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Hangola
Sunday March 29, 1998

It was situation normal on Sunday morning. I had about 10 phone calls and made about 10 phone calls trying to decide where to go on Sunday. I ended up going to Dickey Ridge with Mike Balk, Tom McGowan and John McAllister. We arrived at the park entrance at 11:30 and were promptly told that the road was closed from the visitor's center on due to damage caused by an ice storm. We decided to take a chance and asked the rangers if they'd open the gate and let us drive up to the trail head and drop off our equipment so we could fly. I guess we all knew it would be a good day when they said sure why not! The only condition was that we fly over the visitor's center if possible.

The hike in was fairly non-eventful, except for Mike who snagged a good looking honey to help him carry his glider in (things like that don't happen to me). Anyway after giving Mike's new friend John Middleton's phone number we set up and Homer took the plunge.

The wind was coming in about 45 degrees cross from the West, though it occasionally blow straight. John's launch was fine and after scratching for 15 minutes or so things turned on a bit and he was able to stay up with no problem. Mike dove off next with a perfect launch and immediately got up. I took my place in the queue and had my second heart stopping launch in a row at this site. A high right wing caused me to drift left and clip a bunch of tree tops. However, I had a lot of speed and because Jesus loves me I managed not to put it in the trees. I immediately radioed everyone to tell them that I was the luckiest man alive at the moment. Tom had an uneventful launch about five minutes later and we were all in the air.

It took about 45 minutes of flying between 100 below launch and 500 over before we hooked anything very good. Conditions early were pretty cross and a bit of rotor caused the flight to be a little choppy in places. Then Mike hit a good thermal a hundred yards North of launch and we all dove in and headed up. Tom, John and I kicked out at about 2200 over launch, while Mike hung in to about 3000 over.

After kicking out I pulled my string and flew out into the valley directly in front of the Dickey visitors center loosing about 1000 feet in the process. However, I hit light 100 up in the middle of the valley and lazily circled with the VG full on back up to 2000 over without ever drifting back to the ridge.

Homer landed in the main after two and a half hours. While Tom got caught low in a down cycle about 20 minutes later and joined him in the primary. At the two hour mark of my flight Mike and I decided to fly North and land out by the entrance of the park where we had left Homer's truck. I arrived at the field we intended to land in and found myself in a nice 150 to 200 up fat thermal, but I was a little tired and had committed to retrieving the truck so I flew west across the Shenandoah river, out of the thermal and burned off the 3000 feet of altitude I had accumulated on the flight over and landed. Mike joined me a few minutes later.

We walked our gliders to the edge of the field and I took off for Homer's truck where the ice cold beer was waiting. All in all a sweet day even if my XC mileage for the day was only 3.57 miles.

10 -15 mph; NW - W; 1 hr - 1500 over.

After hymming and hawing (sp?) I ended up at High Rock Yesterday. Tons of spectators around but not a single pilot. Besides being a great day for a drive, it seems everyone came up to see the damage the fire caused on Saturday. The high winds on Saturday and stupidity caused a homeowner burning leaves to lose control of his fire. I couldn't see any damage until I launched. Once in the air, I could see what they were talking about. Approx. half of the mountain has been burned. Kind of a diamond shape starting on the other side of the tracks and going almost up to launch. Emma Jane said that at one point it was declared out of control and there was talk of evacuating some parts of the mountain. While I was hiking back up to launch, it was clear that it's mostly just ground cover that burned. I don't think even the smaller sappling will see much damage. But for a couple of weeks THIS THING IS GOING TO PRODUCE SOME GREAT THERMALS. (I believe Danny B. probably has some words of wisdom about this)

-Brian H

After standing around most of the day watching the winds blow 35+ on launch a bunch of us flew the Pulpit yesterday. Steve Krichton got off in a lull after 3:00 and managed to get high enough to go over the back and land in Lemasters. Then the winds picked; but after standing on launch for a bit, another good cycle came through and John Dullahan seized the moment for a great launch. Then it just went back to honkin'. At around 4:00 Marc decided to give it a go since it looked like it was backing off, but as soon as he got up on the new ramp, it just started howlin'. After hanging on to the ramp for a while, Marc decided to back off. It was looking grim!

We waited for a while and then Marc decided to launch off of the old ramp since it was crossing from the North. Of course, as soon as he got up on the ramp it started to honk. But patience paid off and a good cycle came in and off he went. Dan T., Mike and I went next (off the new ramp) and John Dullahan landed so he could come up and launch his brother Jim and the rest of the twos. (Kudos to John) Things and lightened up by then and Jim, Brian VH, Dave Johnson and Karen all launched. It was Dave and Karen's first flights there.

After about a half hour in the air I decided to land to make some room on the ridge and not get caught in a flush cycle. But I had been flying around with my VG half on and I forgot to turn it off to land. I went zooming by my intended landing spot and discovered yet another area of the Pulpit LZ that goes down hill. Hence I whacked and got a small brush burn cut on my already sun burnt nose. Brian VH delighted in calling my Rudolph in the LZ. Marc and John each got about two hours, Dan got an hour and Mike got 1:15. BIG Thanks to Doug who had packed up his glider but stuck around and help everyone launch.

Matthew (I will not guide any sleighs tonight, of Karen and Matthew)

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This page last updated April 19, 1998