[oden]

Don't you hate when things become so predictable. You know what's going to happen next before you even get started.

Well...

What does all the following mean:

10 of the past 12 weekends it has rained in the area
All but two days since July 19th it has rained, admittedly anything from a light rain shower on up to heavy downpours.
Since June 1st the area has received well over 14 inches of rain. Heck some areas are getting 3-4 inches of rain in a single day right now, fortunately I haven't seen anything quite like that but I still have seen days with over an inch fall.
The rain falls anywhere from all day to starting late morning to mid afternoon to right around sunset. The only thing that is dependable about the rain is the fact that it is going to happen.

Oh yeah, what does it mean when you look up in the sky and you see blue skies coming in but you dread the thought of blue skies or seeing the sun?

It's SO predictable!!!

It must mean you are in the northern New England rain forest. Granted I didn't know northern New England had a rain forest, but it must.

Yeah, the sweet offer I had made to me by another pilot for getting into hang gliding had been being put on hold left and right, mostly due to the weather, one way or another.

I had recently been doing some inside work on my house and noticed my roof replacement plans for next year wasn't going to wait that long. So two weeks ago, on a nice day for taking the first lesson I ended up working on replacing the roof on my house so I could even sensibly continue on with the inside work. Yes, the roof was leaking from ice jams during the winter but I had never noticed any trouble during the summer months until the day before I started replacing it. A predictable rain storm helped me notice the leak and made my mind up quickly that the roof was going to be dealt with now not later. After stripping 4 layers of shingles off, they had never been stripped by the previous owners, I ended up taking a quick 6-8 hour project and turning it into a MAJOR multi-day project. Granted it managed to rain at some point in time on all but one of the days that I spent replacing the roof, FUN, FUN, FUN.

Last weekend brought questionable conditions Saturday. I looked at radar in the morning knowing the forecast was for rain in the afternoon and saw rain in central NY moving straight toward my place. I was questioning it big time, doubting it actually and ended up calling Morningside and my thoughts were confirmed to not bother coming.

Sunday was a strange day. I looked at radar and saw the rain in northern NY and VT. I animated the radar and saw the rain was heading straight for me. Then I noticed something else. I noticed the EXTREMELY well defined spin of the moisture on the radar. The low pressure troff was very easy to identify thanks the spin of the rain. I have never seen such a well defined low without it being during a major winter storm or associated with a hurricane. It's always been with something where their was very low barometric pressure. The rain was tight right up to the low, within 20 miles any side of it. The spin was there from 8AM until the last time I looked around noon time. I left and came home around 3PM and checked the animation, 1 hour long loop, to see nothing remaining of the low. It had vanished sometime between noon and 2PM. I knew going for lesson one on Sunday was off without even needing to call.

I thought about trying midweek but that idea got shot down.

That lead to today...well, last night.

I got home from work last night and looked at the weather forecast from several different sources. The forecast was for anything from mostly sunny skies to a chance of showers and storms for today. I have never seen such an unpredictable 24 hour weather forecast.

I woke up this morning and noticed the sun trying to peak through the clouds. I looked at radar and it only showed some sprinkles in western VT that may or may not have even been hitting the ground. The forecast model that was saying mostly sunny skies for today had changed to showing a chance of showers and storms. The satellite image was just as questionable but everything seemed like today would be the best shot so far.

I had a pretty good feeling about the day, at least the first half of it...NOT! After the call to Morningside to confirm my thoughts I was on the road for the short 25-30 minute drive to see Jeff and the boys. Yeah, I've lost control somewhere.

I arrived at MS and skies were clearing off but there was still some clouds around. Granted it was early and I know that typically things start building around 10-11AM. It's become SO predictable. I hate clear skies.

After the routine work of glider setup and preflight check we head over to the training hill and find the fun we are about to embark. Yes, I did neglect above to mention one minor detail, the wind forecast. L&V. The NOAA forecast I saw was saying it should be W turning NW throughout the day and they would be light(3-6 K). It was about anything but that until the afternoon.

The rest of the morning found us trying to find a place to work on ground handling. Between no wind and the variable winds it kept us on the move constantly. Then...it's SOO predicable, the rain came around 11:15. It lasted around five minutes and things managed to start clearing back out and continued to clear out the rest of the day. Gee, it only marks the fifth weekend in a row that it has rained.

Thanks to the rain and the questionable skies it was decided to give a little extra practice during lunch at tearing down the glider and reassembling it. After lunch while reassembling the glider it seemed like the wind had picked up some and was going uphill. That lasted until we got up on the hill and then it changed to more of a cross wind. L&V, you gotta love it. We managed to work with that for a little bit and then it changed again. Now it was trying to come up the hill a little bit at least enough that we could go cross hill safely. The rest of the lesson was spent going across/down the hill.

I ended up with my feet off the ground on several trips down the training hill. I finally managed to keep myself running while 'moonwalking' after a few times landing on my belly. On the next to last flight I ended up with the smoothest flight of the day. From what Bob, my instructor, said I must have stumbled at one point right before flaring and did manage to get the wings off balance but everything ended fine.

On the last run, a couple of minutes later, I ended up with the worst attempt of the day, LOL. It was going fine with some decent wind and I managed to get off course and corrected. I got off course the other way but I was trying to pull straight in instead of toward the hip and it didn't work no matter how hard I tried. Instead of landing on my feet like I did the run before it, I landing on my belly again. I was a bit peeved to say the least.

I have been quite actively ski jumping for the past eight years. I jump 12 months a year and jump 6-7 days a week during the winter months. A former pilot who also has attended one of the ski jumping competitions here in New England on an annual basis made mention to me the first day I was around any of the New England pilots last year that ski jumping and hang gliding have quite a few things in common. As I got to thinking about over the past month or two I could think of quite a few things that were similiar between the two. The three biggest differences being skis on your feet vs a wing on your back, in ski jumping you slide to the launch(gravity assisted) instead of running to the launch, and the takeoff speed is generally much higher in ski jumping, simply to compensate for the smaller wing/s.

One of the problems I have always had with ski jumping is looking down between my feet, basically. Instead of looking toward where I want to land after I get off the takeoff I am always looking 'down'. I was wondering if that would carry into hang gliding or not. I was surprised that during the initial ground control work I wasn't noticing the problem and other then the first couple of belly landings I wasn't noticing the problem either. This is something I will continue to watch. I am a little surprised by how much of a difference I notice in the way I react between the two sports. Maybe the hang gliding will carry over to the ski jumping. I can always be optimistic can't I.

I was also surprised a bit to notice that other than the last flight I never really ever had any kind of trouble not gripping the downtube to death. I always had a nice relaxed grip. The biggest trouble I had was at times not holding onto the downtube and letting it go to trim to soon. That was definitely causing some problems that I think I managed to work through on the last couple of flights.

Don't know when I'll be back out. Forecast for tomorrow is increasing clouds with showers possible in the morning and likely in the afternoon. Rain most of this next week, other than Wednesday, bummer, and right now next Saturday is looking good. Admittedly, they can only forecast about 10 second into the future any more, at least that's the way it seems. What else is new, Wednesday is the day I typically ski jump in the evenings. It seems like one Wednesday it rains and the other Wednesday it's nice. The nice Wednesday is the week I have to work late on Wednesday and typically end up not being able to jump. Heck, I haven't had the skis on in about a month now thanks to work and rain. Heck, most of the guys I have been driving for over the past year and a half have been lucky to be getting one day of flying in a week right now.

It's SOOOOOOOOOOOOO predictable.

[Redbeard]

wow, not only are you learning hang gliding, but you are learning patience! best of luck, and i hope you get some good flying weather!

[dayhead]

It's probably good that the bug hasn't really bit you good yet.
If it had that roof would be covered with big blue tarps.

[oden]

When it all comes down to money you learn how to save money the fastest/easiest way possible...cut expenses. One of my biggest expenses each year is heating during the winter months. My house is an old cottage camp which has pretty much no insulation in it. Yes, northern New England. I was starting to insulating the walls when I stumbled into the leaking roof. Putting off replacing the leaking roof wasn't something I could sensibly do unless I wanted to spend more money this winter heating my house and have less money in the future for flying or anything else. You learn how to look at things differently when you have to. Sometimes somethings are more important than others. Yeah, I would have loved to have been out that weekend but I knew what was most important, at least if I wanted to be able to do any further insulating of my house.

Now back to...The Rest of the Gory----details that is.

UGH, It's so predictable, Take 2

I woke up this morning with the sun still shining. I took a look at radar and saw the same setup as last Saturday(central NY in the rain). When I animated it I noticed that rain was moving pretty much parallel to us and wasn't going to hit us for a while. I took a look at the satellite image and noticed I was in a nice sized area setting under clear skies with the clouds from the next storm front just to the west. They was also moving parallel to me. I went back to radar and took another look, looking down south to see what was moving up toward us since everything was pretty much moving in a NNE direction. I saw nothing. My thought was it would probably be 3PM at the earliest before we would see any rain and more than likely it wouldn't be until 4-5PM. Figuring the more humid air would have to move in first before anything could develop and start falling from the sky. With the current direction of travel and the lack of rain upwind from us I knew it would take until midday at least for the area to get soaked. I kinda figured with the sunny skies we would end up getting hammered with rain when it came, potentially 2-4 inches was my guess. I ended up being wrong on the amount of rain.

I took a look at the wind forecast and was seeing L&V with a potential tendency of E-SSE, err coming up over the back of the hill. I really was questioning things but I finally decided the heck with it and headed off for Morningside once again.

As I got a mile or two from MS I noticed the usual August until late fall morning valley fog was hanging around the area. It didn't surprise me to see it. I still remember that fog from when I moved up to this part of the country back in the fall of 2000...4-5 days a week it would be foggy around Claremont in the morning but once you barely started to climb out of the valley the fog would disappear in a split second.

After a few other students arrived it was decided to pull out the Condor and do some winch towing. The winds were very light and anything that was there was having a tendency to come over the back. After getting the winch setup and tested out it was time for the students to have a go at it. The first two girls pretty much ended up with belly flops not hardly making it off the ground. By watching the first girl it seemed pretty obvious, with a couple of exceptions that the idea was to forget you was on tow and just treat it like you was running on the hill. I think both the girls were having trouble with running fast enough more than anything else.

Next it was my turn. I knew it would be interesting. I knew I was running fast enough yesterday to get off the ground on a Falcon 170 with light winds when I normally sh/would be on a Falcon 195. I knew I had the speed but I was still wondering how my mind would respond. I was pleasantly surprised on the first attempt. I started running and made it off the ground. I was really surprised I made it off the ground after watching the other two girls. I heard one of the instructors say to push out the bar a little so I did, kinda. Actually it was more like a whole lot. I than pulled it back in even more and came down with a nice thud. OOPS! Everything was okay and the instructors were noticing that the L&V was doing its usual and they decided to shift the winch setup 180 degrees. It turned out that was a mistake in the long run but given the winds yesterday or today what else can you expect.

After the move they had me give it another go and this time it wasn't anywhere near the same results. It seemed like I couldn't run to stay up with it. The instructor running the winch said he actually hadn't been pulling fast enough. They decided to give me another try before moving on and the results were pretty much the same, another belly flop before the feet ever left the ground.

They decided to do some repositioning of the winch wires on the glider and did some testing before realizing the wind had changed again on them and was blowing in from the north again, err a tailwind once again. They finally decided to call lunch and then they was going to have us come back out and see if we could have any kind of luck on the hill. Yes, I knew before I ever left that it was a questionable day windwise.

By the time lunch was over the clouds were starting to move in and build as well. Nothing well defined or threathening, at least not yet but you could tell the day wasn't going to pass by without rain falling...it's so predictable. Yeah, I hate seeing sunny skies after 10-11AM. That can only mean one thing...RAIN!

Toward the end of lunch conditions were sweet, winds was blowing right up the hill as nice as could be. After setting up the Falcon 195 and moving up the hill the wind shifted, yet once again, and was now coming somewhat across the hill with occasion thermals coming up the hill.

On my first run I managed to get off the ground and then I heard the instructor say something like "Where's your target". I looked up and quickly realized that I had messed up last night by ever bragging about not looking down yesterday. Me and my big mouth. I look up and see I'm off the target and manage to correct myself nicely back toward the target. I'm not sure if I was trying to correct too close to the ground or what but I didn't get my feet back on the ground until after I came to a stop on my belly. As I stood up and started to unhook I realized my first real problem was I hadn't popped the chest. It pretty much created a domino effect from there.

I walked back for the second run. After a nice long wait for the wind to shift in my favor I took off and once again forgot to pop the chest. This time I did keep looking at the target but without the chest popped I managed to get too far down over the bar and ended up on my belly once again.

As I started walking back up I heard the first clap of thunder. I looked at the sky and knew it was in the area, actually to the east of us. I looked at my watch saw it was 2:30PM. My thought was I'm only going to be off by no more than 30 minutes. I looked up and saw someone was up flying under one of the rain clouds. Definitely not the smartest thing I have ever seen.

A long break lead to the rain starting to fall right at 3PM. I could only laugh. I don't think I could pull that weather prediction feat ever again. The rain shower didn't last long and moved on and behind it looked somewhat favorable at least for a little while. I did some a little blue in the sky and I knew that meant nothing good for later on.

The winds changed in my favor once again and I take what would be my last flying run. This time I popped the chest and noticed the massive difference it made overall. I actually ended up with the longest flight so far, around 10 seconds or so. I was quite surprised by how much hang time their was. I wasn't expecting even half that much. I definitely had the sensation of "Your not coming down." I managed a nice correction during the flight as well and ended up landing nicely on my feet. It did seem like the flare took a little longer to achieve from start to finish than what I was used to.

After another walk up the hill and waiting/hoping the cross wind would change, I ended up walking down part way and to the side. Another storm cell was moving in and I had seen a lightning flash or two from it. Since the wind was nothing but cross 90+% of the time the instructor had me do a runout to get back down toward the setup/tear down area. It was pretty obvious by the short nature of the distance that I didn't stand much of a chance of making it off the ground, and I didn't.

After tearing down the glider and helping with a couple of other gliders the storm cell hit and drop some pea sized hail and a solid 15-20 minute downpour before slowly tapering off.

Oh yeah, it's sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo predictable!

[oden]

I woke up this morning and checked the weather forecast. Yesterday morning it was showing a 40% chance of rain today. It increased to 50% by last night. This morning it was showing a 60% chance. I looked at radar and saw essentially nothing. The satellite picture showed the clouds moving out and the wind forecast was quite favorable. The only thing I could see was the potential for pop up storms. In terms of showers or storms I wasn't agreeing with the forecast.

I found the normal valley fog when I arrived at Morningside. It was in the process of burning off and after a bit of waiting for it to burn off and the winds to try to pick up the students headed up the hill. Once again it was predominately women, 4 women and 3 three guys were flying hang gliders today. Only one of the women was there last weekend the other three were new faces.

Right off the bat I found myself not popping out the chest. This would be a problem that I ended up having essentially all day. It's so irritating since I was doing it correct all the time last Saturday when I took my first lesson. Since then I haven't did it worth a crap. Throughout the day I also had another wild shift from last weekend and found myself grabbing the bar instead of keeping a lose grip. Pretty much it seemed like I was doing everything wrong today at least once and in most cases all the time. I am beginning to think their is some truth to the concept of beginner's luck. I sure seemed to be having it last Saturday.

The morning session ended with the thunder off in the distance and skies that weren't looking all that pretty. I was surprised to see how quickly they built. I didn't really figure we would see much of anything in the way of rain yet alone thunderstorms. I was wrong.

After lunch we went for an hour long ground school session while waiting to see what was going to happen with the VERY SLOW moving storms. I haven't seen such slow movement before. They almost were parked in one location it seemed like for quite a while. It sprinkled off an on for a while but the wind never picked up and it never rained hard.

As the sun started to poke its head back out we went outside to check out the conditions to see if their was any hoping for flying in the afternoon. Everyone decided to set the gliders back up and check the weather again. As we started to setup the gliders a few cu-nims looked like they might have some potential to them but by the time we had the gliders setup they were looking less and less threatening.

We went back up on the hill and at first it seemed like conditions were pretty good. Once again I was still having trouble making sure to pop the chest and now I was grabbing and holding onto the downtube as well. By the second attempt Mother Nature was beginning to develop other plans and the winds were starting come across the hill. I did manage to get a couple more attempts in before the winds were really starting to pick up in speed and we headed on down to the flat area near the bottom of the hill to do some more ground handling work. We got the opportunity for some higher wind control instruction as well as at one point we saw 19 mph winds. I was a bit amazed to see the glider is a quite a bit easier to control on the ground at higher speeds than what I figured it would be. After watching the boys up on Mt. Ascutney last year I figured it was probably the 30 years of practice that helped them make it look so easy. I figured it would be a real nice struggle at 15-20 mph to be able to keep the glider under any semblance of control. I was wrong. I won't say I was perfect with it but it wasn't nearly as hard as what I thought it would be.

Toward the end of the afternoon session on the hill I happened to think about one other thing I wasn't doing today that I was doing most of the time last weekend. I wasn't standing in the proper stance before starting my run. Today I was normally standing with both feet together instead of giving myself any kind of an advantage. From what I was told afterward I may not have been doing the best job at keeping the nose of the glider up as well.

Hopefully tomorrow will be much better. I would love it if I could get myself back to where I started from last Saturday.

On a side note. Several years back, shortly after moving to western New Hampshire I started to notice a familiar trend that always seems to occur. It was a weather trend, a mid-August weather pattern shift. It would be the expected change of seasons from summer to fall but I also noticed that it would set precendence for the following year as well. A couple of examples to show what I mean:

2003. From 2001 to 2006 I had spent the second weekend of August at a hot air balloon show in southern Quebec, just to the southeast of Montreal. Typically the weather is always decent to get most flights off during the week long event. There are 18 scheduled flights over the 9 day long event and generally most of the flights end up happening. In 2003 things were a bit different. Between rain and wind only 3 flights occured during the week. The first weekend, the second weekend of August, was a total rainout that lasted into Tuesday morning when my brother and I left. A couple of weeks later I found myself running whitewater on rivers at levels I had never seen before, even during spring runoff. The trend of high water lasted clear through the fall and kept on coming once the rivers iced out the following spring. The summer of 2004 was wet as well with flooding occuring on two of three occasions during the summer. The switch occured, the second weekend of August.

2004. The third weekend of August found me at a hot air balloon show in Lewiston, ME. Friday night was mostly rained out, a couple of daredevil pilots decided to fly even though their had been a microburst/tornado that touched down not all that far away. Saturday ended up giving us and all day rain. Sunday I woke up to clearing skies and high winds aloft. The pilots don't like high winds aloft as they always have a tendency to drop to the surface as the day progresses. About half the pilots flew the morning launch and pretty much everyone that stuck around for the evening launch ended up flying. The following week found mostly sunny skies most of the week and the flooding that had been occuring came to a quick halt.

It seems like it is always easy to predict what is coming the following 365 days just by watching the weather in mid-August. So far this year we have went from a very wet winter to a very dry spring, to a very wet summer.

After the rain last weekend, Monday it started raining about 10:30AM. Tuesday it started raining 11:45AM. Wednesday and Thursday amazingly were both dry. Two days in a row without rain...unheard of this summer. Friday it sprinkled some around here in the afternoon. Today I noticed light sprinkles that lasted for 30 minutes at least. Tomorrow is suppose to be sunny. Some rain in the forecast for Monday and then the rest of this coming week is supposed to be sunny and summer like. Quite a change from what we have been seeing. The mid-August shift is upon us once again and it is making me think, at least right now, that 2009 will be a dry summer. Granted Mother Nature does have a way of evening things out, ie 2005 hurricane season was severe, 2006 & 2007 hurricane seasons were almost non-existant.

A wet year is followed by a dry year and vice versa. A cold year by a warm year and vice versa. It only makes sense that next summer should be a dry summer and the current weather forecast for this up coming week is starting to make me feel like next summer could be real nice. UGH, it's so predictable.

[oden]

Well...what else is new.

The wind forecasts for today was calling for wind straight out of the west all day long. Every model I looked at was saying the same thing. It was also indicating a 1-2 hour period where it may very well end up getting blown out. The rest of the forecast was looking great and at sunrise this morning the sun was out shining brightly with essentially no clouds in the sky anywhere. It looked like it was going to be a perfect day for flying. Yeah right!

I noticed the shadows from tree limbs cast on my bedroom wall were moving while I was still laying in bed. I knew the wind must already be picking up. It looked like it wasn't going to be a case scenario of fighting with calm wind today.

I arrived at Morningside to find sunny skies and no signs of valley fog for a change. I wasn't surprised to see that. I was surprised to see the wind was actually blowing out of the SW instead of the W. Their was no indication in any forecast model I looked at that showed any S, more than 5-10 degrees from due west, anytime throughout the day. The windsocks were showing it coming straight from the SW.

After getting everyone organized and the gliders all setup all the students headed up the hill. This would be the busiest day I have seen thus far. There was at least 9 H1 students, plus a couple of others that already had their H1's. There was also five or six paraglider pilots on the hill. It was busy day to say the least.

The wind kept on keeping on coming out of the southwest with a turn back to the west every now and then. With anything from guys essentially finishing up their H1 classes to guys beginning their H1 training it made for an even more interesting situation on the hill.

When it finally came my turn in line for what would end up being the only flight of the morning I knew what I was hoping to accomplish. I got myself into a good stance, unlike anytime yesterday, and started the run. The flight actually went pretty nice even though I still didn't do a very a good job at popping the chest, at least not as noticeable as what it was last weekend. I didn't grab onto the downtubes and I did a pretty decent job, once I was in the air, of keeping my eye on the target. It seemed like it was the smoothest flight of any of the flights I have had thus far. The initial pick up of the glider was the the nicest thus far as well. The pick up has been getting better each day, unlike most other things.

As the winds started to pick up even more noon time was arriving and we broke for a long lunch. We waited around until almost 3PM before we headed back out to the hill. The winds had once again settled down some to a more reasonable level. They still seemed to be coming quite a bit out of the SW.

Just like in the morning I managed only one flight in the afternoon. This time it was back to same crap as yesterday. I didn't start with the good stance like I should have. I ended up with the tightest grip I have had on the bars since I started. I did manage to make it off the ground but thanks to the tight grip it threw everything else off and I managed to end up landing on my stomach once again instead of on my feet.

Definitely not the day I was expecting or the day that was forecast to occur. At least it didn't rain for the first time in four tries. BUT...Ugh, it's so predictable.[/youtube]

[oden]

Mid August must be over...the weather has sure changed around this part of the country. It has went from a summer of very wet weather to the point where I have hardly seen much in the way of clouds at all over the past two weeks. It hasn't rained now since August 19th. What a contrast, but a rather predictible contrast that I have seen play out several times over the past several years.

With the clear skies and the change in weather patterns have brought a wild change in the winds as well. I don't think I have seen so much easterly wind forecasted in a long time, especially not this time of the year. Admittedly, the wind has been coming out of every direction but west. West, the wind direction of choice for the training hills at Morningside.

After several cancelled plans to fly over the past two weeks I finally started to ask the smart question to myself...what does it take to get a straight west wind. At the time I asked the question I happened to already be on the right webpage to get the answer and started to realize a west wind, in a certain respect, could easily be your best friend.

Earlier, Wednesday, this week I hadn't figured on flying this weekend. The forecast for Saturday was for a slight chance of rain and then sunshine the rest of the weekend. The winds all weekend were supposed to be SW or N to NW. I figured I would end up spending the weekend doing some work at MS for Jeff that he was wanting to get done and asked me if I would be interested.

Thursday evening things started to change as the wind forecast was starting to show the possibility of W wind midday on Saturday. I woke up and realized that yeah, with the rain comes the west wind. If it ain't raining/expected to rain don't plan to find a west wind, at least not in this hemisphere. The low pressure front and the high pressure fronts have to be in the right place to make west winds appear.

The forecast held on Friday and I woke up this morning and checked and it seemed like the forecast was still holding...quite a switch from the past couple of attempts. I checked radar and their wasn't much on it. The rain that was on it looked like it would end up missing us and the big hole of no precip told me that their was plenty of dry air out there and most it was moving in my direction. I figured at the most their would only be a 20% chance of rain(NWS forecast was for 40% chance) and not until at least 3PM. Turns out it didn't rain at all. The winds were another story as it was looking like they should end up changing late morning into early afternoon and hold for a while before moving on NW.

With Labor Day Weekend I didn't know what to expect for crowds. That was going to be the main decision maker. I thought the forecast of rain might hold everyone off. I arrived at MS about 8:30AM and their weren't many cars there. I decided to wait it out for a little bit before changing out of work clothes/boots and putting on the shorts and tennis shoes.

After setting up the glider I and four other students headed up the hill. Two beginners were with another instructor and I was with a former H2 pilot that hasn't flown in three years and another fellow that has been around a while but I'm not sure how long. Turns out the forecast for rain did hold everyone back. Nice. Yeah, no PG pilots to be found.

The wind was mostly SW during the morning hours and after a moonwalking run just to have something to do while waiting for any glimmer of hope for the west wind to arrive we finally got a break with some calm winds. I'll take calm wind anyday over the alternative of doing nothing at all.

The four flights in the morning were nice and solid with the usual exception of not popping the chest. I also started running into the strange problem of bringing the hands up. I found I was also trying to get ahead of myself by trying more advanced flying, err trying to go prone instead of staying upright. I ended up bombing every landing all day long and never had a landing on my feet. Between flaring too late or not realizing I was too prone I ended up riding every landing out on the wheels. It was positive but frustrating at the same time since I haven't had these problems in the past.

During lunch breaks their has been this rather crazy phenomona(sp?) that has occured every time I have been out. The wind shifts in a pilots favor and no one is out their to take advantage of it. Today would be no exception. As I finished eating my lunch and grabbed some water from my car I noticed the wind was coming straight out the west. Not a soul was on the hill anywhere. UGH, it's so predictible.

We finally made it back out to the hill and the west wind was still there. I was surprised. Given the nature of things I figured it would change on our way out...it normally does. It didn't. The wind had both picked up in speed and was coming nicely out of the west when we got back up to launch.

Before I took the first flight of the afternoon the instructor mentioned about wanting to make sure to pull in some after launching to keep the speed up due to the higher winds. I had been wondering if I was going to have a hard time getting my mind to let me pull in or not after the nice thud I took on day two while scooter towing...all as a result of pulling in WAY too much.

I launched and was real pleased to find myself willing to play both ways, pulling in and pushing out. It had seemed in the past like I would have problems but I didn't. I guess I just needed the right set of circumstances to get me to do it.

The other two guys take a flight and then I go for my next one. This is the quickest rehook-in I've seen thus far. The winds are being very cooperative. My second flight is the same except I'm moving my hands up the downtubes for some reason. It doesn't seem like I am but everyone else was seeing it. Finally I have went back to target fixation again. All morning and the first flight of the afternoon I wasn't even picking out a target yet alone keeping my eyes on it. I still haven't figured out what I am looking at it. I don't look down at the ground but it seems like I end up paying attention to nothing at all.

Two of us are on one glider and the other student is on his own glider. The other two guys take another flight and the student on his own glider is getting ready for his next flight when the instructor makes a comment about how the forecast was saying the winds were to shift to the west this afternoon. I added in the comment "For how long thought before they shift to the NW". Right about the second I finish the stupid statement the winds noticably shift to the NW. Talk about crummy timing.

I manage one more flight straight down the hill before we decided to move over a bit and run somwhat cross/downhill to stay going into the now WNW-NW wind. I manage one more flight their after waiting a little while for the switchy conditions to settle down a bit. The student I was sharing the glider with had to leave and given the nature of the wind shift the instructor was thinking of calling it quits for the day but asked me if I wanted to take another flight. I wasn't going to turn down the chance, naturally.

After getting the glider back up I hooked in and found a nice cycle. This is where things really got strange. I started the run and got a little in the air. Not as much as what I had been in the past, given the nice wind speed I should have had no trouble making good height over the ground. I didn't have any kind of height whatsoever. The instructor afterward said I didn't have enough speed when I got into the air.

He asked me if I thought I could find a good cycle and get a good run. I said "Yes" and headed back and repeated the same scenario all over again. I was stumped as the run was faster the second time than the first time and I was pretty much running just as fast as I had been at any other point in time during the day.

After filling in the logbook I got to wondering if the problem I had was actually starting with too much attitude and that was causing me to get off the ground too soon.

After filling out the logbook I also noticed something else. The wind had dropped dead calm. Several PG pilots were heading up to the top and Jeff told a few of the H1 pilots to get ready and head up for their first flights off the 250. I watched for about one hour as the winds continued to remain dead calm until I left. I finally left as I couldn't keep from laughing any more.

UGH, it's so predictible.

[oden]

Boy it has been in a while since I last flew. Granted only three weeks but it's a bit amazing what you can forget in three weeks when your only a beginner, LOL!!! Of course, the only stuff you forget is the stupid little stuff, never the big stuff.

The weather has finally changed around the Upper Valley area in western New Hampshire. The skies have been mostly sunny for the past couple of weeks now and we haven't seen much rain at all. A big shift from the rest of the summer. The winds haven't been as cooperative though. The weekend after Labor Day saw high winds. Last weekend saw high winds on Saturday and rain first thing Sunday morning.

This weekend was looking real good, sky conditionwise, both days with L&V changing to south on Saturday and L&V changing north on Sunday. I woke up Saturday morning and looked at RUC report and pretty much decided to wait until Sunday to fly. Saturday was suppose to the cooler of the two days and I figured that would lead to not as good of thermal formation, err any uphill winds occuring and with the main forecast suggesting south winds I figured it would be better to wait until Sunday when it was supposed to be warmer. Also, I noticed their was a temperature inversion that went from the ground up to 5000 feet roughly and figured that wouldn't help matters any either.

The thing I forgot was the RUC forecast also showed at around 2-3000 feet the winds were blowing straight out of the west. One thing I learnt from several years of crewing for hot air balloon pilots is that high winds aloft at sunrise have a tendency to drop to the surface during the morning hours. I have seen this play out numerous times over the past couple of weeks since I started paying attention to the RUC forecasts. The one thing I hadn't ever really had much of a chance yet to watch was to see if the wind direction also dropped to the surface.

I headed to the hill Saturday morning to help Jeff out with some brush cutting he was wanting to get done. I decided it seemed like it was going to be more of a waste of time to try to fly then it would be to cut brush. I headed the hill with the loopers. Turns out I was wrong. The west shift came to the surface and gave the guys and gals out flying a real nice day of flying on Saturday.

How does the old saying go about what happens when you don't go flying...UGH, it's so predictible!!!

Today the forecast had remained the same other the fact they had added in a 20% chance of rain in the afternoon. It was looking like the winds would possibly shift a little further around than just north and actually come in over the back of the hill late morning into the early afternoon hours.

I arrived at the hill today and was definitely going to fly. I was thinking a short blast of wind out of the north might hit mid to late morning otherwise it would be light enough that the warmer temps and the thoughts of the building clouds would help to generate thermals a little easier and give some wind coming up the hill to counteract the north wind that forecast to develop.

After setting up the glider I and the only other student both headed up the hill for the first flight of the day. The winds were actually dead calm. I have had quite a few light wind launches but nothing as close to dead calm as today. The wild thing would be just how long the dead calm conditions would last.

The instructor had us go a little higher than what we had been going before since we were dealing with dead calm winds. After hooking in and getting a hang check I picked up the glider and headed off for the first flight. Everything seemed to be going better than what I was expecting. I was actually off the ground. I figured that wouldn't happen with the way things have been going for me recently. Then I noticed something, UGH. The landing area at Morningside has ditch the goes around it on both the right hand side and out at the end of the landing area by the road. I had heard in the past that as long as you landed before the ditch, either one, you was fine otherwise both ditches were quite wet and muddy.

I noticed I was headed right for the ditch on the right hand side. I decided to trying to bump away from it. At first it didn't seem like it was working so I tried a little harder, almost more a clutch and grab rather than a bump and run. For the first I caught glimpse of the glider wing out the corner of my eye. The weird thing was it looked like not only was I turning away from the ditch but I was also banking a little into the turn. I was quite surprised to say the least. It really caught me off guard. I went to straighten back out but I wasn't able to get straightened out in time and I knew to not even try to land on my feet...the first belly flop of the day.

I walked back up for the second flight and this time I managed to stay away from the ditch but I still couldn't get myself to land on my feet. I couldn't figure out what was so different from the flights on the first day when I wasn't having any real trouble landing on my feet.

The third flight would be the most interesting of the day. I started the flight and it was going the smoothest of any flight thus far. Yeah, a few certain details weren't in place like I would like them but everything seemed to be compensating for the missing elements to make the flight nice and smooth. The only trouble came a little over halfway into the flight when I started to realize that I wasn't coming down very fast. I was seeing the ditch at the end of the landing area coming and it was coming at just the right angle that I was going into the ditch. I didn't even think about turning away from the ditch, like a darn idiot. Instead I decided to pull in to see if I could get myself down quicker and be able to bleed off the speed so I could put in a flare and land on my feet before the ditch. The pull in seemed to work pretty decent but when I went back out to trim and then went to flare I was rushing the flare and didn't hold the flare like I should have. As a result I end up nose into the ditch. Yes, the wet, muddy ditch.

After hosing off the glider I took the ATV back up the hill for the fourth flight. I decided the easier of the two choices, at least for me I figured, was going to be to turn away from the ditch rather than to trying to pull in sooner to keep me from going as far. I figured the concept of pulling in sooner wouldn't hit me as quickly in the air as the concept of bumping would.

The fourth flight also saw Steve attach his small video camera to the keel of my glider. I knew this could be interesting. The only trouble on the fourth, at least from my perspective was not getting straightened back out after turning so I could land on my feet. The real problem, seen over lunch when watching the video, was a combination of initially not keeping the legs together during the flight, and then moving both hands up at the same time and pulling down on the downtubes when going to flare instead of pushing up and out. The flaring trouble is strange since I didn't have the problem on the first couple of days of lessons, it has only started to creep up as a problem in the past two lessons.

Typically I have been soft on looking at the target, straight out. I haven't been looking down but rather at about a 45 degree angle to the horizon. It almost seemed like I have been lost in space to a certain degree not really fixated on any one point. By flight five I was finally back to doing a hard stare down on the target. It seemed much nicer than what I have been doing to past couple of times I've been out. Once again on the fifth flight I managed to overcontrol and couldn't get straightened out and had to come down on the wheels.

For the final flight of the morning it was decided with both of us since the wind had started to pick up slightly to have us come straight for the target and just focus on the landing only. Since I wasn't crossing my ankles in the air I still had my legs apart quite nicely and repeated the previous flight all over again.

After lunch we only got one flight in before the wind finally kicked up and was consistently out of the north. Like the last couple of flights during the morning it was all the same problems with the afternoon flight. I did think about crossing the ankles but it was too long before I launched that I thought about it and I ended up forgetting to cross them.

Sooner or later I will get back to landing on my feet like I did the first couple of days until then Bambam will just have ride it out on the wheels.

By the way, Fred, how is Wilma and Pebbles doing?

[HangDiver]

It's fun to read about a new pilot learning to fly. Congrats to you. Both on your patients and your flight accomplishments.

FYI, I would NOT use the RUC for surface wind info or precip forecasts. The RUC is tailored to winds aloft forecasts.. 5k ft and up.

[jjcote]

Welcome to the ditch! Been there...

Keel video is a pretty useful tool, in my opinion. They weren't doing it when I took lessons, but I eventually slapped my own camera on my keel so that I could show my friends what I had been up to, and I wound up learning a lot about what I was doing from watching the video. Glad to hear that they've added this to the educational arsenal.

[oden]

HangDiver,

I have seen numerous times in the past month and a few times earlier that the winds aloft at/right before sunrise do drop to the surface during the morning hours. It seems like whatever you find at around 2-3000 feet, especially if they are strong winds(25+ mph) will generally drop in speed by about 10 mph and that is what you'll find at the surface(4-800 feet in this area) by 10AM and it will stay that way most of the day...generally. The regular forecast you would find on weather.com or anywhere else may suggest some light to moderate winds but if the RUC winds at 2-3000 feet and higher up are saying 25-30 mph than you can count that it will be 15-20 mph at the surface by right around 10AM.

The first time, recently, that I noticed it was when everyone was finally looking forward to some decent flying, for the first time all year back last month. They was talking of flying Mt Ascutney on Tuesday morning if I remember right. I woke up Tuesday morning and briefly checked the club message board and one of the guys had posted that it looked like it was going to be blown out and he was headed back to bed. I took at the regular forecast, 8-10 forecast for the surface(admittedly), no problem. I took a look at the RUC forecast and WOW it was blowing 30+ at 3000 feet. I got to thinking about the strong contrast of difference between what I was seeing between the two forecast and got reminded of what I learnt several years back from the hot air ballon pilots. Since I was working outside all day I got the chance to notice that around 9:30-10AM the winds at the surface had picked up and remained a constant 15+ all day long. Every since then I have seen the same situation pan out on several occasion when there has been strong winds aloft first thing in the morning. It got me to wondering if you saw a sharp contrast in wind direction, like Saturday(S at the surface and a 1000 foot wide band of W wind at around 2-3000 feet), if that would also drop to the surface or not. Saturday it did. Thinking back to yesterday everything happened as winds aloft would suggest yesterday as well it just didn't happen as quick as what I figured it would. I was expecting to see a nice short blast of 10-12 mph from the N-NW come through around 10:30-11AM and then drop back off(RUC was showing a nice 21 kt wind at something like 300-330 degrees, I forget the correct direction, and then it tapered back off until it was back down to 15 kt by around 4000 feet, still out of the N-NW). The winds never came through until 2PM. They did come through though and pretty much responded just the way I was expecting them to. It was a nice short blast that lasted 20 minutes or so and then things tapered back down but not before we decided to call it quits for the day. Their was some nice looking clouds over Mt Ascutney and it was looking like it could very well rain. So we called it quits and by the time we had the gliders packed up the winds were already dropping off.

Check out the idea of winds aloft at sunrise dropping to the surface...you might be surprised at what you learn. Hot air ballon pilots aren't total idiots.

As for using precip. Since I'm dealing with a west facing launch you pretty much need a low pressure to the north coming through at the time in question with a high pressure setting down to the south to give you decent west winds. Being in a major river valley where the river runs north-south, southerly winds are more favored than northerly winds, at least in my way of looking at it,(the winds have to fight more, lose more power, to get uphill/upriver than they do to get downhill/downriver). I've heard other pilots talk about the north winds funneling into the hill stronger as well, as compared to southerly winds. Hence why I tend to watch for the west wind days to start with and I've seen watching the wind profile maps what it normally takes to give you the right setup. Normally you want rain in the forecast if you want west winds.

You don't gain much experience by getting two flights in a day while spending the rest of the time sitting on launch waiting for the winds to cooperate. You can gain some knowledge but knowledge only gets you so far, experience gets you the rest of the way. By living 25-30 minutes from MS I have the option of what I decide to do unlike most people that live 2-3 hours away. I can go there and brush cut or go there and fly, either way I win. I get to see what ends up happening, by listen to the pilots talk about how the day was or I get to see myself first hand if I fly. I win either way.

JJ,

The camera Steve has is sweet. I haven't seen such a small video camera before. Heck it's the size of a webcam. I think it may be quite a new idea or maybe Steve just had sometime yesterday to fool around with it. I was a little surprised he put it on my keel, considering I had just went into the ditch on the previous flight. Admittedly, he did put it on the keel, LMAO!!!

[jjcote]

Another reason why SW is preferred to NW when flying the hill there is that the shape of the hill makes it easier to land when you're heading south. You have a lot of room that way (and the best launch spot on the 150 is way off to the right), as opposed to a NW wind where you have to circle over the ponds and come in really low over the road, and you still run the risk of overshooting and landing in the ditch if you've got a glider with decent performance.