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Hangola April 6 - 7, 2004

Flight Reports

Huge cast showed up. Bacil, Pete S, John M., Hugh, Rance, Tim, Karma, Hank, Joe, Gary, Paul of course, too many to list. And I am too exhausted to write much.

Launched this afternoon, maybe at 230, into light, left cross conditions at just the wrong moment. The earlier pilots had thermal lift, but it faded as clouds moved in. I stumbled into the black hole on the backside of a thermal immediately after launch. Spent ten minutes clawing my way from 850 to 915. Sweat dripped from my back down around my stomach, soaked my jeans. I had optimistically dressed for 5000 over. Ski pants, ski gloves, balaclava, you get the idea. I actually had a brief moment where I reached 500 over, then plummeted to the LZ. Was really happy anyhow, had a great landing, feeling very good about it all, very relaxed. Stripped off most of my clothes.

Noticed some pilots soaring when I landed. Bolted to launch again, at around 5 PM, into stronger, straighter wind. Snagged over an hour, got around 2000 over -- where I froze my ass off, due to losing the balaclava, ski gloves and ski pants. Ha! Figures. Ridge lift as well as thermals everywhere. Who knows why with all the cloud cover. Landed because I felt tired, and it was getting dark.

Dined on Mexican with lots of the boys in Strasburg. Paul choked on a mint and Hugh gave him the H-lich to save him, but I missed it all because I was in the bathroom. Thanks Hugh!

Gotta go to bed. Many horses to ride in the AM, want to fly tomorrow afternoon again. Beaoootiful day today, though.

Lauren

Got to launch around 1:30P to find 11 pilots set up. Conditions were light, but some good cycles were coming through. Cirrused over sky. Paul Tjaden launched first and got up. Daniel Broxterman launched and extendoed. Steve Kinsley followed and got up. The rest, save Joe Schad and Gary Smith, had soaring flights or extendoes, and a few succumbed to a flush cycle around 2:30P. Joe Schad, Gary Smith, and I were the remaining pilots on launch. Helped Joe launch. He climbed out slowly at first, but got pretty high after a while. Gary launched next and got up. I self-launched for the 1st time at Woodstock, caught a thermal right out in front of the slot, and climbed out to a few hundred over. Saw John Middleton, Joe, and Gary high to the NE of launch. Went over there and caught a thermal to 1100' over, while they migrated to the SW of launch and lost a bit. Gary saw me high, and came back over to join me. We drifted to the NE with the goal of landing at an airstrip 4 miles ENE of Signal Knob. We made it to Signal Knob, but the west cross pushed us off the end before we could gain significant altitude. Very turbulent rotor there in a west cross. Plus a venturi effect, creating a helluva headwind to penetrate to land at the "wing" field at the Rt. 55 bridge over the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. Gary and I both had to stuff the basetube to land in the field. I made it futher upwind, landing near the barns, while Gary landed around 100 yards downwind of my landing spot. Very strong conditions landing. No flare necessary. Thanks to Steve Kinsley for the retrieve. Around 9+ miles from launch. Around 1 hour flight time for me, and 1+ hour for Gary.

I have to hand the FOTD award to Gary. I had the luxury of 500' to 1000' over the whole run up to Signal Knob. Gary, however, got quite low a few times, and was even considering landing at the Southfork mansion before scratching his way back up to above the ridge to continue the run.

Definitely vacation time from work well spent.

Bacil

Thank you Hank for observing my first mountain launch. Your guidence made for a spectacular first woodstock experience.

Notes to self:
:Good strong launch,
:got to 1100 feet over launch in abundant lift
:landing sucked

tim

...a hang 2 report

First launch around 1:30 in light winds with Steve Kinsley observing and Bacil advising (Thanks to you both!). Turned left (into the crossing wind) and maintained. Headed back toward launch and started sinking. Gave the ridge too much respect, succumbed to gravity and followed up with a no stepper. Got 8 minutes more airtime than Chris McKee who reports that ... <snip!>.

Second flight around 3:30 with Hank observing* (Thanks!). Launched in a building cycle and let my left wing get up on me. Leveled it out after I stopped cross controlling and, wow, when a difference a few hours makes. Took the elevator up to 500 over and eventually worked thermals as high as +1900, but UNLIKE Hugh and Lauren, I couldn't maintain at the higher altitude.

Got a strong lick of lift on final, got slow and missed my flare. Belly flopped in a blessedly well aged manure mine after 1:29 minutes in the air. I increased my total airtime by 18% in just one flight. As Alek pointed out, I'd like to see a Hang 4 do that!

Alek, by the way, flew for 1:35. If I had known, I would have stayed on the ridge for 7 more minutes!

Karma stayed up for a while in tough conditions and pulled off a nice landing with traffic in the l.z.

Rance, the literalist, landed on the spot, that is to say on Paul and Lauren's windsock, after a kickass, long flight.

Tim Eggers soared on his first mountain flight after a strong, well controlled launch with Hank observing. Congratulations, Tim!

In case you haven't noticed, the litter of us H2's this spring is pretty large. If the observers don't start jogging, they're all going to end up flying Condors after all the beer they're going to be drinking!

Best,
Daniel

A crowd: Paul, Lauren, Karma, Hank, Steve, Mark C, Gary, Hugh and Christy. Mark launches first. Conditions were significantly stronger than forecast. No one else launched for and hour and a half. The topless gliders went first. Then a lull of sorts enabled Hugh to launch. Winds picked up again and Lauren bagged it. Karma had decided to bag it earlier. Gary and I finally got off around six. Punched the hour clock and landed in generally smooth air.

Joe

Strong conditions yesterday at WS allowed me to make my second Harrisonburg run in just a couple of weeks. Pretty much the same uneventful flight as last time. I've been very lucky to stay high enough that crossing the gaps was not an issue.

Launch was another story. After Mark launched smoothly in strong conditions, winds ramped up and all of us hung out for nearly an hour and a half before Hank and then Christy had smooth and straight "beam me up" type launches. I was next and found a straight in cycle similar to what the others had launched in. I got off cleanly, pulled in for lots of speed, cleared the end of the slot nicely and then got slammed into an 80 degree right hand wing over back towards the mountain. Instant pucker factor and fun entertainment for the gang on launch except for Lauren, who seems to get upset about these things. Gonna have to think twice about launching in those conditions again. Could have been bad!

Christy followed me down to H-burg about 30 minutes after I left. Apparently she provided a good show for Mark and Steve and experienced her own pucker factor when she got VERY low crossing onto short mountain. I believe Steve's exact words were "she scared the p-ss out of Mark and I."

Reached Massunutten ski resort, at the end of the ridge, in about 1:45 but decided to boat around around and wait for Christy cause she said she knew where we could land near a cold beer. She was fibbing as we landed miles away from liquid refreshment but it was kinda cool flying formation with her as we descended and had two nice landings within seconds of each other right next to Rt. 33.

Lauren, who had caught a ramp up on launch and never got to fly, picked us up just after dark and Christy treated us to dinner at Chili's. Arrived home just before midnight and still had to feed horses. Late night but definitely worth it.

Paul

BTW, Congrats to Hugh on his first and very impressive XC. I'll let him tell all about it.

Shoot, if it had been Tom McGowan, they probably would have followed right along! Serves them right for not wanting to trust a girl. I wasn't that low, maybe 300' below ridge level and Paul had told me there was lots of lift and he was right. You guys should have come. The rest was easy, on a LiteSpeed anyway.

Christy

BVH writes:
> Were the off launch aerobatics due to a hidden cross? Hard to tell
> sometimes in a slot...

Yes. Straight in when he (Paul) started his run but strong 90 cross when he passed the center streamer. Knew he was gonna get whacked.

Waited till 5:00 with other Eagle flyers for wind to back off. Discussed possible first XC with Steve K. and Paul T. Steve recommended not flying north of the reservoir because of trashy air burbling off the end of the ridge in a west cross, instead go over the back to Front Royal airport. Launch was uneventful (after watching higher rated pilots in higher performance gliders being somewhat challenged by the stronger than forecast conditions), elevatored up to 2800 over. Straight-in cycles yielded to west cross once you cleared the trees. At 2800 I started to feel like I was pinned stright into the wind with little ability to penetrate, so I pulled in and got a little forward while losing 400 - at that point, wind speed allowed me better maneuvering. Hung around for awhile but finally decided to got north to find this reservoir I had never seen. (Paul and Christy were on their Harrisonburg run and talking alot on the radio. I kept making nervous calls for advice and to report intentions/position - sorry if I was a pain.)

Arrived at the reservoir with 1700 over - Kinsley had advised 2000 before going OTB, so I continued north to look at Strasburg LZ's. Just as Steve said, air was less buoyant as it squirted off end of the ridge, got down to 1300 over and decided to try to get back to Woodstock. encountered abundant lift just south of reservoir and left with 2400 over. Wow, it's fun going down wind! I had had the front Royal airport in sight all along, kept a couple of fields in Fort Valley within range in case I ran into big sink/rotor, but it was almost zero sink until I got over Masanutten Mt and was already wanting to descend to the airport - which was deserted. When I turned into the wind, I was parked and thought maybe I could just helicopter in, but ground speed increased as I descended through the gradient.

After packing up, I inspected a neat old Taylorcraft and a an Aeronca on the flight line, plus the F-86 out front, then watched a young woman doing TO and L in a 172 as the sun went down. Big thanks to Steve for encouraging me to try this - and for coming to get me. From reading the sign at the end of the runway, I learned that the airport is at 709 feet MSL, Unicom is 123.0 MHz. Why don't we carry dual band radios so we can communicate with powered traffic? Would that play into a REQUIREMENT

Don't know about Steve's plans, but I was trying my darnedest to follow after you (Christy) and Paul! Four attempts, four different flight paths, none successful. After my last one (below ridge, not even really in the gap), and then hearing how low you were (on a topless!), I threw in the towel.

--mark c.

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This page last updated April 11, 2004