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Hangola June 14 - 15, 2001

Flight Reports

Forecast was WAY WRONG... Very nice day at Ridgley today :) Instead of low clouds and rain, it was a sky full of cummies! Lift was light and scattered below 3k, but for the lucky ones that got up it was bulletproof. Below 3k was hit and miss, but soarble.

Rain didn't move in till around 6 or 7 and was short lived. Hopefully tomorrow's morning rain forecast will prove as "accurate" as todays ;)

Jim

Spectacular cumi filled sky, light west winds. So where was everybody? Maybe you looked at weather.com (cloudy w/T storms)and decided it wasn't worth it ?

Unfortunately it wasn't quite as bulletproof as it looked. Easy to hang at cloud base (3800 - 4000) but if you got below 2k it was tough getting back up.

What Steve failed to note was that he went XC 20 miles. It was my turn to drive, so I hung around the local area for 1.5, max alt 4400 later in the day. Steve ended up finding his own way home, so I coulda shoulda gone too.

Didn't rain a drop on us until we were packed up, gliders on the car, enjoying a beer before hitting the road home.

Go to Ridgely.

-- Joe

<snip>

Matthew (had two pg sleds at Daniel's Sat morning, of Karen and Matthew)

Decided at the last minute to take a shot at flying Bill today. Only other hang glider pilot there was Ellis but there was one other paraglider pilot Mike ?

Grass on launch is three to four feet high so we had to cut a path to launch. Ellis was kind enough to go buy a weed eater to do some of the work. My hand saw did as bit also. By the time we finished it was near five. The light wind started to die as Mike launched for a sled in his paraglider.

I waited on launch for about forty minutes only to have the wind shift to light over the back. Ellis and I both packed it in.

If you intend to fly Bill's, bring cutting tools to clear the launch.

Also, the grass in the LZ is 5-6 FEET TALL!!!!!!! Most of the grass in the fields around the LZ is also five to six feet tall. You will need a no step landing to fly.

Joe

No lift at Redwing Sun but 2 nice sled rides . Just getting off the ground was great for me. I also needed the no wind landing practice. Gary

Forecast was wrong again. Not as good as Saturday, but flyable. Christian managed to eek out a little bit of soaring time. There was some zero sink to be had and every now and then some climbing. Took a tandem with Adam and he showed me the finer points of wingovers. Bruce brought out the tandem Extacy and I got to fly with him on that too... man those things are freakin fast! I'd forgotten how cool it is to be able to just look around on tow. Late in the day, not one but two students got to solo. It's great seeing that "crack-junkie-ear-to-ear-permasmile" when they land! Haha, two more freed from the bonds of the earth!

Jim

LG was fantastic Sunday, many soared for up to 2.5 hours with 1,200ft gains.

jeff

I was only gone a few days and my CHGA emails top 100. WOW.

I went to the Owens this past weekend and it was creamy. Saturday I didn't have a retrieve crew so I left my bicycle in Lone Pine for self retrieve. I had much other training to do so I didn't work that hard to try to find a driver. Launch cycles were good and I took my time exploring just past Whitney Portal and then back to Lone Pine. It was a very tough slog back with the headwind. Other pilots reported that it was tough to go far that day but I wonder if they were just trying to fly too fast.

Sunday I arrainged to get a crew to pick me up on their way south if possible or else I would just hitch. I launched last and the cycles were definitely getting shorter and weaker. Despite the weaker launch winds climbing out actually went very very fast. My first shot and transitioning back wasn't going well so I retreated to launch for a second try. Turns out I wasn't reading the drift right and had been losing the track where it changed drift by about 90 degrees. After dialing into that it was gravy again up to the Whitney Portal/Onion Valley area. I got to curious in my usual hunt for all triggers and picked a bad one on the back ridge. I slipped down to 11k but in that zone 11k had me sweating. Fortunately I found my Holy Grail mound around the corner. It had 4 spines on it, all of them working so so. I scoped them all out before settling on one of the middle and strongest paths. Patience rewarded me with a good pulse that quickly shot me into where they all convergenced. 200 up turned to 1000 up and away I went. That had me grinning so wide my teeth dried out and stuck to my lips.

After poking along slowly for about 2.5 hours and about 15 miles the back spines started to really fire up and pop some cummies. The south flow strengthed and I set my sights on distance. I made my way up and over the higher ridges and cruised from 13-17k for the next hour or so. travel was fast and I covered close to 40 miles. I overtook all but the last pilot who was having some retrieve troubles in Bishop. I desperately wanted to say F--- it and continue on north and just forgo a ride back but then my conscious kicked in. It was over 4 hours and I didn't feel like hitching back only to drive a gazillion miles back to get my gear. I boated out over the valley just south of Bishop (where I knew they were) and hunted for valley thermals (not my specialty by any stretch). After some success there I opted to kill a few k practicing wangs. So saturday was good for 14.5k and 2.5 hours (not sure about distance since I went out and back) and Sunday was 4:45, 17k (cloudbase) and 58 miles.

I can't rave about the Owen's enough. Stong enough for incredible flights but manageable enough for fun. It is the foot launch XC pilots wet dream. I snapped a few pictures with a disposable and hope to get those online soon.

Kev C

I didn't want to waste bandwidth as I went a little overboard on my post trip report. I posted it to the web if any one would like to read about it.

Sadly, none of my flights came close to those Kevin's been reporting, but I still had a blast.

Holly

Okay, no parts were bent or broken on the glider or on me, but I'm calling this an accident report because it involved a hard landing over which I only had partial control.

Sunday the 15th at Redwing I arrived mid-afternoon and took my time setting up. I hadn't flown in quite a while, and I wanted to make sure the glider was in good shape. I checked the battens against each other, felt the tubing and the Mylar up and down to check for anomalies. I checked the cable ends and every single bolt. I estimate that I spent one and a half to two hours setting up and double checking everything.

The air was pretty calm and smooth. Doug Rogers had landed fairly recently after squeezing an hour and a half out of near zero lift conditions (How does he do it?). My tow felt comfortable and normal, and I released at 3000' AGL. At times during the flight, the glider would "rumble" slightly and the bar would try to push itself back. I figured that it was either a bit of turbulence or perhaps I was flying too slowly and the wing was nearing stall. The episodes would last several seconds, but no longer. Speeding up sometimes helped, sometimes not. Changing the VG made no difference. It didn't happen often enough or last long enough to scare me, but it did make me go "hmmm".

Lift was nowhere to be found, so I soon found myself setting up an approach. Midway through base leg, the rumble came back and the bar nudged it way back. The vario began to indicate about 800 fpm down. I pulled in to speed up, no change. I pushed out to slow down, no change. During the turn to final I dropped like a rock. Gear down, I held as much speed as I dared. Near the ground I rounded out and flared hard, but the descent was never fully arrested and I still had lots of forward speed. The wheels dug in to the muddy ground and I managed two giant steps before pitching over in a pretty severe whack.

Post-flight inspection revealed nothing obviously wrong with the glider. Bill Unstattd checked it out too, and suggested that perhaps the Mylar had some creases that were just a little too prominent. He suggested, for lack of another plan, that we remove the Mylar, and switch wings, effectively flipping the Mylar over in an effort to smooth it out. We accomplished this switch in short order and the leading edge looked smoother. Bill was satisfied and offered to test fly the glider. I wasn't in any hurry to take it back up, but if he was willing, I welcomed the offer. Bill put the glider through its paces; slow flight, high speed, steep turns, wangs, and even a spin. His landing was textbook perfect. He had seen no sign of whatever it was that brought me in so hard.

So is it fixed? I guess so, but it will be a while before I get comfortable again.

If there's a lesson here, I guess it would be "don't underestimate the ability of a few little imperfections on your leading edge to mess up your wing's ability to generate lift."

Has anyone else experienced something like this? We're not talking folded Mylar here, but rather "normal" creases and curvature. I'd sure like some more info.

Fly safe,

Tom Curbishley

Went to Taylor's on Saturday. Didn't fly. Grass way too high. I suspect it is still not cut, but that whoever does the cutting is antsy to do so as soon as possible. I suspect that whoever does the cutting will wait for a couple of dry days so the hay has time to dry. S/he hasn't had those since Saturday.

-- ellis

Per Aspera ad Astra (or cloud base, whichever comes first)

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This page last updated June 18, 2003