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Hangola April 30, May 1 & 2, 1999

Greg De Wolf had one 17-min flight to 2,300 over today. Then he landed and stayed down. It was NNE at 15 - 25 MPH; too strong for any more towing. I never did set up and left at 3:50 pm.

The Rotex engine on the tug seized and is now back with the importer in Florida. Air towing at Manquin will be delayed at least three weeks.

Judy, (or anyone who was there) how was it at Bill's Hill? It looked like a weak north cross, so I opted (unfortulately) for Manquin. Did anyone get up an go anywhere?

I hope the experience at Bill's was better than Manquin. I'm thinking of making the 3 hour trek to Bill's today.

Terry, Doug, Liming, John Dullahan, some new kids, others I've forgotten their names and I were at Manquin all day. I was the only one to fly in the very gusty, 10-20 NE winds. The turbulence on tow and on landing approach was the worst I've experienced at Manquin and no one else wanted to experience it first hand.

I flew three flights, the first at 1:30. I got gusted during launch while still on the cart, but level my wings before becoming airborne. The rest of the tow was rock and roll constantly and I made it worse by over controlling. I released at 1500', short of the end of the runway because my vario had been pegged at 1500 fpm up for 4-5 sec.

Off line I found plenty of lift, mixed with plenty of sink, swiss cheese style. I couldn't complete a quarter circle in lift without falling into equally strong sink. I managed to climb to 2000' then bounced like a pinball in the turbulence to landing approach altitude.

At about a 100' agl, in the standing position, I started a 180 onto final. As I leveled out with lots of speed, the bottom dropped out and I free fell to about 25' agl where the glider regained its composure. Luckily I had kept the bar stuffed as the nose tried to pitch up in the positive gust and I landed with 3-4 steps to avoid flaring in the gusty winds for 17 minutes air time.

The second flight, at 4:30 was equally bouncy and the landing was just as traumatic. Air time 5 minutes. The third flight was the same except that I found a solid enough core to work at 800', over the south end of the field, to climb to 2000'. There it cleaned up its act and became a smooth 800 fpm marshmallow, drifting at around 25 mph SW. It started braking up around 5000' but I continued working it to 5500' where I decided that I had drifted too far into RIC TCA and headed back 5 miles at 50 mph to Manquin. I hit lift before getting back 3 times and worked each for a while before repeating the free fall experience on landing 40 minutes after launch.

Greg

Many, many pilots showed up at Bills Saturday morning. I counted 23 gliders set up at one time before the launch queue started. With the exception of two, everyone waited til early afternoon to begin launching. (The first two got sleds). I got into the afternoon queue and launched into fairly steady 10mph straight in. I turned right and found a little ridge lift so continued in that direction. Several thermals kept me just above the ridge until I got near the first "knob" where I turned in a nice fat thermal to about 1100' over launch. I boated around in the area for awhile working the thermal until it dissipated and left me picking out a likely looking LZ just on the other side of the interstate. Altogether, 3.02 mi, 1098'above launch and 31 min. When I left the area in route to Tyson's Corner, I was still hearing radio traffic from pilots reporting 5000' over. I'm sure mine was one of the shorter, lower flights of the day. But -- I SOARED BILLS HILL!!!!!

Chuck

Saturday was better for some. Pete L. did 30+ on his FALCON, I believe. Larry H. did 63. Doug Wakefield reportedly got like 8000+ msl. I maintained my record for short XC's (10mi) followed by ridiculously long (4 hrs) and convoluted (40mi) retrieves. Tom McGowan delivered the coup de grass by jumping over the back at 5pm and, like the energizer bunny, kept going, and going, and going for 34 miles, passing almost directly over my head in the process, and soundly blowing my 'downed by inhuman massive untraversable sink in the Fishers Road Valley' story right out of the water.

Thanks Tom ;-)

BTW, as I sank at a sustained 800-1000 down I picked a long (like 3/4 mi) skinny field near the middle of the valley that looked enough like a runway to make me feel right at home. Turned out to be the top of a ridgelike knoll with a 30 degree slope perpendicular to the 'runway' direction. It was probably soarable at times. Like the time I came in on final. I was pretty much committed by the time it became apparent. If you see this field, go pick another. Trust me on this.

Sunday was less rock and roll but still hit or miss until about 5:30 pm, when it became ridge soarable with light thermals. Bacil flew about a half dozen times, landing out each time. Sheila decided to run the ridge and avail herself of his retrieve driver on her flight. Way to go Shiela! Cast of thousands boating around. Lot's of people tripping all over each other in the ragged lift until things spread out later. Eyes open on the ridge, guys! Look....then turn. Not the other way around. I got 2+00 (it was soarable until sunset) and demonstrated that I still can't get a high as, or land as well as, Matt Graham.

-- Joe

Cast of thousands at Bill's all weekend. Well, ok, more like dozens. highest count I heard on Saturday and Sunday was 28 gliders each day. May have been more. Not exactly the same crowd both days. Pilots from Philly area to Central VA were there. Big contingent from the Pittsburgh area.

My own record:
Saturday - two sleds, both late in the day after the rowdy air.
Sunday: 11:30 a.m. Wind Dummy for the day - sled through rowdy air, followed immediately by Matthew and Bacil. I turned right off launch, Matthew turned left, he lasted one minute longer than I. Bacil made it down the ridge for a short XC. No more launches for two hours.

5:29 p.m. launched into a huge gaggle in the sky, having waited to see lots of better launches and some soaring. 67 minutes, 1,000 feet over launch!

I counted 13 other gliders in view near launch with me, and I know of at least 6 that were out of sight on XC runs at the same time. The sky was tricky to be in because there was no regular ridge-run oval pattern in effect, and gliders were all over the sky working irregular and nearby thermals but not in polite stacks. John Middleton and I flew rather close at one point, but had each other in view, although he was not sure I did at the time. Once on the ground Joe Gregor told me I passed VERY close to him while he was circling in a thermal. He did see me and averted disaster. I have to admit I had not seen him, and I was VERY aware of scanning for traffic my whole flight, to the point of counting gliders several times. My interest in sky traffic just went up! Any suggestions on improvement?

Dedication Award goes to Robert Sweeney, who drove all the way across the state on Saturday, arriving too late to fly! After camping out on launch, to be first there on Sunday, he set up his glider, then spent all afternnon wiring off launches and chasing Bacil on threeeee short XC's down the ridge. Finally at about 7:30 p.m. after the last retrieve, Robert launched into smooth air for an evening glass off flight. Congratulations, Robert, and thanks for all the support crew effort!

Cragin S

What a weekend! Friday, Saturday, and Sunday saw sunshine and thermal soarable conditions at Bill's Hill. How often does that happen three days in a row on a weekend at Bill's Hill?! It was moderately cross to very cross from the north most of the weekend. The hardier souls took flights in the middle of the day, many of whom went xc. I flew late both days for very rewarding flights in nice, relatively gentle, air. On Saturday I launched at 5:07 pm and got my highest ever altitude at Bill's Hill--2,000+' over!! The sky was clear and the view was stupendous! And to top it off I had an excellent landing!! It was great!

Saturday night lodging was provided by Mark Gardner at what may soon evolve into the Imler Bed & Breakfast. I had very comfortable accomodations on the fouton. Mark has a laptop with an Internet connection so we could tune in to all the weather stuff. AND he has an almost complete set of raised topographical maps for charting out xc routes! What fun! Several pilots camped out at Bill's Hill launch.

On Sunday conditions again were cross from the north, and again I waited to fly. Launched at 4:41 and broke my Bill's hill altitude record set on Saturday by getting 3400' over launch! Unbelievable! I had a great time playing around and again, enjoying the view.

Lots of pilots had memorable flights this weekend. Pete L flew his longest flight on his Falcon so far--44 miles, after flying 80 some miles on Friday on his old Fusion. Larry had the distance best on Saturday with 63 miles, with Tom at 34 miles. Several pilots flew 20-30 miles on Saturday. I don't know how far the xc-ers got on Sunday. Lots of pilots went down the ridge or over the back and landed xc. Doug, Keith Ford, and Tom all got unbelievably high on Saturday, like 5 and 6K over.

There are many other stories to tell, but I will stop here.

Still feeling the enjoyment of the weekend,
Judy

>I got 2+00 (it was soarable until sunset) and demonstrated
>that I still can't get a high as, or land as well as, Matt Graham.

>-- Joe

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HEY!!! I had five landings over the weekend-- two of which were very good, two Saves (ran out and didn't let nose drop) and one massive belly whomp-- much akin to your landing on Sunday. Though I don't recall almost flying into the gliders breaking down by the road at the end of the field. Hmmmm, and I don't recall taking out any aluminum on any of my landings either :)

As to getting high, Joe did spank me good on Saturday. I was pathetic-- needed three flights to get in a good soaring flight. On my first try I flew into a massive sink hole right after launching that had me scared that I wasn't going to make it to the LZ. On the second flight, I scratched on the ridge getting 200 over at most for about 15 minutes and then gave up and went looking for a thermal. I found the LZ instead. I should have been looking for birds getting up as an indicator of thermals (as Tom did) instead of just hoping to blunder into one over 'the brown field' where pilots had been finding thermals before. The third was 40 minutes of light magic air with lots of "poooshing out" and tracking where the other two gliders in the air were finding lift-- never got more than 400 over.

On Sunday I encountered extremely turbulent air on my first flight at about 11:30. I had to fight hard to keep from being turned back into the ridge three times. I got in some lift just to the North of launch, got turned toward the ridge, 180'd back toward launch and was maintaining-- was just about to 180 again before hitting the sink hole that claimed Craig when I got turned back toward the mountain again. Getting the glider turned away from the ridge flew me into Craig's sink hole. Tried heading North again at launch level but encountered my third uninitiated turn toward the ridge so I gave up and went out to the valley. Tried to work a couple of pockets of lift but kept falling out of the back side and ended up not being able to make it to the primary because of the severe North cross and landed in a small fence lined field just to the South of the primary. Sorry to bore you all with the details. But I just want ya'll all to know how nasty it is trying to fly Bill's when it's strong and crossing from the North. And from launch it didn't look that cross or strong. But it was so strong in the LZ that Craig and I had to flatten our gliders to break them down. Thanks Craig for showing me how to do this. Bacil and Marc concurred about the nastiness of the air.

It was sit around and wait for a long while once I got back to launch. But once Pete Lehman started setting up. The lemmings lined up and I spent most of the day wiring crewing off about a billion pilots with the help of Joe, Judy-Judy and Karen. (On Saturday, Karen probably helped wire off a jazillion pilots). I waited until after Dan launched and said that he was having fun before I bothered to set up again. I launched at 5:35 in 12-15 mph winds into the sweetest lift I've had in a long time. Easy ridge lift to 1000 over. If you wanted to get higher, just head for the sunshine and start circling. Didn't have much trouble with traffic like a few others did. It was sooo nice to stay up and not have to think. Got 2K over, flew down to the turnpike and back and landed after 1:15 so I could get the car while Karen stayed up and enjoyed the view. She got 50 minutes (1100 over) on Sunday and 20 minutes on Saturday.

Had hoped to get home at a reasonable hour. But Rob Sweeney, who had been so helpful to a lot of pilots (especially one), was stranded in the LZ . So Karen and I went back up to launch to retrieve his car and meet him and John M. at the entrance of Summit Road. Big thanks to Gardinator for bringing 8 of us back up to launch on Sunday. Marc apparently was the savior on Saturday driving all over PA picking up XC pilots. Big Congrats to Sheila on her 2 XC flights.

Had a great time at Casa de Gardinator's too on Sat night, but I've already rambled on too much.

Matthew (one tired bunny, of Karen and Matthew)

As someone who has had no small part in vilifying Bills Hill over the years, I would like to give an accounting of the longer XC flights that were flown from the site on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Bills has been a notoriously difficult site to soar over the sixteen years that I have flown it, let alone go cross country. Who in their right mind could have guessed we'd see three consecutive days of (often) excellent flying?

We Pittsburgh pilots began the weekend early on Friday due to the fact that an unusual number of pilots were either off or could take off on that day. Furthermore, as the bizarre NE conditions looked as though they would hold through the weekend we decided to stay overnight in Breezewood (Incidentally, the Wiltshire Motel has nice, clean rooms for $36+tax/double). By Sunday there were nine of us at the hill.

Pilots who flew Sat/Sun would have recognized the conditions on Friday except for one useful difference: there were some widely scattered clouds. Launch conditions were like Saturday and Sunday except a bit lighter. Nonetheless, it was badly left crossed when we started to launch. Of the four of us present, three got up and one suffered the ignominy of a sled ride for which Bills is so justly infamous. The other pilots all climbed to amazing altitudes (8,900msl was the best, and that was still 500ft or so short of base). My flight, on a Fusion, began with my being scraped off the ridge by the north cross and then having to find a trashy, weak thermal in front of the ridge. Meanwhile, Larry Huffman beamed up straight out of launch. My weak thermal had just gotten me high enough to glide down into the Turnpike gap, above which were cumulus clouds. There I was greeted with all the lift one could hope for, 700+fpm to eight grand. Our third member, John Fenner, also got high and we were all off to the races, heading southwestward.

I began by being a bit too confident of the conditions, and had dialed up my speed ring setting on the Tangent. In other words, I was getting into a race-mode. But after passing south of Breezewood and heading out into the largely blue open country beyond it I decided to become conservative until getting back into the mountains twenty miles away. That proved wise as I found little lift in the open and by the time I'd crossed Tussey Mountain I was getting somewhat low. At the south end of what we call the (route) 326 valley there is one little mountain spur which faces to the NE, and I glided up and behind that thing in the hopes of finding lift to get me high enough to make it into the US220 valley. Sure enough, the lift was where the theory says it ought to be, but it was blue, and nothing like what I'd seen under clouds earlier in the flight. Still, the thermal got me over into the 220 valley, and up onto the highest, largest part of Wills Mountain just east of Hyndman, PA. Once again thermal theory was validated, and I found a 200fpm thermal that got me high enough to hop into yet another of the valleys (96). However, that small hop soon became unnecessary as the 200fpm thermal became steadily stronger until I saw a steady 850fpm on the averager. That beauty brought me up under a newly forming cloud that marked the beginning of a sustained line of fairly short-lived individual cumies and haze domes. While the individual clouds didn't necessarily work well, together they clearly defined a lift line that went southwestward past Meyersdale, PA and then expired as I approached I-68. While running that line I stayed above 7,000msl and repeatedly found 4-500fpm thermals to keep me there. However once the cloud bits ended I began a long glide that eventually ended on I-68 just across the WVA state line. Distance 80.2 miles, and 3:15. One of our outstanding chase drivers, Lynn Meadows was there within ten minutes to administer the traditional sacramental beverages employed to honor such a fun flight.

Lynn and I headed back toward Breezewood with the object of picking up John Fenner along the way. John had, like me, been skying back in the mountains, but he'd taken a somewhat more northerly track which ran towards Berlin, PA. We had lost contact with him back there, but during my retrieve Jim Meadows had raised John on the Bedford repeater, and then re-transmitted John's location to us via the Blue Knob repeater. Lynn and I had only gone ten miles before we knew exactly where to go to get John. He had made it 48.5 miles to land right on top of an Allegheny Mountain ridge SE of Berlin. Our third xc pilot of the day was Larry Huffman whose wife Brenda had quickly picked him up 34.1 miles out on US 220. All in all an astounding day. Who would have dared expect two more like it?

On Saturday and Sunday the three longest flights on each day were, I believe, as follows:

Saturday was Larry Huffman's turn to smoke us. In the end he made it 62.1 miles, getting to New Lexington, PA which is southwest of Somerset. Larry's flight had two distinguishing features. First, the beginning half of the flight was incredibly difficult, and he couldn't get much above 5,000msl for the longest time. He was always low, and always having to work garbage lift until he finally got into the mountains and became more comfortable. The other notable feature was that it represented his first "backwards" crossing of the Allegheny Mountain complex of trees and mountains. We Pittsburgh pilots normally cross from west to east when flying out of Templeton or Avonmore. Going the other way from other sites (Bills or Fisher) has been an extremely rare event.

Meanwhile, having launched quite a bit later than Larry, I began my flight (this time flying Tweety, the Attack Falcon) by dribbling southward along Sideling Hill, crossing the Turnpike gap, and then getting stuck at ridge height (and below) for 12minutes at a 50-100yard long northeast facing notch in the ridge at the north shoulder of the US 30 gap. Eventually my patience was rewarded and my frustration assuaged by a decent thermal that went from a trashy 300fpm to a solid 700fpm as it went up over the top of Sideling Hill. I was climbing through six grand at 700fpm as Larry was telling me how tough things were going for him. I decided not to tell him what I had.

Now began the long crossing of the Breezewood valley, a transit whose apparent length was greatly increased by the Falcons poorer and slower glide than the Fusion's. I flew very carefully , staying as high as I could along the way. Nonetheless I wound up descending to ridge height on the by now well known NE facing little ridge at the south end of the 326 valley. There I began a short weak climb from 2,500msl. However I only made it high enough to hop into the 220 valley and onto the flank of Wills Mountain to the west of the road. I was reluctant to go too far in on the mountain because I was on the Falcon and a bit worried about being able to safely glide out to an lz if I didn't find lift. And I didn't find lift, so I headed south along 220 expecting to land. At about 2,300ft I found a light thermal which was slowly improving when I noticed a red tail below me and 50yards off to the side of my circles. Believing that hawks are always in the best available core, I moved over to get in above him. Sure enough, his thermal was worth 450+fpm and I was outta there. It was getting late however, and the thermal quit at 5,000msl, but now I could easily get over Wills and into the 96 valley south of Hyndman. This was convenient as Lynn Meadows had just finished picking up her husband Jim at the north end of that valley (28.2 miles), and my landing in the 220 valley would have occasioned a great detour in the retrieve. As it was getting late I decided to just run along the top of Wills Mt in the hopes of finding another thermal or two to get me to the Fairgrounds LZ in Cumberland. If the lift didn't materialize, I would just bail off the mountain to the west and into the 96 valley and land. And so it was. I landed just across the Maryland line for 44.3 miles and a personal Falcon record distance. Lynn provided even better retrieval this time, and was there within five minutes of my landing. The third longest flight of the day was by Tom McGowan at some 34 miles, but I am afraid I don't have his flight story, so I invite him to contribute it to this log of the weekend's flying.

Sunday brought slightly different conditions in that the left cross was initially a bit worse in direction and accompanied by considerably stronger winds. Fortunately the wind dropped off and the cross moderated somewhat. Still, it was damn tough to get up until much later when the evening produced wonder wind conditions. Launching early was a roll of the dice. I launched early and simply left with the thermal I had launched into. I calculated that trying to stay on the ridge in those crossed conditions was guaranteed to put me in the main lz. The thermal I had was broken and erratic and only went to 5,400ft as it drifted me toward Breezewood. That was the highest I ever saw before landing near Everett for 17 miles.

But just after I had landed, feeling proud of myself, I heard Eric Shiever and John Fenner announce that they were around 8,000msl and headed my way. Soon I saw Eric's Fusion turning right over my lz and becoming mighty small. He continued onward over Tussey Mt and into the 326 valley where he became low at the same place I had been low on the previous day. But he too found a weak thermal that just got him high enough to dive into the 220 valley where it sounded like he was going to land.

In the meantime Larry and Brenda Huffman, on their way home to Pittsburgh, stopped at my lz to drop off my truck with which I was to chase Eric and John. John had begun his flight with a horrendous struggle to get high enough to go over the back of Sideling Hill. He had dribbled as much as seven miles southward from launch before finding a boomer to eight grand. Having already started on a more southerly track, John began angling ever further to the south. This tactic was necessary because he was no longer finding good altitudes, and because his southerly start point had put him on a line into a wide expanse of trees and mountains. As he never could get high enough to cross those woods, he was compelled to continue south until landing at I-68 for 36.9 miles.

While he was doing that, I was racing south on 220 to pick-up Eric who'd landed there...or so I thought. I suddenly received a faint transmission from him saying that he had climbed out from 220 and was over the back of Wills Mountain. Later, as I neared Cumberland I heard a final,really faint, broken message saying he was at Wellersburg on 160, just NW of Cumberland. After getting John we went to find Eric who told us that he had pulled off a 150ft barnyard save in the 220 valley. He says that he could count just about the chickens and assorted beasts below as he began his climbout. Another spectacular flight: 46.8 miles, 2:04.

In closing I should mention that on Sunday my vehicle had had no beer in it, a scandalous state of affairs when picking up xc pilots. After finding John we had searched for beer, only to be frustrated by Maryland's barbaric Sunday liquor laws. We therefore thought to stop and try to buy beer in a private sportsmen's club just short of Eric's lz. After parking out front, John walked in to buy the beer while I waited in the car and explained to Eric on the radio why we'd be a few minutes late. He replied that the local he was talking to agreed that going to the sportsmen's club was a good idea. He'd said, "They'll sell beer to anyone. Unless they think you're a cop". At that moment John walked out of the place...empty handed. Oh well.

Per Pete's invitation, here's a brief summary of my flight this Saturday from Bills.

My first flight did not go as planned, as I had to land to fix the nose cone of my glider. This put me back at launch at 4:40 - too late I thought for a long flight. The entire time I was setting up, I could see Doug Wakefield specked out over the valley in front of launch.

I got up fairly quickly and followed Keith Ford in an attempt to reach a town on the far of valley. However, I followed Keith into a 700+ thermal that took me to 5,500 over launch at 5:15. I heard Steve Kinsley who landed at Everett and thought that as long as I landed on Rt. 30, he would convince his ride to pick me up as well.

I stayed high for the first two miles, twice finding good lift to more than 5,000 before reaching the Fisher Road area. I then hooked a third good thermal (500+) over the foothills in front of the Fisher Ridge by Richie Knob. From there, I made Everett and found lift on the ridge just north of the gap. After that, I quite easily jumped ridge to ridge in light (200+) thermals until Bedford - where I could not figure out which road was Rt. 30, Rt. 220 or the Turnpike. Therefore, I decided to fly out over some brown fields and foothills to stay near what I thought was the Turnkpike and landed 6:45 near Kebb on Rt. 31 (and next to the Turnpike) for 33.8 miles. Marc Fink and Steve Kinsley found me just as I zipped up my bag and they found a bar which supplied the usual beverage just 100 yards down the road - a perfect retrieve.

In keeping with a practice I remember hearing that the Pittsburgh boys used to use I would like to post some thoughts on my little xc from Bills on Sunday. After having had an excellent flight from Bills 2 weeks earlier, I had a sled and then a half hour evening flight on Saturday. After this appropriate ego deflation, I launched at around 3:30 on Sunday and managed to get up. I went 8 miles down to route 30 and landed on the front side of Sideling hill.

The main mistake I made was leaving the company of a very experienced pilot (John Fenner-Daedelus). I had not been getting very high the first 15 minutes of the flight, but when I saw John getting higher, I went to join him, and got my highest altitude of the flight. I thought the drift was extremely southerly, and left John to attempt another ridge run. John went out front to find another thermal, and went 36 miles.
#1 be patient
#2 work with other pilots (especially good ones)

Mark Gardner

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This page last updated May 6, 1999