It just occured to me, half way thru a daydream flight, that coring a thermal perfectly is probably my holy grail of flying. Seems almost impossible to completely nail one for everything it's worth.... And when it happens, it's a memory I go back to again and again...
Please share your thoughts of your favorite thermal climb and how it felt!! Please? I need some virtual coreing ASAP.
Here's the one time that is the thermal that define's every one since for me...
It was the end of a long flight in my Saturn at Villa Grove in strong thermal conditions.. I was trying to go 20 miles out and back and got too tired around 15 miles and hours of bar room fight type thermals between 11 and 17k so I turned around. Anyway, I came back to launch after maybe 3.5 hours and was actually beat into submission so much that I just wanted to land, even with lots of soaring left in the day...
Right over launch, I remember someone setting up and I was only 500 over at around 9-10k and was planning some high banked crap to have fun on the way down and picked up a ton of speed before ripping into a 90 degree bank (this is my memory so it's a little hazy, probably 70 degrees) and I'll be danged if I didn't park myself in a SUUUPER tight spiral in the core of a monster... The vario was screaming all the way around and around and around and around and I kept the bank up high as possible with lots of speed b/c I didn't care about going up so much anymore... but I think, but luck, it was the optimum bank angle for the massive/riteous/ripping good stuff. It was almost an out of body experience b/c the glider was in equilibrium and I could just look around... I'm not kidding, the view of the horizon being sideways, looking to my left down at the ground, watching the launch fall away below as I spun up above the 13k peaks was cool. The most memorable thing tho, was that I could actually see the ground falling away so fast it startled me. I imagine it would be similar to looking up at a plane you jump out of, but I'm looking down at the ground as it just DROPS! Anyway, starting to feel like I'm braggin here, but it's just dumb luck and has only happened once like that. I'll never forget it.
Every since, when I get in a glass elevator or something, I watch the ground and try to compare the climb rate view. It's a mind blower, even after years of flying. Anyway, take'r'easy.
In recent times this was a good one, i described it in my Blog as The glider start to speed up as it gets sucked into something that really wants me to be a part of it. Slowly the glider starts to climb I wait, wait a little more and start to turn the way I think will give me the cores, one turn and I am climbing at 600fpm, 7 at times 8 it I lose it in spots, Sorry crew but I cannot say no to this. Not long later I am at 10000+ again and it looks like I have goal from 38km out. OH Yeh!
But it was more than that, I was kinda low 2300agl or so I think and I was on glide for the town to get retrieved and this thermal was completely perfect in all respects. About 30 secs or more before I hit it I knew something was coming. The anticipation builds up and you start to get a little bit excited. Then you hit horrible sink and wonder if you were just having a premonition about bad s*** about to happen. But then the glider starts to speed up and get 'sucked' towards it like a leaf wide on the rim of the vortex of water going down the drain. That's about when I start to giggle. Then as smooth as you like the vario starts to chirp a little. You don't do nothing and it gets better, then FA&RKIN YEH good. Then right before you think it has hit its peak, in the best of it, you initiate a turn and get all coordination and speed perfect first turn to sit it right where you want it. There you stay as easy as you want, one hand dangling just for the hell of it. Though you lose it a couple of times looking down just watching the paddocks and little creaturess of the earth diminish in size exponentially. "For there I have been.........." 10000+ agl in a hang glider, a view you earn and are gifted.
My favorite one was from 400' AGL (estimate) at McClure. Everyone was landing at once after extended sledders or short soaring flights. I circled around and planned a way through the chaos in the LZ, and I got in something. One pilot saw me and darted under me, and we rode to 2000' AGL and caught several more after that that kept us up for a couple hours while my buddies on the ground cursed my name. _________________ H2 / Sport 2 155
There is no spoon.
Never trust internet pilots!
There are just to many memorable thermals for me to pick one. From weak broken lift saving my butt from a multi mile carry out north of Wallaby. To the boomer that put me under the cloud street and allowed me to pass over the same area with no worries 2 days later.
Those thermals I've run into at 300' after a 700 scooter tow, when I'm sure I'm going down to take another. The first rocket ride that carried me to 6800' AGL and initiated my first long XC (30 miles farther than my other attempts).
Watching the core spin the wheat (clockwise) 1200' below me, Larry, John and Tom. All of us in the same thermal and maybe 400' seperating the top pilot from the bottom one.
The lift I parked in the top of as I watched my dad spiral up to join me in our first flight together. I remember them all like they were yesterday.
They were not all rocket rides. They surely were not cored to full potential. Yet they are the reasons I enjoy hang gliding. Gravity is my enemy, and I will use all my Ninja skill and power to defeat it! HADOUKEN!! _________________ Airborne Climax 14 (C1)
WW U2
H3
AT, FL,ST, RLF, TUR.
There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. … Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties. ~~~Douglas Adams
I think some of my most memorable thermals are those I have shared with other pilots. There is just something cool about climbing out with a friend, gradually working closer and closer together until you are almost wingtip to wingtip, both dialed into the core, circling around and around together at max climb. _________________ "A day without fun is a day that eats s***." HST
I think some of my most memorable thermals are those I have shared with other pilots. There is just something cool about climbing out with a friend, gradually working closer and closer together until you are almost wingtip to wingtip, both dialed into the core, circling around and around together at max climb.
Done that a couple of times, and those flights stick with me more prominantly. _________________ Always a student.
"The mountain doesn't care what that card in your wallet says." - Bruce Stobbe
I think some of my most memorable thermals are those I have shared with other pilots. There is just something cool about climbing out with a friend, gradually working closer and closer together until you are almost wingtip to wingtip, both dialed into the core, circling around and around together at max climb.
Funny, when I saw this thread the first thermal climb I thought about was the time me and you climbed out in the Owens to about 13,000 ft to start the days flying. Good times. That led to this:
For me it was when I tried to cross a very, very wide gap and failed. I flew under a cloud that I really needed to find a climb under but found nothing at all. Had to fly back out of the crossing area. I covered quite a bit of land with zero lift. Right before I got to the lip of the ridge that is the end of the crossing area, I hooked a boomer that gave me over 1,000FPM on the vario. Out here, 1,000FPM on the 20-second averager is incredible. I'd never been in lift that strong and my vario actually kind of scared me the way it was beeping. I cranked it up on a tip, got to cloudbase in no time and attempted the crossing a second time.... which was successful.
Pic attached for that climb....
One other very memorable thermal coring experience was during the Team Challenge last year. The day was super light... very, very weak and sparse lift. Even the comp veterans and rigids were scratching and most did not make goal. I ended up in a climb with Kevin Carter that was about 50fpm on the averager. It was such a slow and gentle and broken climb that you had to core it perfectly or you'd lose altitude. Slowly a number of other pilots ended up in the same thermal and at one point there were at least 10 of us in this pathetically weak core, all quite close but very respectful of one another. We milked that thing for what seemed like 45 minutes until it topped at at around 1200 AGL. Most who left that thermal landed shortly thereafter (myself included) but a couple found more lift up on top of the ridge.
"... the view of the horizon being sideways, looking to my left down at the ground, watching the launch fall away below as I spun up above the 13k peaks was cool. ..............
Jack Handy
One of my most memorable thermals was a clear evening on a mid January day, years ago in Iguala, Mexico. I was quite new to flying then which might explain how impressionable I was.
Three of us had the entire mountain top to ourselves. The launch is a narrow strip with a concrete surface. Locals had hacked it out of the dense thorny foliage that covers the entire mountain. Looking SW towards town and beyond launch, you get a narrow glimpse of a semi desert valley. Directly below and surrounded by dusty irrigated fields a shallow green reservoir lies simmering in the abundant Mexican sun.
Ignoring the absolutely still air and the gloomy expectations from my companions, I went ahead and was first to setup. Sure enough, after a healthy 15 minute wait on launch, an imperceptible puff stirred the limp tell tale. It lined up and I ran like a banshee straight into some big lift.
It turned out to be the smoothest, largest and longest thermal I've ever been in. It only took five or six wide turns in creamy smooth lift to climb 6k. The strong lift appeared to be everywhere .
In what seemed a blink of an eye, my gaze now encompassed the entire mountain and a good portion of the valley. Everything was so small that I was unable to identify launch. For a moment, an eerie feeling of isolation crept over me. I think it was the first time It hit home that there was absolutely nothing below my belly for two miles.
Despite the sudden scramble that ensued on launch, no one else got off. After topping out at around 12k I enjoyed an effortless glide all the way across the valley and over town. Finally landing in the fields outside of town right before dusk. _________________ Passing wind gets me stinking high !!
It's always interesting to hear about other pilots flights and to hear about what made those flights memorable for them. It wasn't necessarily their longest xc, their longest duration, or their highest flight. Sometimes it is just some small part of a flight or something we saw during it that makes it really stick with us. _________________ Paul H
U2 160 USHPA # 51178 KE7VOG
H4, FL, AT, PL, FSL, RLF, TUR, X-C, CL, AWCL, 360, HA,
USN ret. A & P mechanic
I posted this some time last year, but since it relates to the subject at hand I thought I'd post it again.
The site is Pine Mountain in Ventura County, CA. As you can see it was a bit cross that day. Thinking that the house thermal would would block most of the wind, I spent a lot time directly over the spine circling for something to get me up and out. Instead I found nothing but trashy air. Having had enough of being tossed around I decided to explore a little to the east; when my vario started singing I put my glider on its ear.
A particularly memorable thermal for me was one that I hit just as I launched. I yelled "clear!" and walked, jogged, got maybe a step or two of run before being violently pulled off the ground vertically, going straight up about 75' in a split second. It was reminiscent of an elevator launch at a ridge site, but stronger and more violent. At that point my glider performed a 90° flat spin through no control input of my own, whoa that felt really bizarre, and then bucked forward with my trailing edge being lifted as if pushed from behind. A moment later I hit the core with the bar nearly ripped from my hands as the nose pitched up nearly vertical. I got things under control, my heart beating wildly, and cranked around, holding on tightly as the ground spun away below me. Once in and centered, it was actually a pretty nice thermal, albeit fairly strong. I was still shaking from the violent entry and didn't relish the thought of leaving this lift so I rode it up to cloudbase some 4500' above launch, where I was finally able to let go with one hand long enough to zip up my harness.
I was at cloudbase 3 minutes from the moment I began my launch run, for an average of around 1500 fpm...again that's from the moment I began my launch run!
No GPS track, but here are some pics of the site:
The set up area, launch is just on the other side of the trees on the right
Launch, and the LZ outlined in red, white speck at far end of LZ is a glider
View looking NE from cloudbase, my house is on the bench above the lake immediately below my wingtip
The LZ outlined in red, white speck on left is a glider
Looking back towards launch (above the landing glider) from the LZ
These are just the same pics shown above that I attached to the post, I'm trying to figure out how to get descriptive text with each individual picture, so I used the Img tag with the url pointing to the uploaded attachment (hanggliding.org URL), but of course it also shows the attachments below. I guess the only way to get descriptions with each picture and not show them as attachments as well is to upload the pics elsewhere, oh well.
PJ Harvey kicks ass!!
Great choice!! _________________ Everyone who lives dies, yet not everyone who dies, has lived.
We take these risks not to escape life, but to prevent life escaping us.
Great pictures, spekkinout. BC has some beautiful flying sites. I regret not getting up there to fly at them when I lived in Washington state. The only place I ever made it to was Fort Langley to do some aero towing. Not quite as scenic in that area as it is further east. _________________ Paul H
U2 160 USHPA # 51178 KE7VOG
H4, FL, AT, PL, FSL, RLF, TUR, X-C, CL, AWCL, 360, HA,
USN ret. A & P mechanic
Great stuff. I really felt like I was there on lots of these descriptions. Tex, that's got to be the best thing ever. That whole process of feeling something different, and then the "oh heck yeah", then wait, wait, BOOOM! Got giddy reading that one!
I remembered another one that was last Fall. This sucker ramped up to almost 1600fpm and the entire 2:50 hrs of flying never saw anything over 600fpm before that. It was wild.
The memorable part was at the top. I was coming to cloudbase faster and faster and decided way before I got there that I'd better start going straight for the side of it or ya know... As I flattened my turn in the lift, I was actually up in a concave bottom of the cloud before getting out from under the screamer. The timing was perfect b/c I kinda punched thru the wispy side of that dome. Cool feeling inside the cloud, but not in it if that makes any sense. Anyway, that sucker was connecting up with more clouds and I made a B-line 10 miles away from it, landed, and the downpour of that very same cloud drenched me and the glider about 25 minutes later.
Great stories ya'll. F'ing awesome. Hope there's flying this weekend.
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Damn Nice !!
