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This Page includes May 21-25
Memorial Day weekend

Hangola
Thursday May 21, 1998

Hangola
Friday May 22, 1998

Hangola
Saturday May 23, 1998

Hangola
Sunday May 24, 1998

Hangola
Monday May 25, 1998

Doug and I took off Friday since it looked like it might be the best day of the weekend - and it was, at least for the Mountaineer fly-in near Seneca Rocks. When we got to the campsite, we radioed LarryBall, MikeBalk, and GeorgePrice who were already at the North Mt. launch. The wind was blowing in 10-15 so full wire crew was a necessity. Larry launched first with George following. They ran the ridge a few miles to the south and then a few miles to the north, getting to the end behind Seneca Rocks. Larry flew forward to the Rocks, but George hung out on the ridge. After Jim Rowan joined us at launch, I got off and after making a few passes hoping for some bigger thermals, headed north to see how far I'd get. I ended up getting a couple hundred below the ridge and just hopped the fingers to the last little valley that emptied between Seneca Rocks and the front ridge. I had a good landing on a steep hillside that the goats had kept trimmed. The guys standing on launch were watching my flight and landing so they missed seeing George doing his approach over the main LZ. Right after I radioed that I was on the ground, Doug looked back at the main LZ and saw the last seconds of George's landing. Doug said he went in pretty hard and he radioed down to make sure George was ok. George radioed back that he was not ok. Jim and Doug jumped in Jim's truck and they drove down as fast as the road allowed. In the meantime John McAllister was on the way bringing Larry Ball back from the Seneca Rocks LZ. George had gotten out from under his glider before the first person arrived and was feeling a lot of pain in his stomach. He says he hit the basetube hard with his stomach. Larry drove him to the hospital in Elkins and they airlifted him from there to the trauma center in Morgantown since they were better able to handle internal injuries. Larry and his fiancee Kathy drove to Morgantown to make sure George was ok and George's parents drove over from Ohio. Poor George was in major pain by this time, but was told he couldn't have pain killers to kill the pain, something about masking the symptoms.

On Saturday we dropped some cars off at the Spruce Knob LZ and then had a nice long visit with Bill's parents. Hoping the clouds were lifting we did the obligatory drive up to Spruce Knob before heading over to North Mountain. (It was blowing over the back at Spruce and cloudbase was a few hundred below the top.) By the time we were on top at North Mt, it was completely sunny. The wind was L/V, but it puffed in from time to time so we all set up and jumped off when it puffed in. Mark Gardner got the flight of the day, being one of the first ones off, and staying aloft until we'd all taken our sleds.

On Saturday night we had a huge dinner followed by entertainment. Susan Pierce has got a mean fiddle now and the group is sounding pretty professional - esp. after a few beers. Doug and I had volunteered to take George's vehicle to Morgantown so we split camp and left around 11 pm, roughing it in the Ramada in Clarksburg that night. This didn't turn out to be a sacrifice since it was pouring rain at Seneca Rocks the next morning.

Sunday morning we met George's parents in the hospital waiting room before going in to the what's called the step down unit to see George. He was looking pretty good, but really tired. He couldn't get much sleep what with all the noise and blood tests every couple of hours. He said the doctors were thinking he had a bruised spleen and an abrased pancreas (sounds like a fancy French meal!!). The doctors were planning to move him to a regular room today so he should be able to get a little more rest.

Jim Rowan took George's glider to his place. Mike Balk held on to George's cot - George had been telling him how comfortable it was, so Mike was going to see for himself.

Most of the crowd left during the rain on Sunday. A typical Memorial Day fly-in!!!

Christy

It was pretty nice at my house this afternoon so I loaded up and headed to High Rock. The closer I got, the more it got cloudy, windy and cross (southwest/west). Arrived to find Marvin set up and wating. He eventually launched and I last saw him boating around a couple hundred over way out in front of the ridge. I decided to pass.

Yesterday was a fun day in Church Hill. :45 and :35 flights for me. It was pretty light, but quite enjoyable. John and Jackie did the towing. Geoff had the flight of the day with 2:50, Mike C had 1:50 plus a second flight. Tom, Steve T, Joe, Janet, Jose, most flew twice. Non rated pilots Dan and Bacil came to have a look-see. There was some kind of convergence thing going on. A band of light cloudiness running nw to se providing some light lift.

Friday afternoon flew at High Rock--arrived to find it too light but it got better. :35 for me with a save over Edgemont Road which eventually got me back to the ridge. Tom, Dennis S, Eddie.

Judy

Chapter two in the continuing saga had us flying at Church Hill. Turned out to be a nice day, despite the forecast. The first tow had the new topless glider sinking out after 20 mins in utter ignominity while Goeff was being forced to go on oxygen. The second flight went better (1+00) as I managed to avoid the occasional strong sink by flying further and further from the LZ. Finally ended up on a 2 mile final glide into the feild, plowing right thru and under Janet, Geoff, and one other pilot who were all on base trying to sort out the landing order. Worked out fine. Tom complemented me on my low saves during this second flight, but I feel his technique of not getting low in the first place to be far superior.

I think Geoff should be compelled to give the thermalling seminar tomorrow, as penalty for making us all look so bad.

Monday found the Fusion at the Pulpit watching the wind blow 5G35. It settled down a bit and John D., Kevin M., and Steve K. launched into what looked to be surprisingly smooth air. I spent a couple hours trying to figure out why I'd want to risk a high wind launch on my third Mtn flight with the new glider just to end up pointing for an hour. Even with Marc's spirited assistance, I was unable to discover the answer in time. Finally figured it out about an hour later, but by then the glider was in the bag and I couldn't obtain CINCSPOUSE approval to generate a new mission.

-- Joe

Monday saw sunny, strong conditions at the Pulpit. Repeated readings from the Kinsley-meter revealed an easy 20+ with gusts to over 30. Early on there were gusts that were preceeded by nearly 0 wind speed for moments then thumped your chest building to 30 in seconds. Seems these were the thermal conditions for the day. Hours later, after 3pm, the noisy thermals waned and conditions appeared to stabilize 20+, gusting to 30+- less often, and transitioning more reasonably. The momentary 0's were mostly gone, and so was the sun.

Many setup but no launches occurred until close to 4 (after much thermal activity passed). John Dullahan was first off and he sure made it look smooth and tempting. Judging from the wire-crew, the wire-crew-backups, and wire-crew-backup-backups' behavior, I think everyone thought it would be a difficult, twangy launch. Fakeout. Conditions were somewhat steady. John moved 2/3 forward, picked-up and went. Reasonably smooth looking.

I launch at 4:10 and 2/3 forward on the new deck. I sensed a noticable smoothing out of the air the more foward on the deck I stood. This seemed to be the case all afternoon. Wind was cross from the left but heading more or less straight over at launch. The trees along the powerline cut-out were swaying all the way down into the valley. Conditions were steady in the air and I parked it frequently at 27-28mph about 500-1000 over. 0:47, peaked at 1400 over, +300 on 20 second averager, +1296 instantaneous.

Steve was the next and last pilot to launch for the day. There was a a lot of parking, not much 360-ing, and a lot of slow progress when heading south. John got really high, 2200 I think, over the bowl to the right of launch. Cool move for the day was the landing. John Dullahan followed Mike Chevalier's lead from last week by landing across 7th St right next to the cherry-picker parking area. Way nice, but quite a cruise into a headwind. We all imagined that it would be smoother to land there. It was pretty nice too. Plenty of field there, but a long glide.

Region IX comp over. My most fun year ever. I'm submitting 55.2 miles (3 + 32 + 20); the first time I've filled my dance card. That pesky 3 miler irks me but offers a good lesson on remembering to turn on my equipment before launch.

-Kevin

Blew off work on Friday, May 25 to go flying. Talked to Steve K early in the morning and decided with the strong forecast we would give Woodstock a try. Bacil, Steve K, Dan T, Bob Radcliff, and myself were the only pilots to show up. Looked promising at 11:00, Bacil wind dummied off at 12:00, followed shortly by Bob. Bob sank immediately and Bacil managed to stay alive for 10-15 minutes before hitting the deck. I waited at the top with all the gear while Dan and Steve did a retrieval/car drop in the main LZ. By the time everyone was back on launch it had almost completely died. I eventually led the second wave launching around 14:15 into light conditions. I scratched low, dropping to 400 below launch before finding some lift to sustain me. It took me about 15 minutes to get up to ridge level where the leeside helped get me up to +2K. Steve, Dan, Bacil, and Bob then joined me. Winds aloft were light, 10mph tops, with a slight West cross. Dan, Bacil and I headed for Strasburg. Dan made the reservoir (for the first time, congratulations) and back to the primary, peaking at +2900. Bacil scorched up the ridge and sank out around the reservoir, meeting more of the friendly valley residents. I got to +4K just south of the reservoir and went on past the tower at Strasburg and then back down the ridge. Dan and I just flew around til we got tired and landed. I ended up with 2:45, Dan with something over 2 hrs, Bob got a second sled, Steve landed due to illness, and I am not sure of Bacil's time. All in all an excellent day at Woodstock. Stopped for dinner at Fox's Pizza in Strasburg, always good. No big miles but still a great day.

Dave

Friday at Woodstock, I flew to the resevoir near Strasburg and back. I reached 3400 over launch a couple of times and flew most of the way at better than 2500 over. I logged 2:20 for the flight. This was a personal distance record for me and a very enjoyable flight in conditions that were just textured enough to be interesting.

Gang;
I was amazed to find that Mike Buckley did not post his traditional compendium of flight details following the Hyner Weekend. I'll do my best to fill the vacancy.
Myself, Mike, Fred, Raean, Danny, Steve Padgett, John Middleton, Ed Reno, and Kate Spoont were the only representatives of our area at Memorial day. It was fairly quiet anyway...not a single firework, and Spoons didn't bother to bring out the spoons. I heard there was some flying before I arrived Saturday night, but nothing too spectacular. Whether you soared or not depended on the luck of the launch. (need I mention that Buckley got Luckly?)
My little hynie finally lost it's virginity with a sled ride on Sunday morning, thanks to the good graces of John Middleton. We then went to jack's and most of us repeated the sled ride, with the notable exception of Danny Brotto, who launched when the ridge was empty and eventually went over the back. I launched right after him and did my damnedest to knock him off the ridge, to no avail. Next time I'll remember to clear my turns...that guy is EVERYWHERE.
Back to hyner and a couple more sled rides with my thanks to Fred. I even got a sweet spot landing in.
Looking forward to the fourth!

Lynn adds: You forgot about Bob Stillwell, Jo-anne Hildebrand, Lynn Alexander and Craig Kuhn were also representatives of our area. A good time was had by all.

In a message dated 5/27/98 8:59:59 PM EST, brianvh writes:

<< I heard there was some flying before I arrived Saturday night, but nothing too spectacular. Whether you soared or not depended on the luck of the launch. (need I mention that Buckley got Luckly?) >>

There was a window of about 2 hours when it was possible to get up and stay stuck, but it wasn't a gimmie. Altitudes were in the 4K to 5K over launch with pilots spreading out all over the valley. Mid afternoon landings were tricky as they typically are at Hyner on thermal days. Mike Buckley did a good job on his morning flight and afternoon soaring flight. You did your Observer good.

On that Jack's flight, I landed at Mifflin County airport. I had prearranged for a ride back to Jack's launch from some friends that were participating in the Sports Class Sailplane Nationals that were being held there. The promised ride would eliminate the retrieve hassle. Climbing out after an enjoyable but quick flight to the airport, I had to make a decision to keep going or land. The ride and awaiting beer prevailed. It was pretty cool to have been at the airport earlier to watch and help the 60 or so competitors start the day. Then fly there in the HGer, land, and watch and help the competitors return on que and en masse.

d.

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This page last updated May 29, 1998