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Hangola
July 13-19, 1998

July 13-17

Saturday July 18

Sunday July 19

Saturday was a great day for a lot of pilots at the Pulpit. I particularly enjoyed my flight. I was a little late getting to launch (did the laundry - 3 loads - almost all Doug's dirty duds!!), balanced the checkbook, went to the junkyard near Point of Rocks to get a part - idiots found that they didn't have it afterall "but it was there when we last looked"), set up fast (even for me), got on launch around 2:45 and jumped around 2:46 (Mark Gardner: "That's the fastest I've seen her launch!"), found a thermal to the left of launch and got high enough to outlast the next sink cycle. Got even higher (Marc's topless looks cool from above) and headed over the back. Discovered my battery was dying fast when I radioed back to say I was heading out. It was fun hearing all the reports on the radio that I was on the ground, esp. when I was climbing up in a good one! I found some weak lift over the junction near the elementary school and drifted along Lemar Road. Found a good one over Upton that took me to cloud base (haven't checked my vario to see what it was, but I was looking across at a cloud to the north - too far to go to check out, esp. since I was in lift). Continued on finding little pieces of lift here and there. Landed on the edge of Greencastle (perfect landing) next to someone's yard. The husband saw my landing (he was mowing the lawn) and he brought the wife out with him to inspect. They invited me to break down on their lawn while they went about their business. As I was zipping up the glider bag, the wife came out with the keys and gave me a ride to launch. 15.3 miles on the GPS.

Sunday I went to Knight's farm to tow - my first time there. The wind was blowing pretty good from the south to southwest. Tom was first off and it looked a little radical for the tug. Operations were shut down until the wind abated some. Around 3:30-4 operations were opened up again. No one made any move until it was announced that they would shut down for the day unless we wanted to fly right then. I volunteered to go and got my glider on the cart. Hassles over the harness and weaklink delayed my flight. (The latter broke because it wasn't tied properly while I was still on the cart.) My flight was 9 minutes, about 5 coming down and about 4 in lift. Mike C. got the flight of the day - 27 minutes.

Doug got his aerotow sign-off at Currituck. He and the others went down there for the weekend with the aim of getting signed off. Mission success.

Christy

MANY THANKS to Judy, Janet and Joe for ALL their help over the weekend. It was a wonderful weekend at the Currituck airport! - - I’m AT-rated!! (I won’t tell you who else got rated so that I don’t ruin their surprise). 2 Tandems and 6 solos - all in one day! On my first solo on the Falcon on the Dragonfly, the chin part of my helmet accidentally hit the secondary release at 400’ - landed and went up again. Then on my first solo on my Pulse on the trike (unfortunately the Dragonfly required repairs) the same thing happened at about 100’. The day ended up with 3 uneventful flights on the Falcon and my last flight on my Pulse on the trike was wonderful! Thanks again to Janet, Judy and Joe because it really couldn’t have happened without them!

Sheila

>We're back from Kitty Hawk with some wonderful successes.
>I'll let them tell their own stories! For me, my first
>experience towing behind a trike. Two flights on Sheila's
>Pulse.
>
>A great weekend.
>
>Judy

Along with Sheila and Doug, I too got a tow rating at Kitty Hawk, and spent a very pleasant weekend in the company of my friends and fellow pilots.

One of the high points was a complement that we got from one of the instructors, who said, "You guys sure work well together." That statement summarizes how we were able to get three pilots rated as fast as we did.

Thanks everyone.

Dan.

Our trip to Currituck last week turned out to be ill timed. A low pressure system down in Florida gave us about five inches of rain during our visit. The humidity was near 100% the whole time, too. So, we only lasted one night in our tent before we packed up and went to the Riviera Motel. Still, I got my AT rating over two days during breaks in the cloudcover taking two tandems with Sonny and five solos on my Pulse. It was a good experience. We stayed an additional day to finally enjoy some decent beach time on Friday afternoon. Then, we paid for it on Saturday on the drive home when it took 8 hours due to the traffic!
Yesterday, I visited the tow farm for the first time and took a sled. Looking forward to getting out there again soon. See ya'll up high!
Mike Buckley

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This page last updated July 20, 1998