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Hangola January 16-17, 1999

Today I went to the training hill to test out my drogue chute. Richard Hays was there with son Alex and students Joe and Greg(?). A pilot named George was also there, a hang 2 who passed up the trip to Jacks (and possibly his first high flight) for his daughter's birthday party.

The forecast was southeast, but it was quite cross most of the day, with the winds blowing from the east and sometimes even northeast. When they finally came back around many flights were taken, resulting in happy pilots all around.

The drogue chute worked well. It did some flapping around as expected, but it stayed inflated the entire flight and reduced the glide significantly.

More information about harness mounted drogue chutes:
http://home.att.net/~m--sandlin/pad.htm
September '98 Hang Gliding Magazine
The following post from Rob McKenzie to the national hg list.

Judy

Tom & I arrived to find winds blowing lightly straight in. We did some work on the slot, put up tell-tails, and by the time we finished (of course) the other pilots started to show up. Marc, Joe, Steve K., Jose, Ed, and Dan T. showed up.

Looking at the long glide to the primary which you can't see caused an unaccustomed pilot showing of graciousness (no I'll let you go first, no after you I insist). Finally we encouraged Steve to launch. You could tell for all of our encouraging of other pilots, that if he got up, it was going to be a free-for-all getting into gliders and rushing to launch. Well no launch rush ensued as we watched Steve head out for the long and lonely trip to the LZ. Perspective from launch probably gave us a higher "P-factor" than Steve had, but he chose a field slightly closer than the primary and had a good landing.

So the rest of us waited. And waited. Visited by lots of locals who encouraged us to jump off so they could see it. One visit was by a landowner who knew everyone in the valley, and showed us a bunch of fields to the left of launch that we could land in. So Joe took his sled like a man, and made it to a great field. The benefit of going left is that there are more options. Tom got greedy, thinking he might actually get up, and ended up in the emergency bail-out, which he didn't highly recommend. I made 3 passes and decided I would take Tom up on his recommendation and go out and land with Joe. Jose followed closely behind.

I would like to thank Marc Fink for making these last flights possible. By his love for the sport, and willingness to help others commit aviation. By his selfless act of breaking down and drinking beer, he enabled others to fly. Thank you Marc. Also, if others would like Marc to help them in the future, it is VERY IMPORTANT that you bring beer. It is a small price to pay for the ability to fly.

-Mike Balk

1-18-98

Several of us; Marc, Steve, Dan, Mike, Joe, Jose, Tom and myself opted to check out Ediths Gap yesterday.

I came in the front way to check out the LZ's. I found the main to be flat although a tad narrow and cross and bordered by high trees on the windward side. I was not encouraged. It did have easy access as it was right by the paved road on the way up to launch.

The secondaries were down a well maintained icy dirt road. Gravel was down and my FrontWD Caravan didn't have any trouble. The secondary apparently indicated by the site guide is basically a dome shaped postage stamp (32 cent). Again I was not encouraged. While I was walking it, Tom drove by and said there was another one a little further up the road.

It looked as though a fairly large area had been cleared recently and the downed trees had been bulldozered into a couple of piles in the middle. It is on a 15 degree slope and at the bottom near the road there is a power line behind a small hill.

Hmmm... Lemme think I thought. That means... what? I guess that would mean a downwind uphill landing, through the rotered power lines, into a muddy moonscape of foot deep tractor tracks and closely spaced low lying trees stumps....
Yeah....
I could do that......
(TO SAVE MY LIFE!!!)
Again, I was not encouraged.

Mashing my molars, I made for the top. I was a little surprised to see 5 gliders already set up. Before I even stopped the car Dan was walking over to me; "Your not determined to fly that Falcon of yours here are you?" "Well, Noooo." I said. Hopefully I never go out 'determined to fly' on any day. The slot is pretty narrow, necessitating a straight in cycle and a straight out run. We ended up with spotters on each wing tip fine tuning the launch position.

From the slot, the primary is a long stretch to the right over unbroken trees, out of sight over a little ridge and out of my Falcons' sled range. Steve asked me what I thought and I said I wouldn't go unless I saw others at least 500' over. He said he thought that sounded like a pretty good idea.

It was another one of those days when the gentlemanly spirits were sung in abundance. "Please be my guest!" "No! No! I insist! After you!" With a Wuffo chorus: "Y'all gonna fly?" "When ya gonna take off?"

Finally Steve, who had flown there before decided to go. It was crossing slightly from the right so he went right and scraped around the ridge, didn't find anything and headed out. There was a stacatto puckering in the pilots' gallery as he got hammered below glide angle for a bit, then found some zero lift. The whole time making a bee line for the Main LZ.

He ended up accross the river with a couple of hundred feet to spare and landed on the property of a bed and breakfast. He reported that they came out to meet him and said we were welcome to land there and that they were willing to look at our release form and sign it.

Naturally his sled cued another waiting song. In the process some locals came by, one of which was a landowner. She was a high spirited old gal and pointed out her property to the left of the launch. She commented that they didn't see many flyers up there. She liked the idea of pilots landing in her field and mentioned that the owners around her probably wouldn't mind either. We raised our eyebrows as we passed our gazes in that direction. While it was approximately the same distance as to the primary, it was accross the wind not into it, and there were several bail-out options along the way.

Conditions did not improve and Marc offered himself up as a sacrifice by having a beer and starting to break down. Darned if it didn't work. A slight increase in the wind, the friendlier options and the waning day finally prompted everyone else to take their sleds to the left. Mike, Joe, and Jose all landed in the fields, and Tom opted for the gnarly bail out.

It strikes me that the openness of the locals may be directly related to our infrequent use of the site. I think it would be a good idea if we got some good representatives over there and get them to sign the insurance releases while they are in the mood.

Ed.

Hate to break it to all those who chose not to go, but Jack's was splendiferous. I was running like crazy to catch the Hang-2's meeting at the oregon ridge park and ride before they gave up an headed for the boonies of Richard's new training hill, so I didn't call around as much as i would have liked. However, we had Fred+Rae, Bruce Satatis, Scott Smith, myself, plus Pete Lehman and company (where were you, ED?).

Bruce with his wife Barbara and I arrived at a sunshiny LZ about 12;30. There was a two inch crust of snow, a light breeze, and it felt like a temperature of 45 degrees. Fred and Rae showed up a few minutes later. On the way up to launch we met Scott on the way back down. We had called him when we were leaving the park and ride north of Baltimore, and he started from Gaithersburg. That guy must drive like a bat out of hell.

launch was blowing in nice and smooth at about 8 mph. Borderline soarable. As we set up Pete Lehman and crew showed up. He had his attack falcon, and was so excited and boyish about trying it out XC in light conditions that i nearly didn't recognize him.

I was first off, and missed the narrow lift band by about 2 feet. (I was uh..trying to kick into my new harness. Yeah, that's it. It was the harness. Ahem) I then distinquished myself by not realizing that the wind direction in the LZ had rotated 180 degrees during setup. One must not just check the direction of the windsock out of the corner of one's eye, one must needs cogitate upon it. I realized my mistake when the road and stream at the end of the LZ approached much quicker than desired on my final, so did a quick 90 and landed crosswind.

Bruce and Scott launched next, with excellent sleds. Bruce did an no step landing. It was his first high flight in 18 years, prone, with an ultrasport, and he was grinning like a 'coon in a dumpster. notably, he ate up NO extra distance on his final, and must be declared ready for High Rock (he flew there as a H3 years ago with current technology, but Richard had him go through the whole program again to get current). Welcome back to the sky, Bruce.

Fred launched, did a couple of breathtaking turns trying to squeeze into the lift band, but ultimately sunk out. Rae and pete then launched, and both got up. Pete disappeared down the ridge. Rae danced around. it's been fun cataloguing Fred's loving epithets for Rae as we sit on the ground watching her fly overhead. A few months ago she was "Min Sink Mama". As of this Writing she has been promoted to "Sky Bitch".

We tore apart our gliders and headed back up, Fred graciously volunteering to sacrifice himself as wire crew ("Guess what i can do that you fellas can't:....drink beer'). The wind had intensified to definitely soarable. I was the first off again, and was rewarded by a half hour boat until dusk. Studying the wind sock a little more carefully resulted in a no step flare. Scott and Bruce both had extended sleds in the bouyant conditions. Rae came down after being up for god alone knows how long.

I was never able to get my harness completely zipped, mainly due to trying to grab a little zipper with gloves on. I'm thinking of putting a little crossbar on the zipper (a loop may snag during launch run). Any comments from the vast pod community?

-Brian.

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This page last updated January 18, 1999