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Hangola July 11 - 16, 2003

Flight Reports

Spent last week in Williamsburg at a big family reunion. Took my glider and flew at Manquin for the first time. Took two aerotows, extendos in abundant but weak lift, first landing was perfect, second less so. Nice place, friendly people! - Hugh

Finally a decent flight. You guys have had your endless rain, we've had wind and overdevelopment. Yesterdays forecast was for light SW and sun all day. Visiting pilot Jeremy (the cook from Wallaby)and girlfriend Emily, "Zoardog" and I went to Villa Grove. Imagine a site like Woodstock. Except the ridge is 3 times as long, stretching out of sight into New Mexico. And 5 times as high. Launch is about a third the way up at 9800 ft. I launched first and made it look easy, climbing out to 14,4000. Jeremy sunk out, Zoardog had to replace batten ties so didn't get off til late. I easily stayed high but after a while kept getting a bee sting like pain in a knuckle and then slightly blurred vision, signs of hypoxia. It affects different pilots in different ways. So I headed out over the valley and stayed lower and it went away. Tooled around over the valley and had a perfect no stepper on the spot. Jeremy sunk out again. Over the holiday weekend a bunch of us went to a site called Bristol Head, near Creede, CO. Launch is off an escarpment at 12,700 ft with a big lake at the bottom. Top landable at 12,000 although landings at that altitude can be tough. Only a couple HGs and a bunch of PGs got off the whole weekend, having got up top early. Overdevelopment and tailwind happening earlier each day. 12 miles in to launch on a dirt road, the last 2 miles of which are tough 4WD. But worth it for the view.    MC

Me an Pete Williams enjoyed a wonderful day of flying (PGs) at Bluehill today. First flight was into light conditions and we both ended up on the ground after extendos.

Pete suggested we go back up, which we did. Cycles were a little stronger, I launched first and caught a nice thermal out front which I was able to work up to 967 ft msl (bluehill is really an overgrown hill). Pete soon joined me for a great flight too.

Life is good.

Marc

Can't believe what happened yesterday. I show up at Willow Creek in Gunnison around 5 for an evening flight. Wind is coming in perfect and 2 others show up. A big dust devil is visible across the lake. We park 2 trucks for a wind break and set up, I tie my glider to one of the permanent stakes after getting it up on the downtubes. Standard practice around here. Around 5:45 the windsock goes limp and after a few minutes the wind is trickling in 90 degrees cross. I was finished setup except for the nosecone and tips.

So we're standing there talking, not sure what to do now that it's not even launchable. None of us saw the monster coming. All of a sudden it was on us. My Combat was torn from it's mooring, breaking the rope. Flipped on it's nose first and then hurled skyward. It got to about 50 ft, the monster moved on and the glider glided back to earth, landing softly on downtubes and keel about 100 ft from where it started. Bags and pads scattered everywhere.

Minor damage only. Front of keel chewed up a bit, some batten tips broken off and a bent tip batten. I wish I had a video ot that. The other 2 pilots were spooked and bagged it. We usually don't get dust devils that late in the day.

Last weekend at Bristol Head I saw a brand new U2 picked up by a dust devil and tumbled over and over on the rocks. Damage was serious. Fying in Colorado can be interesting.    MC

Arrived as predicted at 9:30, but found no company of pilots. Set out windsock and three streamers, and proceeded with glider set up. Mark Cavanaugh arrived about 9:45 and Ray Mitchell from Richmond at 10:00. Mark got his K5 ready to go, and then proceeded to do manly duty for over an hour with his gas-powered weed whacker, adding an extended landing area on the far side of the area mown by John M.

Ray Mitchell was first to launch, shortly after 11:00. I took my first flight about 11:20. More pilots were arriving, and a fine crowd eventually formed. Mark finally stopped making tall grass short and joined in the flying.

My day was full, with five hourly flights roughly on the half hour from 11:30 to 3:30. My first landing was late-to-flare, with a plop into a nice puddle. All others were clean on my feet (3 no-steps) so I am feeling better about flare timing on the US. The sky was beautiful, with a nice crop of clouds. The field was bubbling thermals off, so wind at launch was switchy, and every pilot caught some challenging bumps at one time or another. Mark's over the falls as he left the slope on his final flight was quite exciting. Several locals (hawks) gave impressive thermalling demos.

Additional Roll call: Allen Hobner (decided not to fly), Rich Alexander (with son in tow as glider sherpa and videographer), Dan Tomlinson (arrived on two-wheeler, one flight on Rich's Falcon), Daniel Broxterman (9 flights that I know of), Ellis Kim (4 HG & 8 PG for an even dozen flights), Chris Cioffi, David Bodner, Howard Wagner, Rance Rupp (looks ready for his first mountain!), as well as John Middleton with five students (Ken, Tony, Wesley, & 2 others).

MIA: Bacil with his promised five (count them, five) wind indicators. Didja go to the Pulpit instead, Bacil?

After breakdown, several of us enjoyed the view of the setting sun from launch, with appropriate beverage in hand. Ray, Ellis, Mark and I then enjoyed one another's company at the pizza joint on Route 3, where Mark and I took lessons from Ray as he sweet-talked the cute young waitress, Laura. ("Here's my card. Come see me in Richmond for a free haircut.")

Life is good, flying is better, the training hill is a great spot for H3's, and I certainly hope to fly tomorrow, too.

Cragin

p.s. darn, Karen, you wrote back too late. I messed up and left the BC glasses in the glove box. Maybe with them on I could have impressed Laura, too!

Blipmap was saying "sky out", but the weather looked like "sink out" at noon. A big trough parked itself right over the runway and kept things smooth and sinky. It was so smooth, they were sending students up. Then, just as we were all heading up for our sled rides, someone turned on the thermal generator. POOF... There were gaggles of gliders everywhere. 3-4k in big juicy ones. 2 hour + long flights. I'm sure a couple people did even better. Lots of elbow room for everyone. I think I even saw Bob's cooler coring one of 'em. The soaring continued till something like 6 or 7pm (oh yeah, love the magic baybe!). Jim

Crackin. Started off (really) sinky till past noon (butt smooth). Thankfully it turned on.. and good. Low saves and pattern tows turned into 3-4k all over the place. Not sure what the climbrates were, wasn't paying too much attention... didn't need to. 2hr+ flights, gaggles everywhere. Lasted well into lateday (6-7pm?).

Life is good.
Jim

Got to Ridgley early afternoon and took time setting up with a bank of clouds overhead and to the East. Things gradually improved with early flights mostly sleds. After lunch and Judy McCarty showing an extended flight with minimal lift finally decided to give it a go. A few of us seemed to be thinking the same. Thought maybe I would get an extended but could always do another tow later. On tow hit a few bumps but after being dropped off found little and getting down to about 1600 - 1800 when finally found a little lift with which I held on to with both hands. As I slowly climbed it got better and got to about 3000. Joined by some others in the that one and in others later. Cruised around a bit losing some and finding some. Found some other lift to the East and flew in that area for atleast an hour or so and got to 4300+ twice. Could see the Delaware Bay. Didn't expect I would get some altitude so wasn't dressed for it and it got chilly. As the day progressed so did the lift. Flew some to the West for a while and finally decided I had had my fill so flew over to the edge of town and back and landed after 2:40 with a real nice landing in light conditions. Had cleared off during the day and looked like it might be good till late. Was a very enjoyable flight!

- john middleton

Steven C Kinsley wrote:

Hey Mike. What do you think would have happened if you had been hooked in?
Would you still be here (or rather there)?

-------------

I would have thermaled out of the place.

Flew Willow Creek again on Saturday evening. Not the greatest place to fly but it's easy to get to and top landable which I did this time. Sunday, Zoardog and I sled at Villa Grove as it overdevelops. ZD hit a dustdevil on final and pounded into a cactus, breaking both downtubes and setting off his smoke bomb. Ridgid wings are very popular around here, they call them "old mens gliders". Someday I will try one. They seem to take forever to set up and break down into 2 large bags. And pilots here always wear knee pads and leather gloves.    MC

While you were all flying high at Ridgley, Carlos Sparky, Kelvin and I took our sled rides at HR. Huge crowd of spectators. Lady got bit by a snake and had a snake bite kit with her. Love people who plan ahead.

=====
Doug Henderson

> From: Cragin Shelton

[...]

> some challenging bumps at one time or another. Mark's over the falls
> as he left the slope on his final flight was quite exciting.

Wish I had that one on video to see just how rad it was. J. Middleton said something like "you were headin' for China", so musta been a sight! :)

On a lessons-learned note: during the flight just prior to that one, I managed to hook my foot around a zipper line (I've got a pod harness) when kicking into the boot.

When you're at altitude this sort of thing becomes obvious when you try to zip up ;-)

But on this very brief t-hill flight: I initially headed a bit left off of launch; kicked in; made a right turn to parallel the hill; pulled back out of the boot; then prepared to make a 120-deg left turn (which would put me on final). Easy!

As I tried to make that turn, the glider basically said "nope, uh-uh, sorry!". So I'm struggling to get back into the wind, the glider starts veering back in the direction of launch, I roll left _really_ hard, manage to get 90-deg to the wind, and then snuck in an additional small jig to the left in the last few feet. Plunked down on the basetube, but no damage.

When I pick up, I see my boot wrapped around the line. Doh! I did check the lines when I ran my pre-launch checklist. They *looked* ok; maybe I didn't check thoroughly enough?

All you've got is seconds, from launch to landing. No time to ponder "hmmm, what could be causing that turn?". Only time to react.

So.... on future days at the hill, I'll probably make a point of kicking only halfway into the pod, to help minimize the chances of getting snagged. Or maybe not kicking in at all, there's not really much point for flights that brief.

--mark c.

Shawn, Jack Echardt and Dave Bacon had extended sleeders launching around 6:30. I got on the upper launch around 7:30 just in time for the mountain to go catabatic. Dave said it was L&V most of the evening with very light cycles.

Gerry

Ridgely, early Sunday. By the time Paul and I set up our gliders and inspected them, a layer of stratus clouds had snuck over the field. The overcast conditions worsened as the day progressed. The clouds killed our good moods as well as the lift.

Well, that's not really true. The clouds just killed the lift. My mood was fine. Bruce had adorned the golf cart with American flags, and he asked me if I wanted to go on a presidential spin (we are both presidents of our respective hang gliding clubs). Barb drove us around while we perched in the back and practiced our waves - screw in the lightbulb, screw it out. I was getting the hang of it when Barb nearly disemboweled us by driving under the tiny Christmas lights that are strung on wires by the picnic tables. I'm not sure whether I yelled at Bruce or he yelled at me, but we both ducked quickly and kept our heads intact. I decided it might be safer to fly.

I placed my "spot", which is a large beach towel that features male wrestlers (the "spot" is my intended landing place, to check my accuracy) in the landing zone, and also tried to figure out where the worst puddles were and how best to avoid them. George drove by as I exited the field, and asked if I wanted a ride back to the office. I did. George wanted to park in the shade. Unfortunately, he accelerated right into the swamp in an effort to get around the volleyball net and under a tree. I suppose it is my fault just because I am the "Swamp Bitch" and he was with me, and my bad vibes and slime rubbed off on him. However, he LIED to EVERYBODY and said that I borrowed his car and got it stuck. This is not true! I even warned him beforehand. I will probably never get to fly the Decathlon again, because I have exposed him. Nevertheless, George is a lying sh** head!

All the fun and slandering aside, by 3 PM I still hadn't launched. Usually the best time of the day is from 1 to 3 PM, but Sunny - who was flying the tandem glider - reported that lift was nonexistent, though the high layer of clouds slowly dissipated. By 3:30, I decided I might as well have some tow and landing practice. I launched into surprisingly rowdy air. Adam, wizard that he is, dropped me in a thermal, and I managed an extended flight of an half an hour, but I couldn't find really good lift to work. Other pilots were better or luckier or both, and stayed up.

At 4:30 I launched again. On tow, the plane didn't have the annoying tendency to leap like a rodeo bronc, and Ginny moved with no more effort than my thoughts, as easily as my fingers. The downside of this peaceful flight meant the thermal activity was probably deader than Neanderthal man.

Off tow, I stayed in marginal lift, far too long. When I am unable to get into the core of a thermal, I tend to think it's just my lack of skill, and that if I search long enough, I will find it. I hesitate to leave until I have lost too much altitude, and ultimately sink to the ground, as quickly and gracelessly as a sack of rocks. When I plummeted to 500 feet I began to set up for my landing. I have a rule to ignore lift below 500 feet. I am too unskilled to concentrate on anything but landing at this altitude. But as I set up - pissed, stupid, unable to stay up when others could - I spotted 2 vultures below me. They didn't circle like they were thermalling, but I could see they didn't flap their wings and they rose in the sky. I broke my rule and decided to fly with them for a few seconds. My vario immediately began to beep, reporting lift.

However, whenever I decided to circle, my vario would die like a fire with blanket on it. So I decided to simply follow the vultures than follow my own obviously wrong instincts. The vultures turned where I didn't think it was logical, but I followed. They knew exactly where go, and I rose quickly to a couple thousand feet. Then I had the altitude to chase the other pilots. They all knew where to fly. Ginny excels in light conditions, and she soared like the Eagle that she is, up to around 3300. I hung on and tried to stay close to birds or pilots. Ideal conditions. Totally clear. I spotted the Delaware bay and the bay bridge across the opposite water of the Chesapeake. Great, abundant lift. Not rowdy. Smooth as a rabbit's nose.

The lift to the east of the runway finally petered out, and I sped back to the airport. I found more lift to the west, though. I thought of was how this was my moment, this was my day, and I needed to take advantage of it, because who knows when another may come. I tried to do the exercises in Dennis Pagen's book, where you follow a specific ground path, or circle a tree and maintain the diameter. Reality. I had to pee, really bad. My arms ached and my neck ached and my ankle, which has been surgically fused (and is no longer designed to straighten in the position demanded by my harness) screamed for release. It was time to land, before my arms gave way and I couldn't move my leg. I flew out of my thermal and along the runway. My vario screamed in pleasure, up-up-up! I stalled Ginny, as hard as I could. I have heard you lose great altitude in a stall. I lost 20 feet. Performed many stalls. Became more tired.

I spiraled Ginny in an effort to get closer to the ground. My vario howled lift-lift-lift and I have never cored a thermal like that, rising like steam from a teapot. I tried to fly away from the lift. It didn't work. It was everywhere. I finally draped my arms over my base tube and gave up on the radical maneuvers. I figured that eventually the sun would have to go down and I could land somewhere, even if I had to fly really far away, and that if I had to piss my pants I could just throw them away later. (No one else found this kind of impossible condition to get down - I think I must have been in a "street" of lift, that just happened to be where I flew). I finally found a bit of sink, and gratefully slipped turns in it. My landing sucked. I rolled in like a beached whale, too tired to flop. Funny, I didn't care as much as I usually would. Damn, what a DAY!!!

The Fifis came out in force (woohoo!) and Jim and John Middleton and John Muldoon and Paul my husband and Paul the unhooked lurker all flew. Hugh. Matthew. Karen. Joe Gregor. Janet and Ellis and Scott and Aisha. Judy. Many more, too. Many happy pilots.

Lauren Tjaden

Towing commenced around 2pm. Hit and miss conditions prevailed. I took the first tow up. Somewhat roudy tow, pinned off early in moderate lift and worked it up to 3k, at which point I learned why people tell you to check your vario batteries. &T)*&#$
1k down sink back to the field. Luckily found some lift or I wouldn't have made it back.

Doug Rogers took the second tow and imediately skied out. John Wiseman followed suit and made up for that Hyner incident. The two of them hung around cloudbase as the sky began to street up nicely (they wouldn't be heard from again for a couple hours). Bill yanked the rest of us up and that's about all I know cuz he dropped me under a nice cloudstreet and I was a bit occupied there after.

It was a "You're in lift or your in sink" kinda day. No real middle ground. Base was 5k. It dropped to 4k as the day wore on, the streets busted up and it was blue by dusk. Some got up, some got nabbed by the sinkmoster. All in all, it kicked the crap out of going to work.

Sited for truency today:
Bill Umstattd (Mr Dragonfly) Doug-speckman-Rogers, John Wiseman, Gerry Destrepes, Lloyd Wilcox, Ken Sutch, Wayne ?, Pat Feudo, Gerry Donaho, Jim Spadafora (broken foot, couldn't fly), Jimmy Messina, Tom Kirbishly, Greg and yours truly.

Cheers,
Jim

Yes, Redwing was turned on yesterday!! Like Jim said the sink was pretty big at times. On my tow up Bill pulled me completely around the airport and back off the end of the west runway and we only gained 600'. Shortly after that Bill found me a nice one at 1400' so I let go. I didn't get to fly with the other guys but from what I saw John Wiseman had the thermal of the day. He climbed up from 1400'agl to base at a solid 800fpm!!! It was awesome to watch. I was at the edge of the cloud he was working at 4400' in 0 sink and stayed there until he disappeared. Luckily we both had our radio's on so we could take turns with the cloaking device. John and I flew upwind jumping from cloud to cloud for awhile. Amazing his glide was not bad at all into the head wind, it would just take him a little longer. Best of all the air traffic was not an issue. I might have seen 5 small privates and no heavies in our space. Great to see some familiar faces again. Jim Messina, Jim Rooney, John W and son with a cherry mini bike we all took turns on, Craig, Wayne, JIm S. Christian, Lloyd W, Tom C, Gary C, Pat, Gerry D, and Bill U, that's about all I can remember so forgive me if I missed anyone.

Doug.

1030 loaded up for a planned trifecta with Shawn. Played 18 holes (walking). Got a blister, got my ass kicked! Blasted off to Bethel to hook up with Russel and fly. STFI @ 20, got my ass kicked. Broke down, retrieved vehicles, went to eat, did not get my ass kicked. Fell into bed @ 2230, got out of bed @ 0630, felt like I'd been beaten with a pipe wrench.

Oy Vey....ain't it grand.......Bob.

Lots of people showed. Good time had by all!

Flight Time: 2 hours 47 minutes; Peak Altitude 1404' over launch.

Chris McKee

High Rock 7/16/2003

I arrived around 1545 to find Paul, Lauren, Bruce, Hank & Kharma in various stages of setup. Conditions were beautiful, a little gusty at time on launch and a little cross, but nothing unmanageable. Helped assist in launching Hank for his first HR launch, great launch and he immediately popped up. Bruce was launched soon after as Carlo's and Ralph arrived. They helped Paul launch while I continued setting up. Carlo's beat me setting up so he launched next with an interesting takeoff and I immediately followed him off. It was blowing in about 5-10, switchy sometimes so I waited a few minutes to get a nice cycle and stepped off with an uneventful takeoff at approx 1645. Cleaned up and climbed out immediately. Played right around launch for about the first 15 minutes and got to about 500' over and then headed North working the ridge with a minor thermal activity and got up to 1400'. Lift was everywhere and you really didn't have to work that hard to find it. Worked my way back towards launch and dropped back down to 500' over so headed back to the North end and worked myself back up to a grand. Played around and saw more people were launching so headed back over launch to get a birds eye view. Watched as Hugh, Ralph, Karen and Lauren launched and then worked my way down South of launch to some sunny spots. Ended up down around 600' over so I decided to go back to the North and try some playing with full VG. Once again worked my way up to 1000' over, but full VG was tiring, but good experimentation with different aspects of my UltraSport. Spent the rest of my flight boating around in very little sink at about 800-850' over launch until I ran out of water and was starting to get tired. Left the ridge at 850' and arrived at the LZ still at 700' over launch. Felt like I was creeping out to land so I pulled on VG and pulled in to about 30mph and still met very little sink. Great trash fire was kicking up lots of fire showing wind direction which was straight down the runway in the LZ. Did some high angle-of-bank turns to lose altitude and rolled into my final approach. Winds had gone virtually calm in the LZ so I landed and had to run it out. Landed about 1935 for a 2+47 flight. Ellis and Mark Cav had launched as well and were doing well at altitude. Matthew landed soon after me and we ran back to the top to launch Kharma for her first HR flight as well. Had a minor SNAFU with the local MP's that were trying to lock the gate at 2030 and we had to scramble to find everyones keys to move their vehicles down to the gate. Lesson learned - make sure your keys are readily available at HR if you are flying to sunset or your car will be locked in until 0600 the following morning. It was probably the best day of mountain flying since the stupid lift at HR back in November. Matthew is calling for Woodstock on Sunday. Stay tuned...same Bat time...same Bat station.

Chris McKee

I left the ridge at one point and flew out into the valley past the LZ, and didn't lose more than about 500'. With the head wind, took me almost half-an-hour to get out that far too! It finally started to cool off and I wasn't getting as much lift, so I turned around and flew back to the ridge again (return trip: 3 minutes). First time I've ever seen the High Rock area from the air; I had no idea what the terrain looked like!

R2

Carlos didn't have the only exciting launch of the day. I left my wire crew frozen in poses of shock and horror as I had an incredibly steep dive off the rock. Eddie Miller said it looked like I was following the contour of the rock down.

I'm not sure what happened. It was alittle strong and gusty on launch. I had waited through alot of stuff. The lulls seemed very short. Then I finally had a lull that was longer, and the wing felt even and balanced. The sensation after started my launch run was bizarre. Usually you feel some resistance of the wind but it felt like I was stepping into an abys. It felt awful but it was too late to stop so I had to dive.

Fortunately I went off straight, which is what saved me. Maybe I didn't have pitch before I started. I was nice and close to the edge. I've had a couple dive outs before but never anything like this.

Any thoughts on what might have happened? The rest of the flight was great - easy easy soaring at 1200 for over 2 hours.

Karen

Just so you can be really and truly, green with envy jealous... Bruce, Hank, and I launched early and flew two hours plus (Bruce had longest with 2:15). All of us, including Lauren, reached altitudes in excess of 1,700 over launch (once again, Bruce was highest with 1,900 plus) and we only landed in order to help launch some of the late comers who were running out of wire crew.

The last hour or so, the air was baby butt smooth and we were all boating around as far out as Rt.64 with our arms draped over the base tube just enjoying the view.

So don't be jealous or anything, you probably wouldn't have liked it.

Paul (your first lady)

In a message dated 7/17/2003 10:35:10 AM Eastern Standard Time, Joe Brauch writes:

> We need more juicy details!!!!!

OK. Chris complained about his girlfriend, and the next thing we saw was him attacking some poor doe in the woods. It was screaming. Horrible. Chris was happy, though. Pulling up his trousers and talking about how much he likes venison.

However, his launch was good ( he also said his landing was good, but I thought it was more like a word that rhymes with "meek").

>Conditions at launch

switchy, progressively lighter, gust cycles, slightly crossing from south, mostly just uneven

># of pilots

I dunno. Maybe 15? Lots. Let's see, Bruce, Paul, Hank, Karma, me, Karen, Matthew, Carlos, Hugh, Ellis, Eddie Miller, Chris, Ralph, Marc C., I can't remember.

># of Wuffos

a couple perched by the rocks (Paul says lots of adoring crowds asking for autographs, but this is a lie).

># of Wacks

Friggin' everybody, almost. I kept screaming "WHACK!" Great fun. Karma said she landed well but she was in a field next door so we don't now if she is telling the truth. Matthew actually kept it on his feet though he ran like Forest Gump. I did the same and was grateful, nothing to brag about but the approach and landing were safe.

>Skygoddes of the day

All of the Fifis are Goddessses. Worship us and be grateful.

I think I may have gotten the highest of the girls, but I launched earlier and had an advantage (which I need). Karen had a longer flight, though, and Karma launched really well in her first cliff launch -- a HUGE deal. She also performed a hang check on a pilot at Woodstock last week and FOUND HE WAS UNHOOKED, so she is the Goddess of the week, and really of the month. Ellis showed great composure launching at HR for the first time since her last, more exciting, less perfect launch there. She was GREAT. What a pilot. I am so lucky to know these ladies.

>Low saves

No need for that sh**. Lift everywhere.

Cloud suck

No cloud suck, but a woman had a snake bite her butt earlier this week while visiting Mother Nature and I guess she had "butt suck" to get the venom out, hahaha

>Perfect spot landings on your feet....

Oh wait, that was me... OK. NOT! But I did have fun. Had to crawl to the LZ at 3-7 Groundspeed with my airspeed at 26, but the air was all "up". Got to look at the fields and decide what looked landable and didn't. Played with my parachute handle (to see where it is if I ever had the need to use it) and the handle on my harness that I am supposed to use if my zipper clogs. Did all the junk I am supposed to but never do because I am too busy playing the game of trying to stay up.

I think I am ready for XC. Hopefully will have a try at Ridgely this weekend (forgive me if I lose my courage before then -- I am coasting on the high of a couple of fun flights but am starting to feel much more together, able to digest several problems at one time).

Lauren Tjaden

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This page last updated July 17, 2003