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Hangola April 17 & 18, 1999

Dan Tomlinson and I joined Greg DeWolf at Taylor for a training hill day today. What a kick! It was SW 10 to 20, with direction swinging nearly due west at times. We used the hill above the old barn instead of the usual launch behind the house. It was better for the direction, plus had room to do lots of flat runs and wind handling work on the top instead of the bottom.

The wind was stronger and gustier than we would ever have used in a pre-H2 lesson. However, for ground handling practice it was great. We only took a few flights, because ground handling and launch runs were the emphasis. However, it was pretty cool to watch Greg launch and rise 30 feet above launch, then fly in front of the hill nearly parked in place! One if his flights looked like he was flying in sea breeze at the beach. He floated up and back and then landed halfway down the hill.

Great Day! Did anyone else fly?

Cragin Shelton

Okay - so what happened at Woodstock Sunday - I gotta know!!

Judy, Mark Gardner, Joe Gregor, Fred and Raean, Mike Chevalier, Steve Padgett, Rob Millman and a couple other people I didn’t recognize all convened at High Rock to winds and trees that were rockin’! Never did take out a wind gauge but it was probably between 15 and 30/35 mph and West/SW. Needless to say, just a little too rotored and strong! Somehow we never saw anything close to the West 10-15 forecasted. We thought about heading to Woodstock to see if it was any good over there but couldn’t raise anyone via phone or radio so we decided to head to Smithsburg (led by Judy) to get in some ground-handling. Just incredible - it was blowing like stink there as well! Most of us had some interesting flights while watching Eddie soar the training hill a few times. Mark G. made it to about 50’ over but decided not to work the thermal since he wasn’t in his glider, harness or helmet (he used mine). We watched Middleton’s students who seemed to be having an interesting time just keeping the gliders on the ground (as we all were!) Headed back up to High Rock afterwards where it had backed off but still cross. Headed to the Otthouse afterwards wondering what happened at Woodstock - do tell!

Sheila

So much for dinner at the Flint Hill Publick House to celebrate the 2nd anniversary. We checked the forecast in the morning and decided that Cumberland was the place to be, despite the mostly cloudy conditions they were calling for. We got on top around noon, set up, and then retired to the trucks to get out of the rain - well, sprinkles. The wind then died down (it was blowing too hard to launch before), and John McAllister launched. He got right up, flew down to the other end of the ridge and then sank out. I was on launch during his whole flight with Jim Rowan behind me. Jim kept trying to get me to launch, but I was waiting for a good cycle, esp. since John was sinking out. Finally the wind looked good and I yelled 'clear' and was off. Jim followed shortly. We both worked lift in front of launch and got up. The next two pilots - Doug and Marvin, took off and practically raced to the landing field in sink (despite Doug getting over launch briefly).

Jim left the High Point launch area for the other end of the ridge about a mile away. When I saw him getting up in a thermal at that end, I zipped on down there, getting below ridge level, but finding his thermal alive and well at my altitude. I worked it up to 2600 over before bailing out - just a little apprehensive since the lift was getting stronger and I was nearing cloudbase. In the meantime, Jim had left the lift (didn't like the rowdy air - and it was rowdy) to see if he could make it to a bigger landing field (it was kinda switchy then in the main LZ) about 3 miles away. He found himself in sink about 1.5 miles out and turned back, landing in the main LZ. I stayed up in the 'not a whole lot of fun' air for another 20 minutes or so and then landed because I was getting sprinkled on and going up where it was looking even darker. Lift everywhere so it took me a while to get down. No step landing. 43 minutes.

Went out to dinner with the other pilots at Chi Chi's in La Vale. Far cry from the Publick House. At dinner I was trying to figure out whether to pay the extra money for the Margarita Grande Gold or the regular Grande when Doug says, "Get the Gold. How many 2nd anniversaries do you have in your life?" "Well," I replied, "3 so far."

Christy

I flew my sailpane Sunday at Fairfield (in the vicinity of High Rock.) Kissed 9000 ft in the wave early at about 11:00 am but had to abandon my quest for oxygen starvation as the huge lenny above disipated (in under 1 minute!) and the cu closed in below me; very quickly cycling conditions. Found a hole to dive through and spent the next couple of hours being slammed around in broken and raspy conditions. One memorable shot was a true 10 K (1000 ft/minute) thermal entered at ~1500 ft agl which took me to cb at ~6K MSL. The vario was literally off the scale from the time I entered the thermal till the time I exited. Of course, what goes up comes down. The conditions were pretty rock & roll. While not terribly strong (280 at 15 knots from ground up to my 9K max) it was very gusty. Watching the rest of the fleet land was entertaining. Condition on the ground ranged from 0 to 25mph; quite gusty. I don't think HGing in the vicinity of HR would have been too much fun yesterday.

Danny Brotto

Picked up Steve Kinsley's old PacAir K4 from Allen Sparks on Wednesday (as a spare glider for visiting pilots), and on Saturday, with brother Jim (Hang III visiting from Colorado), and daughters, headed for Manquin on in the hope that the strong SW winds would abate. They didn't - some gusts were 30 mph.

Tex and some other guys were assembling an impressive-looking new air tug.

In checking out the K4 to see if one of his spare nose cones would fit, Steve Wendt put his hand inside the leading edge near the nose and pulled out the errant item (Allen had thought he lost it at Woodstock last year and had been flying with ductape over the hole). Steve said he had found nose cones for pilots in a similar fashion on about five previous occasions.

On the way home we went by Taylor farm but Craig S, Dan T, and Greg De. had already left and the 15 mph winds were blowing NW.

On balance a positive day: found the missing nose cone, saw four wild turkeys, and enjoyed an evening picnic looking over the scenery at Taylor farm.

Bacil, with a neighbor/driver, went to Woodstock early on Saturday where he got about 20 mins and 400 over launch in light and WSW bumpy air. Marvin Presley arrived in the LZ and they both went to launch again. The wind remained light and Marvin eventually left. Bacil waited around and later took a sled ride in light, west-crossing winds.

On Sunday he went to the Pulpit in the afternoon where the 12 MPH winds were coming straight in under very promising cumies. After an hour when nobody else showed up he went to Woodstock where he got a sled as it was just shutting down.

John Dullahan

A lot of jaw torqueing and hemming and hawing. Not a huge crowd, lemme see if I can remember; Steve and myself, Terry, Marc, Proctor, Tom, and three others whose names I sadly fail to remember, and one late entry.

West Cross and occasionally straight in, strong in the morning which caused a lot of waiting.

A large line of sprinkling rain would trigger a round of "Aahhm' break'n down" and then be followed by a break of blue which would trigger some howling turbulence and then smooth out, causing people to wipe off their leading edges and torque their jaws some more.

Steve and another person Dummied and got extended sleds in a short space of sunshine. We could see areas of thick virga and rain on the mountains across the valley that would lose their oomph as they crossed over. Finally we saw a bank of wet clouds that didn't look as if it would give way to sun, and gliders started getting disassembled.

Terry said he would drive my car down so I figured I would fly down, I was on the Falcon with a Dacron leading edge and figured that I would stay up until it started to sprinkle again and land.

Half an hour later and 1700 over in smooth air I was a happy puppy with a big lonely question mark over my head as I continued to observe the remainder of the pilots with upturned faces and their hands in their pockets.

The clouds continued to exhaust themselves of rain halfway across the valley and people started launching.

I hung around launch, Tom and Marc got amusing trips to the north point. After 1+20 I got flushed and watched others get some scrape time. I enjoyed watching Tom pop up and down over the north finger as he clawed his way out of an annoying land-out one bend to the north and made it back to the LZ with a medium Tommy grin. Marc remarked a couple of times how hard he had worked to get back to the LZ.

About the time Proctor declared he would take his sled like a man, Basil showed up from the Pulpit, all in a lather for air time. He was rewarded with a post Proctor sled.

Pretty fair day all in all, considering.

Ed

Arrived at Manquin around 1100 and found no one set up, in fact no one was even there to consider flying. Tex, Roland, Rawlings and others were working on the Tug, putting the wings on. I watch and got in the way for a while, but the 2/5ths cloud cover made me want to fly in the due west wind.

I persuaded Steve to tow me up and made him promise to arrange for my retrieval if I went XC. First truck tow got me to 1000' and I never managed to climb while chasing some zero sink. Second tow found me releasing at about 50' by mistake, but the third tow got me to 1300'. There was a big cloudstreet over the north end of the field, so I screamed back to the northeast corner and beamed up-at about 500fpm-to my highest altitude of the entire flight, 6500'. The clouds were still another 500' above me, but the thermal was weakening and I wanted to see the bases in front of me to pick the best lift.

I crossed over Rt 360 heading east-northeast, crossed Rt 30, then the Mattaponi, never getting below 4000', sometimes cruising along in zero sink, sometimes drifting about 10 mph while working the big, relatively smooth thermals and always within an easy glide of multiple landing zones.

As I approached south of Tappahannock I was getting low-2000' msl-under the total overcast. I looked for a LZ near a store or gas station on Rt 17 just west of the Rappahannock River and found some too-light-to-sustain bubbles to fly around in as I searched for a wind indicator somewhere near the plowed field I had picked to alight in. As I sank below 800' msl, a patch of sunlight drifted over the field and the next I knew, I was drifting east, towards the river, in 100 up.

The patch of sun was long gone, but the lift very gradually strengthened. I drifted towards some inviting LZs next to the river but by the time I had circled the two miles to the shore of the Rappahannock, I was at 3000' and the lift had increased to 200 fpm. The 2.5 mile wide river looked easy to cross from this height especially with a light tail wind so I left the western bank behind. I was still circling when I passed over the eastern bank and was at 5500' under the blackest clouds around and it was snowing on me.

As the snow started to stick to my base tube and barmitts, I pulled the vg and headed east-starting a very slight dogleg to the right. I could see the Chesapeake Bay and the point of land near Reedville, that would allow me to fly the longest distance without getting wet. The air was buoyant and small rays of sunshine were beginning to pierce through the clouds.

I cruised down to 3000' then thermalled back up to 4000', then down to 2000' and back up to 3000'. Approaching the bay, the cloud cover started breaking up into that stabilizing pattern-thinning clouds that look like swiss cheese.

I ran out of altitude about three miles short of the most eastern point of land in Virginia (other than Virginia Beach) landing a couple hundred yards north of Rt 360-easy retreival-on Rt 652 in Beverlyville at the Country Store/Amoco Gas Station. I had spent exactly 2.5 hours in the air for a 52 mile XC, my longest mileage in a decade.

This XC was so much fun because it was so low pressure. Make a mistake about when to launch, simply launch again. In a weak thermal that's drifting fast, simply work the lift, there's no rotor from a mountain to contend with. Don't know whether you can stay in the air for more than another mile, simply head down wind, there are roads for retrieval and farms for phones and help and lots of small towns and stores to get a snack upon landing. Hate those long retrievals that last into the night, Steve put 66 miles on the odometer-one way-retrieving this 52 mile XC-about 2 hours total driving time for the entire trip.

When I got back to Manquin, I was told that I had the longest flight in the $250 XC contest sponsored by the flight park. Indeed, I had the only flight to date, however the contest hasn't started yet. It was slated to begin May 1, but Tex has reconsidered and since good XC conditions are upon us, the start date of the contest has been moved up to any weekend or weekday starting April 21, still too late for my flight to count, but just perfect for everyone else.

Good flying,

Greg DeWolf
Fly America Productions

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This page last updated April 20, 1999