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Hangola September 5 - 9, 2003

Flight Reports

Had a great time flying with everyone at High Rock today. What we would have given for Gary in the LZ to film the Kevin Landing Circus. I screwed up my transition to the uprights in this new fangled aero beast of a harness. The only way I could figure out to get the nose down fast was with a foot in the control frame. I don't know how, but it worked enough for me to roll it in on the wheels. Rather embarassing but good for many laughs.

God I love flying.

Kev C

I was once again reminded of what a sweet site HR is. Overcast, but pretty much straight in at 10 or so. Therms to 1k over. Quite a crowd. Howard, Gene, Tjadens, Sparkerator, Kevin (Kevin was airhog of the day with hours and hours). Eddie M, Mark C and Ellis showed up late. And Rance Rup(?) for a first HR flight. Yea Rance!! Our prez (Lauren T) suffered a weenie attack (down Marc, down!) and bagged it. Kurt Kemmerer couldn't make up his mind. Bruce E, nursing a sore foot decided against it. Our prez (George W) arriveth momentarily so ye are too late. Eat your liver

Fantastic Day! The first contingent launched about 1430 into very lite iffy air. The next hour was spent scratching, clawing, turning, begging, wimpering, from 100 below to 1500 above. In other words, orgasmic. Evening magic turned on @ 1700 and the second wave ( including some second flight air hogs ) launched into glass smooth, sunbeam streaked, couldn't get down, 1800 above (3400 MSL) air. Flight was commited till sunset followed by wings at the local armpit. Someone said Joe was so happy he pee'd himself like a puppy. If it gets any better I'd like to know how.....Bob.

The Sac is back.

After being broke the entire summer, a handful of pilots showed up Friday to see if we could get her working again. Beck, Hope and Joe flew 1st and soared a good hour before the Sac shut down in the afternoon. Then as we were losing hope and after I JUST folded my wings, it went from being dead to STFI at 10-12MPH. Karen, Doug myself and John launched into really nice air that turned into magic later on. If you wanted to land you had to find sink and put it on a wing tip to get down. Highest gain was 1.8k and longest flight approached 2hrs.

Yes, HR was fantastic again yesterday. Flew twice - sled my first and almost an hour second flight, with gains to 850 feet over. That north cross kept things interesting. Congrats to Gene on soaring his first two HR flights. Also, congrats to Rance on a great first HR flight and I think second mountain flight! Just got back from the Pulpit cleanup where there was a nice turnout and the launch looks great. Howard

What a beautiful day we all had. Thanks for launching me Sparky. And the wire crew, Lauren and Bruce. I am still soaring in my mind, can't beleive that I was able to stay up there an hour. Howard and I had a good drive up and good flights. What more can you ask for? Again, thanks for launching me.

Pulpit was fun but exhausting. Bugs, heat, blisters and sweat. Whoooo Hooooo!!!! Is that poison ivy? Good day of cleaning up and friendship. Gene

Steve,

I wanted to thank you for Observing me. Even though it was a sled, I'm learning more each time. I realized what's making me fly out of the lift band. It has to do with the unusual (to me, a flat-land flyer) view of flying over the slope. I'll get closer next time but too far out is better than too close to the ridge. Thanks again.

Wire crew, whoever you were, thanks to you as well. It must have been the excitement. I don't even remember interacting with you but I could have not done it without your help. Thanks.

Howard, thanks for thinking enough to take pictures. It's folks like these that think of others, taking paictures, wire crewing, shuttling cars that make this worth it.

The ROCK ROCKS!!!

Rance Rupp (bigger and bigger grin :O)

BTW: I figured out that the HR drive for me is really not much further than WS. You know what that means.

some of us are already down her:-)...Douq Perkins, Josh Criss, Tim McClay, are camping out after a day of launch & landing practice today. Upper level cloud cover shut off thermal activity today. The moon & stars (& Mars) are shining nicely down her now though.

Bob, Jason (flight of the day), Tim (from F-burg), Ray & Gary were all here earlier today, but opted not to camp over.

Holly (hoping for clearer skies tomorrow)

Sank out east of Denton on a day that was "stupidly soarable" . Farmer, wife and dogs stops in pick-up truck and offers me a ride. Sure. Guy puts his wife in the back with the dogs and drive me back.

What a great weekend! 2 flights Sat & 2 more on sunday at redwing! Almost 2 hr in the air . The lift was lite but I had some nice flights. if it was easy what fun would it be. Smooth air & good people . Ya gota love this flying stuff.

Gary Cargen

We had a decent turnout for the cleanup. Rance, Cavanaugh and I camped out, then were joined the next morning by Sparky, Ellis, Joe Schad, Dave Bodner, Cragin, Howard, Gene, Carlos. A few more would have been nice, but we got the job done: the grass is all manicured, the taller shrubbery in the slot is taken down.

The brush in the slot is actually above the head; makes a very pleasant shady little forest. It also looks like a nice cushion for the rocks, so decided to leave the springy stuff. We'd sit on a nicely shaded rock just enjoying the ambience, then pull out machetes and wack it all down. There's a nice little access way running down from the left ramp, then across the hill to the streamer.

But the momentous part of the job was clearing brush out between the ramps to see if a paragliding launch would be possible. There's some big stumps and a few rocks which would have to be pared down, and with a single load of dirt to cover up little twigs that might snag the lines, this place is workable. The wind was only puffing in with occasional thermals, but Ellis was so excited she just had to try it - it's only a 3:1 glide to the nearest field. The historic pictures will be posted on the web site.

Brian Vant-Hull

Man, if it was only this good all the time ;).

Watching the forecast at the end of the week, I was totally psyched to get out and commit some aviation. It looked SO good! Well, it didn't disappoint.

Two days of sunny, cummie filled, velcro skies. Over 3k was bulletproof. Just get under a cloud and ride the suck. Full vg, bar stuffed, hauling ass and not losing anything. Shoot out from under the cloud, wang it up and around the edge and zip back into the suck. Ye HAW! Ran around all over the sky, flying with all kinds of great people. Some regulars and some mountain pilots that I haven't gotten to fly with in a long time. Saturday was busy, but it seemed like everyone showed up on Sunday. Windsor and Less played duling tugs, hauling glider after glider into the sky. By late day Sunday, I was just content to lie on the grass and watch gaggles circle in the big blue. Base was 4k Sat, 3900 Sunday (big haze dome).

Fat dumb and happy.
Jim

Traffic on 66 going West was horrendous even at 3:00 pm but eventually made to the LZ about 4:30. Surprised by the amount of cloud cover which was 80%. Student Alek Beynenson showed up a few minutes later. Conditions at launch were fair with wind coming in about 6 - 8 mph. Alek, got his first mountain flight around 6:00 PM with a pass or two on the ridge then headed out and landed. Congratulations Alek! I flew a few minutes later basically same type of flight.

Spoke with the tenant renting the house in the LZ about the grass in the LZ which is knee height in some areas. He said they will probably be cutting it starting Sunday. Also, he mentioned Mr. Fishburn is having his 90th birthday sometime in October and may be coming out to his house.

Saturday was Pulpit fly-in clean up day.

I would like to thank all of the HG pilots who in the spirit of free-flying for everybody, helped clear a launch for PG between the ramps. I will bring beer for you at the fly-in (send requests)

So, now that we have a PG launch at the Pulpit as well as having Fisher Road and Bill's Hill PG-able, I was wondering if Bacil is going to work out something for any participating PGs. Do the teams get points for including a PG pilot on their roster? Do PG pilots get an additional mulitplier for XC miles?

Btw, launching a PG at the Pulpit is not going to be a cakewalk. We still have a few stumps in the way (can anybody bring a chainsaw?) and there is not much room for error. Also there are thousands of little sticks sticking up eager to grab PG lines. It would be great to dump a couple of loads of dirt to cover them up, but in the meantime, does anybody have a supersized tarp we coud use at the Pulpit fly-in?

Thanks you all!
I look forward to the Pulpit fly-in!
-- ellis

John Middleton graciously took the afternoon off on Friday and we headed to Woodstock. Walked the LZ, which is larger when you are on it than when you are at launch :) By the time we got to launch and all setup it was after 6 pm. The cows started to scatter throughout the LZ. The wind was light, crossing slightly from the right, with doable cycles. I waited for a few minutes, then launched. Turned right, then made a pass back towards the slot. There was no lift and I headed out the the LZ. Luckily all the cows decided to congregate in one corner. On approach I probably should have cut the downwind leg shorter, but managed an OK landing. What can I say... there is definetely something about jumping off the side of the mountain! I can't wait for more mountain flying! Thanks John.

Alek

Arrived around 11:30 to a field full of gliders being set up and several already in the air. "Man, you shoulda been here yesterday" was the mantra everyone was chanting. Apparently Saturday had been good and once again I had chosen the wrong day to schedule clients. Sunday, however, wasn't so bad either and a good time was had by all with lots of shorter soaring flights (my best was 43 minutes and 3900 feet) and some longer (I believe Danny B. had over an hour). I think it could have been a great day but a band of high clouds shut down the lift for an hour or two right in the middle of the day.

Won't bother to try to list everyone who was there. Word was that there were well over 100 tows and the tandem was flying all day. Kevin C. got checked out for AT and several of us helped Karen C. celebrate her B-day (number 39 I think).

As usual we partied too hard, stayed too long and didn't get home until midnight, then we had to be up before six to take horses to Frying Pan Park to meet some clients. Guess it was another case of having too much fun for our own good.

We're going on a short vacation with Matthew and Karen so we won't be around next weekend so I'm sure that the flying will be great.

See everyone at the Pulpit!!!

Paul

Marc and I had a blast up at Bills today. It was blowing straight in all day but the conditions were much better when the sun was out. It would cycle about every half hour or so and I only got up by the skin of my teeth. A couple of trips to cloudbase had me lusting for some good XC miles but thought it would be better to get some "less dramatic" landings in this new harness. Total airtime was about 3:30 and max altitude was around 4,500 I think. Marc was biwingual flying both his Lamy and pantie.

Kev C

PS. Lauren, I found the "outfit", it will crack you up.

Mr. Modesty fails to mention that Marc only had two sleds, it certainly didn't seem all that great to me. Yes, light thermals were about, and you really had to work em just right--which I just couldn't seem to do.

My first flight on the topless occurred with 0-5 winds and total overcast. I couldn't figure out how Kev was staying up--but figured it was time to go nonetheless since he hadn't landed. I had just enough time to make one pass and observe wunderkid to the south merrily cored at 200 over. I sank like a brick. I land and watch wunderkid for a while doing laps up and down the ridge and getting up to a grayer part of the sky. OK, so I'll hike up da mountain and try my luck on the PG, which is better at slow flying. A 30 minute jungle creep through pricker bushes and I arrive on top covered in grime and sweat, get the bag out, and launch in 5 to 7 mph winds. Kev glides by overhead whooping like a high school boy streaking through the girl's PE locker room. I follow him briefly for two passes, then succumb again to gravity and sink out.

So there I are am in the lz with all my flying gear strewn about, looking and feeling a bit like the expeditionary forces at Dunkirk. Wunderkid is still doing laps up and down the ridge, and I realize I may end up sitting in the grass-hopper infested grass for a very long time.

Another jungle-creep up the mountain to get my truck, I guess a fitting punishment for double-failures.

So now I think Kev should have his rating stripped, resign, and perhaps even shot at dawn.

Seriously, the boy has a bright future in competitive flying if he ever decides to turn those triathalon energies to HG comps.

Marc

I resemble that remark...kinda. Took up kayaking (had to do something with all this unfliable weather this season!), but still got in an hour long flight to cloudbase (4200 ft) on Sunday @ BSFP on my Litesport...had a great time both flying & hangin' out w/ a great group of people down there:-)

Holly (the up-button on the Litesport ain't broken!'

Oh so understated. Holly actually had the flight of the day. While most of us were getting 15 to maybe a thirty minute flight, Holly tries just one more late afternoon flight. Not to be left behind I launch after Holly for a short soaring flight. Holly pins off the tug early, hooks a thermal and goes straight to cloud base while everyone else struggles to stay up for a few precious minutes. She did a great job and beat everyone else there for altitude and duration of flight. My light sport just does not have quite the up -button figured out yet.

Joe

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This page last updated October 4, 2003