christian Titone
Lenko Kovach
Tom Gartlan
Jeff Byryle (did I spell that right?) Great to see you out again.

I landed in the west LZ and looked back up at the ridge and there was a gaggle (maybe 6-7) of pilots circling right over launch. Too Cool..!!!

It was great to see so many people out flying the Mts. again.

Thanks Shawn for all the help on launch with our new Sac pilots, Gary and Tom.

Now they are calling for snow tomorrow. :(

Dave

Arrived 9A with driver in tow. Jim Rooney already there. Already soarable. Rang up Joe and Karen Gorrie on the cellphone for a wire crew. Launched around 9:45 AM into 12 to 18 MPH straight up the slot. Got up easily and headed east to my customary remote start point. Fought a NW cross all the way back to launch. Told my driver to start the chase. Made it down to the Klingerstown Gap. The air was very rowdy the whole flight. Spring air. Down at the Gap found little lift. Stepped in a pothole and got below the ridge. On the way out to land got juked all over the place. Driver was waiting at the Klingerstown Market and got me quickly. Around 7 miles.

Back at launch many arrivals from the Philly club: Bob Beck, Doug Rogers, Shawn MacDuff, Tom Gartlan, Dave Fink, Bill Buffam, Lenko Kovach, and a few others I didn't know. Bob was the first of the Philly crowd to go, followed by Doug, Shawn, and Bill. I quickly set up again and launched after Bill into similar conditions like the first flight. Got up easily, flew a little ways east, turned around, and told my driver let's try it again. Air still very rowdy. Crossed Klingerstown Gap with ease. Had to work a bit to cross the Pillow Gap. Almost nailed a redtail hawk thermalling above the Gap. Turning back towards the mountain I was startled by a redtail head on rolling inverted not but 10' in front of me and diving a few feet below me. Crossed the Pillow Gap and headed towards my nemesis, the "saddle" a few miles from the river. This "saddle" has whupped me 3 times in the past 3 years, causing me to land at its base. Not this day. Crossed it with a little bit of effort, and headed towards the river. Didn't find much and put down in a nice huge field at Paxton. Driver arrived 5 minutes later. 18.5 miles.

Bacil

Congrats Bacil. We all had sleds at Bill's (me, Karen, Ellis, Chris McKee and Mike McDonald-- I had 3 sleds... all in my bag... and I did my first forward launch at Bill's). It switched to the East at 3:00 as predicted but never got strong enough for ridge lift and thermals were itsy-bitsy if at all. Sparky showed up but didn't get to fly because he had to leave early. Mark C. showed up after 5 flights at Smithsburg but decided he was to tired for a sled. Big thanks to both Mark and Sparky for helping out and running retrievals even though they didn't fly. We also saw a HG pilot leaving Breezewood when we stopped for gas at the Sheetz-- silver truck. Any idea of who it was???

I also heard it was boomin' at Manquin and pretty good at Ridgely. Oh well, can't win them all.

Matthew (we'll make it to the Sac one of these years, of Karen and Matthew)

Went to Ridgely to practice approaches with the Eagle in late day calm conditions. First attempt was a mess - I was too high and used up every square inch of the wind sock field (and then bellied in). Second attempt was better. My third flight was the best. I launched at about 5:30 and managed to work some weak thermals for a 30 minute flight. My approach and landing were much better. Cragin was there giving me good advice and encouragement. Also, saw Joe Gregor and Tom McGowan. Lots of others there, but I had never met them. Howard

Glad to hear that you guys had a good time! Yeah, T.R. & I did fly Jonestown. We didn't launch 'til 2-2:30 and T.R. got in a goody that he LEFT at 2G cuz his speaker-mike is screwed-up and he didn't want to go X-C w/o some sort of communication. He didn't think of the contingency plan that we (sorta) have. Anyway, I got a goody right offa launch to about 800 over but then lost it and hadda go lookin'. Kept lookin' for a big, solid one , but never did find it. Don't know what kinda air you guys had, but the air here was RATTY w/ STRONG bullets that would just lift one wing hard and put you into a slipping roll. Ya did a "Ye-Haw" then tried to find it again. We put a lot of work into our relatively short flights before we both got flushed in what appeared to be a massive (we were about a mile apart) sink cycle, but it was hang gliding, and it was fun. We even went up to look at it again, but it was marginal w/ little direct sunlight so we opted to drink beer. If I don't CYA sooner, CYAs at Hyner.

It was windy. It was crossed. It was cold. I had a great time!!! It sure was nice to see so many people at the Sac...I thought Joe was going to pee his paints.

Everybody had good, safe flights. Bacil made it to the river (his first launch was early even on Daylight Savings Time) Gary and Pat both flew the Sac for the 1st time. Jeff Beyerle made a cameo appearance. Fink's glider is all tuned up. Doug showed off his tan. Karen had a low save over the field. Lloyd was so gracious to launch everyone. Yah00Jim filled the valley with "Yahoos" Tom Gartlan filmed the launches from the slot. Bill and I collected waivers. Bob gave us words of wisdom from his mother: 1.Launch into the wind. 2. Land into the wind. 3. Never loan money to friends. 4. Never winddummie. (Five minutes later he windummied for us)

It was a great spring/summer/fall but it went so fast, now I'm dusting off my snowboard getting ready for another long winter.

Lots of bagwings and a few stiffs took to the air at Little Gap yesterday, first launches were around 3:00 and the hangies went to about 2-3K over, bags to about 800 over, in strong lift. Magic happened about 5:30 with one PG and one HG still in the air, they stayed up until the sunset around 7:45PM. Good time had by all and followed with a few brews at Linda's place.

Gerry

Had a pretty nice teaching day at Smithsburg on Sunday. Wind was cross at times from the North but would straighten up quite often allowing my students to get up to 11 flights! Two first timers had a good day getting a number of flights and seemed positive about continuing in hang gliding. Let's hope. Other students were working on their skills and Daniel passed his H2 flying skills! Thrilled about that. Conditions got poor around 5:00 PM so we packed up. Smithsburg is such a nice hill, sure wish it was available all year!

- john middleton

Great day at the Sac! Thanks to all for all the help & advice. It made for a great first flight at the Sac.

Gary Cargen

Sled Ride City!!! I had a good strong launch and stuck the landing, other than that...I was sinking out the moment I left terra firma. Lift was virtually non-existent, 2 really tight thermals. Tried to hook the first one, fell out the back side almost immediately, maybe a 270 in lift. The next one, I just pushed out hoping but no luck. Good approach, good landing. Nuff said...

Christopher McKee

Thanks to observer Shawn Macduff, Dave Fink, Lloyd Wilcox & Jim Rooney for throw-in Gary Gargan & I off the Sac, for the first time, yesterday. Lookin forward to doing it, next time, with my glider ;)

It was great to watch & help launch over 12 pilots into the slot. Even better to see them catapult up at the slots edge. Nice to see Karen Gorrie save herself from the sink monster.

-- Pat F.

Arrived at Ridgely shortly after noon to see the tugs in the hangar, no gliders in view anywhere, and only a few guests hanging out at the tables. Winds were strong and 90 cross.

Eventually Chad ran the tug up for a wind check. 20+mph, 90 cross, at (my guess) 1200' at 1 pm. We waited more.

At 2 I set up, following Tom McGowan's lead, because it sure was supposed to get good, eventually.

Launched at 3:15. Weak link broke at 1150'. Didn't get into the stuff that broke the link, but over the swampy area caught one at 750 that I rode back up to 1500. That felt good. Lost that one, and landed with 15 minutes total. Winds spent all afternoon switching back and forth through a 180 degree arc, so deciding on a landing pattern was always a challenge. Nailed my landing on the grass strip.

Launched again at 4:15. Made it to altitude for a normal pin off. Lots of sink. Found three light lift areas as I went through 2000, 1200, and 800, so I got it extended for 19 minutes total. This time was late on the flare, so did a wheels/knees ending. boo.

Others on hand for the day: Tom McG, Steve Kinsley, Joe Gregor, Scott & Ayesha, Howard Wagner, Steve Padgett, Jason. Joe flew away. All others landed locally. Not a super duper day, but fun to be out flying.

Cragin

Always better to be lucky than smart I guess. Lauren and I flew at Manquin yesterday (a site we'd never flown before) and had a great day. Because we learned to fly at Ridgely and like the staff there so much, if it looked like a tow park day, we'd always go there. Yesterday was different cause I needed to meet Vince from North Carolina to pick up my new glider (more about that later), and Manquin was on the way home.

We got to Manquin around 1:00 to find Terry and Holly setting up and Steve W. trying not to lose his RC glider that he couldn't get down out of the active sky. To make a long story short, it was damned good. I was one of the first to launch and got 1.5 hours and about 4,100. Could probably have stayed up longer but got dumped trying to cross streets. I was dying to go XC (the lift in the streets seemed really consistent) but the drift was going to take me straight into Richmond. I tried going upwind and could make some progress but decided I'd never get any real distance going that way flying my US. It was then that I tried crossing streets but the sink was pretty amazing and that's when I got too low and had to land.

Conditions were starting to get light so Steve and I decided that I'd probably be able to survive a tow on my new toy. It's a very lightly used, red, black and white Litespeed 5 and it is gorgeous. The flight started pretty shaky (now I really know what a U.T. tow is -- ugly and terrifying) but things went much better after that. I actually managed to find some late day lift and got a half hour and pulled off a no stepper to top it off. Loved the new rocket ship!!! It will take a couple of flights to get my timing right. I had some problems with PIO's when I pulled on the VG and went for lots of speed but I think this is gonna be a good one. Until I feel more tuned in to the Litespeed, I'll probably keep the US around to fly in difficult conditions but If anyone out there is going to need a really nice Ultra Sport 166 in the near future, give me a call.

Lauren was getting used to her new harness (thanks to Steve Wendt for helping her get it adjusted properly and for lots of other help during the day) so she didn't manage to get up in the "good air" but still managed 30 minutes on one flight. Terry got higher than me as usual. Holly had several great flights including a couple on an UltraSport she was demo'ing. John Claytor had a nice long flight and several other local pilots had good flights. A wonderful day that definitely made up for my embarrassment over all my sleds at Ridgely a couple of weeks back.

BTW, thanks also to Tex for pulling us into the lift and for not "giving me the rope" on my first tow on the Litespeed when I was trying my best to kill us both.

Paul Tjaden

Congratulations Daniel on getting your Hang 2. I saw some of your flights and they looked great.

Smithsburg was fun. I only had two training flights. Totally out of shape. I waited for good cycles. Launched mostly in straight in, but it was light (~3-5 MPH) had to run. That is actually one of most fun parts for me. Running, keeping the nose down until I get enough airspeed, pitch up gradually, then leave the earth for a few seconds. First landing was into a 5-7 headwind, 3 stepper. Second landing was into dead air. Ran it out for about 5-8 steps. Love that landing field. You should have seen all those streamers and wind socks. Every LZ should have that many.

Mark C., was there when I arrived. He had multiple practice flights. Ellis got there a little later and kited and bagged it. Mike ? bagged it. It is always fun to watch both Paragliders and Hanggliders in the same day.

I don't know where today's great soaring weather came from but it was ON! The only other times I have seen an inversion swept out here was after a storm or really high winds. It just tiptoed out on its own I guess. Once flushed, it left dry super unstable air. Launch conditions cycled between the ugly cross of a prevailing east wind and 5 minute straight in smooth thermal cycles. Needless to say that's when I went for it. I hooked it right on launch and soared up and over the mountain road. Some spectators stuck around to watch my launch and they were looking up in awe. I thought about buzzing them but couldn't waste such primo altitude. I felt pretty stylish since I had never hooked the launch thermal before. It gave me 1k before I moved on. I took two laps to the Alternator and back then flew far east into the head wind. 2 Alternator loops and a trip to Carpinteria and back was good for 45 miles.

Kev C

Flew Kagel today.
Couldn't hook up with Rob to fly Marshall, so I headed up to Fresno and flew Kagel (3500msl 2k+agl?). Missed the boomin part of the day, but it stays soarable out here till around 5 or 6pm. No big gains, but pretty reliable thermal activity to a couple hundred over. NICE rock outcroppings on the spines here make for awesume house thermals. Hopefully I can sneak out from my work obligations and fly again tomorrow. The weather for early next week is looking 50/50 and changes every day. Here's hopin it works ;)

Kagel's closer to LA than Marshall. The rode up to launch is LONG (45min), but once in the air it's sweet. Marshall's the better site, but I'm not gonna cry if I wind up at Kagel again. Joe Greblo's great btw.

Some of us are planning a May trip out to Marshall. Come join in the BooWah! California flyin is a hoot.

Looks like a good weekend shaping up back home.
Have fun guys!
Jim

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This page last updated May 2, 2003