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February Falconry |
Fri Feb 03, 2012 7:09 pm
I missed out on the one really good chance to fly in January, when a bunch of PGs (and a couple of biwingual pilots with a HG) had a great beach day at Wellfleet. But one of those guys posted that he was looking at taking his PG to Mt. Tom on Friday afternoon. It looked too cross to me for Mt. Tom (and HGs aren't welcome there), but the wind looked great for Skinner, just across the river. So I got in touch with him and we made plans to meet -- he was working at a job site pretty close to where I live.
Jon A has been flying for a long time, and there have been a couple of occasions when were were at the same site on the same day, but we had never actually met. Skinner is a relatively nearby site, less than 90 minutes from home, and we had a fine chat on the drive out there. The one hitch is that it's a state park that's closed for the season, so driving up the mountain was not an option; we'd have to do it with muscle power. I had brought along my old bicycle trailer, so that made the hike a lot easier than it would have been with gliders on our shoulders. Because of the hike, both of us opted to leave our Ultrasports at home and bring our lightweight Falcons instead. Normally the plan would have been to take the trailer as far as the ranger station and then carry the gliders up the Halfway Trail, but that trail gets a lot of foot traffic in the winter, which packs the snow down and turns it to ice. We've gotten very little snow this year, and most of it has melted, but when we got to the trail, we saw that it was just a nasty path of treacherous footing, so we decided to take the longer route, pulling the trailer all the way up the road to the summit parking lot.
We decided on two trips from the parking lot to get our gear to launch. We took the harnesses first, and when we arrived we were met with 8 mph steady wind, straight in or perhaps a tiny bit from the right, which was good because the forecast had suggested that it might swing around to the left by afternoon. After the second trip with the gliders, though, it had picked up a lot, and was now 15-20 with gusts as high as 24. Not good. It was a nice sunny day, so we positioned ourselves out of the wind but in the sunshine and relaxed for a while. The thermometer on my wind gauge said that it was 44 F, but Jon was skeptical, it seemed more likely that it was no higher than the predicted 38 F.
We agreed that even if we wound up carrying the gear back out, it was already a successful day just based on getting outside. The wind seemed to abate somewhat, and we rustled up some sticks to hang streamers from to show the direction. Jon said that he'd be happy even if he just got a sled ride, and we went ahead and set up the gliders. He volunteered to go second after wiring me off. (A few hikers had passed through, and we were hoping to be able to enlist them for assistance, but they were all gone by this point.) I got myself ready, we turned my wing around on the narrow shelf, and we waited through some fairly strong winds. Once they settled down and looked like they were going to stay civilized, I picked up the glider and launched without hesitating.
Sometimes when you launch, you have to scratch around for a while before finding a climb that provides some comfortable altitude, but this was not one of those days. This one was more of a blastoff. Two minutes after launching, I was 540 feet over, not too bad for 4 PM ridge lift in February! I had been a little concerned that the gusts we had experienced on the ground would translate to a bumpy ride, but the air above the ridge was adequately docile. Jon moved his glider to the center of the launch area, but kept it positioned well back until he saw a cycle that he liked, then walked it forward and kept going into the air.
(Yeah, that's what a hang glider launch site looks like in this part of the world -- see Jon's glider as he's getting hooked in?)
We had about an hour left until the sun would be going down, and we used basically all of it. Although it was winter flying, it wasn't that cold, even though I hadn't bothered with serious arctic clothing (I did use bar mitts, and I'm very glad I did). Staying up was a cinch, and I kept glancing at the sun and at the time to make sure that I wouldn't be landing in the dark. We had a smooth time, most of it spent 400-600 feet above launch, occasionally getting up to 800 feet over. We had decided not to bother with radios, but both made the choice to head for the LZ at the same time, boxed the field together, and landed virtually simultaneously. I hadn't flown the Falcon in over a year, boy does that glider land easily!
After packing up in a hurry, Jon got the truck and loaded the gliders, and I trotted back up the mountain to retrieve the cart, and had a nice jog back down the road in the moonlight. A fine start to this year's flying!
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2011 by the numbers |
Sat Dec 31, 2011 1:28 pm
Another year has rolled to a close. Here's what 2011 held.
Months flown: 10 (not Jan or Feb)
Flying days: 18
Days when I showed up with my gear but didn't fly: 4
Flights: 18 (10 soaring, 4 extended sledders, 4 sledders)
Sites flown: 8 (Wellfleet, Ellenville, Mohawk Trail, Ascutney, Rutland, Burke, Greylock, Utz SW)
New sites: 2 (Burke, Utz SW)
Gliders flown: 2 (Vision Mark IV 17, Ultrasport 147)
Longest flight (time): 3:28
Longest flight (XC distance): 3.85 miles
Total flight time: 22:34
Total XC distance: 30.65 miles (mostly in tiny bits)
Max altitude: 6085 feet
Whacks: 1
2011 is tied for second place in terms of number of flying days (I had 19 in 2007), and it was the first time I ever went a year without any days of more than one flight. Curiously, although I flew two wings last year and two this year, they were four different gliders. My successes came at unexpected times -- after a couple of good beach days early on, and one good day at Ellenville when I picked up my new glider, I then had kind of a drought for a while when I couldn't manage to stay up. Things got better in July, with seven hours of airtime spread irregularly over five days. My highest flight was in September, and the best lift was on a chilly day in December. Two new sites was a good thing, and both of them were fine experiences, and I plan to get back to those venues. I also scoped out three more places where I might well commit aviation in the near future (Race Mountain, Hinesburg, and Cannon).
I got a card this year with my name and "H4" on it. That doesn't mean that I'm any better a pilot than I was the day before, but it means that there are some additional places where I am now allowed to fly. But despite having had the rating for six months, I really haven't used it, in the sense that I haven't done any flying that I wouldn't have been allowed to with a H3 rating. Another new experience, that I don't wish to repeat, was watching (from the air) as a friend of mine launched unhooked. He was very fortunate to get through it with only minor injuries and no glider damage. (Don't ask for further details, as I won't provide any -- people who were there that day, and club officials, already know about the incident I'm referring to.)
__________________________
And there's this blog. This is the fourth year that I've been writing it, and there were 23 entries this year (not counting this one). There were 82 blog entries at hanggliding.org in 2011, and just over 2/3 of those were either mine, or Rotor's accounts of his rehab therapy (33 brief posts for him). It's a strange feeling writing a blog like this, not knowing exactly who is reading it. It looks like my posts have had an average of over 3400 views, with the most recent ones being the most often read. The one from Utz in November has had over 8400 views -- who are you people? It could be that it's just web-crawling software bots, but if that were that case, I'd expect most blog posts to have about the same number. There have been only 39 replies total; only nine of the entries garnered more than one. If you read the blog, feel free to say hi! I know there are some real people out there, because I've run into people at flying sites who mention that they read it. I'm planning to keep flying and to continue posting, so stay tuned!
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Decembrrrrr! |
Sat Dec 10, 2011 8:52 am
Out of the 366 dates in a year, there were 85 on which I had gone flying, but none of them were in December. In the seven years since I started hang gliding, not a once had I done so in the twelfth month. But as I had occasion to be heading to Connecticut for a party and some orienteering on Saturday night, I scoped out the forecast for the sites that are in that general direction. It was looking like a NW day, but I couldn't find any Massachusetts pilots interested in going to Skinner or the Trail, so I headed down toward Ellenville.
On I-84, I saw that I was not the only one with this idea, when I caught a glimpse of the above in my rear view mirror. Actually, I expected that there would be quite a few pilots showing up, since the SNYHGPA holiday party was that night. I exchanged some text messages with Mike A (aka $!>< ), and at around noon he said that the wind was honking and everybody was hanging out in the LZ. I considered punting and just heading for the orienteering party, but he said that the forecast showed that it should mellow out, so I kept on going.
When I arrived, people had headed up to launch, and I met them there, where the wind actually seemed quite fine, and I started setting up right away. About the time I was done, Crazy Johnny moved up and got a hang check. This was great -- I wasn't eager to go first, but I didn't mind going second if the wind tech did okay. We were a little surprised that he just kind of maintained altitude, because it felt like there was enough wind to provide some good ridge lift, but he was just fiddling around. After a few minutes he started doing high-speed strafing runs over the setup area and yelling "YAAAHOOO!", and that was enough to get the rest of us who were ready to run for our gliders.
I had a camera snafu (my normal camera wasn't working, and I forgot the memory card for the other one that I could have flown with), which is too bad, because it would have been a spectacular day for taking pictures. In addition, during my preflight I found a minor issue on my glider that I decided to address before flying, so a few other pilots launched before I was ready. It turned very cross for a bit, enough so that one of the pilots ahead of me waited on the north launch for a few minutes and then backed off. Just as he did, it straightened out again and somebody went off the northwest launch. I stepped up next and didn't have to wait at all, just looked to see that the streamers were okay and launched.
Was there lift? You bet there was! I might not have expected much this time of year (at Utz a few weeks ago I never got more than about 300 feet over launch), but this was actually the strongest lift I encountered in all of 2011. Without even circling in lift pockets, I gained about 1500 feet in ten minutes, and by 16 minutes after launching, I was 3100 feet over. It wasn't exactly comfortable, gentle air, we were getting bumped around a bit, but it didn't take any work to stay up. I decided to squander some of my free altitude by cruising up the ridge a couple of miles to the north, then returned to the middle of the fishbowl and climbed up again.
There was a pretty good turnout for a chilly day, presumably due in large part to the party. I didn't count, but I estimate that there were at least a couple of dozen wings in the air. My vario was acting a little weird when I turned it on, and it was insisting that the air temperature was 60 F -- I knew better, it was actually under 40 F. Once I got in the air, it started behaving, and the lowest temperature I saw on the display was 29 F. I have good bar mitts, and was wearing a neoprene half-mask, so I wasn't really cold.
Because I had delays in launching, and had someplace I needed to get to, I didn't stay in the air all that long, just a little over an hour, making this my shortest ever flight at Ellenville. However, I got plenty high enough, so I have no reason to complain. It was around the time that I was considering heading for the LZ that I started hearing somebody on the radio talking about wanting a cheeseburger and a cold beer. Cold beer? I was more in the mood for hot chocolate! I watched a few pilots ahead of me land to see how things conditions looked, and it appeared that the wind was switching around a little bit. I was also concerned about the water -- there were extensive wet areas evident in the LZ, and I suspected the entire thing might be damp, so I at least wanted to pick a spot that looked reasonably dry. When I got down to a few hundred feet AGL, though, my concerns changed to just getting on the ground safely. The air down there was a total washing machine, and I had my hands full just trying to get the glider to go in the right direction with the wings fairly level. It was bumpy all the way to the deck, and I managed an adequate flare on what turned out to be dry ground. Some pilots who came in after me didn't fare so well -- I saw one spectacular splashdown into a frigid puddle.
Packed up, got a ride to retrieve my car, hit the road, made it to Connecticut just in time for dinner, and went out orienteering after that -- not bad at all for December!
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Utz - looking good |
Sat Nov 26, 2011 4:41 pm
By the end of November, flying opportunities around here are typically getting kind of thin, and I've never managed to fly in December. I took a look at the forecast for the weekend after Thanksgiving, and it was not looking good. I couldn't see anywhere that I thought would be flyable. I posted a note on our email list to that effect, and Keith said that some people were thinking about going to Utz.
Utz.
Mt. Utsayantha.
There were a couple of times in the past when I had thoughts of trying that legendary site, but the schedule never worked out. It would mean probably 10 hours in the car, and this time of year, the sun goes down pretty early. I decided it might be worth a try, though, so I emailed Keith and asked him to call me as early as possible in the morning if folks decided to go. My reading of the weather forecast left me skeptical, but Keith said it was looking good.
At 7 AM the phone rang, and I was out the door of my girlfriend's house a few minutes later, made a very brief stop at my house to grab my glider and gear, and I arrived at the rendezvous point at about 9:45. Keith pulled in right after me -- his truck was having trouble, so we loaded his glider on my car and headed west. There was a detour due to a road closure for Hurricane Irene damage, and we drove through Prattsville, where people were spending their holiday weekend continuing to clean up the carnage from when the river nearly swept the town away. Things there were not looking good. We got to the mountain, and headed down to scope out the LZ first. Keith outlined the best approach, and told me stories about things going wrong when trying to land in the wrong direction. The field looked pretty good.
Up top, we found Amy and Dan already setting up on the SW launch. Keith took a look at the numerous streamers that they had set up, and said that it was looking good! We joined them, and did a car shuttle so that we'd have a vehicle down below. Whatever else happened, it was in the mid 50s F even up top, despite the hazy sky, so it was a great day to be outdoors.
Dan's U2, Amy's spiffy new U2, my Ultrasport in the back, and Keith's Sport 2
We had the usual little dance about who should go first, and Keith stepped right up. After all, it was looking quite good. We watched his launch, ready to run for our gliders as soon as he got up... but he barely maintained launch height for a couple of passes, then started losing it. Aw, rats. Why isn't he soaring? It's looking good! A few minutes later, he was on the ground, and I said I'd go get him for another try. I drove down and we hurriedly packed up his glider, while he asked why the rest of us weren't flying, because it looked pretty good. Nope, we weren't about to chase after somebody who had just sunk out.
Back up top, Amy was about ready to give it a try. Maybe it had just been a little light before -- Dan said that it was supposed to get better, and now, we all agreed, it was definitely looking good. Amy waltzed off into the air... and... started sinking... Damn! How can this be happening when it's looking good?
Dan and Keith, doing their best to look good as they watch Amy fly
The direction was certainly okay, so I resigned myself to taking my sledder like a man. Some wuffos had stopped to watch, and we had a good time answering their questions. Dan was also ready, so I let him go first, so as to observe his superior mad skillz. Unlike Keith and Amy, Dan managed to get established and stay up -- that was looking good! No reason to hesitate, I got hangchecked and charged off behind him, and I was also able to get up over ridge height. Dan didn't hang around too long, he headed down to the LZ to give Amy a ride up for a second shot. Keith launched shortly after that, and this time he was looking good, so we soon had two of us making laps back and forth in the bowl. After getting above launch, it was pretty easy to stay there, although getting high was a different matter -- the highest I got was about 350 feet over launch height.
Dan and Amy raced back up and set up her wing in record time. The streamers were still looking good, so she joined us in the air... briefly. Unfortunately, there was a sink cycle just after she launched, and although Keith and I managed to survive it, she got skunked and was on her way to the LZ again. Keith and I cruised around for a little while longer, until there were shadows creeping across the LZ, then he headed down, and a few minutes later, so did I, after about 90 minutes of flying (not bad at all for this time of year!). By the time we got there, the wind in the LZ was completely calm, so landing was easy, just head uphill.
A little dinner, then the long drive home. I'll be looking to bring some friends from the east to make another trip or two to Utz next year, most likely on a NE day, when we don't really have many New England sites that would be good choices.
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Bonus celebrity |
Thu Nov 03, 2011 2:04 pm
Wednesday looked like a nice day to be outside, warm for early November, and PK was trying to get people to come up and fly with him. I had a lull in responsibilities at work, so I decided to drive up and join him. I left my house, and had driven about a mile and a half, when I glanced over at a particular house. I've driven, bicycled, and run past that house numerous times, and I've never seen anybody in the yard before, but this time I saw a fellow with white hair talking to a couple of workmen. I immediately pulled over and hopped out. The guy turned around and I saw that he was wearing a Wills Wing 30th Anniversary hat. I asked, "Are you Walt?", and he said yes. I told him my name was J-J and I was on my way to go hang gliding.
On the day of my first lesson back in 2004 at Morningside, when Jeff Nicolay was signing me up, he saw that I was from Lunenburg and asked if I knew Walt. I told him no, and he said if I ever ran into him I should tell him that "Bruno says hi". I looked up Walt's address in the phone book and saw that he lived close to my house, but in all these times going by, I never knocked on the door. But this was my chance, and we had a great chat. Walt has been flying since the early 1970s, I believe, and I had assumed that he had given it up, but he said that he had flown as recently as Columbus Day (more recently that I had!), although he hasn't foot-launched since 2002. Now that we've made contact, I wouldn't be surprised if I see more of him, and maybe carpool to go flying sometimes.
But I had places to go. Rutland, in particular. Despite it not especially looking like a flying day.
Just four days earlier, there had been 16" of heavy wet snow in my yard, accompanied by widespread power outages, as limbs with leaves still on them, weighted down by the snow, snapped off and took down power lines. But the intervening days brought warm weather, and Vermont didn't get nearly as much snow anyway. I arrived right on time, a few minutes ahead of PK, and I set my vario in the parking lot while I was waiting. We had hopes that at least one other pilot would show, but it was just the two of us driving up to launch.
The wind was alternating between healthy and a little light, sometimes straight in and sometimes cross from the right. There was a weak front rumored to be on its way, so we didn't want to delay too long and didn't take our time setting up.
PK was ready first, and took his position on the ramp.
After waiting for a few minutes and watching the streamers, he offered to let me go first, and said that he'd just pack up and drive down if I didn't get up. Now that's an attitude bound to inspire confidence! I shrugged and moved onto the ramp. Not having flown in a month and a half, I was feeling a bit cautious, but the cycle I picked was fine and I started climbing immediately, gaining all the way to the first big spine. I returned above launch and a minute or so later there were two of us in the air.
Unfortunately, in the process of setting up, I had realized that I didn't seem to have my vario. I guessed (correctly as it turns out) that I had put it on the seat of my car after setting it, and it was still down at the bottom. Lacking anything better, PK loaned me this fine piece of vintage equipment.
It was a generous offer, but it didn't do me a bit of good. I looked over at it once in a while, and gleaned no helpful information from it. I could fly okay without a vario, but I was less efficient than I could have been with one. When things were good, I could put some altitude in my bank account, but not enough; when things got subtle, I wasn't doing a good enough job of keeping from sinking. A few times I encountered what seemed like mediocre thermals, but I couldn't map them out well enough to really exploit them. While struggling with a flush cycle after about a half-hour, I had dropped below the level of a particular evergreen tree that I use as an indicator that it's time to wrap things up. An easy glide out put me in position to land in an LZ that I hadn't used before, the one known as "by Jake's old house", and that went fine.
PK flew for about another half-hour, and landed just as I was done packing up. I drove around and hiked up to get his car (mine can't negotiate the access road), and of course, when I got to the top, the wind was blowing straight in and perfect...
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