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Hangola April 30 - May 4, 2003

Flight Reports

Hey folks,

I decided to try and squeek in some truck tows yesterday eve. I knew with the 90 cross that it would be questionable given my current skill level. I called Tim and met him down there about 4pm. As always, I'm the last to finish setting up or breaking down, gotta work on that (read: get there earlier).

I got 3 tows in. The first was uneventful, good experience at my level with the 90 cross. On the second one, I made my way back down to the other end to prepare for landing and was circling & doing S turns over the pond (& the other field says Steve :o). I felt a few burbles but don't know enough to say whether it was from riding the lift from the trees or from small thermals. I watched Steve drive all the way back down, park, get out and observe. It was so cool being able to stay up that long. It was very different trying to judge the final glide from the West. I came up a little short on the second & third landings. I made the field but was not as close to target as I wanted. The last tow was somewhat knarly for the first 250 feet. The rest went well. Good experience but I'd rather have smoother air for now.

Tutt tutt, looks like rain and wind for the next several days. Looking forward to the next flight.

Rance

Howard, Gene, Sparky, and I met up with hopes for a small flying window today at the Pulpit. We all anxiously watched the skies fearing the OD that was possible but never materialized. Winds were straight in and when a small cycle of punches and cottage cheese left the air I launched. It was easily soarable and I got right up. The thermals were light but super fat. I wasn't 100% dialed to the glider and couldn't milk dry the occasional bubbles. It wasn't an issue, I was having so much fun flying the CSX. Definitely the most fun glider I have ever gotten my rocks off with. That thing handles amazing for such a big wing. So light, so precise, so FAST. Howard got up later and joined me for awhile before the winds switched through a north cycle and the lift shut down. We met up again in an LZ thermal. Sparky was content driving having flown his PG all morning. It had to be a kick seeing us all pumped up with Perma Grins molded to our faces. I just couldn't shut up about it. They must have been relieved when I finally fell asleep in the car. Kev C

It was another good lesson for me in not pre-judging the conditions or flying day. All the dire predictions never came to pass and it actually turned out to be a great day to fly. It was also a good learning experience as Allen analyzed the sky and conditions with us and talked us through making responsible flying decisions. Lots of fun. Kevin had a great flight and landing with the CSX. Howard

Got on launch about 3:30pm to find it L&V to N, E, SE and even W. Got out a nice big fresh worm after watching Yuli sled with an east cross and gave it my best cast. Somewhere between launch and the zinc LZ I hooked a nibbler swimming west. He spooled me to about 2k and had to cut him loose due his swimming too far west of where I wanted to be. Not a single bite after all the way to the LZ. Good day to fish though. Tomorrow could be better. Huge party at Kirks starting at 9:30am tomorrow. Looks great for skyin out. jeff

I showed up at the fun house about 9 PM Saturday, arriving in time for fireworks and a somber ceremony, the burning of Chad's Stealth. Wood pallets and kerosene fueled the pyre. For about 10 minutes nobody said anything, just watched it burn. A great fireworks display by Bruce Statatis followed. Partying till the wee hours.

Sunday started cloudy and windy, clearing in the afternoon. Checked the remains of the Stealth, not much left. A little tubing and blobs of molten aluminum. Flying began around 2:30. Launched at 3 and got an extendo. Went again at 5 after the wind had died down. Easily soarable with abundant lift to the south of the field, thermals to 3000+ with one pilot getting to 4500. Stayed up until I got cold and landed at 6:10.

MC

It was a good weekend to be at Ridgely on all sorts of different levels. For what it's worth, here's the flying stuff (as well as I can remember)...

Sat started with low clouds and wind. Sometime in the afternoon, the clouds started breaking up and John Williamson showed up with his dragonfly. It wasn't booming, but then it wasn't blown out either. The weather was defying forecast. Before the day was out, we had a nice blue sky which proceeded to be a nice clear night for Chads memorial.

Sunday started off breezy then turned roudy. Thermals were popping but they were very narrow. Most pilots reported not being able to turn in them... sink prevailed more than not. I did hear that one pilot rode one up to 5k though. The return of the yellow tug to the field was one of the highpoints of the day.

The longer you waited Sunday, the better it got. By the end of the day it was soarable to 4k+ in big marshmellowie lift.

The flying was good, the people were better. Too many to thank, too much to say. See ya all next weekend :)

Jim

I have all kinds of stuff to chat about. I have been too wracked with grief to consider flying, much less to consider something less rewarding like writing. Doing the dishes, crawling out of bed, and making a living has been enough challenge. But the time has come.

About Chad's amazing Viking send-off: Chad had the uncanny ability to be the best at most of the things he tried, and though you can't credit the send-off to him, it was nevertheless the most special, perfect event. For me, the weekend was more a time of healing than for grief. I would have had to be colder than Minnesota in winter to not cry when his glider began to smolder, then flame like a torch and finally melt. But I got to see my old friends, too, and hug them. I got to play with a fire extinguisher. I even got to play with sparklers, though I burned holes in my expensive Windbreaker jacket. I whirled around and shrieked with the sparklers, but then I was on fire and it was kinda funny except for the coat. Think massive drinking and water fights and a big bonfire and grilled steaks. Bruce Satatis and the boys staged a huge fireworks display while Chad's glider disappeared (forgive me for leaving out other key people who helped, like Jeff).

What I really want to say: Ok, the truth. I love flying, but I don't want to pay the ultimate cost for it. I don't want to see another time like this last few weeks, ever. If there is a victim, I want it to be me, because it would be easier.

Nevertheless. I don't know if I can live without flying. Paul and I always talk about how perfect we are for each other, but after a few weeks on the ground, we were both considering divorce. I flew yesterday, really late because it was rowdy and it has been 3 weeks since I last flew, a longer layoff than since I was in my cast last summer. I thought it would be too late to find any lift but I wanted the wind to abate. I flew Woodstock mountain the day after Chad died, but I wasn't demonstrating good skills or judgement. I was in a stupor. I was crying on launch. I needed some time to recover. And then yesterday, I needed it to be easy.

Adam dropped me in a bug-fart, and I thought that it was a miracle when my vario began to sing, but my first flight was an extendo and my second half an hour. Not brilliant but I wasn't concentrating. I watched the sun slide into the bay and whispered to Chad that I loved him for giving me such a gift. I saw the Decathalon below me and watched Ginny's wings against the sky.

I don't want to disregard the risks of flying. After all, if pilots like Chad and Terry can die, what hope is there for me? But yesterday, I found my soul again. Though reality always butts in. I hurt my knee landing. My timing isn't so good without flying a few times weekly, and I whacked. Not bad, just a beak, but I can't walk very well today. Hopefully it is just the swelling instead of real soft tissue damage that is hampering me.

Enough of that. Later yesterday, after flying, Adam let me climb on his bike behind him, and we raced Bruce around the taxiway. It was embarrassing when his bike coughed - because it was cold - and Bruce beat us in his van. Being beat racing a van when you are riding a hot bike is like having a pre-schooler outdo you on the computer. But it was funny to hear Adam say I should hold on because we were going to go fast. That is exactly what Chad used to say.

As much as I love the flying, it's you guys that keep me hooked. The engine block cracked on the yellow tug, right after Adam and Sunny planned on their big re-opening. Russell Brown, his great wife, Laurie, and Jim drove up here from Florida - not as representatives of Quest, but as friends- with the engine block from the red tug Chad brought to Quest, to try and solve the problem. They worked and worked and finally the yellow tug fired up yesterday. We all clapped. Then a bolt off the landing gear came off in a test run and nicked the prop, but they got that fixed, too. I got to fly behind it.

I just got off the phone with Larry Huffman. He called to say if I ever needed to talk that he was there. That it was no bother. About what the risks really were. I chatted with Pete Lehmann earlier this week. I don't even know him well but I figured he knew more about the risks of hang gliding than most, so I called him. He spent half an hour on the phone with me, and he didn't even sound annoyed. I'm trying to say thank you, to all of you. To Ellis and Laurie and Cindy, and Pete and Russell and Sunny. To Lisa. To George. To all of you. Cindy was laughing last night, saying you knew you had to cut off the liquor when people started saying oh man, I love you guys. But I haven't been drinking and it's still true. Thanks for the sky and the parties and the love. Lauren

Just got back from France... not the best flying trip ever. 11 flights for me and 3 for Karen-- mostly sleds and extendos and one 1:20, 3K over flight 6 miles up a ridge and back at Col de Bleine for me. Col de Bleine is the best site there but we didn't fly it till the next to last evening and the last day. It has a reputation as an XC only site and no one wanted to go there if they didn't have a driver. But it's a great site overall with a huge LZ at less than a 3 to 1 glide from launch and only a ten minute drive from LZ to launch. And it's only a twenty minute drive from Greolieres where we were staying and everyone was flying. (At Greolieres you can hike up to a 600' launch and there's a shuttle that will take you to this low launch for 4 dollars and the high launch (2200') in the morning for 7 dollars.) So everyone hung around Greolieres.

But if we had gone to Col de Bleine at the beginning of the week it would have been a great flying trip. We also tried to fly Gourdon (an impossibly beautiful site ovelooking a castle and village perched high on a shear cliff face with the sea off in the background). But cloud base was too low for our tastes the first day we went there. Went there early the next day to beat the clouds but got sidelined while checking out the LZ and watching approaches. It's a tight LZ and one guy didn't quite make it. We spent an hour helping to dig him out of the trees and then missed the flying window as the clouds came in and whited out launch and the entire valley by the time we got up to launch.

At Greolieres it was nothing but sleds. No valley thermals and no actual ridge lift during our visit. The only way to stay up was to fly with your ass less than ten feet off the rocks and soar the heat coming off the rocks. Too dangerous for us. One guy was not so lucky and had a partial collapse while doing this and crashed back into the mountain. He had to be medivaced off the mountain after a rescue team retrieved him. Also, the LZ is total chaos. A school eats up a third of the field. Kids fly kites and in the middle of the field and people ride bikes and play fetch with their dogs. And unlike in the US where pilots move right off the field after landing, pilots there will land and continue to kite around or try to teach their friends to kite and are totally oblivious to other pilots trying to land. Basically, you can have an entire landing field with nowhere to land.

So if you go to Greolieres, don't bother flying there too much. Head straight to Col De Bleine (unless the upper winds are NW). And from Col de Bleine you can actually see the mountains at Gourdon and can tell if the site is clear of clouds. Gourdon, we are told, is usually best early in the day or late in the evening. Late didn't seem to be working while we were there.

Matthew (glad to be back, of Karen and Matthew)

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This page last updated May 7, 2001