Another Fine Day in the Clever Sky

Birthday Treat and Soggy Saturday

jjcote — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 13:09:02 GMT

A couple of new blog posts:
http://cleversky.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/birthday-treat/
http://cleversky.wordpress.com/2012/12/01/soggy-saturday/

Fledglings and In Advance of Sandy

jjcote — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 05:43:15 GMT

A couple of new blog posts from October:
http://cleversky.wordpress.com/2012/10/13/fledglings/
http://cleversky.wordpress.com/2012/10/28/in-advance-of-sandy/

Reconfiguring the day

jjcote — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 04:10:11 GMT

Post located at the new home of the blog.
http://wp.me/p2eSS6-8t

Back at Burke for a bit

jjcote — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 14:55:03 GMT

Post located at the new home of the blog.
http://wp.me/p2eSS6-8k

Time to hang up the ol� flying shoes

jjcote — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 04:22:31 GMT

Post located at the new home of the blog.
http://wp.me/p2eSS6-8f

Catching up -- three more days

jjcote — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 04:58:47 GMT

Three more posts at the new home of the blog:
http://cleversky.wordpress.com/2012/06/09/baptism/
http://cleversky.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/dubious-personal-records/
http://cleversky.wordpress.com/2012/06/30/crazy-hang-glider-pilots/

Yo-yo

jjcote — Mon, 21 May 2012 03:18:39 GMT

Post can be found at the new home of the blog: http://cleversky.wordpress.com/2012/05/20/yo-yo/

Luck, of various types

jjcote — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 02:45:55 GMT

Post can be found at the new home of the blog:
http://cleversky.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/luck-of-various-types/

What color?

jjcote — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 23:41:01 GMT

Post can be found at the new home of the blog:
http://cleversky.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/what-color/

Blowing my nose

jjcote — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 22:18:03 GMT

Post can be found at the new home of the blog: http://cleversky.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/blowing-my-nose/

Mud season

jjcote — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 05:03:21 GMT

Post can be found at the new home of the blog:
http://cleversky.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/mud-season/

Up and down and up and down and up and down

jjcote — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 00:52:58 GMT

Post can be found at the new home of the blog:
http://cleversky.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/up-and-down-and-up-and-down-and-up-and-down/

Blog migration

jjcote — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 05:47:51 GMT

My blog is moving! The guy who runs hanggliding.org (known to us as "sg") has been dissatisfied with the obsolete blog software that he has had running, and has been looking for a way to migrate us to something better. The solution that he came up with was to send us to Wordpress, and he created a way to move our existing blog posts over there. So if you've been reading this blog on hanggliding.org, or by the shortcut link tinyurl.com/cleversky, then you should change your links and bookmarks to the new address:
cleversky.wordpress.com
I should be able to give the blog an upgraded look, assuming I can figure out how to operate the fancy tools at Wordpress.
See you over there! And thanks, sg!

A friend who scratches -- that could bite you!

jjcote — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 15:56:50 GMT

The little guy peering out from between Brooks's legs is named Max. They tell me that when I was up making passes in front of launch, he was pretty agitated, barking up a storm at the big bird. Woof!

February Falconry

jjcote — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 03:09:24 GMT

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!

2011 by the numbers

jjcote — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 21:28:53 GMT

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!

Decembrrrrr!

jjcote — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:52:58 GMT

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!

Utz - looking good

jjcote — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 00:41:27 GMT

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.

Bonus celebrity

jjcote — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 22:04:13 GMT

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...

Minor heroine

jjcote — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 03:05:14 GMT

When I started hang gliding, the elderly gentleman who owns the building where I work heard about it, and said, "Oh, my wife used to do that!". He occasionally asks about how the flying has been going, and I've asked him about his wife. I finally got to meet her the other day when she stopped by to give her husband a ride. Her name is Gaetane Ford.

I believe she started flying in the late 1970s, shortly after she turned 50 (she's now 85), and stopped in perhaps the early 1990s. A few people who I met at Morningside remember her fondly. According to her husband, she flew Ascutney at least once. He says she flew a Comet, the smallest size of which I believe was 165 square feet, which must have been a lot of wing for a 110 pound pilot! Hang gliding is now part of her misty past, but she was pleased to meet me, and I was delighted to finally have a chance to meet her.

(Correction -- my friend PK tells me that although it's not listed in the Hang Glider Bible, there was a Comet 135, so that makes a lot more sense.)

Everybody and his brother

jjcote — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 16:24:01 GMT

The chatter started early about Greylock looking promising for the weekend. Gary announced that he'd be opening up his house for anyone who was going to try and fly more than one day who was looking for some floorspace to crash on. And here I was stuck at home because my transmission died.

My Pontiac Vibe has 300000+ miles on it, and the gearbox ate itself a couple of weeks ago when I was helping deliver my girlfriends's daughter to college. I got it towed to a repair shop, went online to find a used transmission, which I had shipped up from Texas, and it's awaiting repair. In the meantime, I'm driving a borrowed car that I don't have a rack for, so I'm reduced to groveling for a ride if I want to go anywhere with my glider. With such a promising forecast, it shouldn't have been a problem, because my house is only about 10 minutes from the highway. I was busy Saturday, but the prime day looked to be Sunday. Unfortunately, a lot of the pilots who might be passing by fly paragliders, Pete had a full car, and Jeff was heading off on vacation. Tom looked at the forecast the night before and decided it was likely to be too cross and strong, so he decided to skip it. Randy was my best bet, because he lives really close by, and he said he'd take a look in the morning. The reports came in that Saturday's flying was okay, mostly sledders, but pleasant. I wanted to fly, but I was inclined to agree with Tom's assessment of the forecast. When morning came and it still looked questionable, Randy sent a message saying that he was going back to bed, but might consider a trip to Plymouth in the afternoon for some beach flying. And that was that.

But then... about 9 AM, Tom called and said that his wife was kicking him out of the house because he was antsy. He decided to go to Greylock, not because he thought that it would be flyable, but because there were pilots coming in from a wide area, and he could visit with some old friends. Since he was driving out there, he figured he might as well bring his gear just in case, and since my house isn't very far out of his way, he offered me a ride if I wanted to go hang out at the mountain as well. We were getting a late start, because Greylock is an east-facing site and therefore works best earlier in the day. It's normally a 2.5 hour drive, but we knew that we'd be facing some detours, because damage from Tropical Storm Irene had washed out some bridges, and we figured it would be past noon when we got there. Still, I was up for it.

Despite our doubts, we expected that a fair number of pilots would show up. Ross, Stacy, and John were a way ahead of us, and we got updates from them by phone. When we got to within about a half-hour of the mountain, none of our friends were answering their phones, which Tom took to be a sign that conditions were looking good, and they were all busy setting up. I couldn't spot any wings in the air as we crossed the valley, but as we rounded some switchbacks approaching the summit, an ATOS suddenly appeared over the trees: John S. He wasn't very high, and he didn't have any company up there, so we knew that it was launchable, but not easy. Relieved to find an empty spot in the parking lot, we wasted no time in carrying our gliders out to the lawn and hustling over to the office to sign in. We were certainly not alone.

(definitely click on that one to get the larger view)

I count at least 24 hang gliders in that picture, including the one in the air and two that I can spot that haven't been unpacked yet (mine and Tom's). Plus John's ATOS is out of sight, there might be more than I can identify behind the evergreen tree, and I know at least a couple more arrived after I was set up. And you can't see the paragliders who were waiting down front, and who likely outnumbered us. I don't know the breakdown between the wing types, but I'm told that the official count was 58 pilots signed in at the office register.

Fifty-eight is a lot of wings. I've flown in moderate traffic before, at West Rutland, Ellenville, and Wellfleet, but this was probably more than twice as many as the busiest day I'd ever experienced. At the other sites, there's a respectable bit of room, particularly at Wellfleet where you can head off down the coast to get away from the paragliders hovering around launch. As I set up at Greylock, though, the situation got more and more scary looking. The day hadn't really turned on, so almost everyone was packed into a space in front of launch that was only about a half-mile long, with not much vertical space, soaring the ridge and hoping for some thermal action. Everybody who launched joined the crowd and made it more and more congested. I later heard it described as a "mosh pit" and a "fur ball". As soon as I was ready, I got in line to launch, though not without some misgivings. There were two lines leading to paraglider launches, and one in the middle leading to where we take hang gliders down to the steeper slope. We couldn't get past the paragliders when they were laid out and building a wall, and they couldn't launch if there was a hang glider in front, for fear of gliding out low and hitting it. Because they're more mobile on the ground, it was tough for us to elbow our way into an opportunity, and it was particularly annoying being caught behind a paraglider making multiple inflation attempts. To be fair, though, it's probably just as well that things were slowed down a little, because it kept the situation from getting even more crowded out front.

It was a nice, comfortable day to hang out on top of a mountain, and having all those wings close together was great for the numerous spectators. The fact that this site has such visibility to the public is the primary reason why it's rated H4/P4, or H3/P3 with observer. The site isn't really that difficult in terms of launching or reaching the LZ, but as I looked up at the swirling mass of wings in the air, I was glad that there weren't any H2s or P2s in the mix. When I finally managed to wedge my wingtip into the line and get my turn to launch, there was no need to hesitate, and I was down at the slope for only about 45 seconds including a hang check.

Yow! Keep your head on a swivel. If the lift had been working better, people would have been up and spread out, but only a few were. I was determined to be one of them, and although I sank a bit at first, and got below launch for a few passes, when I did find a climb I cored it tightly and got myself above the craziness. Over the course of 15-20 minutes I got to about 2000 feet over launch, but then a sink cycle came, and I lost it all quicker than I had gained it. Which left me with no choice, but... nooooo! I didn't want to go back into the bumper-glider ride! At some sites people talk about flying "in the fishbowl", but this was like being in the little plastic bag full of fish that you bring home from the pet store.

When I found another good climb, I decided to just leave, and try to find somewhere else to fly. One advantage to having so many wings in the air was that it was easy to look around and see who was climbing. There were some paragliders above me getting lift under a cloud to the south, so I pulled on the VG and headed off to join that party. Much, much better, plenty of room underneath them. I stuck with that climb as long as I could, eventually thinking that I was getting pretty close to the clouds. They were numerous, but not tall at all, so they weren't scary. I have spent very little time near clouds, and it's difficult to judge how far away they are. It looked like I was getting close, but then I noticed a pair of paragliders that were maybe 100 feet above me, and they clearly hadn't reached the cloud yet... but then one of them started getting hard to see, sort of fading away... I guess he had! I was at a little over 6000 feet, which is pretty good for September in New England, my highest flight in over two years. I had only been higher than this a couple of times before, and all of the previous times to 6000 feet had been in April, May, or June.

Some days the time just slips by when flying, but this wasn't one of those days. I remember looking at my watch at one point and being amazed that only a half-hour had gone by, because flying in the crowd was so tiring. It got better once I was skyed out and relaxing. Eventually it looked like the crowd was dissipating, which I took to mean that things might be shutting down (and my hands were starting to get cold). Wanting to make sure that I'd be in the vicinity of my intended LZ (where a friend had left Tom's car), I headed out into the valley and started flying north. There were some gliders climbing over North Adams, but that was out of my reach. When I was down to about 1000 feet AGL, I did get some beeping from my vario, and tried milking some rising air that seemed to be coming from parking lots or flat-roofed buildings or something. I gained a few hundred feet a couple of times, but not enough to climb out again. I gave up on that game, but it did extend my flight by 13 minutes or so.

The driving range LZ is nice because it has windsocks for the golfers, and there's also a flag on top of the hill in the adjacent cemetery. I set up my landing pattern, and when I was turning onto my base leg, I wondered why the pilot ahead of me was landing downwind. Just after he touched down they were limp, then they came to life again... but now I was downwind! Doh! I did what I could to alter my landing direction, and the wind switched again as I was on final, and I'm not sure what it was doing as I reached the ground. My landing sure wasn't pretty, but it could have been a lot worse.

Stacy P

Tom L and Doug B

Before hitting the road home, we joined some other pilots at a local restaurant. It was interesting to be sitting next to Tom, who was the second-newest pilot there, having "only" 20 years of experience. During the dinner conversation, there was a point brought up about John S having had a disagreement with a particular instructor, and I jokingly noted that John had done hardly any flying before that instructor was born (John got his H5 rating in 1982). He gestured toward the other pilots at the table and pointed out that they had all been flying longer than he had!

Lest you get the wrong impression, it really was quite an excellent day, and everyone was in agreement about that. There was definitely some post-flight grousing about the crowded conditions and some particular pilots who were not so good at following the right of way rules, but there were no mid-air collisions that I'm aware of, and it was judged to be a spectacular day all around. My perspective on this is limited, too. I know that there are much bigger gaggles in comps (though they are all experienced pilots flying similar wings), and I imagine there are sites that get this kind of attendance on a regular basis. I wouldn't go seeking out sites like that, but I probably wouldn't hesitate to return to Greylock on a busy day.

Some pilots called in to work "sick" and stayed over, and there was more flying the following day, though conditions reportedly weren't quite as good. Nevertheless, three days in a row at Greylock is quite a fine stretch. Some videos have popped up, and I've provided links below; I'll add more if I find any.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfIsKmhkOGQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tYIg6MFEwI
http://vimeo.com/29406593
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0zi_zJhzmw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0bNPND72k4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-qIGBbPBxY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g8F08kIerw
http://vimeo.com/29298636
http://vimeo.com/29405162
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhoQ6OGhw_0

Picking up the trash

jjcote — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:23:36 GMT

Rodger posted first, saying, "Is it my imagination, or does Tuesday look pretty good?". Tom replied "Nope!", and it wasn't clear whether he meant, "Nope, not your imagination", or "Nope, doesn't look good", but it turned out to be the former. Several more people weighed in, and we decided to go to Ascutney, but things got shuffled around in the morning; Rodger couldn't go, and Pete J thought that the Trail looked like a better bet (too cross from the left at Ascutney). I picked up Randy, Pete picked up Tom, we met at a shopping center and all piled into Pete's car for the drive to the NW corner of Massachusetts.

Amy and Keith were already there when we arrived, schlepping gear out to launch. Although there had been a bunch of hand-wringing about whether we were making the right choice or should go to Ascutney instead, the sky and wind were looking pretty good where we were. Brooks and PK arrived when we were almost done setting up, and then there was a complicated game of, "You go ahead first".

Tom and Randy discussing XC plans

Pete J

Amy with her colorful Pulse

I probably would have been willing to step up, but the way it worked out, my glider was in the back of the setup area, so I hopped in with Brooks to be wire crew for the first batch. It was crossing from the left a lot of the time, but there were some straight-in cycles. If memory serves, Randy went first, followed by Tom. Those two got a few hundred feet over, so Amy and Pete looked at each other, and Pete went next, and when he had climbed up a bit, she followed. Nobody was getting really high, but I moved into position after her.

I didn't wait overly long, and Amy later told me that when she saw me launch, she said to herself, "Oh no, not now!", because she and Pete had just started having trouble staying up. I found the same lack of happy air, and after a couple of passes I was below launch, and nervously eyeing the haying equipment that was at work in the bailout LZ. Fortunately, I didn't have to scratch for too long before I got enough altitude to make my move southward along the ridge, and unlike previous times, I was very slowly climbing the whole way. Most of the gang was down there with me, but there were two gliders that were much higher, circling together well behind the ridge. I spotted Randy and PK near me, so that meant that the two up high were probably Tom and Pete.

Soaring over North Adams

PK on the ridge

Despite Tom's illustrious XC career, and despite the huge number of times that he's flown this site, he had never gone over the back from the Trail. In fact, he's told me that he had been further east when pushing upwind from Greylock, on the other side of the valley, than he had ever gone from the Trail. This had come up when I had asked if he had ever flown to his house -- the Trail is the site from which it would be most likely.

Randy got high enough and headed off to chase Tom and Pete. PK might have joined them, but it would have been a hassle to get back to his car from along that route, so he boated around North Adams with the rest of us. I managed to get a couple of quite nice climbs, which took me as close to cloudbase as Part 103 allows, at just under a mile of altitude. This is the highest I've managed to get in a little over two years (although I got almost that high at Ascutney last October). Amy was the first to land, I think in large part because she had problems with her harness zipper and her legs were getting tired, and Keith joined her soon afterwards.

I was well above PK, but somehow he found a climb while I got nothing but sink, and when I realized that I was above the ridgetop swamp, only 440 feet higher than launch, I decided to boogie out of there and place my bets on thermals over town. Those weren't forthcoming, so I set up to land in the hayfield where Amy and Keith were. The normal LZ in this area is the driving range, in part because it has windsocks for the golfers. Fortunately, Keith was in the hayfield, and had set up a pole with a streamer on it. He started making some strange gestures, waving from SE to NW. Was he telling me that I should land that way, or... that the wind was blowing that way? The wind had been W all day, so it couldn't be blowing from the SE... but that's what the streamer was indicating! OK, well, get it done before it changes. I glided a long way... uh oh... that's what happens when you land downwind... but my flare was good, and Keith cheered my landing. No problem other than having to carry the glider a way back through thick grass. We were breaking down in the adjacent field, and I had to carry my glider through a narrow break in the trees (on a cart path) to get there. Partway through, the glider stopped, and I couldn't budge it. Hmm... was I hung up on some overhanging tree branch? Wingtip caught on a bush? No... aha, I was standing on the VG rope. Well, that explained why I glided so long on final, I landed with full VG, which I now know is a non-event, provided there's enough field.

PK was up for a bit longer, as he said that just after I landed, the whole valley lifted off and he got high one more time. We went out to the LZ to watch him come in, and just as he started setting up his approach, Brooks appeared out of nowhere. He landed ahead of PK, and based on the comments he shouted down at us, he was also perplexed by the wind direction. He ended up coming in NW, and PK landed WSW a few moments later. The valley certainly lived up to its reputation for switchy winds!

Brooks

PK and Brooks

As I was breaking down, the phone calls came in from the XC crew. Things worked out perfectly, with me landing out front and the other three close to Rte. 2, which is the road home, so that I could do what Tom calls a "trash collection run". Randy was waiting in a scenic rest area by the river in Shelburne Falls, about 16 miles from launch, and had a chance to go swimming while he waited for me. Pete landed in a hayfield in Shelburne, 20+ miles out. And as for Tom, well, he showed us how it's done. He didn't quite make it home, but he did reach the Fitchburg airport, a 67 mile flight. (He was in fact less than three miles from the shopping center where my car was parked, and if I had left the keys there, he could have driven home instead of waiting for us!) Nice job!

I got some video of Brooks and PK landing. (Sorry about the weird color distortion, this cheap camera does that sometimes.)

Link

Link

And better, Keith made a sweet video of the day's flying that includes my landing.
http://vimeo.com/28271096

Dummy

jjcote — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 19:27:27 GMT

Got there first.
Picked up Jake.
Hiked out.
Set up.
Too many clouds.
Talked with wuffos.

Wind picked up.
Looked okay.
Said I'd go first.
Be the wind dummy.
Found lift right away.
Got 500 feet over.
Everybody piled off launch.
Started sinking.
What a dummy.
Scratched a little.
Headed out before getting into trouble.
Found nothing further out.
Finally landed this glider properly.
No-stepper on my eleventh try.
Three others landed near me.
Two went XC to Morningside.
Ryan picked us up.
Headed home.

Pete landing:

Link

Rodger landing:

Link

Conquering a jinx

jjcote — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 17:59:30 GMT

Sometimes I hear people talk about a particular pilot having a jinx with respect to some particular site -- whenever they show up, conditions turn out to be crummy, or at least that pilot can't get a decent flight. That the way it's felt for me for the Mohawk Trail. The first time I flew there, three years ago, was my first flight on a DS glider, and my first time using a radio, but I climbed right out and got to nearly 7000 feet. Since then, though, it's been more or less a bust. All but one of my flights has ended in the nasty bailout LZ that some people call "The Death Zone", and the one time that I got enough altitude to head south down the ridge, the lift shut down as soon as I did, so I ended up in a hayfield. Other than that first time, in six more tries I had never managed to make it to the normal "RC Field" LZ (which is a golf driving range these days).

Wednesday was shaping up to be a NW day, which points to Ascutney, Mohawk Trail, Skinner, or Ellenville. Keith said that he was going to the Trail and that Amy would be showing up, so when I heard that Pete J was going, I gave him a call and arranged to carpool. Matt C and John S arrived just after us, and Brooks came later on. Nobody had gotten a particularly early start, and there was a healthy breeze blowing in as we were setting up, so no hang waiting was required. John and I were ready at about the same time, and I gladly let him go first -- might as well have one of the most experienced pilots around go out and test the waters!

John had no trouble soaring, so I followed him and settled in on the ridge. The trick with this site is to get a little altitude in your pocket and head south to the main part of the ridge where better lift is to be found (and where you're closer to the LZ). I found it easy enough to stay up, but I was not doing too well for getting the 500 feet of clearance that I wanted before crossing the road. After 45 minutes of yoyoing around between launch and about 300 feet over, I found a good thermal that took me to 500 over... 600... 700... 800... (stay with it as long as it's working!) 900... 1000... when I lost track of it I scooted out of there, dropping some, but getting some more reliable rising air around the bare rock summit areas. Once I finagled my way up to 1000 feet above launch, I was able to relax.

It wasn't a day that would have been everybody's cup of tea. We all cruised up and down the ridge, nobody put in any big XC miles, and we all landed in either the RC field or a hayfield behind the school. Cloudbase was about 4500', and I don't think anybody quite got there; the best I did was about 4200', thanks to a nice thermal that was revealed to me by Pete -- thanks, Pete!

Certainly no sledder, I was able to fly as long as I cared to, finally heading down when I figured it was the polite thing to do, since Pete had been on the ground for a while, and I was riding with him. I managed 3 hours 28 minutes, my third-longest flight ever (and just five minutes shy of my second-longest). Amy and Pete had time for some refreshments while the rest of us packed up.

Matt was flying Keith's sharp-looking U2 (the dark upper surface photographs much better than all-white gliders, which tend to get overexposed.

I'm soliciting captions for this -- what were Brooks and John explaining to each other?

Keith was the last one down (on his second flight, after landing in the bailout on the first try). Looks like he landed just out of range of a 4-iron, and he managed to get his hat on before coming over to the breakdown area!

Intro to Burke

jjcote — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 00:58:24 GMT

There are primarily two flying clubs in New England (excluding the Connecticut crowd, and the semi-mythical Massachusetts club): Vermont Hang Gliding Association and New England Paragliding and Hang Gliding Club. Each of them manages several sites, and although VHGA is primarily a HG club and NEPHC a PG club, many people belong to both. Burke Mountain is an anomalous site: it's flown mostly by PG pilots, but it's administered by VHGA. I had never flown there, because most of the pilots I fly with aren't inclined to go there, it's said to have challenging LZ options, and it seems like it's a long haul to get there (less than 30 miles from the Canadian border).

There were various failed connections and scheduling problems through the weekend, such that I missed opportunities to fly during the record-setting heat on Friday and Saturday (and wound up missing the grand opening party at Morningside). Sunday morning, I finally managed to get through on a phone call that indicated people were going to Burke, and I hit the road. My timing was great, arriving just a couple of minutes after ARt, a Vermont HG pilot who has flown Burke a number of times. The drive really wasn't too bad, roughly the same time as Rutland.

Fears that conditions would be too strong were allayed when we saw that a bunch of PG pilots were there and were not intimidated. I set up on the ski slope as they launched, and Randy arrived in the meantime, so we had three HGs (Russ showed up later, making four, and it seems there was at least one other HG on a car, but I don't know if it got used). Winds being typically fickle, the PGs mostly climbed out, and then it got really light just as I was ready to launch. I sat there for a while, and gladly let Randy go ahead of me once he was set up. He just about sank out, then hooked into a climb that he was able to stick with, and I noted where he found it. Once I got a cycle that seemed to have some substance, I ran off and didn't try to work the hill at all, but headed straight for... the parking lot. That seemed to be the prime source of upness, and I worked it as long as I could, doing about 20 circles and briefly getting higher than launch, but it wasn't quite enough to keep me going, especially when a cloud came by and shaded it. I had to make a choice between three LZ options at that point, and decided to go for the one where the PGs usually land, which has the advantages of a windsock and proximity to the cars, but which also has a pretty substantial pitch to it, continuing downhill, which is not what you really want given the direction of the wind. The sock showed a cross breeze if anything, so I just went at it uphill, and landed without a problem.

ARt's flight was similar to mine, Randy landed about 4 miles away, got a ride back, and went up again at the end of the day. Russ did two late-day flights. I think a few of the PGs went XC for 14 miles or so -- nice. I hiked up to get my car (just because), and then helped out with shuttling some other cars down from launch before hitting the road home. Quite a pleasing outing (other than the gnats that bit my ankles and have me itching now), and I'll be looking forward to my next trip to this fine site.

As a postscript, I couldn't resist taking this picture -- nice rack. (He didn't drive very far with it like that.)

Payoff for those with patience

jjcote — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 22:45:38 GMT

The forecast was iffy enough that one pilot who was already on the highway had a phone conversation about the weather with another pilot, and turned around and went home. Apparently there was more than one option that worked, as I heard later that the flying was good at Ascutney, but Jeff C and I went up to Rutland, as did a ton of other pilots. It's a longer drive, but I was getting a little tired of the hike out to launch at Ascutney, as opposed to Rutland, where vehicles can drive right to the edge of the spacious, sheltered, shady, grassy setup area.

It was one of those days that I've seen a lot of lately, where the windsock is only halfheartedly inflated, and switching around a bit. This was fine for the tandem PG and the new H2s who were in the air when we arrived, but for those of us who wanted to soar, it didn't look promising. The sky was solid blue, and though a couple of wispy clouds formed, they fell apart very quickly. About every half-hour, somebody would decide that the time had come to take action, and would head out for a ten minute extended sledder. We were keeping an eye out to the west, where there was a solid cloud deck that was drifting toward us. We were all concerned that when it arrived, it would shut down any remaining potential for the day.

Finally, at almost 5 PM, one of the students launched for a second flight and stayed up despite not particularly fancy flying. That initiated a sudden cascade of wings taking to the air. Within about 20 minutes there were 14 of us crowded onto the ridge in about 1000 feet of vertical space, a mixture of hang gliders and paragliders.

(click for larger version)

The cloud deck had arrived, but with it came a steady breeze, pretty much straight in, and there was lift available everywhere. Turning wasn't particularly more helpful than just making passes back and forth between launch and the west end, and the most important thing was to keep your eyes open for traffic. I got a little bit of sloppy, noisy video while I was up there.

Link

I had been figuring that my flight would not last particularly long, so when I suited up, I just stuffed my jacket into my harness and didn't bother hooking up the radio. Short sleeves turned out to be not so bad, the temperature never got below 70 F. I probably could have stayed in the air longer, but circumstances called for me to head for the LZ after about 90 minutes.
___________________________

I've seen several close calls lately, and heard about some others. Talking to pilots while we were waiting around, I got word of a couple of hang gliding incidents that happened last weekend. On one of my recent flying days, I saw a friend do a very bad launch that came within inches of being an accident. And today, I saw two landings that had all of us biting our nails: one that almost came up short (the pilot had plenty of room to set up a good approach but instead just missed splashing down in the swamp), and another that involved setting up too high, and which ultimately ended up with the glider in the perfect spot right next to the road, but that really looked like it was a lucky break that almost turned into a collision with a telephone pole (who knows, maybe he landed exactly where he intended). And the last launch of the day, which I watched from the air, was classically, horribly bad, and maybe just a hair away from being a fatality. I've still never seen anybody get seriously hurt while hang gliding, but it feels like these incidents came a lot closer than I'd like.

Breaking out of the slump

jjcote — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 14:58:57 GMT

When I saw internet chatter about flying on Thursday, my first thought was that it was too soon for me because I flew on Tuesday, my second thought was that it looked pretty good and maybe I should go, and my third thought was that, oh, the winds aloft looked too strong. But I took another look when I woke up that morning, and since the updated forecast looked manageable, I hit the road.

I knew that Pete J would be there, and Dennis as well -- he was just heading up the mountain when I got to the park entrance. We thought Greg H was coming, and when he arrived, the three of us went up in Pete's car. We got word that Z was on his way, and then as we were setting up, John A and Jeff B joined us. That made seven wings all squeezed into the primary setup area at Ascutney, including two ATOSes. Quite an interesting 3-D jigsaw puzzle!

The predicted vigorous winds were not in evidence, and there was some shading from a few substantial cumulus clouds, as well as some cirrus, so we did the usual "wait around until it heats up" deal. John was a bit more ambitious than the rest of us to get into the air with his almost brand new T2, so he launched, but nobody else was overly eager as long as he was scratching 200 feet over launch.

It was right about 2 PM when John found a cloud that was working and specked out. The other six of us piled off in rapid succession at that point. Nice that we had two experienced drivers (Wimpy and Ryan) on hand for wire crew. I was the last one to go, and although I was at the same altitude as a few other pilots at first, they hooked into something that I missed. I did find a climb not too long after that and got to 4000 feet (launch is at 2850), but by then the gaggle was pretty far back and 1000+ feet above me. I got to a point where I was on the edge of my comfort level, so when I lost the thermal, instead of hunting around for it again, I made sure I could push to the front, and I let those guys go.

My flights lately have been 10-15 minute sledders, and this one was much better. Not epic by any means, but I stayed up for 90 minutes, until a weak cycle came through and I got flushed to the LZ out front. The drivers were downwind, so I packed up and ran back to get my car. I talked to my friend Tom later, and he says I should set a goal of flying to someplace that's too far for me to get back from on foot.

Another sledder

jjcote — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 15:52:17 GMT

Over the 4th of July weekend there were a few days when various sites worked to varying degrees, but I had other commitments. On Tuesday the 5th, however, I needed to go to Vermont anyway, and a few pilots were converging at Ascutney, so I brought my glider and joined them (Jeff B, Jake, Rodger, and Pat M, with Ryan driving). There was a big cloud shutting out the sunlight for a while, but we waited until 2:45 when things started heating up nicely, and we all piled off of launch in rapid succession. Everybody climbed up and out and went over the back for flights ranging from 7 to 26 miles. Except me. Fifteen minutes of searching in vain for a parcel of air that would carry me up, and then I was on the ground. I took so few pictures that you get to see them all.

Last year, I didn't manage to get a decent flight until the end of July, and this year seems to be working out about the same. I don't know why I even bother to bring my glider out before August is looming. At least I'm getting a little launch and landing practice.

Spur of the moment

jjcote — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 19:04:48 GMT

The weekend didn't hold any good flying conditions, and Monday morning I had to get a new tire for my car. A couple of people mentioned the possibility of flying at Cannon, but it looked too cross. The lift forecast was good, but it was another one of these L&V days where none of the other sites showed any useful wind, and figured I'd use the day to get some things done.

But then around 11 AM, the sky was full of perfect looking clouds, and a couple of people posted on the forum that it looked great but they were stuck at work, and hoped that somebody was taking advantage of it. Too late for me to go... right? Or... maybe not! I hurriedly put the rack on my car, grabbed my gear, and hit the road for Ascutney.

No time to waste when I arrived, and as I suspected, nobody else was signed in at the ranger station. I drove to the summit parking lot, shuttled my harness and glider out to launch, and started setting up. On a nice weekday in the summer, you can generally find a few hikers on Ascutney, and I was fortunate to have one stop by who was interested in watching me fly, and stuck around to help me do a hang check and move up onto launch.

My landing was interesting, because there was some smooth lift oozing off the LZ that I did a half-dozen circles in, not enough for a low save, but it delayed my approach. When I got the glider down into ground effect, it kept going for a loooong way. The field is a decent size, but I hadn't set up in the quite the longest dimension. There also wasn't really any wind to speak of, but I set up into the prevailing direction, and the ground slopes very slightly downhill that way. As a result, I had my eyes on the trees on the far side of the field, and I wasn't sure I'd stop before I reached them. I've talked to my friend Tom about what he calls "tree landings", which he has had to do a few times. These aren't what you normally think of when you hear that term, what he means is bouncing off the springy growth that is found at the margins or most fields in this area. There are usually saplings, and thin branches extending from trees growing deeper in the woods, and in an emergency, you just fly straight toward them at ground level and flare just before you hit. All these flimsy branches and bushes hit the sail and bring you gently to a halt. Fortunately, I didn't have to deal with that, as the flare window occurred while I was still in the field, but with not a lot of room left! Good flare, and a couple of steps in no wind, not too bad.

The hitch with rushing off like this to fly alone is that there is neither a driver, nor anyone to cooperate with to stage a car near the LZ. Once I was packed up, it was just under 10 miles by road to get back to my car. The standard thing to do in this situation is to hitchhike around the mountain, then get a ride up the mountain from somebody. But long ago my mother admonished me to never hitchhike, and so far I've heeded her warning. On the other hand, my car was less than two miles away as the crow flies, though it was 2000 feet higher, across a wooded, trackless mountainside. But it was right up there, no problem! The woods turned out to be surprisingly pleasant, and 70 minutes later, I was back at the summit parking lot.

Oh wait, this blog is supposed to be about hang gliding, isn't it? Well, my uneventful flight lasted 10 minutes. Of the last seven times that I've gone to a flying site with a wing, in the past eight weeks or so, I've had three days when I didn't fly, three sledders, and one flight where I managed to scratch out a half-hour. Some might consider that I did a lot of work for just a sled ride, and that the day was a disaster. Others might think that it was a great day to be outdoors, and to go for a hike, and on top of that, I got to go hang gliding! You can decide for yourself which group you're in.

A Visit to Cannon

jjcote — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 20:09:00 GMT

The forecast for the solstice showed good lift, but light and variable winds. Any site might work if you waited for a thermal cycle to blow through launch, but you'd want as much elevation as possible to maximize your chances of hooking into a solid climb. I was thinking Ascutney, but the few pilots who were going opted for Cannon. I met up halfway with Tom L and John B and we carpooled up to Franconia Notch. Neither John nor I had flown the site before, so Tom gave us a briefing on the way up, and we drove by the bailout LZs and took a look at them. A phone call up to the pilots who were already on launch gave us an indication that everything looked good from up there, but things didn't feel right to me, not enough for a first flight at a challenging site. The nail in the coffin was that the cloud drift looked too cross in an undesirable direction, so I said I'd be leaving my glider on the car, and could help with carrying stuff and driving retrieve.

Cannon has a cool way to get to launch: you don't drive up, you buy a one-way ticket for the aerial tram.

There's a procedure for strapping gliders to the roof of the tram, but curved-tip gliders pack short enough that they can just fit inside.

Dan M, Greg H, and David D were already set up when we arrived, and waiting for a straight cycle to launch. Tom and John set up quickly and joined them.

Dan

Greg

David

Tom

John

David lucked into nothing, and took a four-mile sledder to the airport, but the other four all climbed out and made it to cloudbase at 7400 feet. They tried to push upwind and go XC, but the climbs were too weak relative to the headwind, and downwind is not really an option at this site (no LZs for a long way through Franconia Notch), so after flights lasting from one to two hours, they all headed for the airport as well.

I hiked down to get the car and picked them up. No airtime for me, but I did get to spend the first day of summer outdoors in spectacular scenery.

Casual day at Ascutney

jjcote — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 00:30:02 GMT

Sometimes I spend a lot of time obsessing over the weather forecast, looking at multiple sites, trying to figure out if it will be a perfect day for flying, and if so, what the ideal site would be. And sometimes when I have that all figured out, there's either nobody else interested in flying, or something comes up such that I can't go. This was a day that was sort of the opposite. I hadn't paid much attention to the forecast, but when I saw a couple of people post notes on our local forum saying that they were going to give Ascutney a try, I just took a quick glance: lift okay, wind direction okay, it's not going to rain -- I'm in.

Rodger F picked me up on his way, and we met Pete J at the mountain, along with Ryan who was there to drive for us. Unfortunately, the sky was completely overcast, so we took our time setting up. I realized that I had left my phone in the car, so I jogged back to get it, and met John A and Jake, who asked if it was soarable. We had left a couple of good spots open in the setup area, which worked out great, since they were more eager to get started than we were. (Since we had a much longer drive to get to the mountain, we didn't want to be too hasty.) Pat M also arrived as they were getting ready.

Jake had been less than happy with his first two flights this year, both a bit better than sledders, but only about 30 minutes of airtime each, and a struggle both times. As he assembled his wing in record time, he kept muttering that he couldn't do that three times in a row. The clouds overhead were still solid (although the sky to the NW looked much more encouraging), but he was concerned that the wind could go NE later in the day, so he didn't wait at all, and launched within a couple of seconds of moving into position. We stood on the platform and winced as he got lower and lower. Ouch. If he sank out, none of us wanted to be on the ground with him, because his mood would likely be ugly. We also figured that we were in a no-win situation -- sled out, or stay up and wind up with Jake even more angry.

Jake kept working whatever he could find over the ski area, and the rest of us just stayed put until he was finally above the horizon. John went next, and climbed right away (he's one of those guys who always does that). The improved-looking sky was getting a lot closer, with broad patches of sunlight finally reaching us, and well-defined cumulus clouds. Pete was happy to let me step up next, and I moved onto the launch rock at precisely 2 PM, which is often said to be the magic time when things get good. John was above the summit at that point, but Jake had flown out to the LZ. I had to wait less than two minutes for the wind to be to my liking, which was good, because there were some hikers just arrived who I think wanted to see somebody fly, including a family with a couple of elementary school aged daughters -- it's great to be able to look good for folks like that.

Lift was indeed improved. I was a couple of hundred feet over launch when I made my first return, and not too long after that I was 500 feet above the summit. John appeared to be heading over the back, and I got a picture of Pete launching.

The wind had been trending to the right, and soon after that I realized that it was completely cross on launch, such that I would be better off trying to find lift over the ski area. Pete and I worked bubbles there for a while, some of which were strong enough, but narrow and tricky to stay in. It was a losing battle, and when I got low enough, I chose the safe move of making a run for the LZ rather than get myself into trouble. I managed a whopping 6:1 L/D on the way there flying at a ground speed of 30 mph with the VG on -- good thing I didn't wait any longer.

Not an epic flight by any means, and probably not that different from the ones that have been disappointing Jake, but I'm easily amused. The other guys didn't fare that well either, with Pete following me when I headed out to land, Pat launching when we were scratching and then flying over my head just after I landed, and Rodger -- well, as he put it, "I got a rock". At least my tracklog looked a bit interesting this time.

Thanks to Ryan for coming along and doing the driving -- his kind are always the most respected heroes. Some of us headed out for some pretty good pizza in Claremont on the way home, where the waitress realized that we were HG pilots and chatted us up (she lives near Morningside, and misses seeing gliders in the sky this year since the park is not open). Likewise when I stopped for ice cream near my house, and a guy in the parking lot asked what was on the roof of my car (his sister lives near Ascutney).

Of course, there are some who get to fly all the time. Many of them were out there, including a lot of ravenous blackflies at launch (mosquitoes suck, but blackflies chew!), and this little guy, who was perched on my harness bag in the LZ for a while.

Delayed opening

jjcote — Mon, 30 May 2011 17:57:38 GMT

Ryan, the local meteorologist of doom, had predicted that the first group flight from Ascutney would not happen until June. He was pretty close. The first time since last October 11 when conditions were suitable was Memorial Day, which is pretty late for Opening Day at Ascutney. As of the night before, I didn't know whether anybody but me was interested enough to go, but emails appeared in the morning showing that there would be some others.

I was the first one to arrive, followed by Pete J. We stashed my car out front, and got back to the park entrance as the rest of the gang showed up. Most of the usual suspects were there: Jake, John A, Greg H, Jeff B, Dennis, and Pat M, plus Ryan was along to drive retrieve. (Z came as well, but he arrived after the rest of us launched.) I'm too much of a lightweight to carry all of my gear at once, so I zipped out to launch with my harness and battens, then ran back to make a second trip with the glider. That put me near the back of the setup area, and the way things turned out, last in line to launch. That meant that I did wire crew duty for everybody, which provided a useful opportunity to watch everybody else's techniques.

There was a little waiting around, though not as much as I've seen in the past. The wind was light, but there was concern that it was going to clock around to the north, so nobody wanted to wait too long for the sun to heat the bowl and miss a chance to fly at all. Jake, being the site director, stepped up first to inaugurate the flying season.

John, Greg, and Jeff followed him, and all gradually lost altitude until we were soon looking down on the tops of four distant wings. Enthusiasm dropped a notch, but the pilots in the air found some good climbs and got well above launch; that was enough to encourage the rest of us. After everybody else got airborne, I suited up, and with assistance of Ryan and a hiker, moved up onto the platform. Conditions were mellow enough that I didn't need much help, and there was a good cycle coming in as I got into position so I didn't wait.

And.... I slud. I sleddereded. I went down, down, down. I did manage to stay level with launch for one brief pass through the bowl and back, but after that, I never got back. I did find a few bumps, but I didn't manage to exploit them. There wasn't opportunity to take any pictures from the air, but at least I had time to zip up my harness (not that it was really necessary). Before I lost too much altitude, I headed out over the fields, to make sure that I wouldn't have any trouble setting up my approach. There were some thermals coming off the fields, not enough for me to get a low save, but enough to make the landing challenging. Jake was already breaking down when I landed, and Pat came in right behind me.

Greg, Jeff, and Dennis went over the back and flew south for 27 miles, to somewhere south of Bellows Falls, I assume. I believe the other three pilots all did out-and-back flights. The season is on!

Waffles

jjcote — Thu, 26 May 2011 03:52:18 GMT

It has not been a great spring season for flying here in New England. As far as I can ascertain, as of May 24, there had been only about a dozen inland flights so far this year, sledders included. In particular, there had been no reported flights from Ascutney, our premiere site. So when I had the opportunity to not go to work on Wednesday, and the lift forecast was good, with winds that, although light, looked like they might be NW, I sent out feelers to see who might want to join me.

In the morning I called Tom, and asked "What's the plan, Strato-Man?". He proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes reading me everything he could find on-line about the weather predictions for the day, at some point adding, "I haven't really answered your question yet". I was intending to head to Ascutney, figuring that there wasn't going to be any wind, and we just needed something very tall to jump off of to maximize our chances of finding a thermal before we reached the ground. He agreed, but thought that there would be a slight east component, so his inclination was to head for Greylock. (This was also influenced by the fact that his shoulder has been bothering him, and flying Ascutney requires a substantial hike.) During our phone conversation, other pilots called and got conferenced in, and we kept going back and forth about what the best choice would be. Eventually he said he'd pick up Randy, then swing by my place, and we'd decide where to go from there.

When Tom and Randy got to my house, Tom checked the forecast models, and things had switched direction. It looked fishy, though, and he didn't believe it. That, combined with the fact that Pete J, PK, and John B were all headed for Greylock already tipped the decision to go there. We realized that John was only a few minutes behind us, so we met him in the parking lot of a dangerous looking bar called McNasty's, piled his wing on the roof, and all traveled together. But then we got a report by phone from Pete saying that he had arrived at the edge of the valley and the wind was looking west... or maybe north... so we considered changing course and going to Ascutney anyway... we just couldn't make up our minds, and kept waffling. But Pete was already there, and he ran into PK and Gary as well, so we told them we'd meet them on top of Greylock. However, we had a sinking feeling that Ascutney might be the place to be, and that we'd get reports later on about the pilots who went there and had awesome flights.

It didn't look encouraging when we got to the parking lot and saw a car with two gliders still on the roof. We strolled out to launch and saw those guys sitting and looking out over the valley while the wind trickled over the back. There were a few brief moments when a thermal puff (or maybe some rotor) would make it seem marginally launchable, but nobody had a good feeling about it. There were awesome looking clouds boiling up the back side of the mountain, and terrific looking clouds across the valley to the east, near the Trail launch, but nothing we could use. There was brief discussion of checking out Petersburg Pass, but the hike to launch there (and the possibility that it might be completely overgrown) put people off, so the decision was made to head for the Trail, which should work with the wind direction that we were seeing.

After a drive across the valley, we carried our gear out to launch, and saw that... there were no clouds anywhere near us, but Greylock now had nice clouds over the summit...

Doh! Should we drive back? No, we decided that we had waffled enough, and the wind was at least blowing in where we were, so we finally stuck with our decision. We set up.

And then there was flying. Six of us were there with hang gliders, and we all flew. Half of the group were suffering from shoulder injuries, but that didn't seem to hinder them, as they were the only ones who managed to make it stick. I was the Zero, only managing to stretch my sled ride to five minutes. But the Hero was PK. He found a little lift, got a couple of hundred feet over launch, then lost it and in a few minutes was over the LZ, unzipped, and doing setting up his approach when he found a bump that was big enough to milk, and he stuck with it, eventually getting to more than 3000 feet over launch and staying up for two hours (though there were two more times when he got low enough to unzip). Nobody wound up leaving the vicinity of launch, so we all landed in the scary, small, typically switchy and turbulent bailout LZ. (No big deal for me, that's where I almost always end up.) The last one down was PK the Hero:

Link

Since I was on the ground so early, I hiked up to get the car, and when we were all packed up we headed home. The last bit of amusement for the day was when we pulled into McNasty's nearly-empty parking lot to drop John off and the car next to us abruptly started up and drove off -- I guess we interrupted something. After all that waffling, it does look like we made the right choice; from what we heard, conditions overdeveloped early up north, and nobody that we know of flew Ascutney after all.

A Visit to Hinesburg

jjcote — Wed, 11 May 2011 00:37:16 GMT

My friend ARt flies sometimes at a site called Hinesburg. Access to launch is not that great, it isn't that high, and the wind direction is kind of fussy, but it's pretty close to where he lives, which counts for a lot. I had occasion to be up that way on business, and to visit my brother who lives in that area, so I took the opportunity to get a little exercise and see what the site looks like. I jotted down some quick directions as to how to get there (based on a glance at a map and what ARt had told me about where it was), so when I was done with work, I drove the back roads and parked at what looked like a promising spot behind the ridge.

ARt had mentioned something about logging having taken place near the beginning of the hike, and I was parked at a gate that looked like logging equipment had been through recently. I put on my trail running shoes and started out, sure enough, there were a bunch of skidder tracks and other signs of recent lumberjack activity. I wasn't sure what the recommended route was up to launch, but I figured I could find my way. It was less obvious than I had been hoping, and the only ways I could see to get up the ridge were really steep. This didn't deter me, although as I was clambering up the loose slope, it occurred to me that ARt is suffering from complete chiropterid fecal insanity. There is no way I would have any interest in dragging flying gear up this hill, it was tough enough just to do it carrying nothing. Disgusted, I happened to glance back over my shoulder, and...
oh...
waitaminnit...
if you're going to play King of the Mountain, it helps if you're on the right mountain.

My hasty notes had failed to indicate one critical detail, that being that I needed to make a right-hand turn onto a dirt road that I missed completely. I was one ridge too far south, and looking back, through the trees I could see the cliff that is the actual launch site. Doh! Back down the hill, a bit more driving, and I found a road that climbs behind the real ridge, and that allows for a much higher starting point for the hike. That's better. I still didn't know the recommended place to park, but I picked a spot that had a trail, and headed for the high point of the ridge. It still took a little poking around when I got to the right vicinity, but it's not all that hard to find a big cliff with a clearing on top, and when I did, there was the unmistakable sign of a free-flight launch site.

There's a nice setup area.

Launch is pretty clean, there's nothing out front to collide with.

And there's a nice looking valley out front -- I wonder if thermals cook up off of that quarry.

On the way down, it was easy to find the trail that provides the shortest path from the road, though I have to wonder if there might be another route that would be longer but flatter (nice if one is using a cart to transport a glider). It might take some slightly unusual circumstances to motivate me to fly here, since West Rutland is a bit closer and works in the same wind direction, but I'll keep this place in mind.

Cross to Bear

jjcote — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 22:54:43 GMT

Since I'll be turning 50 this year, at orienteering meets I can now move from a category that runs on the second-longest course to one on the third-longest course. Not willing to face my looming geriatric state, for the first national-level meet this year, I signed up for the elite category on the longest course. However, I'm not a complete masochist, and registered only for the middle distance race on Saturday morning and the long-distance race on Sunday, but not the Saturday afternoon sprint. That gave me the afternoon free, and since the meet was at West Point, it was a short jaunt over to Ellenville. A day or two in advance the forecast looked quite favorable, so I brought a wing with me.

There was a work party in the morning to do some repairs on the road to launch, and a SNYHGPA meeting in the evening, so a lot of people showed up (I think there we at least 20 cars up there), even though the conditions were not panning out as we had hoped. Gusty winds in the morning gave way to light winds by the time I arrived, and instead of NW, it was blowing almost NE, parallel to the ridge. However, Paul V was there, and he said that my new hang straps had just arrived, so he scooted home to fetch them so that he wouldn't need to mail them, while I set up.

I wasn't the only one who had enough optimism to stuff some battens. Here's Mike A (aka $!><) finally getting a chance to do a hang check with his spiffy brand new cocoon harness (unfortunately, a hang check was all he got).

The new windsock looked great. As you can see in this pic, it was pointing a bit sideways. Looks like there was plenty of velocity, though, right? Not. That picture was taken when the wind was dead calm. The fabric is still so crispy that it won't sag at all, and it's more of a weathervane until the UV softens it up a bit. ("If you experience a steady breeze that lasts more than four hours, consult your meteorologist.")

I ran into a whole bunch of pilots who I knew, and met a few new ones. Plenty of time for chatting when nobody is flying. Among those who I had met before were CT John B and Kermit (who showed up to work on the road despite having busted his arm recently).

One brave soul finally decided that he had had enough. Dave C hooked in, dragged his Eagle to the North launch, and waited for a marginally launchable cycle. I was ready with the rapid-fire sports mode on my camera.

We all cheered as Dave hit pockets of lift... and winced as he hit sink... and cheered as he hit more lift... and winced... well, he took his sledder like a man. After more waiting, J.J. stepped up with his Atos, and I decided that my decision would be based on what he did. If he climbed, I'd launch, but if he sank out, I'd pack up. After waiting around for a while, he backed off, and I started pulling battens. About the time I put the glider back on the car, Paul V was ready to try. I had tentative plans to meet some orienteering friends for dinner, so I decided I'd stay and watch until 5:15, and then I'd give up -- which is what happened. I found out later that he eventually abandoned hope and everybody broke down. The wind was just too cross to bear us aloft. Ah well, the season is still young.

Stylin' again!

jjcote — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:16:58 GMT

Having successfully repaired my Vision Mark IV, the next step was to repair the Ultrasport that I so spectacularly and inexcusably broke two summers ago. This was going to require quite a few spare parts. I broke the keel, and also damaged or lost almost all of the battens. The sail only had a couple of tears, but they were serious enough to warrant replacing that, too. I also managed to snap both leading edges, and the mylar leading edge inserts were no good, plus I lost the nose cone. And I needed a couple of downtubes. I cut the hang straps in the process of getting down from the tree, so they were gone. But there were plenty of salvageable parts, like the batten chart, the XC bag, and those little white balls that go on the ends of the reflex bridle wires. As Jeff Nicolay said when I took the wreckage home, "There's nothing left". Fortunately I located a guy who had all the replacement parts I needed, and he conveniently had them all in one bag, including some bits that were better than what I had originally. So I took a visit to see this guy named Paul Voight and when I pulled out of his driveway, I was ready to go as an Ultrasport guy again.

For those of you who may think this wing looks familiar, yep, it used to belong to Ryan.

When I left home (almost four hours away), the wind forecast had looked good in terms of direction (NW), but potentially too strong. I drove over to Ellenville and chatted with Tony, but the windsocks were blowing NE, and definitely on the light side. So much for computer models. I went back out to my car and was just about to change my shoes and go for a run, when suddenly, a hang glider landed! Where did that come from? It was Udo, who said that the direction had been fine up top, but he didn't find any lift. He broke down his Falcon so that he could go up for another try.

The word was that a couple of other pilots were on their way, so I signed in and drove up to launch. Jimmy D and Lindsey were already setting up, so I picked a spot next to Udo. Manuk arrived while we were getting ready, but he waited to see how conditions looked (i.e. whether anybody else stayed up) before bothering to assemble his glider. Udo tried first, and scratched for a bit, but not for long. Next was Jimmy, who worked some bubbles pretty hard, but also sank out. I didn't mind if I just sledded, as long as I got a chance to try out the new glider. Lindsey and I looked at each other, and he already had his helmet on, so he got to go first. We walked him out to the NW launch, and just as he got there, some vigorous stuff started blowing through, and he had to wait it out. When it abated he launched, and Manuk and I watched as he suffered the same fate as Jimmy, scratching, finding little blips in the same places, and never getting over launch height. Sigh. I figured I might as well take my turn, and went over to my glider to get ready, but by the time I was all harnessed up and turned around, Lindsey was soaring over launch. Good news!

Manuk helped me out to the NW launch where I waited for several minutes, but it was consistently crossing from the right, so at his suggestion I moved over to the N launch. Straight in, I ran down the slope, and immediately went up. Nice! There were thermals out there, but they weren't that easy to lasso (or maybe I'm just rusty); they seemed strong but narrow, and there were a couple of times when the bottom dropped out suddenly. No problems handling the wing, though, and I even pulled on some VG a few times when I found myself a bit further back than I wanted to be and decided that I should get out front where I belonged. At one point I thought I was on my way to land, 250 feet below launch, but I caught an elevator over the far corner of the pumpkin patch and rode it way back up. As the afternoon went on, the initially blue sky developed some nice cumulus (though I wasn't able to reach them, despite trying), and Manuk joined me.

I had a long drive ahead of me (I left home at 6:30 AM, and it was almost 1 AM when I finally got home), so I didn't stay in the air as long as I possibly could have, in fact, three more pilots launched after I was packed up and flew for probably at least an hour. Still, it was nearly 2.5 hours of airtime, and my logbook total clicked pas the 75 hour mark. Everybody wound up with smiles on their faces, me included!

Racing against the storm

jjcote — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 02:07:19 GMT

Wellfleet, on the eastern shore of Cape Cod, is our prime coastal flying site. But since we're on the east coast, it works in east winds, or more specifically, east through northeast. However, we also have a well-known weather phenomenon around here called a "nor-easter", a winter storm that blows through with strong northeast winds. What that translates to is that sometimes the winds that we need to fly are accompanied by ugly precipitation.

We got a forecast for east winds on Thursday, and I sent out an email asking if anyone wanted to give it a try. Some had to work, and some thought it was going to be too light, but John M was interested. One hitch was that the winds were going to bring a storm, and it wasn't clear whether we'd get hit with rain if we went to the beach. Before going to bed Wednesday night, I checked the forecast, and it didn't look encouraging. In the morning, one of the forecasting tools was showing conditions that might be okay, but the rest did not. I gave John a call to see what he thought, expecting him to be unsure, and I would just say we should forget it, but he said he still wanted to give it a try. Oh. Um... well, okay, I guess. He lives about a mile from my office, so I swung by his place to pick him up, and we drove to the Cape.

As we approached the parking lot, we saw a couple of paragliders in the air -- a good sign, at least there was enough wind for them to stay up. I walked out to the lip with my wind gauge and saw 15-20 mph: no need to delay, let's get these gliders assembled and get into the air! John had just installed a headset in his helmet the night before, so we'd be able to talk while flying. I helped him straighten out the wiring and figure out where to stash the radio, then walked him out to launch and wired him off. I was on his nose and just hit the dirt when he called "clear", so when I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and spit out the sand, I couldn't see him. I scooted out to another spot that allowed me to see further down the beach, and watched as he caught the lift and climbed up over the bluff. Great!

I was just about set to go, so I changed my jacket and shoes and got one of the PG pilots to help me move the Mark IV out to launch. We were launching from a different spot than I've used before, further to the left, in part because the wind was crossing from the right. The sand forms a little spur right there and allows the wings to be up in clean air. Solid launch, got up with no trouble, and then I looked around for John. He had never ventured far from launch here (this was only his second non-sledder at this site), and I spotted him in the distance off to the right, looking like he was making a run for Nauset Light. I gave chase, and caught up with him around Marconi Beach (he's on a Falcon 195, so I had a slight speed advantage). We made radio contact and were able to make the trip south together. It's a bit over five miles from launch to the lighthouse, so this was a first taste of XC flying for him. After making the turn, we had a bit of a tailwind, and I pulled in for some speed, covering the 6.5 miles from Nauset Light to Doane's Bog Pond in just over 15 minutes, a bit over 25 mph, not too bad. As I was going by the Beachcomber, I heard someone hollering, and looked to my right to see John G scooting along the lip of the bluff in his Bobcat speedwing paraglider. Earlier I had heard him saying to some other PG pilots that he could pass hang gliders with it. I don't know whether he was just saying hello or if he wanted to drag race, but with him on the lip and me out over the beach, he was clearly keeping up, though when I sped up some, he gradually fell behind.

John M caught back up, and I turned and headed for another trip down to Nauset. On the way I flew over a number of people at the various beaches who looked up and watched -- I waved, they waved back, and many of them took my picture. At my Nauset turnpoint I did a graceful turn and buzzed the smiling woman on the stairs, then found myself in a bit of a pickle as I realized that I had traded a bit too much altitude for speed and was dangerously low. Not dangerous in the sense of worrying about a bad landing, but dangerous in the sense of not being sure if I might sink out five miles from my car. I was out front, below the top of the bluff, and the longer I hung on and tried to climb back up, the further I was getting from the Nauset stairs, meaning the further I'd have to carry the glider to get off the beach. I was just about to reach for the unzip line on my harness when I managed to start gaining a little bit, and worked that up to where I was comfortably back in the good lift. Phew!

John radioed that he was going to land because his arms were getting tired (he had been in the air for about 80 minutes, a personal best). As I headed north to join him, my glider started making an unfamiliar noise, a faint popping/rattling sound, which momentarily had me concerned, until a drop hit me in the eye and I realized what it was: rain on my helmet. Time to wrap things up! I flew up to Newcomb Hollow, where John was taking his glider apart, and landed right in front of the parking lot. We got packed up quickly and I jogged back for the car.

Fortunately, I had tossed a couple of lengths of plastic tubing in the car to slide the gliders into, because on the way home, we ran into serious snow, the beginning of the April Fool's Storm of 2011. Blame for this goes entirely on John, because he admitted that he had been telling people that he hoped that we'd get one more snowstorm before the season was over, maybe a foot. Only a couple of inches at his place, I think, but I'd guess there was at least 8 inches where I live (hard to tell because it's wet gloppy stuff that compacts quickly, and the warm surfaces are melting it down fast).

Alas, it appears that I misplaced my camera somewhere on the way home, so I have no photos of the flying. I did get a picture of what my car looked like in the morning after sitting overnight in my girlfriend's driveway.

____________________________

Update: I called the Marconi Beach Restaurant, where John and I stopped for BBQ on the way home, and it looks like I forgot my camera on the table and they found it. I should be able to post a few pictures when I get it back next week.
____________________________

Additional update: The package arrived with my camera. But it seemed a little light. When I opened it, it contained a black case holding not a camera, but a pair of reading glasses. Hard to know how somebody could confuse those two things. Looks like I need to get another camera.
____________________________

Yet another update: I called the restaurant, and apparently they have the address of the guy they were supposed to have sent the glasses to, sitting next to my camera. I talked to the cook, who unzipped the case and confirmed that it's my (pink) camera. So it looks like I will get it back after all, once I mail the glasses, but it will still be a few more days...

Resurrection and Erosion

jjcote — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 01:30:48 GMT

It's been almost two years since I last flew my Vision Mark IV. I picked it up for a pretty good price with the intent of having it for a beach glider, and wound up flying it as my primary wing for a while because I was quite pleased with it. But then I had an unfortunate incident at Plymouth that resulted in the glider being unflyable, with the main point of damage the bent crossbar hinge. Repairing the glider was pushed to the back burner for a while, since I had just bought the Ultrasport, and the subsequent break from flying. But last year I managed to track down a set of replacement hinge plates (from Matt Taber at Lookout Mountain), and spent some time last summer out on the lawn taking the whole thing apart, inspecting it all, replacing the hinge, and making other small repairs. It had been waiting for months for an ideal opportunity for a checkout flight at Wellfleet.

Last weekend Randy B did an annual on his glider, assisted by Tom L, and I was invited to stop by and watch. During the course of the afternoon, Randy mentioned that it looked like the latter part of the week would have some good weather for flying at the coast. The east winds were associated with an incoming storm, but as Wednesday approached, the forecast continued to look good. I had a window of opportunity that morning when I could fit in some flying time in a gap between work and some other obligations. I called my friend George, who lives on the Cape, and found that he was home, so I drove down Tuesday night to catch up with him and stay at his house in order to be in a good position to get an early start.

The sky was already getting light when I rolled out of his house at 5:30 AM, and I got to Wellfleet around 6:15. After scoping out the access situation at Lecount Hollow, I drove up to White Crest Beach and checked out the wind. Tom and Randy were on their way, so I sent a text message, "36F, 20 mph straight in. Mostly sunny.", to which Tom responded, "Yahoo!". I had already started setting up the Mark IV when Keith B rolled in, followed a bit later by Matt M. I got concerned when the wind picked up to 25-30 mph, and had to consider the possibility that I'd have to pack up without flying if that continued. Tom and Randy pulled in, followed by John B (and later on John M showed up as well). Keith was ready, so Matt and I helped him out to the sand and he made it look easy as he took to the air. The wind had come back down to 21-23 mph, so after coordinating radio frequencies, I climbed into my harness.

As Matt was giving me a hang check, he made a comment about my going to be on television. He had been chatting with some people who I had taken to be wuffos, but I guess they were actually a reporter and cameraman, and they asked for the spelling of my name (as of this writing, I don't know whether the story appeared anywhere). I was now facing a moment about which I had some anxiety. I was hooked in to a glider that I had taken apart and reassembled, without any expert oversight (or any instructions other than the user's manual). This moment had been previewed in my mind numerous times. If I had done everything right, the glider would fly as it's supposed to, but if not, it could have a tendency to turn, or have pitch problems, or... The truth is that hang gliders are pretty simple machines to operate (though subtle to design), and I am competent in this field, so although I had some anxiety, I wasn't actually worried. I had run with the glider on my lawn when I finished assembling it, and I knew that it behaved properly in ground handling. The glider lifted off my shoulders as we approached the edge, and the hang strap went tight. Everything seemed quite fine, so I called clear and just sort of strolled into the air, as uneventful a launch as you could imagine.

The eastern shore of Cape Cod is constantly eroding away, while the tip up at Provincetown is continually growing as sand is deposited there. In 1903, Guglielmo Marconi send the first transatlantic radio message from a transmitter at South Wellfleet. At the time, the closest of the four antenna towers was 165 feet from the edge of the bluff. The towers are long gone, but the bluff has receded so far that the tower foundations are now down on the beach, visible only when the tide is low.

Houses along the shore are pricey real estate, but a questionable investment because they are destined to eventually be claimed by the ocean -- there are occasional news stories about the town condemning houses and demolishing them because they're too close to slipping over the edge. For us pilots, this is a mixed blessing. It's the erosion that created the scarp that gives us ridge lift, but our access to the beach sometimes gets complicated. We launch at White Crest Beach, where I suspect the town sometimes dumps truckloads of sand in order to create a ramp that beachgoers can walk up and down. Last winter a steep step, about head-high, appeared in the moist sand down at beach level, which was difficult to lift a glider over to carry it back up to launch. The step is gone, but the beach has moved back to the base of the slope, so that the lower 2/3 of it has slumped to the angle of repose. When sand is this steep, it is constantly on the verge of sliding, and it's virtually impossible to climb, let alone carry anything up.

So alternative LZs come into play. I had been thinking that Lecount Hollow would be a good bet, based on my memory of what it looked like. It has suffered from the same erosion problems, though, to the point where the beach parking lot is currently barricaded off, and the asphalt has been sawed back, presumably as a first step in some kind of renovations.

The other possible LZ that had been mentioned is the Beachcomber restaurant at Cahoon Hollow. That's where Matt and Keith landed (they had to quit early due to schedule constraints), and there's a good path that descends about 2/3 of the way to the beach via switchbacks, though they had to deal with a bit of steepness at the bottom.

I flew south to Nauset Light while waiting for the others to finish getting ready, and John was in the air when I got back, though Tom and Randy weren't. Turned out that they both had harness issues to work out: Randy was flying with a new harness for the first time and trying to get everything to fit properly, and Tom had to deal with a malfunctioning zipper. Tom reported that it was blowing about 30 mph when he walked Randy out to launch, but that when he brought his own glider out a few minutes later, he just walked across the parking lot, onto the sand, and into the air without stopping.

There was a bit of a resurrection going on for him, as well: he recently sold his glider in advance of taking delivery of a new one for the upcoming comp season, and is temporarily without a wing. Randy loaned him his backup glider for the day, an Ultrasport 147. And not just any Ultrasport -- though it has had several owners, when this particular glider was built, in the first year of production, Tom was its original owner. This was also the first time I had ever seen Tom flying with a kingpost! (He reported that it flew fine, and would make a great beach glider if anybody is looking for one -- it's for sale.)

Randy, Tom, and John all took off to the north toward Highland Light. I considered joining them, but didn't work up the motivation to try jumping the gap at Newcomb Hollow, though I had looked at it several times and was pretty convinced that I could make it. Instead, I headed back to launch, arriving just in time to see John take to the air for his first coastal flight.

I flew around with John for a while, listening to the radio chatter from the crew headed north, then decided to land. The tide was coming in, and I wanted to get onto the ground before the strip of beach got too narrow. Unfortunately, the wind was straight in and still quite healthy, so I wasn't having much luck losing altitude. The easiest way to find sink in this circumstance is to fly out over the water, but this entailed putting myself far enough out over vigorous surf that I didn't really feel comfortable. I weighed my options, and decided to head for Newcomb Hollow.

Newcomb Hollow is the first major beach access point north of White Crest, and is the first big challenge when flying north. You need to tank up on altitude (and maybe go in with a little speed), then wisely manage your airspeed and sink rate if you want to get to the lift on the far side before hitting the deck. Because it's tricky to cross, I knew that it would also be easy to land there. A simple trip about halfway across put me low enough to go on final, and the return leg had me on the ground directly in front of the parking lot, almost hovering in for a landing. I misjudged my altitude over the uniform brown sand and flared a couple of feet high, so instead of landing on my feet, it was more of a six-point landing (two feet, two control frame corners, one keel, plus my butt) in a heap on the sand, but I guess it looked stylish enough, because a woman in the parking lot remarked that it was beautiful!

So, the Vision Mark IV 17 returns, phoenixlike, to flight, and is declared airworthy. I should have taken a picture as soon as I landed, but I forgot until after I had pulled the battens.

I packed up quickly, and got ready to jog the 2+ miles back to get the car (not so bad in my book, and this is where I plan to land from now on). There was one other picture that I'm sorry I didn't get: I noticed something on the sand as I was flying over, and realized it was a seal sunning itself. At the time, I was busy setting up my landing, so I didn't take a picture, and after I was packed up I couldn't remember exactly where it had been.

First flying in over three months -- the 2011 season has begun.

Update: Turns out the reporters were the CapeCast guys -- I've watched their videos before. And sure enough, they did a piece on us: check it out!

Link

Still winter day

jjcote — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 18:41:47 GMT

The email chitchat was about how it looked good to head for the beach to take advantage of the east winds on Sunday, but I wasn't convinced. As I write this, I don't know whether people gave that a try, and/or if it worked out, but what I was seeing in the forecast said that it would mean flying while it was snowing, and I didn't know if the wind would be strong enough anyway. So I decided that maybe a better possibility would be a mountain site on Saturday, when the wind was supposed to be out of the NW. I posted a note asking if anybody wanted to join me for a try at Skinner, and Jeff C. was up for it.

The brief version of the story is: we snowshoed up, decided that there wasn't enough wind, and hiked back down. We had brought our harnesses and a snow shovel, so I did clear off an area for a launch run, but in the time we spent up there, although there were a few brief periods when the wind was strong enough to launch, it never felt like we'd be able to soar, so lugging the gliders all the way up there seemed like too much effort for a sled run. It would have been challenging to get the gliders through some of the narrow spots on the trail where the snow-laden trees were blocking the way.

Ah well, you have to expect some days that don't work out to be mixed in with the ones that do.

Scouting Race Mountain

jjcote — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 17:18:11 GMT

[ Mood: Cool ]
Weather here in New England hasn't been very conducive to flying lately, so Randy B. came up with the idea of going for a little snowshoe jaunt to check out a site that had rumors of people flying it in the distant past: Race Mountain. Not to be confused with the nearby Brace Mountain, they have some similarities and some differences. Both are in the South Taconic Range, where Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York meet, both have long hikes to get from the nearest parking area to launch, and the parking for launch is a long drive around from the LZ. However, Race faces east rather than west, and is a cliff launch instead of a flat-slope slot. Brace is flown regularly by paragliders and occasionally by hang gliders, while Race is flown rarely if ever these days. It's possible that PG pilots make the hike once in a while, but the info that Randy got about Race came from a pilot who last flew there about 20 years ago, and it's not clear whether anybody has dragged a HG up there since.

We parked at the YMCA camp, suited up, and started the hike. We didn't have specific directions as to how to get to launch, but I had brought a very good topographical map. We had a couple of false starts trying to figure out how to get from the lake up to the ridge, but finally took what looked like a small trail southward far enough to find a place where we could climb without getting stuck in mountain laurel. Once on the ridge, it was easier going, because the Appalachian Trail runs along there, and someone had been through on snowshoes before the last storm -- at least it was packed down a bit. The hike to the low end of the cliff took about 25 minutes. Moving on a bit further took us to some prime launch spots: level and clear of obstructions.

I've found photos on Google Earth that indicate that under the two feet or so of snow, the surface is bare granite. There's enough room up there to set up a bunch of gliders without getting in each others' way, and it's possible that there's enough AT foot traffic that the last pilot to launch would be able to get some wire assistance from passing hikers.

The ridge is close to 1500 feet high as measured at launch, varying in height as you move north or south. Rte. 41 runs parallel to the ridge out front, with farms fields along it providing potential LZs.

(Click for larger view. Note that distortion caused by the photo stitching software makes it look like this is a bowl, but it's actually a very straight ridge.)

Eyeballing the map, I see what looks like about 11 miles of flyable ridge, with possibilities of course opening up if thermal conditions are present. Unlike Brace, which has some scary territory to cross if you were to go over the back, the XC potential of Race looks better; once you get past the Taconic Range, the Hudson Valley out toward the Catskills looks pretty friendly.

I've been told that the site is ENE, though the map looks to me more like ESE. So why doesn't it get flown? Well, the primary reason is probably the effort that would be required. I'm thinking that it would be a good idea to allow two hours to hike HG gear in to launch (one trip with the harness, another with the glider), though I'm not yet sure what I think is the best route for doing that. When the wind is from the east, most pilots are going to choose to fly Greylock instead, which is a couple of hours north (not counting the time to drive up the mountain) because there you can park a short stroll from the plush setup area. Nevertheless, I can imagine giving Race a try. The next mountain north is Mount Everett. It also faces east, and has the advantage of a road that leads almost to the summit. Unfortunately, although I've also heard rumors that people used to fly there, I can't see any place in Google Earth that looks like a suitable launch site.

Gave it a shot & 2010 in review

jjcote — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 15:18:06 GMT

The only month I've never flown in is December. I've been on vacation the week between Xmas and New Year's, and I kept an eye on the forecast in case there was a potential flying day. Wednesday looked good for NW-facing sites, so I posted on the forums asking if anybody wanted to join me at Skinner (I had thought about Ellenville, but it was too long a drive for uncertain conditions). There were no pilots available, so I also emailed some friends of mine who live out that way, and one said that he'd be willing to help carry my glider up the mountain. Great! So I bundled my wing up in plastic to keep the road salt off of it, and headed for the mountain.

The hike up wasn't bad at all. I carried my harness bag and a shovel so that I could clear away any snow on launch (4-6 inches had fallen a couple of days earlier), then call my friend if things looked good so that he could meet me at my car and we could bring the glider up. On the way up, though, I started getting an uneasy feeling as I could hear the breeze whistling through the treetops, and when I got to launch, I was able to put to use the spiffy new pocket anemometer that received as a Xmas present. Hmm, 15 mph gusting to 20. Not a good plan to be launching a Falcon in those conditions with just a single wuffo as wire crew, so I called my friend and told him never mind, I wouldn't be flying today. But at least I found out that the shovel was unnecessary, as the wind does a fine enough job of clearing the snow off of launch.

So, no flying, but as I told my friend, going for a nice hike is better than dying. (I learned the next day that another pilot, who I've never met, showed up later in the day and was able to launch unassisted and have a great flight. Kudos to him!)
_________________________________

So, that does it for 2010. How did things end up this year?
Months flown: 10 (not Jan or Dec)
Flying days: 15
Days when I showed up but didn't fly: 3
Flights: 17
Sites flown: 7 (Morningside, Wellfleet, Mohawk Trail, Rutland, Greylock, Ascutney, Skinner)
New sites: 2 (Greylock, Skinner)
Gliders flown: 2 (Sean's Ultrasport 135, my Falcon 2 170)
Longest flight (time): 3:33
Longest flight (XC distance): 4.01 miles
Total flight time: 20:55
Total XC distance: 18.57 miles (mostly in tiny bits)
Max altitude: 4074 feet
Whacks: 2

The year got off to a slow (and somewhat discouraging) start, as I didn't manage to get anything more than one sled ride per month (other than one beach flight) until the end of July. Fortunately, things did pick up after that. The major downer of the year was the passing away of Jeff Nicolay, proprietor or Morningside, USHPA director for our region, and central luminary figure for hang gliding and paragliding in New England. He will be missed, but leaves a strong legacy. I wound up just two shy of the max flying days for a year, and got the most annual airtime I've ever had. I never made it to Brace or Ellenville all year, so all of my flying was in New England (other than one flight at Morningside in February, it was all in Massachusetts and Vermont). I'm feeling reasonably confident/comfortable with my flying skills and judgment, and my launches and landings of late have been pretty good. This leaves me looking forward to a good year in 2011. Happy New Year!

Sherpa heroes

jjcote — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 05:00:06 GMT

Flying is my secondary activity, orienteering the primary one, and there have been only a couple of occasions when I've managed to do both in the same day. The Sunday after Thanksgiving, there's a tradition of an orienteering meet in western MA, usually at Mt. Tom, but this year on the other side of the river at Mt. Norwottuck. Six days before, I looked at the forecast, and the extended outlook said that winds looked favorable for flying at Skinner State Park (Mt. Holyoke) that day, which is just a few miles west on the same ridge. Sticking my neck out, I posted on the orienteering forum asking if anyone would be interested in helping me haul my gear up Skinner (the park road is closed for the season). As the weekend drew near, it looked like it could be gusty, or the winds aloft too strong, but the forecast the night before was encouraging enough that I loaded my glider on the car.

After two hours of running around in the woods, I was ready for an additional adventure. One friend had said that he'd help me out, but he wasn't able to make it to the meet, so I hung around the finish area chatting people up and seeing if they were interested in going for a little hike to get a bit more exercise. Ken (former sailplane pilot) was up for it, and Dean (self-proclaimed acrophobic) was willing to be persuaded. The three of us drove over to the park, and shouldered my gear. Ken initially took the harness bag, with me on the nose of the glider and Dean on the tail, then those two switched partway. I had never been up the trail that leads from the ranger station (only up the road by car, or a different trail on foot), so I wasn't sure if it would be too gnarly, but it wasn't bad at all. In fact, if I used my cart to get to the ranger station, I would consider this a doable solo haul.

I set the glider up as expediently as I could, since the late November daylight was slipping away. My friends were surprised that all of the bags packed away in my harness, since they were expecting to have to carry some stuff down, and were also surprised that I didn't have more warm clothes until they saw what the pod harness looked like.

(photo by Ken Walker, Sr.)

I briefed them on what I wanted them to do as wire crew, got a hang check, and moved onto launch. I was pleased to find the wind doing pretty much exactly what I wanted in terms of strength and direction, and probably waited only about 15 seconds before picking up the wing and charging into the air. I heard whoops from behind me as I hit the lift band and went what apparently looked like straight up. By the time I turned at the Summit House and got back, I was a few hundred feet over.

(photo by Ken Walker, Sr.)

Easy flying, but the sun was already getting low by the time I launched, so I settled for about a half-hour of airtime. At around that time, I saw a couple of cars driving to the LZ and pulling over, and determined that it was Ken and Dean, who had hiked down. The time was about right anyway, so I headed out so that they could watch me land, and Ken captured it on video.

Link

After I got packed up, we had just enough time to catch a bite to eat before the restaurant across the street closed, then went our separate ways. Much appreciation to my pals -- I wouldn't have been able to do it without you!

Accomplice

jjcote — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 15:04:11 GMT

I ain't saying what did happen, and I ain't saying what didn't happen. All I'll say is that I was hiking around with a big backpack. And a camera.

October surprise

jjcote — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 23:19:38 GMT

October's schedule is pretty filled-up for me with orienteering races, which doesn't leave a lot of weekend time available for flying. The common wisdom is that by this time of year, mountain flying isn't going to be very productive, so there's not much weekday action, either. Some diehards will head to the beach if the forecast is suitable, and I missed a chance for that last weekend (because I was orienteering). Columbus Day weekend didn't have any particularly promising flying opportunities (although it did have the memorial party for Jeff Nicolay on Saturday night, which I had to miss because of a different schedule conflict). Monday, Columbus Day itself, promised NW winds at reasonable speeds, which meant that a number of sites were in play. After a bit of confusion regarding whether the state park had closed for the season yet, Randy B and I headed up to meet ARt G at Ascutney.

I had the first opportunity to use my full-blown rack to carry three gliders, as we stashed ARt's car out front and took mine up the mountain. While we were setting up, Andy K also arrived, as did Roman (but he discovered a bent part on his glider and ended up not flying). Conditions seemed pretty good as we were setting up, which put us in the situation of not needing to wait for anything (an unusual feeling, because typically we have to). As expected, there were a bunch of hikers around, and instead of chatting with them as they asked questions like, "Are you going to jump soon?", we instead looked at each other to see who should go first. Randy's wing was the closest to the platform, so he was the obvious one to go, and he climbed over launch immediately.

Word came over the radio that the air was fine, the wind not overly strong, so I stepped up next and climbed as easily as Randy had. ARt went after me, and I made an attempt to steer my glider so as to keep him in the frame of the camera mounted on my control bar, resulting in this "Blair Witch"-style video.

Link

(I owed him that much, since I realized when we were setting up that I didn't have a memory card in my camera, and he graciously offered to lend me his.)

Andy launched last, and although there were four of us in the air, we had a lot of space to work with, both vertically and horizontally, so we were quite spread out and it was easy to lose track of where the others had gone. I stayed closest to the mountain, though I had good luck finding lift over the ski area. We had kind of been expecting just ridge lift, but instead we found nice fat thermals that got us plenty high, no scratching required.

Andy and ARt went much further out front for a while, and Randy was somewhere above me, but I lost track of him until about the time I snagged my best climb of the day. That's when he radioed and said that he had just landed at Morningside. I replied that I was above 5000 feet over the mountain, but that it looked like ARt was heading his way. Turned out that ARt had lost sight of everybody (he didn't think to look 1000 feet straight up) and figured we had all gone over the back.

I did think about it very briefly, but with the Falcon I would have wanted at least 6000 feet, particularly since Randy said that he found no lift at all on his way to Morningside. Instead, I just enjoyed the easy flying and waited until Andy was down, then flew over to join him, landing across the street from where we had left ARt's car.

My timing was great, as I was able to break down, pick ARt up from the Red Barn field, and get a ride from him back up to fetch my car from the top. He headed back north, I picked Randy up at the park, and we were off for a nice dinner and then home. Two hours of pleasant airtime, and this was my highest flight of the year, by over 1000 feet. Mountain flying is over for the year by fall? I don't think so!

Breathtaking

jjcote — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 00:24:45 GMT

I was surprised when John S posted that he was looking at flying on Wednesday, because I thought the forecast was for heavy rain all week. Nope, sure enough, there was supposed to be a break right in the middle, so I met everybody up there. Bob R had said he was going to head up the hill with the truck early, although when I rolled in just before 11 AM, the faces that I saw were not lit with optimism. The trees were moving around quite a bit at the bottom, and although a peek at the launch windsock with binoculars didn't look too bad, there was a sense that we might get blown out.

[Al A and ARt G]

[John S, Dan S, and Bob R]

Sure enough, when we got up there, it was blowing 15-18, with gusts up to 23. Too many Beauforts. ARt and I had brought loppers, so we set about knocking down some of the sumac and scrub oak that was starting to stick up on the sides of the ramp and threatening to snag side wires. Then some of us ate lunch, and we talked about all manner of things, and every once in a while Dan S would go stand on the ramp with his wind meter and come back to report that nothing had changed. A couple of people started talking about giving up, and Bob finally did, since he lives locally and could still get to his evening shift job and not burn any vacation time. That meant that it was decision time for those of us who had gliders on his truck, too; if we unloaded and didn't get to fly, we'd be faced with the logistical challenge of either figuring out how to get our gliders down, or finding a place to leave them up top. We all decided to take the chance, and waved goodbye to Bob, but still didn't set up for a while.

Eventually the wind showed a little indication that it might back off, so we started stuffing battens. PK showed up on a motorcycle (we had brought his gear up for him) and he started getting ready as well. Al A and John were skeptical, and it looked like they would just drive down (Al had come up in his own car). At around 4 PM I was ready, and when I checked out the wind, I judged it manageable. Dan and ARt stood by my wires, and I had to wait for a lull, but when I went for it, I got an elevator off the ramp and the whole way up the spine, so that I was able to return in a couple of minutes a few hundred feet over launch. Dan was right behind me, followed by ARt, and PK soon after that. Tim, a PG pilot who had hiked up and waited with us, had to be patient to get a cycle that would allow him to get airborne, and to my surprise, he was followed by John, who apparently set up his glider in a very timely manner once he saw how well we were doing.

The big surprise wasn't the nice flying conditions, though. Standing on the ramp and looking over the valley, I got a sense that there were probably some trees starting to turn to nice autumn colors, but I wasn't prepared at all for how it actually looked. Maybe it was the perspective, looking straight down on the trees, or maybe it was just trees tucked into little valleys that I couldn't see until I got up there, but this was the most spectacular display of New England fall foliage I can remember ever seeing.

Because we had to wait until so late to launch, we were only able to fly for a couple of hours, but it was pretty joyful airtime. Lift was easy to come by (quite strong in the early part), and we got to about 1200 feet over launch, then it tapered to wonder wind, and finally calm air for the landing. Then something to eat at the Birdseye Diner with friends, and the long drive home. The trip took up the whole day, but it was definitely worthwhile. This also puts me over a milestone -- despite the slow start during the first half, I now have more airtime in 2010 than any previous year.

Mismatches

jjcote — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 05:43:18 GMT

The forecast was the first mismatch. People were talking about both West Rutland (a SW site) and Plymouth (an ENE site) as possibilities on the same day, as well as Brace (a W site) which I ruled out because the forecast looked like the wind might be from the SSE. Weird. In any case, Jeff C. was interested in driving up to West Rutland, so he picked me up and off we went. We made it in under 2.5 hours, which is pretty good, and Bob R, Mike H, Al A, and Amy R were already at the LZ, along with PK (who had a commitment and couldn't stay to fly) as well as a whole bunch of PG pilots (among them Bo, George B, Paolo, Alex, Roberto...). We tossed the gliders on the trucks and found that ARt G and Calef had arrived just ahead of us, along with a PG tandem passenger for Calef.

First glance at the conditions seemed pretty good. Perhaps a little light, but with promise that things would pick up. PK had warned me as he drove away, "You drove a long way, don't be in too much of a rush, wait until it gets good, and get some airtime". We rigged at a leisurely pace because we had arrived early, and figured we might as well wait for the PGs to go first and check things out, which we fully expected they would do shortly. The first one to launch was a new P2 pilot, on maybe his first mountain flight, and he was on the ground in the LZ in just a few minutes, as expected, but we could see that he had run through some parcels of air that showed potential. A couple of other PGs took off and got up right away, as we HG pilots finished eating lunch. Amy was goading Jeff to go first to see if it was HG-soarable, but Jeff wasn't rushing for the ramp right away. Then we heard a couple of PG pilots opine that it was looking like it might get too strong, and we all smiled, because that sounded like perfect conditions for us!

It was Al who stepped up to be the wind technician, and I happily joined his wire crew to get a good look at what the air was doing. He waited a bit, as the velocity was starting to pick up, and Al isn't fond of strong winds. He grabbed a lull and launched nicely, but we could see that the air had some healthy energy in it. Amy was ready next, and I took her wire as well, but just then it really started blowing fiercely. She waited quite a while, as we held her glider down (she's a svelte woman with a Falcon 195, so her wing loading is pretty low), but nobody was pushing, and the remaining PG pilots were definitely not interested. Once she took to the air, she was joined in rapid succession by Jeff, Bob, and Mike. I had moved my glider up toward the front, and didn't want to cut in line ahead of ARt, who had been ready for a while, but he waved me through. I had to be a little patient, because every time the wind backed off enough to be manageable, it would be too cross from the right. This was another mismatch: what I had seen in the forecast had suggested that if anything, it might be too light and cross from the left. I timed things right, and got off cleanly.

It was a pretty easy day -- a few hundred over launch was a piece of cake, but the lift topped out not all that high. The most I ever got was 3172 (if I believe the vario) or 3365 (if I believe the GPS), but somewhere in that ballpark, anyway. There was some easy-come, easy-go, in that my apogee was followed by four minutes of relentless sink that I couldn't find my way out of until I was just about back to launch height. It was also a typical busy Rutland day in terms of mixed traffic, HGs and PGs of widely varying airspeeds that all managed to mill about in a narrow range of altitude without getting in each other's way. I did feel like I spent a lot of time at the bottom of the stack looking up to see the other wings.

Before I had been up too long, though, it got a lot less crowded, and I wondered where the heck everybody went. It was down to just me, Jeff, and Roberto on his PG. Apparently everybody decided to go land for different reasons at around the same time. When the wind backed off to a more manageable level, we got a second shift of PGs, including Calef doing a second flight with Curtis, who is a professional photographer and was able to get some really excellent photos from the front tandem position.

[me and my Falcon, photo courtesy of Curtis Savard]

Mike called on the radio and said that everybody was going to get something to eat, and wondered how long the few of us still up top were planning to fly. I told him, "until the lift gives out", and he asked if it was going to be a moonlight flight. I couldn't remember the phase of the moon when he asked, but it turned out to be the case!

I decided to play the "fly until you sink below launch" game again, which kept me in the air until it was just me and Jeff. An easy landing after 3.5 hours (my longest flight of the year, and second-longest ever) was followed after a while by Jeff, clocking in at 4+ hours. Last summer flying for the year, and a nice day for it.

Airtime wins out

jjcote — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:13:29 GMT

The closest flying site I know of to my house is Skinner State Park. I can get there in under 90 minutes, and I've wanted to fly there for a few years now, but I haven't had a chance that worked out. The park welcomes hang gliders, in fact, Massachusetts recently introduced a passport program that allows park visitors to get stamps from places that they visit, and the one for Skinner has a hang glider on it.

Randy and I met Rodger in the LZ after picking up some tasty lunch at Barstow's. We carpooled up to the Summit House, then lugged our gear out to launch, which is a somewhat less onerous hike than the one at Ascutney. It was another day where we set up in dead air, and it was hot! Over 90 degrees, and we were sweating and trying to stay in the shade.

After we were preflighted, wind conditions picked up to the level that had been forecast. There wasn't much on launch, but we could see the leaves rattling around elsewhere. Skinner has an intimidating launch, pretty much a cliff that you'd like to get as close to as possible before starting your launch run, but with trees out front that aren't very far down, and more trees on both sides. So it's a slot and a cliff launch, but not a clean, sheer cliff launch. Randy was the only one of the three of us who had flown there before, and he said he had seen a few pilots clip the tops of the trees with their control bars. After watching Randy show how to do it, and armed with a healthy concern, I made sure I had a very strong launch and had plenty of clearance. Rodger was the last off, and had to do it with no assistance, but reported that he had no problem.

Despite our aspirations of climbing to 6000', the clouds didn't form near where we were, and we were mostly stuck below 2000' (launch is at about 850'). It was one of those days when you could stay up pretty much as long as you liked, though. The flying wasn't that interesting in itself, something like 55 passes back and forth on a ridge that's 3/4 of a mile long. (It's possible to venture further in both directions, but probably not a great idea with the limited altitude that we had, since the LZ options get dicey.)

There were other things to make the day fun, though, including some good birdwatching. A bald eagle came through, and I got one distant blurry photo, plus a hawk of some sort did an aerobatic maneuver about a wingspan away right in front of me -- I got a slightly better picture of him.

I headed for the LZ when Rodger started folding up his glider, and Randy decided to see if he could reach the airport (he came pretty close, landing in a field near the end of the runway). We stopped for some food in Noho, and had a comparatively brief drive home. I think I probably managed to achieve something I've been aspiring to since I started flying: more time in the air than in the car. I didn't time the driving up and down the mountain, or crossing the river to pick Randy up, but figuring that it's 90 minutes each way from home, and I flew for 3:20 (second longest flight ever), the flying at least beat the commute.

Return to the scene

jjcote — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 01:16:29 GMT

A northwest forecast in these parts will work for several sites, but I knew which one I wanted to go to as soon as I got an opportunity: Ascutney. It had been over a year, and I was ready. Jeff C. was up for it as well, and I figured with a good forecast on a weekend day, we'd probably have a healthy crowd on hand. He was happy to drive up early, and we arrived at the same time as Pete J., with whom we carpooled up the mountain and got the prime spots in the setup area. Doug B. and John M. arrived a bit later, with retired pilots John A. and Hans accompanying them for a bit of nostalgia (and to drive their car down).

[new blood Jeff C and Randy B, and old guard John A]

The air was dead, so we took our time setting up, and had plenty of opportunity to chat with the wuffos, who were also there in substantial numbers. A group of four women were particularly interested and waited around for quite a while, wondering if they should put hang gliding on their bucket lists (we gave them info to contact Morningside if they were inspired).

We were also joined by more pilots: Greg H., PK, John B., Randy B., and John A., with Megan K. and Stuart hiking out to launch, but waiting until things cleared out a bit before going back to the car for their wings.

It was John M. who finally gave in to the desire of the pretty girls to see somebody launch. He waited for quite a while on the platform for the wind to straighten out, but when he finally went for it, there just wasn't enough going on for him to stay up, despite some pretty skillful flying. The rest of us kicked stones for a while, until John A. figured it looked good enough for him. He knows the mountain well, and his assessment was correct, as he quickly came back above launch. He was followed by Doug and me, and the rest of the pilots poured off of launch as quickly as they could get into position.

It was tough to get above 4000', and only Greg and PK managed -- they got up close to 5000' and scooted over to Morningside. The rest of us had some easy soaring, although the air turned out to be a lot more active than we had guessed from the ground perspective. There was an excellent moment when I headed over to where some other pilots were circling, and I saw a bird climbing fast. As I entered the circle, Randy said that he was thermaling with a bald eagle, and asked if I saw it. I was now close enough to see the white feathers, but the eagle didn't stick around for long -- he was up and out in no time flat. I stayed up until only a few other pilots were left in the air, spending maybe the last half hour of a 2+ hour flight scratching just below launch, until I gave up and headed out to the LZ.

Since I landed not too far away from the infamous spot... I decided to take a quick stroll in the woods after I finished packing up my gear. My memory and navigation skills are pretty good, and it was pretty easy to find it, and obvious from the two stumps (where Jake had cut down two trees last year) that I was in the right spot. I paced it off, and it turns out I was only about 20 meters from the field. Here's what's left of the dead tree that I hung in for a couple of hours.

I'm finally about back to where I left off.

Greylock, it's about time

jjcote — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 22:35:03 GMT

I haven't been to the high points of many states, which is mildly surprising for a guy like me. Off the top of my head, I've been within sight of the high points of CA, OR, WA, AK, CO, CT, and VT, but I've visited the high points of only RI and NH. Conspicuously missing from this list is Mt. Greylock, the tallest peak in Massachusetts, where I've resided for over 90% of my life. I've certainly seen Greylock on a number of occasions, and I've even looked down on the summit after having launched a hang glider from across the valley, but I had never stood on top. Greylock is a popular hang gliding site, but the mountain was closed for several years when I was first flying due to renovations, and soon after it reopened last year I went on hiatus from flying. Of course, that doesn't explain why in all these years I had never hiked up, but that was indeed the situation.

I could try to make a long story short, but the truth is that it's not a long story. I had a commitment in the morning that required me to get a somewhat late start, despite the fact that Gary T., the local Observer, was of the opinion that it was a day when it would be best to get off the mountain early, before the wind got too cross. I made good time getting there, and arrived to find Pat M. and a few PGs already in the air and Megan K. about to launch. As soon as she did, I got Gary's attention and found out what I had to do to sign in with the park staff, then grabbed my stuff from the car and joined Jeff C., Pete J., Doug B., Randy B., and John B., all setting up on the lawn in front of the summit monument.

I got hooked in while Doug launched, and got in line behind Pete. After a couple of minutes, Gary came to fetch me, because Pete had decided to step aside and let others "play through". Gary helped me maneuver my glider through the throngs of spectators. The site is rate H3 with observer not because it's all that difficult, but because any problems that might occur will be seen by the general public (e.g. a couple of months ago a video popped up on YouTube, shot by a spectator, of a tandem launch at Greylock that wound up in the bushes). I've never had anywhere near that many wuffos watching me launch. The wind was cycling pretty much straight in, and I was more intent on getting launched so as to free Gary up than in waiting for something incredibly soarable, so I didn't dawdle and got into the air.

I lucked into one of the smoothest bits of lift I've ever encountered. I felt the wing start rising as soon as I was clear of the hill, and as I turned right and then started making broad passes over launch, I gained steadily, if gradually, and easily got to about 300 feet over the top. I didn't hold onto it, but I kept finding climbs that would get me back up to a comfortable height, and managed to squeeze off a few pictures.

Pete apparently saw that I was having better luck than the earlier pilots, and joined me right away, followed soon by Jeff. Although Pete managed to find something good and took off (eventually landing at the RC field, I think), Jeff slipped too far below launch and headed for the bailout, and after a little while so did I.

This was a relatively unusual experience for me, landing in a field that I had never seen from the ground (although Gary gave me a good briefing about it). The air was somewhat rambunctious when I was a few hundred feet AGL, but fortunately smoothed out when I was on final, allowing me to pull off a landing that garnered some compliments from a couple of people in the LZ. Gary launched his PG shortly after, and Randy and John finally got into the air and really made it stick, heading XC to the north for 20+ miles.

I was glad to have finally gotten a chance to fly Greylock, and for that matter to have gone to the top of the mountain at all. But... I had gotten there in a car, which is really not my way of doing things; I had had aspirations of climbing it before ever driving up to fly. Since my car was parked at the summit, there was no question in my mind as to what the next step would be. As soon as I was packed up, I got some sketchy directions from people in the LZ and headed off across the field looking for a trailhead. Sure enough, I found a carved wooden sign that said "Superhighway trail to the summit of Mt. Greylock". Sounded perfect to me! As it turns out, there are two perfectly good hiking trails leading up from that field, but the Superhighway is not one of them. After less than half a mile it degenerated into nothingness, so I just headed straight up through the woods, which got me there, but couldn't have been the easiest way (too many fallen trees, briars, and mossy cliffs). I'll know better next time, but for now, I've added another site to the list of places I've flown, and this year I've climbed every hill that I've flown, plus one (I haven't flown Ascutney yet in 2010).

Getting the mojo back

jjcote — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 03:48:39 GMT

There's only one site in this area (that I've flown, anyway) that requires a gnarly vehicle, and that's West Rutland. The drive to launch is much better than it used to be, but it's still not suitable to run of the mill 2WD cars like the one I have. There are usually enough people showing up with SUVs or trucks that can make the climb that it's not an issue, and I've never not been able to get a ride. I always try to make sure of that ahead of time, though, because it's a long drive up to Vermont from my place and it would be a drag to get stuck at the bottom. I thought that might be the situation this past weekend, when I was unable to go flying on Saturday due to other commitments, despite the fact that the sky looked fantastic. It turned out that things conditions didn't shape up too well at Rutland though, and most everybody who flew there on Saturday sank out (though there were some impressive flights at Morningside off of aerotow). Sunday had a forecast that looked kind of discouraging (high winds, maybe gusty, and dubious lift), and I figured maybe nobody would be going, especially after I put a query on the club email list and nobody responded.

Around 9 AM Sunday I got a call from Bob R. wondering what I was up to. I said that I was hanging out at home, thinking about mowing the lawn. He responded that he had expected I would have been on my way up, based on my email, and that he and a number of other people were going flying. That provoked an instant change of plans on my part, and I threw my stuff in the car and hit the road. When I arrived 2 1/2 hours later, there were five pilots up at launch, and shortly after I got there, CT John B., Megan, and Pat pulled in.

We hung out at the parking area and ate lunch while we watched the others fly. The sky had been overcast when I pulled in, but it cleared out and it looked like conditions were getting quite good. After the last pilot launched and Beth and Linda were free from wire crew duties, they drove the truck down and the four of us loaded up, along with George B. and his paraglider. Reports from the first shift were that conditions had been quite strong, and in fact the last pilot to launch (Al A.) had been hesitant about going. Since he's much more experienced than I am, and was flying a U2, I was a bit apprehensive that it mught be blown out for my Falcon (and John and Megan were flying Falcons as well).

Up top, I walked out to the ramp, decided that it was quite good, and set up without delay. As soon as my preflight was done, I glanced over to Megan, who already had her helmet on, and asked if she was going to go. She said she was kind of hoping I'd go first, so I suited right up, carried the glider out to the ramp, and spent maybe 30 seconds eyeing the wind before I decided to pick it up and launch -- I couldn't have asked for better wind conditions. Four times I had been to West Rutland so far this year, and I had had four sled rides (two on one day, and another day I didn't fly at all), but this was different. I think I heard a whoop from behind me as I connected with an elevator right out front, then I turned right and got the old familiar initial climb, steadily up all the way to the towers. Turning back, I came in a couple of hundred feet over launch, and Megan was already in the air. John came next, then Pat.

John has the least experience of the four of us, and flew cautiously, which unfortunately put him too far away from the ridge to lock into the lift, and after not so long, he had to beat a retreat to the LZ. The other three of us made it stick, and were soon soaring comfortably above the mountain. It had been too long (over a year) since I had been able to get some appreciable distance between my wing and the ground, and it felt good. Most of the lift was smooth ridge lift, but there were occasional tight thermals that I relearned how to ride, and my vario says I got as high as 2000 feet over launch.

It was one of those days when almost everybody basically gets to fly as long as they want. George was one of the unlucky ones -- when we arrived, the wind was too strong to launch his PG, and he reported that it got even stronger while we were flying, though it was never uncomfortable up where we were. After Megan and Pat landed, it eventually lightened up enough for him to give it a try, but he wasn't able to hang on, and had a short flight. That left me alone in the air. Sometimes you have a situation where you start wondering what's going to make you finally come down. It could be fading daylight, or a need to go to the bathroom, or fatigue, or a desire to be the last one left in the air, or any number of other reasons. I was hungry enough for airtime that I wasn't going to land until I felt compelled to, but eventually decided to play a game: I'd keep flying as long as I could maintain altitude above launch. Conditions got lighter and lighter, and I had to resort to different techniques to keep climbing, ultimately cruising close to the ridge and just maintaining zero sink, then gradually dropping bit by bit until the secondary altimeter dropped to zero, then -10 feet, and I headed for the LZ.

When I got there, I tried out an Arkansas windsock for practice (read about that here), and greased in a sweet landing just a few steps from the dirt road in the main LZ. Two hours and forty minutes in the air, just like old times (my fourth-longest flight ever, actually). Hey Day, I got me sum!

Renewing belief

jjcote — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 04:32:45 GMT

Northwest winds in these parts usually means either Ascutney or the Trail, sometimes Skinner or Ellenville. I had arranged for Friday off from work because things looked good, and a couple of friends were available to carpool. I met Randy B. and Tom L. late in the morning, because we were in no hurry -- the forecast looked better for later in the day. Some folks had opted for Ascutney, but we went for the Trail. Peter J. and Keith B. were already mostly set up when we arrived, and Brooks E. and Matt C. rolled in a little later.

We had to wait around a bit after setting up, because things weren't really right yet. Tom killed some time by eating the wrong berries (serviceberries, maybe?) instead of blueberries, and we all spent some time speculating as to whether he was going to die. Keith, meanwhile, decided that he was going to give the air a try and launched, but it was bumpy, and he had to stay far enough out front that he wasn't able to ridge soar, and was on the ground after 13 minutes. Not encouraging. Pete went down to fetch him for another try, as a big dark cloud approached, accompanied by 15-20 mph winds, and when it passed, we were left with blue sky and almost dead calm. Still not what we were looking for.

Eventually the wind started picking up bit, and Randy and Matt decided that they'd had enough of kicking rocks, and something had to be done. Randy moved out to launch first, and was able to stay up. Matt was just a few steps behind him and did likewise, so that was good enough for me and I climbed into my harness and carried my glider around front. Just as I was finishing my hang check it started blowing as hard as it had all day, and I had to stand there for a while with my foot on the control bar leaning into the downtubes. I hollered back to Brooks that he was welcome to play through if he liked, but he was in no hurry with that much wind. When a lull came, I took the opportunity.

When we were waiting around, Tom had mentioned a couple of the objectives that everybody should have, and one of them was "Don't land there!", gesturing toward the bailout LZ directly in front of launch. The Trail is a kind of funny site. At first glance, it's a 700 foot ridge, with an LZ that's in the lee of another ridge and therefore often quite turbulent. The existence of that LZ (owned by HG pilots) is critical, because if you don't get up, you have to have a place to land, crappy though it may be. In fact, it's where I've landed on all but one of my flights at the Trail. But what you really want to do at this site is get a few hundred feet of altitude, and scoot south to where the ridge is taller, the valley floor is lower, lift is more plentiful, and you can reach the main LZ, known as "the RC field" (actually a golf driving range these days). Common wisdom is that you can safely go south if you've got 500 feet over launch, though pilots with good skills or a good glider have been known to head south from at launch height. I have neither of these advantages.

After I launched, it was Brooks, then Peter, and a little while later Keith, and eventually Tom. One by one each found his ticket out until it was just Keith and me left making endless passes on the short part of the ridge. I could see wings way above the summit far to my south, but I couldn't claw my way up to a high enough point to make the jump and join them. Several times I made it to about 300 feet over, but then I'd rapidly lose it and find myself down at launch height again. There was one point where I sank enough that I was concerned that I was going to have to head for the bailout, but I worked my way back up (and Keith got a save from even lower). I was watching the trees, trying to fly the spots where the leaves were indicating thermals blowing through, but I kept failing to connect, feeling like the lift was diffuse, but probably really just demonstrating rusty skills. Finally, after a bit more than an hour, I got some strong beeping from the vario and really banked the wing up steeply, like I remembered doing. The climb continued all the way around my circles, and in no time I was 700 feet over. I lost the lift at that point and had to make a decision: do I try to find it again and risk losing what I had, or do I invest this altitude and head south to the land of plenty?

I remembered that Tom said a primary objective was to get away from the bailout LZ, so I made the decision to go, and ventured into the bigger world that I had visited only once before. I'm satisfied with that decision, based on the information that I had at the time, although if I knew then what I know now, I might have chosen differently. As I moved down the ridge, I became aware that everybody seemed to have vanished. In addition, unbeknownst to me, Keith stayed put and climbed out to 5000 feet. The others had sensed that the southern part of the ridge was drying up, but there were appealing looking clouds to the north, so they chased them and got to base. Meanwhile, I was slowly spending my altitude, doing my best to keep my elbows in and my head down, trying a couple of turns in meager lift, and just generally sinking. I might have done better by taking a more aggressive path close to the trees, but so it goes.

Before very long I had to start thinking about LZs. The RC field was the objective, but it's on the far side of the valley. I got myself to a spot where I was certain I could reach the old landfill (but that's a bad idea because of the pipes), or the cemetery (even worse because of the headstones), but I wasn't sure if I had enough glide to reach the RC field or not. I scoped out my options, and decided to continue down the ridge to the south. That might give me a shot at finding enough of a climb to cross the valley, or alternatively, there are some farm fields closer to the ridge down there. I reached the fields and flew over them to make a decision. The closest one looked like it was full of tall weeds, then there was one full of corn that was giving off some lift, but not enough for me to try and exploit. The third one that I considered bordered a paved road, looked like it had short grass, and had a flat area on top.

I couldn't tell what direction the wind was blowing (turned out to be dead calm on the ground), so I picked the prevailing NW direction of the day and brought it in for a smooth landing in the clover. It was the farthest I've ever landed from launch (about four miles), and in a sense, my first real outlanding, in the sense of being a field that I had never even thought about before landing there. A modest XC flight, but an XC nonetheless. I carried my glider down the hill toward the road, then saw a car pulling in, so I trotted over and said hi to the landowner and apologized for dropping in uninvited. He was cool with my landing there, and just requested that nobody drive a car up into the farm to retrieve my glider. Not a problem, my plan had been to fold it up and carry it down to the road anyway.

My orienteering friends would think nothing of going for a training run of five miles with 1000+ feet of climb, but they think I'm crazy for flying. Most of my fellow pilots, on the other hand, think I'm crazy for doing something like grabbing my radio and heading back on foot to retrieve the car. So that means I'm almost universally regarded as crazy. As I was on my way back, the other pilots trickled in to land, either in the RC field or close by.

I got the least airtime of anybody for the day, and I still never got as much as 1000 feet AGL, but the flight did help restore the idea in my mind that it really is possible to soar with these gliders, which I had been losing touch with after so many months of failing to stay up. It was also the first time all year that I had managed to get two flying days in the same month. I am feeling like I miss the better glide performance of the other gliders I've flown, which has me itching to move up to something better than a Falcon again, but that will still have to wait a bit longer.

Finally, capping off the day, most of us stopped for dinner at a place that had pretty unimpressive service, but which afforded a pretty decent view to the west (you can click on that one for a larger view).

Alternate uses for a mountain

jjcote — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 13:16:10 GMT

The second Sunday in July is when the footrace is held up the Mt. Ascutney auto road. It's 3.7 miles, and 2300 feet of elevation gain. The day when the race is held (and ditto for the bicycle race and auto race on other weekends), the mountain is closed for flying, either for the whole day, or until sometime in the afternoon, because the road and summit parking lot are occupied. Last year I had been thinking about running in the race, but I lacked ambition and skipped it, opting instead to just fly later on after the race crew cleared out. That was the day when I screwed up in a huge way, and I hadn't been back to Ascutney since. It was largely a matter of schedule and circumstances, but I also sort of felt like I needed to make a payment on the karmic debt I had incurred to the mountain.

Proper physical training would have been a good plan, but there are a lot of things in my life competing for my time, and I've been a slacker in that regard, although I'm not a couch potato by any means. I do a lot of orienteering races and I've done a few trail races, but I think this is the only time I've been an official entrant in a running race on pavement. I was able to run the whole thing (although sometimes that running was probably no faster than I would have been going if I had walked), and I finished in 52:17, which put me in 131st place out of 191, and 35th out of 44 in the M40-49 age group. To put this in hang gliding terms, that a climb rate of about 44 fpm.

After I finished, I took a stroll out to launch, where the wind was trickling in -- it would have been launchable for a sledder, and later in the day, things started to look increasingly good, although I don't know what the wind direction was by then. I was the only one there, and there were a bunch of thrushes singing. I could see roughly where the spot was down near the LZ where I ended up in a tree, but a visit there will have to wait for another day.

I ran back down the road as well, in 28:06 (that's 82 fpm sink). I feel ready to come back and fly the mountain, and I hope it takes longer than that for me to get down next time.
_______________________________

In the evening I went to see Toy Story 3 with my girlfriend and her teenage kids and their friends. Good movie, although I will say there was one sequence that started by giving me a big smile, and shortly took a turn that completely freaked me out. Aaaaaugh! Hit a little close to home...

Nearly all you could ask for

jjcote — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 00:44:18 GMT

Most people went to the big party at Morningside, but a few of us dodged the crowds and made the trek up to West Rutland. Solid blue sky. Soarable? Definitely. PK and Jeff C. both got somewhere in the neighborhood of four hours. Launching in between them, my flight was somewhat shorter:

Solid launch, no troubles handling the glider, and a great landing right where I intended. On the hike up the mountain to retrieve the truck, I worked out that at the rate I've been going lately, I should have enough hours for my H-4 sometime around 2023. I have nothing to complain about, but honestly, my interest is waning.

Failure to hook in?

jjcote — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 19:54:56 GMT

Well, that title got your attention, didn't it? Not to worry, nobody died. What did happen was that I realized that I was ready to take off, but was not connected to my glider. I wasn't on launch, though, I was at home, sitting on the toilet. I had been loading up the car, and just after putting the glider on the rack, I got distracted by something, then went back into the house, and realized when I was in the bathroom that I had not strapped the glider to the rack. No problem, I did strap it down before opening the garage door, but it is possible to forget in a situation like that. I usually (though perhaps not always) do an "idiot check" before getting into the car whenever I have anything on my roof (gliders, canoe, bicycles, etc.) where I grab the items in question and shake them to make sure they're secure. I don't know any way to do the equivalent of the "Aussie method", though, since I can't put the glider on the rack before I put the rack on the car.

As to the real story...

What the heck was I doing trying to fly, anyway? When I left the house, it was drizzling. Things didn't improve that much on the way up to West Rutland, and this is what the sky looked like somewhere up north of Ludlow:

In fact, I couldn't even see the summit of Okemo, it was all socked in. I ran into Bob R and Beth at the convenience store, and we shook our heads, but figured we might as well see who else showed up. Jim M was at the parking area, and after loading the gliders onto Bob's truck, we waited another few minutes for Tor S and Jim C to show up, tossed their PGs into the bed, and headed up the mountain.

There had been a few patches of blue sky drifting through while we had been waiting, and it was starting to look hopeful when we got to the top. In fact, there was enough sun that Beth took fully organic precautions against getting her nose sunburned.

The wind was strong enough that Jim C and Tor launched right away. Jim almost sank out, but got a low save near the highway and got back up. Their flights weren't long, as conditions were pretty light, but the sun was increasing and we hoped the thermals would pick up.

Jim M went next and was able to soar for a bit, but by the time I got suited up, he was landing. I waited on the ramp for a while, figuring that I was in no hurry and might as well pick the strongest cycle I could get (and I could always step aside if Bob wanted to play through). When I finally got wind on the ramp as well as some shaking in the trees down below, I decided to go for it, and Bob was just a few steps behind me. I was able to milk it for a little while, getting my best climb off to the left (east) of launch, and I did get high enough that I was willing to do one complete turn a bit later, but most of the time I was too close to the terrain to be comfortable with that.

I'm sure that someone with adequate skill could have stayed up, but the lift was too elusive for me, and after I spotted Tor and Jim C at launch for a second try with a couple of other PG pilots, I got too far below launch and decided to follow Bob to the LZ. Just like last time, I found myself frustrated with the poor L/D of the Falcon. I was carefully adjusting my pitch, trying to get the LZ to drop in my field of vision rather than rise, and figured that I would probably get there provided I didn't run into any sink, but probably isn't good enough for me, and I considered my alternatives.

The bailout field where I went last time was an option, but a better one was the New Dome field. Before I started flying, the primary LZ at this site was called the Dome Field, due to its shape, but that property has changed hands and is now strictly off-limits because it's inhabited by horses. There's a smaller adjacent LZ called the New Dome, which is where the PGs usually land. It's preferred by some HG pilots, but takes a bit more skill, and I had never tried it. It was within easy reach, and Jim had already landed there and was breaking down. Light conditions seemed like an ideal situation for trying an uphill landing, something I had discussed and thought about considerably, but had never attempted. I wasn't sure where the windsock was, but it didn't matter, because uphill is the only way to go here. I did know enough to do S-turns out front until I was lower than the top of the hill, in order to be sure that I wouldn't overshoot. I then pulled the bar to burn it in and aimed at the center of the field. Although the Falcon doesn't glide very well, it sure is easy to land and the flare went very well, with just a few short, quick steps as I reached the ground. I somehow managed to find the spot with the shortest grass in a field that was otherwise chest-high. Turning around, I saw the windsock, which was pointing right at me. Downwind-uphill, and pulled off quite nicely, how about that?

One of the PGs launched for a short flight as we were breaking down, seemed like all of the flights all day were on the order of 20 minutes, which isn't great, but when they're good safe flights, I'm not going to complain. There was enough time for us to have tried again, but we had managed to grab the one sunny time window, and the sky started looking really awful again, so we headed on home. That makes five consecutive months in which I've had exactly one flying day -- I've got a bunch of stuff going on for the next few weeks, so it could turn out that this is all I get for June. On the drive home, I did manage a little bit of mischief, though. My friend Jeff had ordered a new glider that had arrived at the flight park, but that he hadn't seen yet. And, well, I couldn't resist the temptation to check out how it felt.

Inlanding(?)

jjcote — Tue, 25 May 2010 13:16:27 GMT

May is a pretty good time for hang gliding in this area, but it's also prime time for my main activity, orienteering, so flying has been pushed to the back burner all month. Four consecutive weekends of running around in the woods with a map and compass: the annual West Point meet, a national meet near Danbury, CT (where I managed 3rd place in my age category), the national Team Trials in Harriman State Park, and finally the 32nd Annual Billygoat Run at Mt. Tom (which is also a popular unofficial PG site, but HGs are not welcome there these days). This was my 26th time doing the Billygoat, and my 24th finish within the 3.5 hour time limit. All I managed in terms of flying during this stretch was to stop by Skinner on my way home from the Team Trials to see three friends on the ground and three still in the air.

The day before the Billygoat was open on my schedule, and Jeff and I thought about heading to Greylock, but in the morning he didn't like the look of the forecast, so we skipped it. It did turn out to be a good flying day there, but it was just as well that I stayed home because a problem popped up in the middle of the day, and I was fortunately home to answer the phone and defuse the potential emergency. I also thought about packing my glider and trying to scoot up to Greylock in the afternoon after the Billygoat, but it would have been fairly stupid to try and fly when I was that tired. It was looking like maybe May would go by without any airtime for me.

I had Monday off, and Tom sent out an email saying that the day looked promising, and he was thinking of going flying somewhere. In the end he decided to stay home and get some work done, but the ensuing discussion revealed that a couple of people were heading to West Rutland. Although it's the site where I've racked up the majority of my airtime, I hadn't managed to fly there in over a year and a half. I quickly packed up my car, hit the road for the 2.5+ hour drive, and arrived with perfect timing.

John S. and Bob R. were there, along with Bob's daughter Sarah who was coming along to drive the jeep back down the mountain for us. When I first started flying there a few years ago, the road up to launch used to be so hairy that no matter how nasty and ugly the air was, flying down was bound to be less scary than driving down. The club (thanks due here primarily to Gary and Mike, I believe) did a lot of work on the road in the past month, such that it's now almost civilized. Still not passable for ordinary cars like mine (and probably never will be), but for AWD vehicles I think it's likely doable with caution.

Not a lot of action on the windsock when we got to launch. It looked like no ridge lift at all, just thermals, and we'd have to see whether there would be enough in that regard for us to milk. Bob was thinking of heading in at the normal time for his second-shift job, and since he had flown the previous two days, he wasn't planning on staying up for more than an hour.

He was able to get above launch right away, but the thermal cycle fizzled out, and soon he was low enough that he needed to head out to the LZ. John was still setting up his ATOS, but I was ready, so I waited for another good cycle and launched. Like Bob, I started climbing, but after a few passes without finding anything that I could turn in, I got too low and headed out. I'm feeling rusty in several regards these days, and one of them is estimating how far I can reach on glide. This is complicated by the fact that I'm back to flying the Falcon, which I haven't used much in the last two years, and I've also recently upgraded it to have mylar leading edge inserts (a long story) which may have altered its performance. I was a bit concerned about my altitude as I neared the highway, but when I reached the main LZ I had enough left to do a few S-turn passes before dropping it in right where I intended for a no-stepper.

It was a short flight, but my first real mountain flight since last summer. I packed up and considered swinging by Morningside on my way home to do some additional launch and landing practice, but Bob offered to drive me up for a second try as soon as Sarah brought the car down. John launched, and he was staying up, so I figured that since I had driven all that way, I might as well. We zipped back up the mountain and I set up the glider as efficiently as I could, and launched without delay. John had been tooling around at cloudbase for a while, but he came back as I was setting up and buzzed launch, tossing a little heckling down our way. I was encouraged to have him nearby as a possible help for finding lift, but that turned out to be a non-issue. I again did a couple of passes without finding much that was any good, then right in front of launch I hit the bullet that was determined to be my ticket out. Had I been able to crank into it, I might well have gotten a solid climb, but it caught my outside wing and turned me toward the hill, which I was not comfortable with. I moved out further to get some safety margin, but I quickly realized that I needed to head out again. There were a few bubbles on the way, including one that I tried turning in (no luck), but mostly sink. So much sink, in fact, that I became very concerned that I might not reach the LZ. On the drive up, Bob had pointed out another field and said that we had permission from the landowner to land there if necessary. It was closer than the main LZ, so I decided to play it safe and go there instead. Just one big S-turn and I was on final. It superficially looked like the same kind of deal as the main LZ, and I set up my landing just fine, but got kind of a surprise when I flared. Instead of a no-stepper into ankle-high grass, I just kept dropping for another couple of feet. The growth in this field was up to my thighs, but I had done just what you're supposed to do in that situation, pretend that the tops of the vegetation are the ground. It wasn't exactly an outlanding, because although it was an unfamiliar field with no windsocks (good XC practice, right?), it's actually closer to launch than the main LZ, but I don't think "inlanding" is a term that anybody uses.

Not much airtime (only 20 minutes total for the two flights), but I had two good launches and two good landings, which I kind of needed for my confidence. I also got back to fly West Rutland after all this time, and there was an additional thing that I was able to accomplish as well. On hot summer days, there's a nearby swimming hole (an old quarry) where pilots will sometimes go to cool off. I never got there last year, but this was a hot day even though it was still May, so I did get to have a dip. As expected, this early in the season, the water was extra-refreshing!

Bumpy start to the season

jjcote — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 16:09:32 GMT

Two attempts to fly this week, with minimal success...

Jeff C. was hot to fly the Trail on Tuesday. I had been thinking about it, but when it came down to making the decision, it would have been problematic for me to take Tuesday off of work; Wednesday was easier to arrange, and it looked like a good day for West Rutland, which I found more appealing. Although the only person I know of who tried the Trail on Tuesday found it too light to soar, I think he went at the end of the day, and as Ellenville reportedly provided epic conditions, perhaps the Trail would have as well.

I wasn't the only person looking at West Rutland. The forecast was quite good, and six of us (me, Amy R. and Dan G. from Cooperstown, Keith B., Kip S., and PK) met at the parking area and all piled our gliders onto Keith's truck and drove up to meet Bob R. and Dan S., who had gone up early, hoping to get Dan off for his first mountain flight in mellow conditions.

It sure looked great up there:

But wind is invisible, and it didn't feel as good as it looked:

For most of us, it was blowing too hard for us to think about launching (PK, wise man that he is, didn't even set up his glider). There were also several PG pilots up there, and they were more discouraged than the rest of us. After a while, Keith decided to display some fearlessness and launched in a lull. He was able to climb right away, but the rest of us were not reassured by how much he appeared to be getting kicked around. He later reported that from launch (1850 feet) up to about 4000 feet, it was pretty rough, but it smoothed out above that and he got up to about 6000. He flew for about an hour, but then we had a very different looking sky approaching:

The lift shut down, and we watched Keith get alternately drilled and sucked back up as he made his way to the LZ. Right after his excellent landing, Dan decided to launch and intentionally sled down, presumably to avoid the even more uncomfortable ride down the road in a truck. The rest of us weren't so brave, and packed up our gliders on top. The precipitation amounted to only a brief shower, and maybe we could have sledded down afterwards, or maybe not. But it was a nice day to hang out on a mountain, and I found a place to go for a run on the way home, which somewhat offset the five hours I spent in the car.
_____________________

The next chance was Saturday. The forecast was light and variable, though the lift was supposed to be good. I had a commitment at 9 PM, so I opted to go to the closest site, and take my own car instead of carpooling with the other guys from my area. I was actually driving in my car when I had the conversation with them deciding where to go, and still had to head home to get my gear. I didn't want to be too far behind them on the road, so I loaded up the car in a very efficient manner. I was curious how quickly I could do that, so I started my stopwatch when I rolled into the garage with no rack on the car, and all of my equipment in the house. I stopped it when I was ready to roll, with the rack on, the glider on the rack, and my gear in the back seat, all set to back out of the garage: 7 minutes and 42 seconds. Turned out that when I hit the highway, I was ahead of those guys.

Mark D. had just arrived at the Trail when I got there, and he carried his stuff out to launch while I dropped my car down at the LZ. Jeff C., John B., and Randy B. picked me up, and Brooks E. and Keith B. arrived later. Unlike Wednesday, this was a day where the air wasn't doing much. The thermal forecast was good, but there wasn't much wind. Again, everybody stood around for a while, until finally Mark decided to be the one to give it a try. There were occasional thermals bubbling through, and after a bunch of scratching, he was able to get up and head south down the ridge, eventually getting 1000+ over launch. It looked like he had to really work at it, and when he came back after about an hour and made a mistake that got him low, he wasn't able to get a save, and it looked like he got kicked around pretty seriously on his approach into the bailout LZ.

There were no cumulus clouds, and some cirrus was drifting in that looked like it might shade out the thermal production. Brooks went next, and he headed south with very little altitude, but he's the real expert on this site and knows where to find lift, so he was also able to climb out and also fly for about an hour. The rest of us were all waiting for each other to go first, and Randy was the one who went for it, followed by me, then John, Jeff, and Keith. We all managed to stay up for only a few minutes, and some of the landings were less than elegant. Here's John competently handling some challenging air on final (Randy was concerned that John might run into us -- our gliders were right behind me as I filmed this with my screwed-up camera).

Link

Not a very pleasant flight for me -- there was lift, but it felt disorganized and I couldn't stay in it. Although I did climb right off of launch and went up for the first couple of passes, I was soon close to the trees and hotfooted it out of there, and didn't care for the tossing around that I got on the way to the LZ. Another day with a lot of driving and not much airtime, but also another nice day to be outdoors, and I again got an opportunity for a run when I fetched my car from the other LZ where I had left it.

I'm feeling somewhat discouraged, though, and need to work out a way to get my head realigned on this flying business.

Light day at the coast

jjcote — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:55:04 GMT

After several potential beach flying days this year had not panned out (too windy, or too gusty, or too cold, or too rainy...) there was email chatter about Friday or Saturday being a good day. It often takes a storm system to bring east winds to the coast here, and this one was going to make the weekend wet, but Friday was still looking good, though potentially light, only about 14-15 mph. I've been to Wellfleet with my Falcon on a 12 mph day and know how hard it was to soar (I failed), and although this was slated to be a bit stronger, I'd also have a smaller wing, 135 sq ft instead of 170.

Randy B. and Matt M. were also interested in skipping work to take advantage of the weather. Randy lives pretty close to me, so we were able to carpool. The wind forecast and the tide were both more favorable in the afternoon, so we were able to take our time getting there, running a couple of errands on the way, and Matt went in to work in the morning. Upon arrival, the wind was depressingly light, only 10-12 mph, so we headed off to get some lunch. On the way, we passed a car going the other way with two gliders on the roof, which turned out to be Stacy P. and Ross L., who called on the phone as soon as they saw us.

When we got back to launch, we watched a couple of paraglider pilots fiddling around, having a little trouble because the wind was a bit strong for them. This is perhaps part of why there isn't too much conflict between PGs and HGs in this area, because we require different wind conditions. After switching to smaller wings, they did get into the air, and just as Stacy and Ross arrived, along with another couple of PG pilots, one of the bagwings went into the bushes right in front of the setup area. Fortunately there were a half-dozen of us to help extract the tangled strings from the head-high brush.

Here's the glider I was flying ("a Thing in a Bag") in the parking lot. The bushes right in front of it are where the PG went down (the pilot was on the other side of the bushes but the wing dropped into them). Note also a couple of precautions to keep my glider from getting too badly pummeled. If there's enough wind to soar, there is usually buffeting behind that dune that can beat gliders up. The control bar, the end of the keel, and the wingtips grind against the asphalt, and things get worn at an alarming rate. To forestall this, I have a tennis ball stuck on the end of the keel, and milk crates to keep the tips off the ground. I'm still thinking about something (PVC pipe? carpeting?) to protect the control bar.

Matt, Randy, and I were all set up at about the same time, and the wind had picked up to about 14, still pretty marginal. Matt felt that I was entitled to go first because I had been ready slightly sooner, but I was in no hurry, so he agreed to be the wind dummy. He was using a new cocoon harness for the first time, and had to spend a little time getting things like hang height adjusted before he was ready to go. When he did launch, he turned left, but not soon enough, which put him too far out front to catch the lift. We watched him try to scratch it out, thinking he might be able to make it, while at the same time we winced as we watched him continue north without turning back, knowing that that every second in the air meant a longer distance to have to carry everything once he landed.

Next it was my turn to try. When it's good at the beach, you can let the glider lift up off your shoulders and do a "tight-strap" launch, but that wasn't happening. My launch wasn't ideal in terms of pitch control, and I lost too much altitude in the first couple of seconds. I was hoping that by sneaking to the right I might be able to get to the lower section of the bluff and get above it, but I sank out before I got that far. I carried the glider back to in front of launch, then brought my harness back just in time to see Randy launch smoothly and get up over the bluff. Nice. I climbed back up to the parking lot and dealt with a couple of things, then turned to see Ross having just carried my glider up the 60-foot sand slope. Thanks! The two of us then went down to the beach and caught up with Stacy and Matt, who were carrying Matt's gear back. We relieved them, and got Matt back to the setup area so he could try again, but it turned out that he had bent something, so he had to call it a day. The three of them had places to go, so I waved goodbye to them, and thought about whether I wanted to give it another try or just pack up and wait for Randy to land. It was already well after 3 PM by this point, and I was preoccupied with some stuff unrelated to flying that had me distracted enough that I thought maybe it would be better to stay on the ground. Although Randy was soaring easily, he has a bigger wing for the same weight, and more importantly, better skills.

After a while, I took the wind gauge out, and saw that it was blowing a bit stronger, maybe as much as 16 mph. I watched a PG get a little far back and struggle to push out to the front, and decided to give it one more try, since I knew Randy would probably fly until dusk. One of the PG guys helped me walk the wing out to launch then I stood there for a little while, occasionally picking the glider up and doing a little ground handling. Still not enough wind to lift the glider off my shoulders, but I felt comfortable enough to try. Turning left this time, I was able to get up on top, and settled in for some easy soaring.

I radioed Randy that I was in the air, and he said to come down and join him at the south lighthouse. The overcast had receded, so we had nice afternoon sun, and the wind was exactly what people talk about at this kind of site, perfectly smooth with nary a gust.

The above picture is posted in full resolution, in case you want to click to look at it in detail and see the tiny glider far off in the distance. Randy had been in the air for about an hour before I launched, and we stayed up for another hour and a half, until the sun got really low. We stayed between Nauset Light and Newcomb Hollow, neither of us wanting to risk crossing gaps to the north in such light conditions and having to walk back (though I think he could have made it easily). When he radioed that he was on the ground, I headed back to join him, ending this smooth flight with an unceremonious full-faceplant whack (soft beach sand is another benefit of this site -- no harm done). Packed up with barely enough light to see and headed home -- a day worth the drive.

Education and good-natured embarrassment

jjcote — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:19:00 GMT

[ Mood: Amused ]
Two recent events that relate to hang gliding, but that were entirely indoors and didn't actually involve the use of a glider.

February 27 was Tom L.'s annual "pay it forward" seminar, this year focused on beginning XC pilots. Last year I went to his Competition seminar, which was fascinating, although much of the information was about stuff that isn't really relevant to what I expect to be doing (e.g. scoring of race-to-goal events). This year he invited a dozen of us who have so far made modest XC flights at most (Ross being an exception, I think), and provided us with a lot of information to help our upcoming ventures away from the mountain be productive and safe. There were a lot of topics, but most of the discussion fell into the categories of finding lift, landing out, or efficient gliding. A fun part was when he put up big pictures taken from the air on his TV, and we all gathered around and discussed where we would go if it were time to land. I found the seminar very useful, but also intimidating -- XC flying is not something to be taken lightly, and there's a lot of learning that yet needs to be done outdoors.

back row: ARt G., Jeff C., me, Matt M., Pat M., the illustrious Tom L.
seated: Stacy P., Ross L., Amy R., Randy B.

March 6 was the annual VHGA awards banquet. I had some commitments that delayed my arrival, but I got there in time for dinner and the actual ceremony (missed out on a bunch of the socializing). I was surprised and somewhat embarrassed to receive the first award of the night, "second" place in the XC contest in the category for pilots who have not yet done a 25 mile flight. This requires a bit of explanation. The VHGA contest rules count distance from launch to landing, without turnpoints, so a 200 mile triangle would count as nothing, and ditto for a lighthouse run at Wellfleet, even though the turnpoints are 15 miles apart. This isn't a complaint, it's just what the rules are. Sometimes people don't submit their flights, and back in January when the scores were being tallied, it came to my attention that nobody in the under-25-mile category had submitted anything. I knew there were some flights out there, so as a joke I sent in my best flight, then sent out emails to a few people I knew of who had done better and said that if they didn't end in their data, I'd win with my pathetic score. There were three pilots who had made Ascutney-Morningside runs, and we got them in there, which should have made me 4th place. But they were given a tie for 1st, and mine was called 2nd. My flight was only 1.9 miles, just to the normal LZ at Ascutney, and off the top of my head I knew of at least one better flight (ARt had flown 8 miles or so at the Trail) that didn't get submitted. So, a XC award for a flight of less than 2 miles, pretty pathetic (I even had Morningside on glide that day, but had to pass because of time constraints). I'll have to make up for that this year.

The other award I was expecting, and when Rodger made the announcement, he said I was really the only nominee. That was the "Most Innovative Landing" award for my reserve ride last July. Not something I ever wanted to earn, but it is a dubious honor that some very respectable people have gotten in the past.

In less fortunate news, my buddy ARt got hurt the day after the dinner. I couldn't go flying that day because I needed to move a bunch of furniture, but it sounds like it was pretty good at Morningside. ARt had a bad landing, though, and broke his arm. Rats. Heal well, ARt, and I'm looking forward to flying with you again as soon as you're ready.

A bunch of work, a little flying

jjcote — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 14:40:11 GMT

Most people in these parts are not interested in flying this time of year, when the temperature is low and snow presents other difficulties. There are a few of us who are willing to put up with some inconveniences in order to get whatever airtime we can. ARt is one of those, and I'm another. As H3s, there are certain places we can't fly without chaperones, and the fact that we live several hours apart also makes it difficult to get together, but conditions looked good enough that we decided to try Morningside on a Saturday.

On the drive up, it looked like the wind, despite the forecast, was blowing from the north (the hill at Morningside takes west). I called ARt and told him what he was seeing (he wasn't in the Connecticut River valley yet), and we decided that if the wind direction was too awful, we could scrap the flying plans and just hike up the Ascutney road for exercise. As I pulled onto Morningside Lane, Jeff was leaving -- we rolled down the windows, and chatted for a moment, and he said that it was blowing east and he was calling it a day. I drove to the park to wait for ARt.

I figured I might as well see what the condition of the road was, so I hiked up to the 450, and was somewhat surprised to see that it was blowing straight in. My phone rang, and ARt asked if I was going to just stand there all day admiring the view (he had just pulled into the parking lot). I jogged back down, and we decided that although the ATVs weren't available, it was still worth a try, so I tossed all of the unnecessary stuff out of my harness bag (radio, vario, sneakers, bar mitts, etc.), we shouldered my glider, and headed up on foot to set up on top.

Still straight in, but when I got everything ready and finished my preflight, I realized that I was missing my helmet. Doh! I had taken it out of the harness bag when I was shedding excess weight, and it was still in the car. We went down again to grab it, taking my gliders bags down, and picked up ARt's harness and glider while we were there, so that he could get started setting up. No change in conditions, so I launched without delay.

photo by ARt G.

The good news is that the Ultrasport handling was (as expected) much more reasonable with the backup hang strap situation remedied (I have a temporary extension in place, and if I decide to buy the glider, I'll get proper straps of the correct lengths). The wind was about 10 mph, and although I was able to scratch for a few minutes, I only got higher than launch once (barely), and for the most part it was a gradual sled ride. Six successful minutes in the air.

photo by Dean S.

I tucked the glider behind the hangar, and went up on foot a fourth time, stopping briefly at the 150 to say hi to Dean who was sorting out his PG. When I got to the 450, ARt was nowhere to be found. Turned out he had decided that he didn't have enough clothing with him, so he went down for a jacket. Dean also came up top as ARt put his (almost new) Sport 2 together.

Conditions were changing slightly, so by the time they were ready, lift was a bit more elusive, and the air was getting a little grumpy, prompting them to head for the LZ rather than wrestle with it. This makes 13 consecutive flying months for ARt, as we head into the part of the year when things will get easier -- nice work!

Meanwhile, I'm about to acquire a bunch of additional furniture and cardboard boxes, as my house gets transformed into a temporary self-storage facility. Nancy's house has finally sold, and until she buys a new one, she won't have room for all of this stuff in her rental place. Therefore, in order to free up some floorspace in my living room (or "hangar", as I prefer to call it), I put together this spiffy rack to store the gliders in a more convenient and attractive manner.

Only the top glider on that rack is in working order. I took the Falcon apart back in the fall to get the sand out of it, then ordered a couple of parts from Wills Wing to address some maintenance issues, and didn't get it put back together before the snow fell. About a month ago, I managed to secure permission to work on it in the big meeting room on the second floor of Town Hall, which would require taking the glider up a rickety fire escape. When my friend Ken heard about this, he had a better idea. He's a fireman, and offered to move one of the ladder trucks out of the fire station (officially known as the Public Safety Building) so that I could use that bay. Heated, out of the wind, no stairs, plenty of room to have my car in there as well -- sounds great! I picked a mutually convenient day, and went over to the fire station to put the sail back onto the Falcon.

I was optimistically hoping that maybe I could do this in 60 - 90 minutes, and therefore brought the Mark IV along as well, hoping that I might have time to also install the replacement hinge that I got from Matt at LMFP. However, the Falcon operation took three hours, at which point I was exhausted. There are a lot of mistakes that it's possible to make in this process, and I seem to have found most of them, a long two-steps-forward-one-step-back deal. Tubes would not be threaded into the right holes in the sail, wires would be routed the wrong way around parts, I'd get something together and realize that I'd left out a part, etc. The hardest part was pulling the sail tight enough to get the screws in at the nose -- fortunately, there were people around, and one of the firemen put the screw in for me while I held the sail, an operation that really requires at least three hands. In the end, mission accomplished, the Falcon is ready for a test flight when the opportunity arises. Thanks, Ken!

Too cold to fly, alternate projects

jjcote — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:36:48 GMT

A few of us talked about trying to fly every month of the year here in New England, which is not an easy task given our climate. It's not going to happen (for me, at least) because it's the last day of January, and with the temperature a whopping 24 F here at my house, it's tough to talk anybody into going. It sounded like ARt might try to fly at Morningside today (which would require carrying the glider up the hill, because the road isn't clear enough for the ATVs), and if so, he might be the only HG pilot to get any January airtime in these parts, although a few PG guys did manage to fly at Wellfleet a couple of weeks ago despite winds that were light and cross.

Meanwhile, I'm working on things on the equipment front. I have the mysterious missing mylar inserts installed in the sail of my Falcon, as well as the replacement reflex bridle, so that's ready to reassemble. I also received a replacement set of crossbar hinge plates for my Mark IV in the mail from LMFP a couple of days ago, and I can put that back together as well. The yard is all snow (and 24 F), so I don't want to do the work outdoors, but I have a friend who is a fireman here in town, and he says that I can bring my glider to the fire station and use one of the bays. As a backup plan, I got permission from the town manager to use the meeting room in town hall.

I think my house is probably going to turn into a self-storage unit for a friend of mine pretty soon, and I want to free up some floorspace for that. Since I keep my gliders on the floor of my living room, I designed a rack that will allow me to stack them, and reduce the footprint by a factor of three. Last night I bought the wood and screws, and if I have enough time, I'll build it some night this week, and I'll post pictures.

I've also got an RC glider kit that I've been meaning to build as a winter project for a couple of years now, but I still haven't started it. We'll see if there's any time for that (not too likely).

2009 retrospective

jjcote — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:46:10 GMT

So, another year of flying has slipped by. Let's see how things went:
Flying days: 13
Flights: 21 (13 sledders, 8 soaring)
Airtime: 15:36
Max altitude: 6971 feet
Longest flight (time): 3:02
Longest flight (outlanding distance): 1.87 miles
Longest flight (closed-course distance): 29.14 miles
Gliders flown: 4 (Vision Mark IV 17, Falcon 2 170, Ultrasport 147, Ultrasport 135)
Sites flown: 7 (Ellenville, Mohawk Trail, Wellfleet, Petersburg Pass, Ascutney NW, Morningside, Brace)
New sites flown: 1 (Petersburg Pass)
Days when I showed up but didn't fly due to weather: 3
Reserve deployments: 1

Some of those numbers are down mostly because I haven't flown much since the incident in July. The weather was pretty awful during the usual best part of the year (late spring), and June in particular was very rainy. Things really picked up in August, but that's when I was grounded (largely due to scheduling problems, actually, though there were also factors like needing to get my chute inspected). That did cut into my potential airtime substantially, and delayed my progress toward H4.

In addition to the bad weather in New England, it was not a great year for hang gliding in other places in some regards, with several reported fatalities as well as some serious non-fatal accidents. I'm fortunate to still be in the position where nobody I know has died hang gliding, and I've never witnessed anything beyond a minor downtube-bending incident (other than the one I saw from the inside, of course).

There are a few things that notably did not happen this year. I did not do a 10-mile XC flight from Ascutney to Morningside, although I was in position do to it one day, but had to go land out front because I wouldn't have had enough time to retrieve my car before I needed to hit the road. I never flew with Bob R., with whom I had shared the air many times in the previous few years. I never flew West Rutland (though I did show up for a work day there). And I almost missed flying with my mentor Tom L. or seeing his new T2C, though my last day this year was at Wellfleet with Tom.

But there were also some notable things that I did. First time to cloudbase, which was a lot of fun. I made a lighthouse to lighthouse run at Wellfleet on a day when I showed up at the wrong time because I misread the tide table, for my longest distance ever by a wide margin. I flew in February for the first time, leaving December as the only month I've never flown in. In fact, that February flight at Ellenville was my longest of the year, and my second-longest ever. I used VG for the first time. I also did my first aerobatic maneuvers, some wingovers (the last of which was not successful). And I got a (lucky) photograph picked for the USHPA Hang Gliding calendar.

What do we see ahead for 2010? I'm not interested in setting goals in terms of number of flying days, airtime, or XC flights. For those things, I'll just take what opportunities present themselves. There are several sites that I would like to fly that I'm hoping to get chances for this year. I do have three gliders sitting in my living room, one of which is ready to fly, one of which needs reassembly after a cleaning, and the last of which I'm trying to find parts for. It's a fine goal to have all three of those gliders up and running ASAP so that I'll have my choice on any given day to pick the best one for the conditions.

I'm already scanning the forecasts for potential flying days. Here's hoping for an early, long, and safe flying season in 2010.

Lookin at a Thing in a Bag

jjcote — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:55:27 GMT

Before I bought the Ultrasport 147, I had been talking with Sean about buying his Ultrasport 135. After I wrecked the 147, he sent me an email and said that I needed to get back in the air, and if we could rendezvous at some flying site, he'd bring the wing. After my recent trip to Wellfleet when I packed up on the beach, I got so much sand in the Falcon that I decided to take the sail off to clean it out properly and really rinse it off well.

In the process, I discovered a couple of items that warranted attention, so the Falcon is out of commission until I get the upgrade parts from Wills Wing. The Mark IV is still waiting for me to replace the crossbar hinge (anybody out there got a set of hinge plates in a parts box?). That left me with nothing to fly, and I missed at least one possible day when other people went flying because I didn't have a wing. So on a day when I was up in the area, I gave Sean a call and stopped by his place. He dug the glider out of his barn and let me take it, saying that I was welcome to fly it and see if I liked it well enough to buy it.

Check it out, check it out, check it out, check it out....

The glider bag was all covered with dust and bird droppings, but the contents were clean, and I was relieved to find that mice had not found their way into the bag. I set it up in the yard, and gave it a reasonably thorough scrutinizing. It's not a new glider, it has had at least three owners, and has been rebuilt after some kind of a crash, but I was pleased to see that the sail was actually in quite good shape, only a couple of small holes (that had been repaired), and not all "bagged out". Sean had mentioned that the VG was sticky, that a pulley needed adjustment such that it didn't release as easily as it should. I fiddled with that some, and got it working acceptably, but concluded that it's hard to know how it will behave in flight by examining it on the ground, because it's not subject to the aerodynamic loads, so I'll have to wait until I can try it in the air to know whether I've really fixed it.

Before I could fly it, I also needed to make sure that I could hook my harness to the glider. The first try at that presented a problem:

Seems I'm hanging a bit high here. That's not going to give me very good control authority.

This is more like it, probably even too low. This picture shows me hanging from the backup hang strap. Since the Ultrasport has a kingpost-mounted hang strap, it's not just a simple matter of whipping another strap loop around the keel. Hang straps are available in standard and custom lengths from Wills Wing, but getting one from California would incur a delay and expense that I wanted to avoid if possible. After consulting with Tom, I decided to attach a strap loop to the existing hang strap as a temporary solution, and get a proper hang strap if I decided to keep the glider.

Work and other commitments kept me busy for a bit, but then a weekend in late November rolled around looking like it would provide opportunities for flying on both days, very unusual for this area at this time of year. On Saturday the typical email negotiation took place, with most people deciding to not try the west-facing mountain sites, and to instead wait for Sunday or Monday at the coast. At that point, I committed to doing some other things, so when John B. called an hour or so later and said that he was interested in heading out to the Trail, I couldn't go. Sigh. Well, the Trail probably wasn't the best place to try out an unknown glider anyway. Sunday saw east winds suitable for flying at Wellfleet, and also at Greylock, and quite a few pilots went, but I had relatives in town whom I had not seen in a number of years, so I opted to visit them instead. This was the weekend before Thanksgiving, and was the start of a period of way too much insane driving, six states in about eight days, with multiple trips to some of them. Add to that the fact that I'm on a rush project at work, and it made no sense for me to try and fly on Monday. So, of course, I did it.

In order to be able to both fly and work, I figured that I should launch as soon as possible after dawn, which meant loading up the car the night before, waking up at 4 AM, and hitting the road immediately. That also worked in terms of the tide, as low tide was mid-morning. When I got to White Crest Beach, Matt M. and Pete J. were already there setting up, and a minute or two later, another car rolled in with Randy B. and Tom L. Where Sunday's forecast had been a bit light and somewhat cross from the left, Monday's was perfect in terms of strength, and straight in. The reality, though, was that Sunday was plenty strong enough to soar (and enough that a couple of PGs reportedly got blown back), and Monday morning, it was howling. My wind gauge had it as about 25 mph, and if I had brought a Falcon, I wouldn't have even taken it off the roof of the car. As we set up, Tom noted that the phone wires were whistling, a sign that it was really strong. Fortunately, I had a double-surface wing, and a small one at that, so I wasn't as worried as I might have been otherwise. And with only 60 feet down to the LZ, this was a pretty good place to give the glider a first test. On the plus side, it was unseasonably warm at about 50 F, so we wouldn't sed to worry about freezing fingers.

Matt launched first and started swooping around, shortly followed by Randy. I helped them launch, and Tom and I got Pete into the air as well, at which point Tom started looking around anxiously, hoping that Rodger F. would arrive soon so that we'd have more wire crew. Sure enough, he rolled in a couple of minutes later along with John B. I was almost ready, so I finished packing my harness. Seemed like with the amount of wind, I would probably have enough to think about just flying the glider, so I opted to leave the drinking water and the cameras in my car, but I did hook up my radio headset. My friends helped me maneuver the glider through the turbulence, and I did a full lie-down hang check. Ready to go, and like the other pilots, I opted for a tight-strap launch: get into position, and let the glider rise up off of the shoulders so that the leg loops snug up, move the hands to the control bar, and start flying the glider before moving, then a step or two and a bit of pitch adjustment, and you're airborne. This technique works very well in these conditions. In my case, it wasn't a vertical takeoff, but rather several moonwalking steps forward as I waffled off the hill. I never really got comfortable, and turned a little late as a result, which put me too far forward of the ridge, and out of the strongest lift. One pass back in front of launch, and I beached it after about a minute.

OK, well, fine landing, not too bad for a first flight on the wing. I walked it back to the path, managed to get it up over the five foot drop at the base of the ridge, and carried it partway up the hill. Tom was set up, so I waited and watched him launch over me. I was pleased, as up until this point I had not managed to go flying with Tom all year (or see his new T2C).

Okay, you're weird.
Rodger and John helped me get my wing up the rest of the way, I hooked in again, and gave it a second shot. The launch was similar, but I turned sooner and got into the lift. Strong wind, pull in to make sure I stay out front, and WOW! Urgh... This... glider... has... a... TON... of... pitch... pressure! Man! I would generally expect a higher performance glider to have lighter pitch pressure, but this little wing required more force than anything I had ever flown. Strange. Well, it flew okay, though. Except that the handling wasn't exactly awesome, though it's hard to evaluate that when the bar is pulled in so far in order to penetrate against the gale. I thought about the VG -- I remembered from when I had the glider set up in my yard that the cam VG really visually changes the shape of the wing, and in particular that the VG includes pulleys inside the kingpost that lower the reflex bridles. So I figured it was worth a shot, and I pulled on a couple of feet of VG cord, which wasn't easy, because I could barely let go of the bar. Did it help? Maybe. A little. Oof. I managed to get a hand free for another couple of moments in order to zip the harness up partway so that I could unlock my knees, and settled in.

I went north as far as Newcomb Hollow. Getting acoss the little pond gap went okay, but I didn't want to try a big gap since I felt very speed limited. Instead, I turned around and headed south. One of the other pilots waved shortly after I passed launch, and then I was on my own all the way to Nauset Light. Having experienced the north side, I now realize that there is nothing on the south side that qualifes as a gap, and it's easy flying down there. As I flew along, I kept thinking about why the pitch pressure was so high, and the answer dawned on me. Normally, I like to have the backup hang strap in front of the primary, but on this glider, I had left it where it was, behind the primary, looped around the keel just behind the kingpost track. The problem wwas that the backup needs to be considerably longer than the primary, and because I had lengthened the primary, this one wasn't. As a result, when I pulled in, the backup snugged up and took all of my weight, so that I was in effect flying a glider that was trimmed waaaaaay too slow. Doh! That also explained why the turn handling was rather less than impressive. I considered my options:
1) Cut the backup with my hook knife while flying.
-- Uhhhh, no.
2) Top land, remedy the strap problem, and launch again.
-- Since I don't know how to top land, and was not about to try and learn in these circumstances, that was right out.
3) Land on the beach, carry the glider back up, straighten things out and try again.
-- Maybe, but I was getting pretty tired, and needed to head in to work anyway.
4) Land on the beach, pack up, and leave.
-- Now there's a plan.

Of course, I needed to fly back to launch first, and by the time I got there, I had been in the air for over an hour, so I didn't feel like I had been shortchanged. Matt had just landed, and it was of course a bit difficult to get out of the lift and make it down to the beach. Rodger came down and helped me carry my glider up so that I could break down in the parking lot, which allowed me to keep the glider relatively sand-free. John had just launched, and Allen S. had arrived, so we wired Rodger off. Then when Allen was ready to go, Matt and I had just finished packing up, so we gave him a hand. The timing worked out nicely, with everyone having wire crew available.

Some of the pilots flew for as long as five hours. Rain started while I was on my way to work, and I got there by about 1 PM. First day with this glider, and despite the trim problems I managed to get a flight that was my second-longest ever in terms of how far I got from launch. Not too bad, though it will take some more flying (particularly in inland conditions) before I decide whether it's a keeper.

Crosswinds

jjcote — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:27:43 GMT

Wednesday looked like good conditions at Wellfleet -- except for the rain. Thursday was going to be dry, but the wind would start out cross and maybe a bit strong. Fortunately, the tide would be low mid-day, and we could wait for it to get good. Several people were interested, but nobody who I could easily carpool with, so I headed out by myself. Matt M called when I was on the road and said it was blowing straight in at 17-22 mph. Awesome. When I got there, further observation had indicated that it was crossing from the north some of the time, but the waves were coming straight in, and they were pretty big (note the tiny person down by the water in this picture for comparison).

Keith B was already in the air, but Matt had been taking his time setting up in order to be sure there was enough room on the beach to land comfortably. I started putting my glider together right away, and around the time I was done, Matt was ready to go, so a couple of PG pilots (who were hanging around waiting for the wind to abate) helped me wire him off. The two of them were doing fine, so I finished getting preparing, and Nick C and Rodger F showed up just as I was ready to go. I hadn't done this in a while, but it was a straightforward launch. I let the strap go tight and moved to the control bar before moving, then took a single step and just hovered there for a moment, before pulling in and moving very slowly forward.

The wind was maybe as much as 45 degrees cross, and I was heading into it and making very little forward progress. Since I had the Falcon, flying faster wasn't too productive (when you pull it on a Falcon, it doesn't really move faster forward, it just sinks faster). I mulled over the option of just landing right away in order to avoid getting myself into trouble, but there wasn't any risk of getting pushed back over the ridge, it was just a matter of not being able to penetrate northward. I pushed on, got a feel for where the lift band was, and stuck with it, going as far upwind as the little pond, then ran downwind (fast!) to Marconi Station. Turning northward again, it was very tough going, and I thought I was about to sink out a couple of times. A couple of PGs were flying, but they were launching from the beach and staying low, flying just a few feet above the sand.

Nick and Rodger joined us in the air, and I did a few more laps of the central part of the ridge, once making the jump at the pond and turning back at Newcomb Hollow. When everybody headed north (maybe trying for the lighthouse?), I joined them for a while, but stopped to wave to a pedestrian on the beach who spread her arms and walked in joyful circles, emulating the fliers above. After that, I tried jumping the pond again, but I didn't start with enough altitude, and when I got to the far side of the gap, I was a hair too low to grab the lift, and sank out to the beach after almost 90 minutes in the air.

I tried relaunching a couple of times, backing the glider up to the low ridge in front of the pond, and hoping I could get just enough lift to bootstrap myself to the bigger ridge, but I wasn't able to exercise enough skill to pull off that trick. Instead, I resigned myself to the situation, packed up the glider, and carried everything back about 1500 yards down the beach to Cahoon Hollow, where I left the gear in the restaurant parking lot and jogged back to get my car. The others landed not too long afterward, mostly back near launch, except for Matt, who sank out up at Ballston Beach and hitched a ride back.

The wind had backed off enough by then that the PGs were soaring above the ridge (except for the inexperienced ones on the beach who appeared to be wrestling with their gliders under supervision). Just before I left, I met Alan S, who was coming back after a three-year break. We hucked him off and helped him back up the bluff a couple of times -- he said that he just wanted to do some sledders to get the feel of things, and because the wind was lighter by then, that's what he got.

Well, I'm back.

The greater part of valor

jjcote — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:14:39 GMT

Friday had been looking like a day when flying was a possibility. Email bounced around, and in the end almost everybody seemed to have talked each other out of trying. ARt wound up heading for Greylock, where he got in a short flight, and Randy decided to make the drive out to Wellfleet, where he joined a bunch of pilots who were spending a week on the Cape, and it looks like if I had gone along, I could have gotten as much airtime as I could handle. Ah well, sometimes (often?) the weather guess doesn't match reality, and you don't know unless you go.

Sunday looked like another chance, maybe, but each of the NW-facing sites in the area seemed to have a problem (forecast too strong, or too gusty, or there were access issues, or the direction wasn't quite right, etc.). Again, most everybody decided to skip it, but Randy was interested in giving Skinner a try, as was I. The problem with Skinner was that the recorded information on the state park answering machine indicated that we were into the time of year when the road to the summit is open only on weekdays. We decided to risk it, I met Randy and Rebecca en route, we consolidated into his car, and we headed for the Pioneer Valley.

When we arrived, the gate was indeed locked, and leaf-peepers were parked at the base and hiking to the top. I called the park phone number again and got a live ranger. I explained our situation, and he said that he'd come down in ten minutes and let us through the gate. During that time, we encountered a few PG pilots who were also interested in going up. When the ranger arrived, he said that he had consulted with the higher-ups and found out that he couldn't in fact let us in. A major part of the issue seemed to be that there were already a bunch of people up top who were angry that they had had to hike up to look at the foliage instead of being able to drive, and if he made an exception for us, he'd have a riot on his hands. We said that we understood, and thanked him for his time and effort. We also talked about the possibility of the PG pilots hiking up, and very briefly considered sharing the load to carry a HG all the way up the road, but that was judged to be too much work.

Ross and Stacy were on the road, and after consulting with them by phone, we all decided to check out a little known site a bit north of there, which I'll call Bambi Meadow. Things looked reasonable when we got there, so we scoped out a couple of LZ possibilities, and headed up the mountain. Once up top, we had a little work to do in terms of beating down some scrub oak that was in the way of the ratty launch, and during that time, we were able to assess the wind. Which was blowing like stink.

Once in a while it would abate a bit, but then it would pick up again, and I decided pretty easily that with my single surface glider, the strength and gust factor looked like more than I really wanted to deal with. The other three set up (two Sport 2s and a U2), and we chatted with a number of passing wuffos, some of whom were very interested in what we were up to. There were numerous soaring birds playing on the ridge, so we knew there was lift.

It was judged that the wind had come down to a reasonable level, so Randy suited up and launched first. We had a couple of the wuffos (Tom and Judy) watch what we were doing so that they could help with the last glider. Randy got up above launch pretty easily, but it looked like he was being kicked around a fair bit, and was not pointing anywhere near parallel to the ridge. Stacy went next, and she had the same success as Randy, not straying too far from launch, and keeping cautiously out in front. Finally Ross brought his glider around, and with the help of Tom and Judy, we got him out to launch and he joined the other two in the air.

Rebecca and I stayed up top for a few minutes chatting with the wuffos, then drove the two vehicles down to the expected LZ. We had a bit of time to park and walk out to the field before the gliders came down, and I was able to catch all three fine landings on video. Randy was the first up and the last one down, for about 70 minutes in the air, I believe.

The shadows were getting very long as they broke the gliders down. Ross felt that my Falcon would have been okay up there in terms of penetration, while Randy thought that, at least during the early part of his flight, it would not have been much fun, and that I made the right decision. I was quite content with the way things turned out -- a nice day to be outdoors, to meet a couple of pilots I hadn't met before, to watch people fly, and there were no bad decisions leading to flying trouble on my part. There will be many more opportunities to get airtime in the future.

Driving ATVs

jjcote — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:16:03 GMT

So, I think I've mentioned this girlfriend that I have. When I was stuck in the tree, I managed to get part of a message out to her with my cell phone, but then she was left worrying for a couple of hours until I got down. She has never liked the idea of my hang gliding, going way back, though she has come along several times and taken pictures, and usually seemed to enjoy the experience. The vibe that I got from the beginning was not that she was worried about something happening to me, but that I was going off doing something that did not involve her. I got the sense that she would have felt the same if I had become a Mason, or if I got seriously into R/C flying, or if I took up billiards, or whatever. Even the activity that brought us together (orienteering) has been met with objection when there have been times when I wanted to go off to a meet but it didn't fit her schedule. Once I blew up my glider, of course, that gave her ammunition, and the focus shifted more to the risks and danger.

After the wingover incident, I noticed that she had told her sister that I would probably be taking a break from flying for a couple of months. That was interesting, because it gave me insight into how long she expected that I would be away from it, but when we discussed it, she indicated that she would really rather that I stop flying altogether. She likened hang gliding to drunk driving, since they are the two things that have resulted in her getting a phone call and then having to wait to find out whether a loved one was in peril (her ex drove his car into a ditch coming home from a party once).

By now it has been almost three months since my last flight. A couple of weeks ago, there was a great opportunity to go flying. It was a day when I had no commitments, and the forecast was good for Mt. Utsayantha in New York. I mentioned to her that I was thinking of going, and she called me back soon afterwards and said that she had a problem with that, and was clearly agitated. I said okay, that I wouldn't go. I didn't, and it sounds like it was a great day. I'm glad that those who did go got some good airtime.

Today... the forecast looked good for a couple of sites around here. Real good. Nobody was available to fly, though. I had said back in July that I was hoping to do some XC retrieve driving later in the summer, but that didn't work out. However, it came to my attention mid-morning that one of the sites that the forecast was good for was Morningside. I headed up and arrived early afternoon.

Indeed, it was blowing pretty much straight in, though rather light, and therefore a great day for lessons. There's more than one way to drive for people, and if nobody needs an XC retrieve, there's also the Morningside hill with its ATVs and glider trailers. It was a nice day to be outside in New England, with the maple leaves changing colors, and I was able to drive a number of student pilots (both HG and PG) up to the various launches. It seems that people know who I am now -- throwing a chute is one way to gain some notoriety, I guess. Among the people I drove for was a very tall guy who I realized was $!><, who I had encountered on line. Not enough wind for anybody to really soar, but a pleasant enough day.

I talked with the abovementioned girlfriend mid-day by cell phone, but didn't discuss where I was, and I also exchanged text messages with one of her kids regarding whether she needed a ride that evening (finally turned out that she didn't). As I was leaving Morningside, I talked with my girlfriend again, and she asked what I had been doing. I paused, then told her "Driving ATVs". She knew what that meant, since there's only one place I've ever driven an ATV in my life. She got very quiet, and said that she wanted to talk to me about it later.

Another phone call while I was driving home revealed that she was very upset. Very very upset. Crying upset. At wit's end upset. What's wrong with my driving people up the hill?, I asked. It showed that I was still thinking about hang gliders, she replied. There was also some malarkey about how she had wanted me to help her out with some things today, but that makes no sense because she never mentioned it before that moment, despite ample opportunity. If she had, I would have gone and helped her out instead.

So, it appears that I have managed to type out a rant in my blog. We appear to have an unresolvable problem here. If I stop flying, I'm going to resent her every time I so much as see a nice cloud, and I'll wind up hating her. If I keep flying, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth whenever I do, and it will make the experience unpleasant, and I'll wind up hating her. This is not good.

There was something else, but I can't think of what it is right now...

Inverted and Broken, Part 3: Dead wood and floss

jjcote — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:05:32 GMT

It was a long way to the ground.

I heard people on the ground coming toward me, and assumed that one of them would be Jeff. I called out as loudly as I could that I was in a tree, and that I was okay; he called back acknowledging that he heard me. The first people to arrive were some neighbors, and I told them that I was okay as well. Normally I carry my cell phone in my top harness pocket, but since I cracked the LCD on my previous phone a couple of months ago, I had taken to carrying the new one in a side pocket, where I could wrap it in my fleece helmet bag for added protection. I fished it out and turned it on, and the first thing I did was to call Jake. He lives nearby, he's the site director, and he has many years of experience, including multiple tree extractions. I managed to leave a message on his answering machine that wasn't entirely coherent, but that was apparently good enough for him to figure out where I was. Although I was 50 feet off the ground, I wasn't getting a great cell phone signal, so I asked the neighbors to call Morningside, since I knew that there were also people at the flight park with experience in handling this sort of thing. I was having trouble manipulating the phone buttons with my gloves on, but kind of wanted to have them in case things got rough. I finally gave up on them and dropped them, along with the helmet bag, to the ground. I got the phone number for Morningside from my contacts list and told it to the people on the ground.

Normally, the first thing that I do after I land and get the glider stable is to call Nancy and tell her that I'm safely on the ground. Since it was already 7:30, I knew she'd be getting concerned, so I decided to call and tell her where I was. The call went through, but it was not easy to use the phone, since I had decided that leaving my helmet on was probably a good move. When she answered, I said "It's me -- I'm in an emergency situation, I'm waiting to be rescued, I'm not hurt, I'm not hurt, I'm not hurt...", but she heard only the first two phrases before the call went all crunchy. She tried calling me back a few times over the next couple of hours, but I wasn't in a position to answer the phone. When she answered that first call, she was just starting to have dinner with her three kids, and those were anxious hours for them. Rachel, the oldest, pointed out that I was in a position where I was able to call, so it couldn't be too bad. To ease the tension, they all came up with possible scenarios, some of which weren't too far off: that I was stuck in a tree, that I was in a lake, that the glider had flipped and I was helpless like a turtle waiting for someone to flip me back over, or my favorite, from Stephen, that I was surrounded by wolves.

I decided to unzip the harness, thinking that it would make me more comfortable, and I'm undecided as to whether that was a good idea or not. Jake arrived pretty quickly, and after him John A., as well as the local fire department. Jake had brought what he had handy, that being about 50 feet of climbing rope and a heavy duty extension cord. People on the ground were talking about how to proceed, and I was trying to interject:
"We'll need to get a rope up there."
-- "I have dental floss."
"We're going to need a really big extension ladder."
-- "I have dental floss,"
"It's going to be really hard to get a rope up to him."
-- "I have dental floss!"
I think some of my rescuers were thinking, "Dental floss? Sounds more like he has a head injury!", but as I was talking, I had pulled the floss out of my front harness pocket and was tying one end to the limb in front of me. I looked at the package, and was relieved to see that it was a 55-yard roll, not just some little sample from the dentist's office. I unrolled it, and let a loop drape all the way to the ground, where Jake understood exactly what I was doing. I tied off the other end to the branch while Jake tied one end of his rope to the floss. Using the doubled strand, I pulled the rope up and wrapped it a couple of times around my ankle, leaving enough to work with.

The first order of business was to secure myself in case the glider came loose from the tree. Though I had been focused on the limb in front of me, the ground crew was emphasizing the tree behind me. The configuration was that the glider was upside down, rather nose-high, with the outboard leading edges broken, supported mostly by branches of a dead tree that were wedged into the corners of the control frame. The parachute bridle extended upward another 20-30 feet to where the chute was draped in the tree canopy. I was next to the rear part of the keel, having slid off the rear of the sail, and was facing the nose. I turned around to see that the dead tree was quite a bit closer than the live tree in front of me (I was 10-15 feet out on a healthy limb on that one), but the dead wood wasn't encouraging. My rescuers had no faith in using the live limb since it was so far from the trunk, so I went for the dead wood.

I coiled up the end of the rope and threw it over a crotch in the tree, and got it on the second try. Jake had tied a loop in the end of rope, but it was 3-4 feet out of my reach. I came up with a clever idea, though. Since I was by the trailing edge, I removed one of the longest battens and used it as a hook to snag the loop and pull it toward myself. I looped the rope around my chest and tied a bowline. Jake had tied the extension cord to the end of the rope, using a dubious-looking knot, but at least we had something. If the glider suddenly came loose from the tree, then provided the dead tree held, they'd be able to arrest my fall and lower me to the ground. As an added precaution against the possibility of my slipping out of the chest loop, I tied the end of the rope to my carabiner with a secure knot. That turned out to be a serious mistake, the second-biggest mistake of the day, and probably cost us an hour.

While the ground crew was getting a better rope and a ladder, I tugged on the parachute bridle to see how badly my reserve was snagged. I was able to pull in quite a bit of the bridle before it stopped. Jake asked if I could use the bridle as an additional way to secure myself, and I thought that was a fine idea. I had often wondered how much resistance nylon webbing puts up when you try to cut it with a hook knife, and now I know: as I suspected, it's like cutting a single sheet of newspaper with very sharp scissors, you barely know anything is there. I tied the loose end of the webbing to a different branch on the dead tree.

Once the extension cord had been replaced with real rope, I said that I was ready to detach myself from the glider so that I could climb down the tree. I did not want to open the carabiner, since some of my security was connected to it, and it seemed much simpler to just cut the hang straps. I wrapped my legs and one arm around the closest big limb, reached back with the knife, and cut first one hang strap, then the other.

F^(&!

When I had tied the loose end of the rope to my 'biner, I hadn't been paying close enough attention, and it didn't follow my harness mains the whole way. Instead, it went the wrong way around one of the wires just before the knot. I wasn't connected to the glider by the hang straps any more, but I was still tied to it with the climbing rope. It may have been around this time that the first seismic event occurred, some branch breaking so that the glider shifted and I was left dangling in my harness. I don't think I had moved more than about a foot, but the rope around the wire was now under more tension. I tried untying the knot one-handed, but I had tied it well and that didn't have much hope. My hook knife was now out of reach, since I lost my grip on it when I cut the second hang strap, and it was still dangling there, snagged on a loose thread (and it has too narrow an opening for climbing rope anyway).

I explained my predicament, and Jake offered some suggestions, but I said I was getting tired and need to rest a bit. At least three people had come over from Morningside with more equipment, and they decided to send Louis up to assist. He used the ladder to get to the first branch of the dead tree, then climbed up to where I was, keeping himself tied in to the tree as he moved up. He had brought a line up with him, and used that to haul up an additional rope over a better branch for good measure when it came time to lower me.

At some point in here I had gotten my feet onto a branch below me, and I think maybe Louis had stepped on it as well, and it provided the second seismic event. Though the heartwood of the tree was sound, some branches were not, and this one felt a little spongy. While Louis was up there, it let go, and I don't know whether it narrowly missed people on the ground. Someone had asked whether I could cut the wire with cable cutters, but that seemed beyond my
strength. Louie and I discussed cutting the rope, and someone tried sending up a pocketknife from the ground. Around that time I remembered that I had a jackknife in my side harness pocket, and got it out. It was unfortunately not very sharp, and neither Louis nor I had any luck in trying to cut the tough rope.

Finally, we came up with a plan. I grabbed a limb above my head, and hauled myself up above the glider. Louis was able to pull on the keel enough to reduce the tension in the rope, allowing me to open the carabiner and remove the rope. That finally freed me from the wreckage. Opening the carabiner a second time, I unhooked the reserve bridle, so that only the two ropes were connected to me (both tied around my chest). Louis helped them slide over the limbs as the belayers gave me slack, and I was able to climb down. I had one final misstep just above the ladder, as I put my foot on a rotten stub that crumbled under my weight and left me suspended from the chest loops at the level of the top rung. Down the ladder, and I was safely on the ground. It was now about 9:30 PM.

I wanted to stay and make sure that Louis got down safely, but I was assured that he had things well under control and was taken from the scene by John and Jeff. The phone rang again as soon as I got to the car, and after hunting around in my harness for the phone I talked to Nancy and gave her a quick synopsis of the evening's events, assuring her that I was unharmed save for some scratches and bruises that I got from wrapping my arms and legs around the tree limbs.

In typical irony, I also banged my head on the roof rack as I walked around behind my car in the dark. Jeff took the wheel; he lives just a few miles from Nancy's house, and a little after midnight I was there.
________________________

I eventually got the glider back -- thanks go out to the people who went out there at dawn the next day to remove it so that there wouldn't be wreckage visible, causing ongoing calls to 911. I've posted some pictures of what's left with a little bit of unsurprising analysis of what happened. There were repercussions from this that I won't go into here, most of which people were able to clear up before too long. I got out of this easy -- some minor scrapes and bruises and a trashed glider. Looking forward, it's not clear where things will lead. I do expect to continue flying, but I'll be taking a break. During that time, I intend to keep from disappearing by means of doing some XC driving as opportunities arise. I've heard that people at my level somtimes have an incident that scares tham, and they drop out of hang gliding. I didn't get scared. That is to say, the flying went fine, and it was one isolated decision that went wrong. There's nothing about flying (without trying a move like that wingover, of course) that I'm apprehensive about. If I felt like other things were in place, I could take my Falcon out to Morningside tomorrow and fly, but the time isn't right yet, and I think won't be for a while. It's also interesting that I don't remember being scared while it was happening. I had a short stretch of fear while I was in the tree and thought I might be doing that last 50 feet unexpectedly, but I wasn't scared during the time between the wang and hitting the trees. I was unhappy, but the sentiment was more like "Aw rats, this really sucks, am I really screwing up this badly?". Tom has said you never know which people are going to be able to stay cool under pressure and take appropriate measures, and which ones will be like deer in the headlights. I'm glad to know that, at least on this one occasion, I was able to be in the first group.

Inverted and Broken, Part 2: All hell breaks loose

jjcote — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:32:47 GMT

A couple of weeks earlier, Tom had come to my house to help me repack my reserve. At his suggestion, I rigged some webbing in my garage to hang my harness from, and stretched a big tarp out to keep things clean. We strung an old control bar from a rope to simulate the control frame so that I could do a practice reserve throw. I got into the harness with my helmet on, and Tom grabbed me by the ankles and started bumping me around to simulate turbulence. When the bumping got sufficiently violent, he said, "Okay, it's no longer a glider!", which was my signal. I grabbed the chute handle, threw it, and managed to get it out in the direction that I intended. We did it a second time so that I could try it with my left hand. Tom said that I did pretty well, he put me in the top 25% among people trying their first practice throw, and said that a lot of people don't even manage to get the chute out of the container, or any number of other problems. I was glad that I did well, though I figured the chances that I'd ever need the chute were very slim. I had often said that I considered my reserve chute to be the most expensive thing I had ever bought that I had no intention of ever using.

The rest of this installment describes what happened during a period of about 60 seconds.

1600 feet or so directly above the LZ, and Jeff was already on the ground. The simplest thing would have been to just fly around and slowly burn off altitude, but it wasn't the most interesting option. At times like this in the past, I had done things like stalls, or with my Mark IV, wingovers. And a mild wang or two was what I had in mind. Same technique that I had used before, pull in, pick up a little speed, let the bar out, and swing over to one side when the glider starts to climb. So I pulled in for about a count of three, then let the control bar out.

In general, I had not noticed much about the handling of the Ultrasport that seemed surprising, up to this point. One detail is that I had pulled full VG when I left the mountain, and I don't remember releasing it. When I let the control bar out, I suddenly learned what it means to have a glider that's very responsive in pitch, but stiff in roll. The roll input that I gave it was too little, too late, and I very abruptly found myself fully inverted. The glider had not just climbed, it had done a complete 180 in pitch, half a loop, and from my perspective, I saw the ground above my wing and the sky below me. This was accompanied by a sickening silence as I completely ran out of airspeed. With no more centrifugal or aerodynamic forces at work, the glider stopped flying and I lost my grip on the control bar and fell backwards into the sail.

I'm not sure if I've ever learned what you're supposed to do if you stall a glider inverted. I might have made the mistake of trying to figure it out, trying to grab wires and pull my weight forward if I'd had a chance at that moment, which could have been a very dangerous thing. But something unexpected, unfortunate, and paradoxically fortunate happened just then: the glider broke. Specifically, the one of the outboard leading edges broke. I don't know off the top of my head how many negative gees a glider is purportedly good for, but I wasn't pulling very many at that moment. HG pilots give paraglider pilots a lot of grief about how they fly wings that can fold up in midair, but I can attest that, aluminum tubes or not, it can happen to our craft as well. As an indication of how quickly this happened, Jeff said that he heard the wind noise through my wires as I sped up, and by the time he had a chance to look up, the wing was folded. (Let me note here that although he had a camera with him, Jeff failed to take pictures, and instead concentrated on seeing to it that I was okay. That boy clearly doesn't have the instincts to be a senationalist reporter!)

I say it was fortunate that the airframe failed, and that's because as soon as it did, a voice in my head said, "It's no longer a glider!", and I immediately knew that throwing the chute was an absolute necessity. I did not go through any five step process of "Look, grab, pull...", I just yanked the handle and got the chute the hell out of there. I don't really remember that part very clearly, though I have a vague memory of trying to find a direction where there was clear air, which wasn't so easy because the glider was spinning. I do remember seeing the bridle snaking away and knowing that was a good sign. Jeff said later that it was a strong throw, horizontal, and to the north. There was no sudden jerk when the canopy opened, and in fact I wasn't sure whether it had opened or not until I pulled my head around the wing and saw the big red blossom. I also noted that there was some twist in the bridle, but that's to be expected, the swivel won't turn until a certain amount of twist builds up. There was debris in the air, mostly falling faster than I was. I remember seeing the nosecone and at least one tip batten; the deployment bag, the other tip batten, and the tip fairings were presumably out there as well.

I wasn't happy about what was happening, but I couldn't worry about that yet. At that moment the concern was where I was going to be coming down. I had started the wingover above the LZ, but this is New England, and fields are small. I had drifted back over the trees, and it looked like I might land in Mile-Long, the next field to the west, which we don't land in because it has too much of a slope downward into the normal wind direction. I was still spinning, and I remember grabbing the floppy wingtip to see if I could do something about that. At some point the other outboard leading edge broke as well, but I'm not certain of whether that happened while the glider was still falling (I think it did). I remembered that there was some wisdom that said you should try to climb into the control frame, but I couldn't find the control frame. The glider was hanging inverted from the reserve bridle, and I had slid off the trailing edge and was suspended beneath the glider, down by the reflex bridles.

My speed had dropped considerably. The fastest rate of descent recorded by my GPS was 2500 fpm down, and the parachute had slowed me over the course of 20 seconds to about 1000 fpm down. I spent about another 30 seconds under it, wondering what would happen next. Since I wasn't alert enough to take any pictures during this particularly hectic minute, we'll have to settle for some computer generated images.

First, a graph of my altitude, extracted from my GPS. Points are three seconds apart:

Next, perhaps more interesting, the first derivative of the graph above, that is, my rate of descent. Due to the granularity of the GPS, these graphs don't really show the climb when the glider ent inverted, though it does appear as a brief lessening of my downward speed. After that, I was seriously accelerating toward the ground until the chute opened, and it took a while to get back to steady state. When I hit the trees, it looks like it still took about 12 seconds until I completely stopped moving:

And finally, a view of my trajectory as seen in Google Earth, as viewed from the north:

What happened was not a landing in the intended LZ, nor in Mile-Long. Instead, I came down in the strip of forest between the two, maybe only 50 feet or so from the edge of Mile-Long. I wasn't on the ground yet, not by a long shot. Aside from the actual tossing of the chute, the other thing that I don't remember clearly is coming down through the tree canopy. When everything stopped moving, I took a quick look around, saw a branch in front of me, and grabbed it. It was about 3 inches in diameter, maple, and I was holding on at least 10 feet from the trunk, but it was something. I looked down, and saw that I was about 50 feet up. I had stopped falling, but I had a long way yet to go, including the most dangerous part. After all, it it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop when you hit the ground.

To be continued...

Inverted and Broken, Part 1: A long-awaited day of soaring

jjcote — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:02:49 GMT

One of the things that my girlfriend dislikes the most about hang gliding is the constant indecision associated with flying. Weather is fickle, and pilots often have difficulty deciding where (or whether) to go. After a month without a decent soaring flight, I was eager to get into the air on what looked like it would finally be a good day, and Jeff was as well. He hadn't had a satisfyingly long flight in the US all year, nothing since his winter trip to Valle de Bravo. But the forecasts were uncertain. It looked okay for Skinner, but neither of us had flown there and we wanted a good site intro (it turned out some people went, but we didn't learn that until too late). The Trail looked okay, but since we're not H4s yet, we would have needed an observer to fly there, and the likely candidates either had commitments or didn't like the forecast well enough to fly. We weren't up for hiking Brace two weeks in a row, and Ellenville or the sites near Glens Falls were further than we wanted to drive.

The obvious place to fly was Ascutney, because the forecast was ideal for there: moderate NW wind and pretty good lift. Unfortunately, there was an issue for that site. On several weekends every year, the road is used for races (auto, bicycle, or running), and the park essentially gets rented out for the day to the organizing group. In this case it was the running race, which I had considered entering up through Sunday morning. There had been a notice on the club mailing list a couple of months earlier saying that the mountain was closed that day, but I knew the race schedule and it seemed like they would be done long before our normal flying time in the afternoon, once the thermals started cooking. A couple of us made inquiries on the club discussion board, and there were some phone calls, but the answers were vague, of the form, "The mountain is definitely closed for the day, we can't fly there, except maybe in the afternoon". Since nobody generally ever launches before 2 PM anyway, this was perplexing. So we did the next best thing and headed for Morningside, 10 miles away.

The wind looked pretty good at Morningside, and the parking lot was as full as I've ever seen it on a normal day (although this wasn't quite a normal day, because the previous day there had been a memorial service there for a local pilot who had recently died in a sailplane accident). There were lots of gliders set up, some waiting fr tows, and others on the hill. Given the size of the crowd, I wasn't sure if I wanted to set up, because I expected long lines on launch that would keep me from getting many flights in. Still, many of my friends and acquaintances were there, and I figured I could have a good time socializing and driving the ATV up the hill to bring gliders to launch, even if I decided not to fly. Jeff and I were still waiting to get final word from the club officials about Ascutney, so we decided to hang out for awhile, eat lunch, and maybe set up later.

It didn't look like anyone was having spectacular success on the hill, just sled rides, though one friend who I hadn't seen since he had a mishap last year did finally manage to stretch a flight out to 12 minutes, and a couple of the towed pilots hooked into some clouds and headed for the sky. The cumies were okay over Morningside, but they looked great over Ascutney

After trying once more to get info about the mountain, I gave up and unloaded the Ultrasport to see if I could do some launch/landing practice. Around then I got into a discussion with Big Daddy, who wondered why we hadn't gone to Ascutney. We mentioned the race, and he figured that should be long over and called the park to verify. He got word that the road was now open around the same time that Stevie wandered through the office and said, "Yeah, we got clearance from the park earlier, it's been open since noon, you should have asked me". Great! We tossed the glider back on the car, shanghaied Jimmy N. to come along and drive the car back down for us, and headed for the mountain.

When we got to the entrance, we looked at the sign-in sheet and saw that three other pilots had gotten there an hour earlier, so we wouldn't be alone. In fact, when we got to the parking lot up top, two of them flew over, so we also knew that it was launchable and there was lift. We said thanks to Jimmy and made the first trip out, with the harnesses and Jeff's Falcon, then came back for a second trip with my glider. We wasted no time, since the day was slipping away (we had signed in at the base at about 3:15).

The other concern about flying on race day was wire crew. Earlier in the day, the wind had been strong, and with the park closed, the concern was that there would be no hikers to help the last pilot launch. As it turned out, the wind was mellow enough that I wasn't even sure if it would be soarable, and we encountered numerous hikers on our way out. Several of them were interested in the gliders and waited around to watch us set up.

Jeff was able to set his Falcon up faster, so I happily waved him on to launch first. He had broken a wire in his headset a week earlier, so he wouldn't be flying with a radio, and I didn't bother to hook mine up either since there would be nobody to talk to. The hikers took pictures as Jeff launched, and watched what I did to assist him so that one of them could do the same for me. I was pleased to see that Jeff was able to come back over launch after a couple of passes, and looked like he was heading up and over so I climbed into my harness and prepared to join him.

The wind was straight in, not gusting at all, and at a moderate speed, which was perfect for my first wuffo-assisted launch. I did a hang check on the ground behind the platform, and discovered a twist in my hang strap that I straightened out before moving up onto the deck. Once everything was set, I moved into position with one handler on my left wire, and waited only 10-15 seconds before clearing him and running down the rock. Just as Jeff had, I was able to find lift, come back higher than launch, and wave to my wire crew before they headed back to their cars. Although the clouds had overdeveloped and looked like a useless bank of gray, the wind was steady enough to provide ridge lift. It was now 5 PM.

There was a flock of vultures nearby when I launched, and I figured I could look to them to find some lift, but that turned out to be unnecessary. They flew off anyway, but I found a decent climb over the ski area, and was soon even with the summit. The lift was never strong, typically 100 fpm, sometimes 200, but it was steady and reliable. I spent a lot of time in the vicinity of launch, and some further back, near the north end of the summit ridge. It was almost like wonder wind conditions, and at times it was possible to just point the glider directly away from the mountain and slow to min sink, just hanging there, making almost no forward progress, but barely climbing at 10-20 fpm.

This was a day for racking up airtime, and in some ways it was almost boring flying. Staying up didn't require paying very close attention -- if you lost a few hundred feet, it was easy enough to get it back. Early on I briefly managed to get as high as 4000 feet, but most of the time I was around 3500. It would have been great to fly over to Morningside (I think one of the the other three pilots had headed out that way), but 5000 feet is required to go over the back without getting rotored, so we had to stay put. I had forgotten to bring my camera mount, so I had just put the camera in my top harness pocket. That made it more difficult than usual to take pictures, because the camera was on a short leash and I couldn't see the viewfinder very well, but I managed to get a few decent shots of Jeff.

Both of us took advantage of the smooth conditions to explore the handling of our gliders. I flew out front to get plenty of ground clearance and did a couple of straight-ahead stalls, I flew slowly, I pulled on the VG and flew faster, and also tried turning to experience the stiffer handling that that VG would bring. My overall impression was the same as it had been, that the Ultrasport basically flew like a hang glider, and that it wasn't that different from the Mark IV or the Falcon -- you pull in to go faster, move right to turn right, etc. I guess it did fly more like I wanted a hang glider to fly, in that pulling in actually made it go faster forward, unlike the novice gliders that just sink faster. After a couple of hours, the time came to wrap things up. I remember thinking around this time that I had a trip coming up in a couple of days, playing chaperone to my elderly mother on her only vacation abroad, and that it would be really bad timing if I were to screw up my landing and break an arm.

I saw Jeff heading out toward the LZ, and decided to wait over the summit until he landed, then follow him. He had a long straight glide out, then boxed the field, and there was finally enough sunlight that I saw his shadow as he approached the ground. Once he stopped and I saw that he had landed okay, I pulled on full VG and headed in his direction. I wanted to see if I could get to the LZ with a lot of altitude, but may have actually been flying somewhat faster than best glide, because I wanted to experiment with the high speed handling with VG on. As I had seen at Ellenville, it was easy to PIO, though more slowly and less pronounced than on the Mark IV. Slowing down corrected it easily enough. I lost only about 800 feet of altitude on the way to the LZ, and got there with 1600 feet AGL according to my vario (I switched the secondary display from height above launch to height above LZ when I got there). It was now just about 7:30 PM, and I had been flying for just shy of 2 1/2 hours. All that was left to wrap up a pretty sweet day was to slowly circle down and do a clean landing. But since I had plenty of altitude to burn, I thought I'd try something else.

To be continued...

Utter disaster, miraculously unhurt

jjcote — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:58:32 GMT

[ Mood: Distorted ]
I'm not going to have computer access for the next couple of weeks, so I won't be able to write this up properly for a while, but this past Sunday was the worst day of hang gliding I ever hope to experience. The synopsis is that after a couple of hours of smooth soaring, a bad move on my part resulted in my glider breaking up at around 1500 feet AGL, then a reserve ride that ended 50 feet off the ground in a dead tree in the woods. That was followed by a two hour process with ropes and ladders to get me to the ground. Sorry for the incomplete information, but I'll fill in more when I can, and I wanted people to know that I'm unharmed save for scrapes, bruises, and the weird stuff that will be bouncing around in my head for a while. I will be taking an extended break from flying, though I'm hoping to do some XC retrieve driving later this year.

Let me say this, though: dental floss. If you fly where there are any trees, and if you don't already have some in your harness, go out today and get a little box of it (mine was 55 yards) and put it in a pocket that's easy to reach. People talk about it, but I don't know how many actually carry it. Having the dental floss to pull a rope up made a very big difference in the rescue.

A break in the rain

jjcote — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 17:21:11 GMT

Since I last posted, we basically had a solid month of overcast and drizzle, with occasional heavier rain. What a wonderful June! (not.) During that time, I:
a) Got my roof rack pretty well dialed in and did a writeup on it, which you can see here.
b) Found out what color my reserve parachute is (red) by having a knowledgeable friend come over to help me repack it, including some simulated deployment practice in my garage.
c) Finally, after 30 days, took the glider out to a flying site.

I was determined to fly somewhere, somehow, over the Fourth of July weekend. There was a glimmer of hope for Saturday, but it turned out to be completely blown out. Sunday looked like it could be epic, though the winds up north still looked too strong. It came down to a choice between Brace and Ellenville. Jeff C. and I opted for Brace, and Tom L., Rodger F., and Nick C. headed for Ellenville. We encountered them on the Mass Pike, and I realized that we had a good way to measure the relative trip times. The wisdom I had heard was that although Brace is a shorter drive from where I live, the long hike in means that you don't actually get to launch any sooner than if you went to Ellenville, where you can drive up. As it turns out, when we got to the top of Brace Mountain, I called Tom, who was just putting the finishing touches on his glider. So that means that you can actually get to launch at Ellenville faster than at Brace, though when you're done at Brace, you're an hour closer to home.

Nancy came with us to Brace, and she carried my harness from the second stream crossing up to launch, and John G. carried Jeff's harness for that stretch. I took my glider and both harnesses on the cart from the parking to the second stream crossing, Jeff carried his glider that far, and he and I made two trips to get the gliders up the steep part, then each carried one to launch. From the parking lot to the top of the mountain took about 75 minutes (the trail was very wet, and that slowed us down some). I say "his glider", but it was actually mine -- Jeff is waiting for a part for his Falcon, so he borrowed mine for the day while I flew the Ultrasport.

Although the forecast was for W or WNW winds, when we got up there it was just mostly N. The clouds initially looked fantastic, but they dried up before too long. We ate lunch and set up, and watched John G. launch his PG, but he wasn't able to find much lift after the first minute or two. I took advantage of the waiting time to climb some trees and put up more wind streamers.

Eventually another couple of PGs launched, and though they weren't finding much either, I grabbed my glider and moved into position, with Nancy and Jeff on my wires. It was after 4 PM by this point.

I waited maybe five minutes until the wind straightened out enough, and took to the air for the first time in a month. The lift was quite choppy, just little thermal bubbles coming up the ridge that were too small to turn in, and though I was mostly staying higher than launch, I wasn't getting much higher.

Not having too much success on the ridge, I took a chance that maybe I could find something over the valley. I gained a little on my way out, but when I reached the field where I hoped to get something bubbling up, I found nothing, and headed in for a 13 minute total. Jeff got ready around that time, but had to wait quite a while for a good cycle. He did a bit better than I did, hanging on for about half again as long as I did. Sweet landing!

Link

Shortly after that, the rest of the PGs launched, and they pretty much rained down out of the sky in pretty short order. Despite what the forecast had indicated, there wasn't much soaring to be had. Was it the right call, in terms of where to fly? Sure. We got some exercise, had great views hanging out on top of Brace Mountain, and we both had successful (although brief) flights. Ellenville might have resulted in more airtime -- from what I hear, folks who went there had a mixture of success, though Tom, as usual, skyed out and flew for several hours.

The following day had outstanding looking skies, and Nancy and I went to the beach. And today, it's cool, overcast, and threatening to rain again.

(Photos courtesy of CAJU, who doesn't know that I nipped them from his site.)

Up to the highest height

jjcote — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:25:44 GMT

Mary Poppins (the Disney movie), ends with the song "Let's Go Fly a Kite". My friends Rachel, Nicole, and Stephen are in a ballet rendition of Mary Poppins this weekend, with Rachel in the title role, Stephen as Michael, and Nicole as a chimney sweep. I had promised their mother that I could help out with some stage carpentry on Thursday evening. But then the forecast looked good, nay, outstanding for flying on Thursday. I called Nancy and assured her that I could fly, keep everything on the early side even if it meant sledding out, and still be back in time.

I met PK, Jake, Dennis, Greg H, and Jeff B at Ascutney. Oof, I was flying with the big boys today, four Lightspeeds, an ATOS, and me on an Ultrasport. PK and I shared the load (with some help from Ryan) carrying gliders, since he is scheduled for hernia surgery (yikes!). Jake knew that I had time constraints, so he saved me the front spot in order that I could launch first. Everybody appreciates a volunteer wind dummy! As I was finishing setting up, Greg looked out at the sky and said, "You can't ask for more than this!"

Yeah, based on what I've read and heard, those clouds are just about perfect. The wind was very light, and generally straight in, but occasionally cross or even blowing down as thermals came through. I stood on the platform with Jake for a bit, receiving advice, until Dennis piped up with, "It's time to sacrifice the virgin!". I looked at my watch, and agreed that it was time for me to get moving. A nice cycle came through just after I did my hang check, so I didn't have to wait to launch. Then I went down, down, down. I briefly got above launch, then sank until I was more than 700 feet below it. I was doing what I could, working little bumps and hanging on by my fingernails, but it looked like the time was coming to head for the LZ. Jeff and Greg launched behind me and got some lift, then I found a thermal that I could stay with, and over the course of the next 16 minutes I steadily gained 4800 feet of altitude. That put me at right around 7000 feet. You know what was at 7000 feet?

That's right, big gangs of tiny water droplets. My first ever visit to the legendary "cloudbase"! I was as high as some wispy tendrils, but avoided going through any white stuff. It got chilly up there (the mid 40s F, I think), and I was glad I wore a jacket instead of the long-sleeve T-shirt I had been considering. PK climbed up and joined us, and I saw Dennis launch as well.

The traditional first XC in these parts if the Ascutney to Morningside run, about 10 miles. I had a clear view of Morningside, and the rule of thumb is that you need 5000 feet to leave the mountain. I had that with plenty to spare, it was downwind, and I felt pretty certain that there would be more lift available on the way.

But I had a schedule to stick to, and getting a ride from Morningside back to my car would have incurred a delay, so instead I pulled on the VG and experimented to see how much progress I could make upwind. I made it out past the LZ still with a lot of room between myself and the ground, as I watched Jake scratching down low. For a while I thought he was heading for a landing, but around the time that I decided that I needed to make my way to the ground, he found a good climb and spiraled up. The other four had already left for epic flights of up to five hours, traveling between 50 and 80 miles (Greg landed in Maine), and Jake eventually wound up at Morningside. After about an hour in the air, I had a great landing across the street from when I had parked my car, and hit the road early enough to get the dance studio before Nancy did.

I've been thinking about this Mary Poppins character. She flies around using this gizmo made of fabric with metal ribs in it, that folds up for easy storage and transport. Maybe it doesn't look exactly like the hang gliders that we we use, but I'm just sayin'...

The real Ultrasport shakedown run

jjcote — Sun, 31 May 2009 04:24:27 GMT

Anybody want to fly Saturday? Anybody?

You'd think that there would have been some kind of response. Sunday looked like it was pretty clearly going to be blown out, and though a few had headed for Ridgely MD for the ECC comp, and some others might have satisfied their flying Jones the previous weekend, I figured somebody would want to fly. Sure, the forecast didn't look so good when the weekend actually drew near. Okay, so the Vermont sites looked really unlikely, and only the Trail showed a glimmer of hope. But there was still... Ellenville? What's a four-hour drive each way, and probably more than that for most people? Are you going to let that stop you? I guess so, because I heard nothing. And I figured, well, I'm not going to drive all that way by myself again.

But then John B. called and said he was up for a flying adventure, and he'd meet me as soon as he could get his stuff together. The road trip was on!

My gear was all packed up and I already had the rack on the car, so I just needed to grab my bag and throw a glider on the roof. Another Falcon day, sigh. Because I had already decided that I wanted my first soaring flight with the Ultrasport to be at West Rutland. After the three test hops at Morningside, I next wanted a familiar site with a roomy setup area, a comfortable launch, a big flat LZ with windsocks, and where I've had enough soaring time that I know where to go for the house thermals, and... wait a minute, that sounds like Ellenville! I hadn't even considered taking the Ultrasport there first, but it made perfect sense. So I loaded it up and drove out to meet John.

This was also my first trip with the new improved heavy-duty version of my rack, and it rules. With two heavy gliders (the Ultrasport and John's Lightspeed), it was rock solid, and I hardly knew there was anything up there. I found myself driving faster than I intended with no worries, and I expect that three gliders on the roof will likewise be fine. I'll make an entry in the wiki for it as soon as I get a chance to take good pictures of the various components.

The sky looked great on the drive down, so we wasted no time in getting signed up and making our way up to launch. As soon as we pulled in, I got to meet phantomflier. The conversation went approximately like this:
tgalv: Hi, J-J! Want to meet phantomflier?
jjcote: Sure! Hi, phantomflier!
phantomflier: Hi! CLEAR!

A few pilots were launching, but folks were having some trouble staying up. By the time we got our gliders assembled and preflighted, things were looking better, but with all the driving and other details, it was approaching 4 PM. I launched before John, so that he could kibitz my assessment of the wind cycles (which I appreciated). I picked what I thought looked like a good moment and went for it, and my guess turned out well, putting me a couple of hundred feet over by the time I got back from the second knob.

The brief synopsis of my impressions of the handling of the Ultrasport: it flies like a hang glider. Nothing difficult, nothing unusual, it just responded the way I expected. It took little to no getting used to, and I was able to fly around the way I usually do. If you could put me in the air under a hang glider so that I couldn't see it, I'm not sure I could tell the difference, based on handling, between the Falcon, the MarkIV, and the Ultrasport; more on this later.

Conditions were quite good; I was able to get one decent climb before John launched, then after he did, I got the big one of the day, which I was able to drift back with to somewhere around 6000 feet, the second-highest I've ever gone. Around that time, I got a call from John on the radio. I wasn't sure where he was, and the call was too garbled to understand, but I assumed he was telling me that he was going XC. Eventually the sky filled up with wings; I counted a dozen in this picture, plus more on launch, in the LZ, and above me.

One thing that I get, and a couple that I don't, at least not yet:
1) Thermalling. When I find rising air, I don't seem to have a problem with cranking into a tight turn and staying in the good part. This is not to say that I'm doing it anywhere near as well as the old hands, but I don't find it as baffling as some other intermediate pilots say they do. Based on the sound of the vario, it's like I get a picture in my mind of where the "up" is, and just based on feel and sound, I automatically adjust my turning to stay where it's good. At least it seems that way, and it's fun rather than frustrating.
2) Clouds. They tell me there's lift under cumulus clouds, and I won't deny it, but I've never been able to get that to work for me. Go under a cloud and find lift, huh? I'll take your word for it. This is something that I need more experience with. I've certainly never been to cloudbase.
3) VG. This was the first time I ever pulled a VG cord in flight, and I was looking forward to the experience, to find out what "increased glide" and "stiffer handling" were all about. Hmm. Pulled it halfway, didn't feel much of a difference, pulled it all the way, same thing. Still turns okay, still goes down if you aren't in lift. Seemed to want to go into PIO if I wasn't careful when I had it pulled on, but that could just be due to the fact that when I pulled the VG, I also pulled in on the control bar to fly faster, since that's the whole point. It also seemed to not fly so well hands-off with the VG pulled, wanted to wander off in weird directions. So it didn't seem like a dramatic difference.

To be fair, though, I think this glider handled more like I kind of expect a glider to handle, compared with the novice gliders. Instead of just sinking faster when I pull in, I think I was probably covering ground faster, and getting places at a reasonable speed. I also spent some time behind launch at altitudes that I think would have given me some concern with the Falcon, low enough that I wouldn't be certain that I could penetrate forward to safety, but it was no big deal with this wing, just pull in, and presto! out front once more. Improved penetration is the #1 thing that I'm looking for, and I think I have it.

Even a good thing can become tiring after a while, and for me, three hours boating around in the fishbowl got me kind of weary, especially since I still needed to retrieve my car, fetch John from wherever he had gotten to, and make the long drive home. So I wended my way over to the LZ, which I present here for those unfamiliar with Ellenville.

The upper right is Greg Black's operation (Mountain Wings) with its crescent-shaped training hill and small LZ. The top center of the picture (gray dirt) is a cattle farm. The nice grassy field with the design mowed into it is Tony Covelli's LZ (Ellenville Flight Park) with its cone-shaped training hill. And the lower part of the photo is in the infamous Pumpkin Patch, which might look like a reasonable LZ from this altitude, but the vegetation is a lot taller than you would guess!

I carefully boxed the field, watching the windsocks. They were switching from SW to NW, but in truth there wasn't much wind. I landed diagonally, to the west, and flared a little late so I had to run it out for a half-dozen steps, but that's not so bad.

My cell phone had a message from John, who had landed about an hour earlier. At Tom G.'s suggestion, he had flown to New Paltz and landed next to the Gilded Otter, wherehe had happily settled in at the bar with a pint or two to await my arrival, and listen to the fascinating life story of the guy on the next stool. We got a bite to eat there before hitting the road, and I was in bed just after 2 AM. A very successful outing!

First flights on Ultrasport 147

jjcote — Mon, 11 May 2009 22:06:57 GMT

drivedrivedrivegrumblegrumblegrumblesledsledsleddrivedrivedrive

Ascutney season opener

jjcote — Sat, 02 May 2009 22:16:11 GMT

[ Mood: Angelic ]
It came to pass that May arrived, and soon the first weekend.
The questions were posed: where shall we go, and what shall we do?
Some decided to fly at The Trail, and they went forth to do so.
Others suggested going to a barbecue near Boston and eating copious quantities of roast beef, but they were old friends from college, and not pilots, so they were ignored this time.
And others said that we should go to the Mountain, and I was among them.
And one said that he didn't want to fly in the rain, and that we were apparently reading different forecasts than what he could see, and he either went back to bed or mowed the lawn.

We waited at the gate, and the Director arrived in his truck. He was gruff, as is his wont. "This is a stupid day for hang gliding", he said. "It's blowing 30 mph up there, and it's completely overcast. There's no point in even going up the mountain, never mind carrying any gear to launch. Wait right here, I'll be back with my glider in a few minutes."

When he returned, he said that because it's still the off-season, the mountain was available to sky gods only. Knowing that I'm no sky god, I offered to just help out if appropriate. We loaded gliders onto racks, and drove up. As soon as we opened the doors and stepped into the howling tempest, we all said "Urgh". This was a day that put fear in the hearts of the sky gods. It was strong, and very cross from the left. Clearly not a day for a lowly H3 armed with only a Falcon. Since we were already at the top, I offered to sally out to launch and at least see if the trail was clear. I hastened on this errand, and returned with the surprising news that it was blowing straight in, though gusty.

Thence ensued the ritual trudge, carrying the gear to the Rock. For it was the popular opinion that to the West, we could see the Back of the Front, and joyous skies would be arriving soon. So we set up.

Indeed, over the fabled O-Ke-Mo, there was unmistakable blue, studded with tufts of white. And anon the blue arrived, and the gale abated. And the Director, fittingly, was the first to launch in the New Year.

The others followed. I was in the middle, for the conditions had mellowed to Falcon-friendly levels, and the Director had relented. But not camera-friendly levels, for the springtime air kept me too busy, and my camera remained sheathed. So I did not get pictures of the others flying, or the vultures below, or the high-performance sailplane that circled with us. And after a while, several of the band went over the back to Morningside, and one flew to the Forbidden Field, and two of us landed out front, in my case well under a furlong from where I had cleverly stashed my car. For I landed in "Kansas", which is not actually Kansas, but merely a field that is said to be virtually the size of the Sunflower State. Although, as this freakishly artificial looking (but genuine!) photograph makes clear, not nearly as flat.

And the following day, others, including the one who had feared the rain, flew successfully at West Rutland. And it was all good.

Not according to the original plan...

jjcote — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 04:22:42 GMT

[ Mood: Fed Up WIth Life ]
There aren't many choices available for the "mood" thing in this blog software, and most of them seem more suited to disaffected teenagers than pilots, which is why I rarely use them. "Fed Up With Life" isn't exactly right for this entry, but once I saw that it came with the headbanger icon, I decided to go with it anyway. In part because I like that little animation. And anybody who knows me from another side of my life who is familiar with my CMC exercise regimen will know what I mean. But as far as flying goes...

There are days when wrong decisions get made. Wrong in the sense that a different choice would have resulted in a better outcome. This was one of those days. A bunch of the decisions had nothing to do with hang gliding, some did, and the end result was that I flew a new-to-me site (Petersburg Pass) and landed safely. As Gary put it, any day when we don't have to drag pilots out of the trees is a good day. The details of the wrong decisions need not be of any concern to you, dear reader.

First, hearty thanks to Bo S., Denis L., Luis C., and Gary T. for the work clearing vegetation at launch, and to Jeff C. for driving, especially because only Luiz got to fly. And to Nancy for taking pictures.

Luiz went first, and didn't stay in the air too long.

I went next, with Jeff and Gary providing wire assist.

There was definitely lift available.

Nancy has a pretty fancy camera, with an 11X zoom, so she can get some impressive pictures. You can click on this to get to a page where you can download it in full resolution (I just cropped out some blue sky). So... WTF? Does this picture look weird to anybody else? I know what it looks like to me, and I don't recall anything of the sort whatsoever. But it makes me a little anxious.

Nice spot for a landing. In some regards.

Bending Parts

jjcote — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:49:06 GMT

[ Mood: Scared ]
To paraphrase something I heard once, the way to establish safe limits is to push things until they break, then back off some reasonable amount...

Pictures of my cool glider cart are below! Read on.

My last few outings have not resulted in any airtime. First, there was the day when I went to Morningside without a glider, and picked up the Ultrasport that I'm likely to be buying soon, but the winds were not conducive to trying it out. Then a couple of weeks later I went up to Morningside again and set it up again, even though the wind was really cross and there was intermittent drizzle. I figured if it slacked off to where it was essentially calm, I'd try some sledders, but it kept blowing and swung around to where it was coming kind of down the hill. So I packed it up and just stuck around for the VHGA meeting. But a couple of days later it looked good for the coast.

I didn't hear from anybody else who wanted to join me at Plymouth. Some PGs had flown Sunday, but I had stuff to do that day, and on Monday people were presumably busy working. I got there late morning all my myself, loaded up the cart, and headed for launch.

My cart is an old Cannondale Bugger bicycle trailer. The canvas cargo hammock vanished years ago. Originally purchased in the 1970s by my cousin for his paper route, it later fell into my father's hands, and he used it to schlep stuff like firewood around the yard. Going out the back of the yard, it's uphill into the woods, and on a number of occasions I'd go up there with an bow saw, fell a standing dead tree, cut it up into 10-foot sections, and use the cart to wheel the pieces down to the house where they could be further chopped to put in the stove. Later, I would borrow it and strap a plastic garbage can to it, which I would fill up with gallon water jugs so that I could drag them into the woods for the water stops at orienteering meets. It has been a very handy piece of equipment.

A couple of years ago, I realized that it had potential for glider hauling and found a wagon at Home Depot that was better suited for my parents' needs, and I snagged the Bugger for myself. After the addition of some padding, it became a plausible conveyance for a hang glider. I've used it several times: once as a test at Morningside, twice at Brace (where it's really handy), and once before at Plymouth. It doesn't increase my speed all that much compared to people carrying gliders, but whereas they arrive at launch exhausted, I get there feeling absolutely fine. No good at Ascutney -- the trails are much too rough -- and the same would apply to Skinner, which I haven't flown yet. Most of the other sites around here have drive-up access.

So, an easy trip out to launch, and I took a look at the conditions. Straight in, and pretty strong, about 17-22 mph. Pretty good for beach soaring, but not so easy to launch, perhaps. Hoping that somebody else would show up, I delayed setting up the glider, and spent a little time picking up empty beer cans and other assorted trash that the local teenagers had left behind at their campfire. Grumble. While dropping the trash off out at the street, I talked with a neighbor who asked if we pilots could shove some drifted sand back into a hole that had blown out on the brink of the cliff. Sounded like a good idea to me.

Despite the lack of assistance, I decided to set the glider up and see if I could get a bit of airtime. Setting up went okay, so I checked the wind and it was unchanged. Now, how to launch without help? I had watched Nick do it last fall, after he and Tom had helped me to launch, and it seemed like it just required care and persistence. And some skill that I hoped I had.

The place to launch a hang glider at Plymouth these days is on the left side of the clearing. That's where I tried to maneuver my glider to, but it wasn't easy. The edge of the cliff is irregular, and there is vegetation that you have to work your way around as well. The aforementioned blowout was causing unbalanced airflow, resulting in my left wing lifting. I struggled with it for a while, and couldn't keep the glider level, so I decided to come up with Plan B.

The place to not launch a hang glider at Plymouth these days is on the right side of the clearing. Paragliders launch from there all the time, but their wings are much higher up, away from the ratty airflow. On the plus side, there's a shallow bowl a bit behind the lip where it's easy to get established. But once you move out to the edge, the ground drops away most steeply directly ahead, and less steeply on either side. The result is an unstable launch situation, where getting off to one side pushes you more to that side. It's the opposite of a ramp that has airflow under both wings, which is a very nice way to launch.

So, I worked my way out to the brink, little by little. Eventually I got there, and all I could do was to stand with my foot in front of the control bar and my shoulders against the downtubes, pushing forward to keep the nose as low as I could. Standing in that position everything was under control, but doing anything else didn't seem so good. I had a pretty good idea that if I could manage to get about 20 feet forward, there was some pretty good soaring to be had, but getting there was the problem. Finally I decided to try picking the glider up just to see how that felt. That involved rotating it up in pitch a bit to get it to where I could put my shoulders between the downtubes instead of behind them.

@# $#1]!!!

Bad idea. As soon as the nose got a little higher, the wing started lifting, a lot. Too much for me to pull it back down. I did the only thing I could think of, which was to drive it forward, and in different conditions, that would have resulted in a launch. But things were too unbalanced for controlled flight. I'm not sure whether everything was off the ground at once (a wingtip might have been dragging), but my feet came off the ground. I failed to keep it going straight, due to the airflow coming up the shallow gully in front of me. The glider did a steep turn to the left with me as a useless passenger, nosed into a bush with the tail into the wind, turtled, and dumped me onto the lower surface of the sail. Doh!

I unhooked, spun the glider around to flip it upright, and carried it back to the relative shelter of the setup area. The control frame appeared to be unscathed, which was a good sign. No evident tears in the sail. Nothing obviously out of line... wait, the keel appeared to be slightly bent to the right. Not good, but perhaps not too horrible. I unzipped the lower surface to get a better view and... something was obviously very wrong. I undid some velcro to look at the crossbar hinge and it looked like I feared.

Discouraging. With that level of damage, the sail is definitely going to have to come off to see what else might have gotten bent. Depending on what else got bent, finding an old Vision Mark IV with the sail in tatters could be a good plan. But that will have to wait until I can see how deep the hurt goes.

No damage to the pilot. That was lucky, because things could easily have gone otherwise. And I've learned more about my boundaries. But no airtime, either, and there will be some work/expense to get this glider flying again. I still have the Falcon, though, as well as the Ultrasport if I can get suitable conditions to try it out.

Unusual strategy

jjcote — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:58:17 GMT

It's not often that it's a good move to head off to a hang gliding site without an important piece of gear. It's particularly odd when that piece of gear is your glider.

The forecast looked okay if viewed with an optimistic eye, but a bit of pessimism said that it would be too strong, too gusty, and too cross. I had information that said that a couple of other pilots were heading for Morningside, and I had the opportunity to carpool with Jeff C., so I asked him to swing by and pick me up. When he arrived, I put my harness and other paraphernalia in his car... and then decided to leave my glider behind. Doesn't seem like a particularly smart move, but I had my fingers crossed. I went back into the house to pick up one more thing, and my phone rang. The caller let me know that what I was hoping would happen wasn't going to. At that point, driving up to New Hampshire with no glider really seemed like a poor plan, but I did it anyway.

The whole way up, we kept driving by flags that were whipping violently, and it really looked scary. The windsocks were straight out at Morningside, and we went into the office to find a surprising number of people hanging around, but nobody flying. After a while we went up to launch to see how it felt, and my wind gauge said it was 15-20, gusting to 30. Not too inviting. But Nick C., who taught pterodactyls to fly, felt otherwise, and set up his Sport 2. Four of us went up with him to serve as wire crew, and after some fiddling with the details of his suprone harness, he launched for the first of at least five flights.

Link

The rest of us were impressed, but not tempted. Except for Jeff, who decided to set up his Falcon and give it a couple of tries. The wind had backed off some by the time he launched, and he wasn't able to stay up for too long, but he did have a good time.

Meanwhile, I was happy to stay on the ground, because it seemed a bit scary for what I would have had in mind. But things worked out in my favor, because as Jeff was setting up, I borrowed his keys and went on a little drive. I found someone at home who wasn't really expected to be there, and was able to pick up something that had been in storage in his garage for a few years. I then took it back to Morningside, opened it up, and spen the rest of the afternoon scrutinizing it. There's a pretty reasonable chance that soon, it could become mine. Stay tuned.

Lighthouse Run!

jjcote — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:01:52 GMT

[ Mood: Happy ]
It was the day after my trip to The Trail, and a weekday to boot, but the forecast was on. Wellfleet is flyable only from October to mid-April due to town regulations (protection of nesting birds), and this was the first day all season when I had seen a favorable forecast -- all other easterly days with suitable wind speeds had been in snowstorms. It wasn't a problem to get the day off from work, and though I had things to do in the morning, I looked at the tide table and saw that high tide would be at 11AM, so showing up in the afternoon would be perfect.

After the previous day's outing at the Trail, Jeff and I had just thrown all of my gear into my car when we got back to my house, so I was able to just hit the road. I got to Wellfleet at about 1 PM, and was surprised to not see any wings in the air -- despite the fact that it was a weekday, I expected that people would have been eager to fly. I saw some people standing around the parking lot, so I pulled into the far lot and walked over to see what was going on. It looked like a couple of PG pilots and Phil A. I waved to Phil as I pulled out my wind gauge, and he walked over and said, "Tide's coming in".

WHAT?!
Noooooo.......!

Did I really do that? Did I misread the tide table? High tide was at 11, right? No, he said, low tide had been at 10. Dammit, dammit, first good day all season and I missed it. He went on to say say that it had been a great day, he had flown for a couple of hours, Dan G. had flown lighthouse-to-lighthouse, and Captain Matt had done the north lighthouse but decided not to go along for the southern one. The wind had been stronger, earlier, he said, and it was lighter now.

In terms of coastal flying in New England, going lighthouse-to-lighthouse at Wellfleet is the milk run for experienced pilots, and the holy grail for relative newcomers like myself and most of those who had been there earlier. It consists of launching from White Crest Beach in Wellfleet-by-the-Sea (the only legal launch site these days), and flying to both Nauset Light in Eastham to the south and Highland Light in Truro to the north. The two lighthouses are about 15 miles apart, and the task is complicated by the fact that there are some gaps in the coastal bluff that can be tricky to cross. I had aspirations of doing a lighthouse run at some point, but my most ambitious flight at Wellfleet had ventured only about a mile and a half from launch.

Well, no sense feeling sorry for myself, I had just spent two and a half hours in the car and was looking at the same to get home, so if I wanted to keep the day from being a complete waste, the only thing to do was to set up quickly and get as much flying in as I could before the beach disappeared beneath the advancing waves. The wind was blowing just over 15 mph, and I was able to assemble my glider in the lee of the restroom building with no trouble. My haste had me working hard enough that I didn't feel cold, and the thermometer in the car said 41F, so I figured that temperature wasn't a big deal and I dressed lightly, with light gloves and not bothering with the bar mitts. Because I was in a hurry, I tossed the glider bags into my car, putting only the sail ties in my harness, figuring that I wasn't going to be going very far.

Phil was ready to leave, but he offered to hang around for a few more minutes if I wanted help launching. He held my nose wires as I carried the glider across the street, and the wind was quite smooth. At the top of the slope I let the glider fly up off my shoulders and I moved my hands to the control bar; Phil indicated that he was doing nothing on the wires, and I stepped off into the easiest, sweetest launch I've ever had. Not an elevator, just a gentle hover off the ground, and as I pulled bar in a bit more, the glider eased forward and I was off to the races.

I started out northward, because that's the section that I'm more familiar with. First, a half-mile from launch, I went by the place where I had my unfortunate "toplanding" experience a year ago.

The smaller building on the left is the garage that I barely missed. I landed basically in the bushes on the edge of the driveway in the center of the picture, missing the garage by inches. No worries about the glider seeing this spot, reliving the trauma and freaking out, because that had been the Falcon, and now I was flying the Mark IV. I did have another problem, though: I realized that I was definitely underdressed, and was feeling a bit chilly, my hands in particular.

The first "gap" is at the Beachcomber restaurant. I used to consider it a gap, at least, but I've learned a bit since last year, and I now realize that although the bluff is lower right there, it's still tall enough to provide ridge lift and there's no trouble crossing it. I went a bit further, and got to the gap at the little pond. This was as far as I had ever gone, though I had seen Jeff C. cross it. I decided to give it a shot, and made it across successfully, though with not a tremendous amount to spare. The wind was a bit cross from that direction, so I figured it would be easier going back the other way. I continued into unexplored territory until I got to the big gap at Newcomb Hollow. This had been the end of the line for Jeff, he had thought about how to cross it, but hadn't tried. I looked at the 700 yards or so that I'd have to cross, though better of it, and turned around.

Some PGs and one HG (Jimmy the Broom) were setting up and launching as I went by launch, but I didn't stick around. Jeff had made it to the southern light last year, so I figured the gaps were more manageable that way, and I wanted to see if I could get a little bit of distance in. So far it looked like there was still enough room to land, so I wasn't worried yet. Southbound, there's a small gap at Lecount Hollow, not far from launch, then it's smooth sailing past Marconi Station (kind of a pity I hadn't bothered to turn on my radio in tribute to this historic site), and a small but manageable gap at Marconi Beach. Before too long, I had the lighthouse in sight. I was assessing my risk this whole time; there wasn't much chance of sinking out with the consistent bluff, and where there were gaps, there were also parking lots, so if I landed I could pack up and then walk or hitchhike back to my car and come back for the glider.

I made it past the lighthouse, and flew to the last soarable dune before Nauset Marsh, then turned and headed north. I managed to get a lucky shot of the lighthouse when the beam was pointing at me, looking just like the bag of potato chips.

Well, at least I managed the Nauset half of the lighthouse run, and this was the greatest distance I had ever traveled from launch. What now lay ahead of me looked like this:

This, my friends, is a drag strip. Consistent laminar wind from the right, consistent ridge on the left, land wherever you need to, and it extends for fifteen miles (though it's not that consistent the whole way).

The wind had straightened out a bit, so it was now coming straight in, and I was able to make very good time on my way back to launch. Beach still looked okay. As I got closer to White Crest, I could see that the other gliders were now in the air.

My hands were really cold at this point, and I wondered whether I should call it a day, or at least land and get warmer gloves (I had brought all the clothes that I could need, but they don't do you any good if you leave them in the car). I decided to tough it out for a while longer, and cruised by the PGs that were boating around near launch.

I flew as far as Newcomb Hollow, and then I had the tough decision to make. It looked like a long way, and if I decked it, it would be a lot more work to get loaded up than if I landed near where I was parked. But... I was about 160 feet up, and if I was sinking too fast, I could just turn around. The key element required was the willingness to make the commitment and to face the consequences if I landed here. So I kept an eye on the dune at the far side of the gap, and gave it a try. As I headed across, the angle to my destination remained constant, so I stuck with it, and was rewarded with sweet lift on the north edge of the gap. Yeah!

The bluff up north gets taller, and the flying therefore even easier. I continued up to the other large gap, maybe about 1200 yards (though with a low dune partway across), at Ballston Beach. There's also a parking lot here, so it was the same situation. There was also a group of at least a dozen people who all looked up and waved enthusiastically. If I didn't make it, there was a chance that they could give me a ride back to my car, so I went for it, and made it across this one as well.

I didn't know what else lay ahead, but pretty soon I saw Highland Light in the distance. No more gaps to cross, and it was easy to get there. I took a few pictures, but this is the only one that came out.

Once I was past the lighthouse, I didn't bother to fly the last diminishing bits of dune up there, but just headed home. When I turned around, I was moving slower than I expected, because the shoreline curves around up at the north end, and now the wind was slightly cross from in front of me, but not enough to be a problem. Up here in front of the Air Force Station, the beach was pretty narrow, but I could see that ahead of me it still widened out. I had the same nail-biting crossings on the way back, but the decisions were easier, because there was no benefit to not trying. I kind of lucked out, because there I think there's a magic window of wind speed for any glider where this all works; too slow and you can't get enough altitude to make the crossings, too fast and the crab angle will be too high and you can't fly fast enough to bridge the gap before sinking out. For a higher-performance glider the window will be wider, but for the Mark IV, the wind was where it needed to be.

The rest of the flight back to launch was easy, and when I got there I decided to just do some short passes back and forth, with steep turns at each end, until I had been in the air for 1:45. Even though it was pretty much high tide when I finally set her down, the beach was plenty wide, because it was close to neap tide, and it was fine all day. The landing was a sweet no-stepper for a change, but my hands were in agony for a few minutes afterward as the blood rushed back in and they thawed. My own damn fault.

It turned out that the issue with the tides was that I used to have a website for tides that I really liked, but it went away at the beginning of the year. I found another one, but when I bookmarked it, I inadvertently did it in such a way that it always came up for the day that I bookmarked it instead of the current day. As a result, I was looking at the February table instead of the March one. Didn't matter, though, it was an excellent day for flying no matter what time you showed up, and if I had known that high tide was going to be at 4:15 PM, I wouldn't have even gone. So it's all for the best. The sun even came out for a while during my flight.

Snow is for sleds

jjcote — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 02:58:20 GMT

Among the mountain sites in New England, The Trail is often the first one that can be flown in the spring. Although spring is technically still a week away, when the forecast looked favorable, several of us starting talking about trying to fly. Both weekend days looked possible, but for in terms of our schedules, Sunday looked a bit better. As it worked out, other people went to Morningside or "Sore Point"* on Saturday and got reasonable conditions with some soaring occurring.

On Sunday, we headed out early, me travelling with Jeff C., and PK coming down from Vermont. Although the snow had pretty much melted out at my house, in the Berkshires winter had been a little different. The first thing we did was check out the driving range LZ, because we're supposed to notify the management if we're flying so that they'll be prepared if gliders start dropping out of the sky. This is what we found:

The field was littered with driftwood. Apparently the river had flooded at some point and left stuff all over the floodplain. Based on that, and the fact that the rest of the operation was also in disrepair, it was clear that the driving range was not yet open for the season. They were thoughtful enough to leave the windsocks up, though, which would be handy if we happened to land there!

On the way to the bailout LZ to meet PK, we encountered a van with gliders on the roof, and stopped to chat with Mark L. and Al L. They had been up to launch, and decided that conditions were unlikely to pick up early enough for them to be able to fly, so they were leaving. We verified that the windsock in the bailout was OK, then PK arrived and we headed up to launch.

I started hiking gear out to launch while Jeff and PK drove back down to drop Jeff's car off in the bailout. Here's a picture for Helen, to show what it was like where I was schlepping equipment, and another of the cliff below launch. You should join us someday!

(Despite the appearances, it was actually quite pleasant weather, reaching 59F/15C.)

The forecast was quite light in terms of wind, maybe picking up late in the afternoon, so we were counting on the sun to heat up the west-facing slope and generate some thermals. That was going to take a while, so we didn't need to hurry to set up. Here's the cast of characters: Pilot X, the Mystery Muncher, and the assembled wings.

PK's dog had fun wandering around the launch area while we set up, and when we were ready and PK brought him back to the car, Jeff asked if I wasnted to go first, or if I'd rather he did. Assessing the anemic breezes, I honestly answered that I'd just as soon he try it first. He was game, so he suited up and was ready to go when PK returned.

It had actually been feeling pretty reasonable for a while, but it backed off before Jeff got on launch, and by the time he was done sorting out some issues with his harness adjustments, it had gotten quite light. We waited for quite a while for something good to blow through, and he offered to let one of us go first if we were impatient. We told him that we didn't like these pathetic puffs any more than he did, and he could take his time. Finally he felt what seemed like a decent thermal, and launched. He gained altitude right away... but for only a few seconds before sagging into a sled ride down to the bailout. Rats.

Because of the site rules, PK technically had to go last, but I was ready to try next anyway. I didn't bother with my radio, but just stepped up and waited only a minute or two. The trees below launch started to shake, and it looked to be as good as I figured I was going to get, so I charged off into it. Y'know... to succeed at this game, you need to have at least one of timing, skills, or luck. I brought none of the above. My launch was embarrassing, wings not level, and I went directly into an unintended turn to the right. Whatever luck was allotted to me for the day, I pretty much used up right there. I stayed out of the trees, and wound up in a close pass down the ridge, which resulted in a bit of lift. I encountered a stronger bump, and did a couple of turns, but then fell out and couldn't find it again. I was above launch on the way back, but after turning at the towers I was below it on my next pass. I waved to the convertibles that beeped at me from the road, and by the time I got to the restaurant, I was low enough that I knew it was time to head for the LZ. No problem, just glide to that field... oops, it's that field, waaay over there. Seemed far, but after a few seconds I could see that it was dropping in my field of view, and I'd get there easily. The gravel mound coaxed a couple of weak beeps from my vario, but nothing I could really exploit. A fine approach, and a lame final, probably too slow, and I got bounced around a bit. The landing was... not a disaster. A couple of steps in old ankle-deep snow, but at least I kept the nose off the ground.

Ah well. Snow is for sledding, after all. So Jeff and I packed up while we waited for PK to take his turn at not soaring. He launched just as Jeff was about done, and it was clear pretty quickly that he wasn't going to fare much better than we had. He hung on for a while, but it was obviously a losing battle. Jeff carried his glider out to the car, and just before he came back, I glanced up, and PK was nowhere to be seen. Uh oh... this was not good. He didn't appear to be in the trees, but he was no longer anywhere that I could see in the air, either. But I heard an exclamation from behind me -- from his vantage point further back, Jeff could see that PK had hooked into something and was climbing, now out of my view behind the trees on the gravel mound. Yeah! Looked like he was heading down the ridge, so we got the rest of the gear to the car and headed up the hill to grab his truck and meet him at the driving range LZ.

On the way down the hill, I spotted PK's glider, and saw that he was heading back up the ridge to the bailout, so we drove back there to wait for him. After a good long while, he headed in another direction, and we could see that he was going toward the airport, which is the nicest place to land. We drove in that direction, but in the middle of town, I stopped at at fast food place because I had lost sight of him. Craning my neck all around, there wasn't a trace -- until we sighted him back at the ridge again! Okay, back in the cars, up to the bailout, and we arrived just after he landed. 98 minutes in the air, reaching 3600 feet over launch, outstanding! PK had the magic combination of all three, timing, skills and luck.

And soon... soon... Mt. Greylock will be open for flying again...

*"Sore Point" ia a code name for a place that may well be the most popular site in New England for paragliders, but which is so incredibly sensitive that hang glider pilots are not even allowed to ask if it's possible to fly there, and nobody can speak its name.

Worth the trip

jjcote — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 23:44:30 GMT

I've been watching the coastal forecast closely for the last couple of months, hoping for a chance to do some winter beach flying, but whenever we've had east winds, it has been in stormy conditions. I recently found out about another site, on the inside of Cape Cod, where it's possible to fly in westerly winds. Saturday looked like a possibility for that, but the forecast late Friday night showed it to be a bit cross and very gusty, so everybody decided to skip it. When I looked at the forecast on Saturday morning, though, it looked perfect, but it was too late because by the time I got there the tide would be in. Oh well. Sunday still held promise, though.

The forecast looked pretty good for the whole weekend at Ellenville, and Dan G. and Doug H. had headed down there on Saturday. The plan was for me to meet Captain Matt pretty early on Sunday and head down there together, hoping to be set up and ready somewhere around noon. Unfortunately, he called me at 6 AM saying that he had been up sick all night (probably some kind of food poisoning), and wouldn't be able to make it. He had talked to Dan, who said that on Saturday the winds were light and cross until about 3 PM, when he and Doug went out as wind dummies and managed to hang on for only about 25 minutes, but that a little later some other people launched into better air and were able to get up.

I had already loaded the glider on the car and charged all of my batteries, so I decided to go ahead with the trip, even though I'd be doing it solo. I made pretty good time on the drive, and arrived at about 10:45. Dan and Doug were there, hanging out at Tony's, along with Lightning Hopkins and Sharon, and a few other people. I got signed in, and we hung around there for a while -- I kept looking out the window, and the windsocks were looking kind of cross from the north. Eventually a couple of people went out to their cars, and I asked Lightning what he thought, and he said it was probably a good time to head up. We loaded my glider on Doug's truck and I rode up with him and Dan.

Up at launch, I unloaded my glider and started setting it up right away. Somebody made a comment to the effect that I seemed eager to get going, and I said that I'd rather be ready if conditions looked good for launching rather than scrambling to get my glider put together. While we were setting up, a small plane flew over, at maybe 1000 feet AGL. Somebody wondered aloud if it might be Jimmy D. A few minutes later, the same plane buzzed launch at I'd say no more than 200 feet over. Definitely Jimmy D., everyone agreed. Once I had things set, I wandered over to the launch slope, where Lindsey was talked to Dan and Doug, briefing them on information specific to the site. He asked if we had flown in winds like this before, and we all said yes. Then he asked if we had flown in wind like this at Ellenville, and we all said no.

That's Dan and Doug. They were also set up, and there were a couple of other gliders assembled or partially assembled, but basically everybody was either standing around or sitting in cars, looking at the windsocks and at each other. There were mutterings about it feeling really strong, and how this might be one of the days when you could get trapped too far back, or there might be wave coming off the Catskills which would make it turbulent. People were rhetorically asking each other, "Do you want to go first and try it?", and some were talking about packing up and leaving; Lightning hadn't taken his ATOS off the van and was just saying, "What's your hurry?". Now, I'm not one to second-guess experienced pilots with local knowledge when they're suggesting that it could be dangerous out there. Although it felt like the kind of wind conditions that are about ideal at the sites I frequent, I was also aware that the last forecast I had seen for winds aloft showed 29 kts at 3000 feet up at Albany. So, we sat there and waited.

Another car pulled up, and Jimmy D. got out and immediately asked "What are you people doing on the ground?". He had landed his plane at the airport and driven up to launch, and said that it was perfectly fine up in the air, and that if his glider were assembled, he'd launch right then. People started quizzing him about the specifics of the conditions he had encountered in his plane. I had met him once before, and he seems like the kind of guy who might joke around some, but it was clear that he was being sincere. Now, I'm not one to second-guess an experienced pilot with local knowledge when he's suggesting that it's time to launch, so I climbed into my harness and carried my glider out front. As long as it wasn't expected to be hazardous out there, I was happy to go, even if I sledded, and I didn't mind being the wind dummy. Because I hadn't flown since November, I wasn't going to be too picky, although since this trip required a lot of driving, I planned on keeping my glider in the air as long as practical.

I had a full wire crew, but they didn't have to do much, since it was blowing straight in, very steady with no gusts, probably about 10 mph. I stood there for a couple of minutes because it looked a little cross based on the streamer on my nose wire, but after consulting the windsock and the other nearby streamers, I realized that it was just turbulence coming off of Doug, who was on my nose. Launch went easy, and after a trip down to the second knob and back, I was several hundred feet over. It still took a while for anybody else to join me, I guess in part because some weren't set up yet, and in part because others were less concerned about the wind than the low temperature. It wasn't too bad, really, ranging between 33F and 36F (1C to 2C). I was dressed just fine for it, with long underwear and light running pants, a T-shirt, fleece sweater, and light jacket, plus a neoprene face mask, neoprene socks, kayaking gloves, and bar mitts. I had hand warmers with me, but I never even thought about taking them out. The cold did keep me from getting many decent pictures, though.

It wasn't too long before I caught a strong thermal right over launch, and cored it up to 3000 feet (1700 over). Around that time the next couple of gliders launched, which made things look like this:

I count two gliders in the air, twelve more being set up, two still in bags, and five still on cars. Most of those eventually flew, save for a few that never came off the cars (Lightning among them, I assume he just felt that the day didn't have enough XC potential to be worth setting up). Before long, there were gliders all over the sky, and you really had to keep your eyes open for traffic. I mostly stayed in the fishbowl, with its plentiful lift and easy glide to the LZ, bopping around at between 2000 and 3000 feet. Later on, I did go for a little excursion up the ridge, as far as the north end of the golf course and back. Looked like everybody who came up was able to fly for as long as they wanted to, most presumably giving up when they got too cold.

Eventually gliders started sprouting in the LZ, and the sky got less crowded. The shadows were getting long across the field, and when I did a circle and saw nobody else up by the ridge, I figured it was time for me to head in as well. I carefully pulled the bar waaaay in, paying attention in order to not get into PIOs, and really got the wind noise going (as much as you can do that with a MkIV, anyway). I got to the LZ with about 1200 feet of altitude and a lot of airspeed. So... well, there's this thing I had read about, and that I had visualized a bunch, and this seemed like a fine time and place to try it. I let the bar out fairly quickly, and when I felt the glider start its steep climb, I swung my body over to the right... YEAH! Wang! I'm not sure, but I think I probably got it past 90 degrees. That worked so well that I did two more, burning off a chunk of my excess altitude. I suspect they would be considered somewhat sloppy, especially the last one, and I got more of the roller-coaster feel than I think I should have, but for a first try, I'm pretty happy with them.

Now all I had left to do was do a sweet no-step landing in front of the crowd, and my day would be perfect. I set up a little high, but the field is long and the spots for breakdown next to the road were occupied until way down the field anyway, so it was okay. I came in with lots of speed, and... the place I was heading for was a frozen puddle. I had envisioned that landing on ice could be pretty cool, that it would be possible to do kind of a "Southside slide", but realized that this was not a good plan on ice that had clumps of grass sticking up through it. On top of that, I had been in the air long enough that my arms were beat and everything felt heavvvvy. So, I did what I could, but given the weak flare and the poor traction, I wound up landing on my knees and dropped the control bar on the ground. No harm done, but not as elegant as I would have liked.

While breaking down, I got to meet some people who I knew only by reputation, including the "real" J.J., and the famous Paul Voight (Ryan's dad). Some people were going out to dinner, but I got packed up as efficiently as I could and hit the road home, because I had a long drive yet to go. After having been first to launch, I was the last to land, and wound up having spent just over three hours in the air, my second longest flight ever (I did 4:20 a year and a half ago on my Falcon, but that was in the summer when the sun sets late). Not bad for February! Worth the trip? Absolutely!

2008 wrapup

jjcote — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:53:38 GMT

Looks pretty unlikely that I'll be doing any flying in the next two days, so let's look at 2008 by the numbers.

Flying days: 18
Flights: 31
Flying sites: 9 (6 for the first time)
States: 6 (3 for the first time)
Total airtime: 17:17
Longest flight (duration): 2:36
Longest flight (XC distance): 2.88 miles
Max altitude: 6979 feet (from a 2047 foot launch)
Number of gliders flown: 3 (my Falcon, my Vision MkIV, demo Sport2)

Not a great year in terms of cooperation from the weather in New England (although the Ellenville crowd had great results flying into New England), and not a very good year in terms of safety, from the unfortunate number of deaths nationwide to the local incidents among people I know, resulting in injuries ranging from minor to serious. I had two less-than-acceptable landings myself, one a minor whack that re-bent a downtube that had been damaged before I bought the glider, and the other a case where I was forced down fairly hard in high winds at the coast, landing on my belly with no forward speed and bending metal in my control frame. But balancing that out, most of my launches and landings have been quite good, and my in-flight handling skills have also been going well.

Now it's time to look forward to 2009. Xmas brought me two HG-related presents to make life easier in the coming year: a backpack for carrying my harness, and a pair of bar mitts. I have a list of 10 things to accomplish before moving up to a fancier glider, and I got through seven of them this year. There's a very good chance that I'll be able to get through the remaining three in the springtime.

Thanksgiving treat

jjcote — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 15:47:46 GMT

Morningside Flight Park is the school where I learned to fly. Last year they came up with the idea of having a potluck party on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, where everybody brings leftovers. And if weather permits, people will fly, too, but what are the chances of that happening in late November in New Hampshire? There could well be a lot of snow on the ground. I had spent Thanksgiving with friends, and didn't have any leftovers, so I stayed up the night before to make an apple pie so that I wouldn't arrive empty-handed.

When Jeff sent out the party announcement, he extended an invitation for people to come try out demo gliders. Sounded like a good idea to me, so I flew this Sport 2 155:

I'm on the borderline between the 135 and the 155: at 150 pounds pilot weight, I'm right on the bottom end of the range for the 155, but the 135 is pretty tiny, I guess. I flew the 155 lighter than I would be in reality, since I was carrying no glider bags, and I didn't put my radio or a water bladder in my harness. This was a good test, then -- if the wing didn't feel like too much for me to handle in this situation, it would probably be a bit easier if I were all loaded up. I didn't get to really experience the performance advantage of the glider, because I flew with the VG off the whole time.

As it turned out, the glider felt fine, so surprises. My first sledder was a little klutzy, which may have been due as much to the fact that I was rusty as to the glider being unfamiliar. After that, things went quite well, and I had my longest Morningside flight to date, at 15 minutes. While I was in the middle of that one, Z launched in his Talon, and found the magic elevator up and out. I had been flying without my vario (since I wasn't figuring I'd be going very far from the little ridge), but when I saw how well Z was doing, I fetched it from the car for my next flight. When I pulled it out of the bag, I realized that I had the vario, but not the mounting bracket, which I had left back home on my glider. (Except that my glider wasn't back home, it was right there on the roof of my car, but that didn't dawn on me until later.) So I threw the vario into the back pocket of my harness so that I could hear the beeping, but I could only kind of hear it from in there. Whatever, no big deal.

The wind was blowing pretty much straight in all day, and there was plenty of ridge soaring to be had. Quite a crowd of gliders for this time of year (and there were a few others not in the picture). That's Mt. Ascutney in the background.

The wind was pretty smooth, not gusty, so people generally didn't need much assistance to launch, which allowed me to take some pictures when I drove people up the hill. Here's John launching from the 450:

Z eventually came down after 2:10 in the sky, topping out at 4700 feet. The limiting factor was the cold; although it wasn't too bad on the ground, up at altitude it got pretty nippy. He had plenty of warm clothes that he had left in the car, because he wasn't expecting to do so well, and although he had a package of hand warmers, he fumbled them while taking them out of his pocket and watched them spiral down into the forest. Here he is relating the details of his awesome flight:

It was a pretty plush deal flying the demo, because it was already set up (I just had to preflight it), and at the end, after a half-dozen flights from the 450', it just went back into the showroom and I didn't have to pack it up. And after the flying was done, we had an excellent dinner and a great time hanging out in the spiffy, newly renovated pilots' lounge/classroom.

That could be it for the year, as life can be pretty busy between now and Xmas, and I've never flown in December (or February). But we'll see.

Leaf peepers galore

jjcote — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:48:55 GMT

This was not actually a very exciting flight for me (though I have no complaints), so I'll mostly entertain you with photos.

Columbus Day weekend, and Morningside scheduled a big party and had Wills Wing coming with demo gliders. Then the weather turned perfect, and the New England fall foliage was at its peak right then. As a result, everybody and his brother showed up. And since the winds were moderate from the NW, with a good thermal index, most qualified pilots headed for Ascutney.

When I got there, I was 15th in line, and at least six more gliders showed up behind me. Tom L. had a post in his blog from this past May about a crowded day at Ascutney where 20 pilots signed in, and now we had at least 21. A lot of people complain about the hike in at Ascutney, but I think the biggest downside is the setup area. With three gliders there, it's not very good, and with 21 it's ridiculous.

(Part of the leading edge of my glider is barely visible in the middle of that last picture.)

I also had a problem in that I had time constraints that meant I had to be on the ground by 2:30. But the pilots in front were sensibly waiting for conditions to heat up enough to make it soarable. There were plenty of hikers around as well as pilots, and a lot of them wanted to see somebody fly, but many left disappointed since all of the wings were just sitting on the ground. Around the time that I had finished assembling and preflighting, Tom showed up (with no glider, just hanging out), and helped grease the situation for me. Next thing I knew, enough gliders had been nudged out of the way that mine was able to do a complicated "crowd surfing" trip from way back on the trail in the woods all the way out to launch.

[photo courtesy Mike Holmes]

I announced, "Did someone call for a wind dummy?" and got myself hooked in. Big audience, with 20 pilots, a number of significant others, and a crowd of leaf-peeping wuffos as well. I felt quite pampered as I went through my own checklist and heard numerous experienced people calling out OKs for things like my harness lines, luff lines, etc.

If I soared, fine. If I sledded, that was fine too. And I pretty much sledded. There were a few bumps now and then that I tried to exploit, but it was basically down, down, down the whole way. The views were great, though!

As I packed up, conditions steadily improved, and eventually a number of gliders were staying up, and at least one climbed out and headed over the back.

I would have taken pictures with more gliders in the air, but I hadn't cleared the memory on my camera, and I ran out of space. No soaring for me at Ascutney yet, but there are plenty of days ahead for that, and with a good launch and landing, I have nothing to complain about.

Return of the Stiffies

jjcote — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 03:33:07 GMT

It was all Tom G.'s doing.

He sent out an email with the subject line "Return of the Stiffy" to some pilots who he knew had an interest in flying at Brace, including some H2s and some people like me, and the message got forwarded to still more pilots. Brace is almost exclusively a PG site, due to the 1.9 mile hike from the parking lot, but the forecast looked good for HGs, and it looked like a surprising number were willing to give it a shot. At least one got a jump on things by bringing his glider out a day early so that he could rest up overnight. There were a bunch of travel logistics that we worked out by email and cell phone, and the rest of us arrived Saturday morning. I got a ride up from Kermit, along with Tom L., John B., and a couple of PG pilots. Kermit was driving a big van with a roof rack that we were able to toss the gliders onto, and he wasn't flying (but did help us schlep gear to launch -- thanks!)

I brought my cart again (I forgot to take a picture of it), and for the first part of the hike, I carried my Falcon, my harness, and John's harness. Kermit carried Tom's harness, and Tom and John each carried their Lightspeeds (oof!). When we got to the spot where the trail gets steep, we caught up to the Ellenville crowd, who were working together to carry their gear, leapfrogging it all from pile to pile. We got in on the tail end of that, receiving and giving assistance, and soon we were all up at launch.

It has been suggested that this was the largest number of hang gliders to ever fly at Brace in one day. I don't know what things were like in the olden days when it was possible to drive to launch, but I bet it was at least the most in the "modern era" where the hike is required. I believe we counted 12 hang gliders, and there were probably about 20 paragliders as well. What a party!

Unlike when I flew Brace in June, this was a day that definitely had some wind. It was coming straight in a lot of the time, but it was occasionally gusting to over 20, and the PGs were being wary. The HGs set up, and Jeff C. went first, with a big audience.

He did a lot of passes out front, and we all cheered him on any time he got a bit of a climb. Chad W. went next, and then one of the H2s. Those three eventually headed NW, where they caught a good climb up to cloudbase at about 4500'. That was the highest anybody got all day. I helped wire off a couple of more H2s, then Tom L. launched. That's a good sign, if he thinks it's time to go, then it just well may be, so I grabbed my glider, turned it around, and got hit by a gust that threatened to flip me over, but I got a foot on the bar and held the nose down.

Some PGs helped me walk over to launch, and I waited for a good cycle. I was determined to do this right, rather than than the inept job that I did back in June. This meant keeping the nose down and running hard, to make sure I had plenty of airspeed. I didn't realize it at the time, but there was somebody there shooting video, and he got my launch (I'm the second one off, at 2:40 into it). I was reasonably satisfied with it, and the vote of confidence from the cameraman helps, too!

I've been meaning for a while to try out my wing-mounted camera with IR release. I did at Plymouth a week earlier, but in that case I had it on the keel, pointed sideways to take picture of houses. This time I put it on the wing so that I could get pictures of myself flying with stuff in the background. Like this:

It was also the beginning of foliage season, and I really wanted to get some kind of a foliage flight this year. Last year my last northeast flight was on October 4 (I did get one more sledder a month later in southern Pennsylvania while on a road trip), so this could be my last chance this year. And there were some nice leaves here and there.

Well, watching Tom isn't always a prescription for success. Once I got into the air, I spotted him below me, which wasn't a good sign. I looked around for lift, and managed to get modestly higher than launch, while he kept going down. The air was chunky, and there were times when it would turn the glider in some direction that I wasn't planning on going, but I wasn't able to turn these bumps into altitude gain. Ridge soaring kind of worked, but it was tough work. I was joined in the air by Dan, an H2.

Neither of us could hang on for very long, and we wound up in the LZ. About 35 minutes for me, which isn't epic, but isn't anything to complain about, either. The folks who launched a little bit later got treated to some wonder wind flying. By the time I broke down and was ready to leave, I counted 18 wings in the sky, both HG and PG. Quite a fine little traffic jam up there!

Eaaaaaaasy flyin'

jjcote — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:08:28 GMT

From what I'm told, Plymouth used to be where H2s turned into H3s. They'd rack up multi-hour flights in smooth coastal air there to get the airtime required. These days, it's West Rutland where H2s go, because Plymouth has had access issues over the last decade that included shutting the site down for a couple of years. Now it's a P3/H3 site, and HGs don't fly there so much because the only place we're allowed to park is quite a way off, requiring a substantial hike, with gear, both before and after flying. A site intro is also required, and that can be tricky to arrange, since most of the club officials that can give it are PG pilots, and less inclined to show up on a day when the wind is strong enough for HG flying. Eventually, I just drove down there on a light day without my glider, and jogged out to launch to get the site intro so that I could come back and fly another day.

I drove out with Tom L., and we were able to take our time, since the tide was best in the middle of the day -- low tide provides the most beach area for landing, and this would be a difficult place to top-land a HG. I used my little cart to transport my glider, which made for a less stressful (though no faster) hike then Tom carrying his ponderous Lightspeed. He also didn't care for the amount of poison ivy that we had to brush past on the way.

While we were setting up, Nick C. arrived. This was good from my point of view, because it meant that I'd have two people to act as wire crew on my first launch from this site. Very experienced, people, too: Nick has been flying here for 35 years, since the bamboo and plastic days. The wind was coming straight in at about 17 mph (or a bit more, depending on how you held the wind gauge). With two people on the wires, it wasn't difficult to slide the glider out to the lip of the bluff. I picked it up and let it lift off my shoulders, to do a tight-strap launch. I had a reasonably easy time controlling the glider, but I could feel the wing pulling forward. I had read about ramp suck, but this was my first experience with it, mild though it was. Realizing that I was about to launch whether I wanted to or not (unless I put the glider down), I cleared the wire crew and stepped off smoothly into the air.

I had never met Nick before, and he didn't have any idea what my abilities were. I made sure that I was stable and in control before turning, and that was a bit later than the experts on the ground would have advised. From what I hear, Nick was saying, "Oh no, we're going to have to drag him back up here!", and Tom reassured him by saying, "If he sinks out, he can drag his own ass back up!". Not to worry, though, I did turn early enough, and the lift was abundant, so I stayed up and headed up the coast.

Tom was next, and he had Nick on his wires, but he also has more span than I do, so it was tricky to get the glider around the bushes and out to launch. He had a little more stress than I did, but it went well. Nick went back to get his glider and set it up, so Tom and I had a while to fly by ourselves. The soarable bluff is roughly a mile long, and I did a lot of laps back and forth.

Early on, I tried to call Tom on the radio, but I got no response. It didn't take long to realize that I had a wire disconnected on my radio. I have a headset that works quite well, but it has at least one quirk. It's manufactured as a modular harness, so that they can mix and match various mics, earpieces, PTT switches, and radio connectors. The downside is that it has several DIN connectors, and they don't have as much friction as I'd like. The connector between the pigtail that plugs into the radio (in my side harness pocket) and the rest of the harness had come undone, and that connector is at my waist on the right side. I tried reconnecting it one-handed with my right hand while I flew with my left, but that didn't work. Next I tried flying no-hands and reaching across my chest with my left hand, but I couldn't reach far enough. Then I realized that I could reach behind my back with my left hand, but flying in that contorted position just didn't feel very safe. Finally I did it one-handed by feeling for the keyways with my thumbnail so that I could rotate one connector about the right amount before trying to plug them together. Probably took me 20 minutes to do this, but it was worth it to be able to talk with Tom during the flight. I need to come up with some kind of keepers for those connectors.

Nick had the most challenging launch, since there were no wuffos around to hold his wires. Tom and I were able to hover around and watch from above (Tom had promised to keep an eye on him in case he blew launch and needed help). It was a slow process as he inched his glider forward in tiny increments, putting it down frequently, to get it around the bushes and weeds while not losing control in the breeze. Tom commented that he didn't envy Nick, and we learned later that he almost backed off, but eventually he did get to the edge and had an excellent launch. Nick was flying a Magic 4, an even older glider than mine, but a fine ship for the beach. I was flying pretty high (as much as 500 feet over the beach), and Tom was typically even higher, which gave us a great view of Nick down lower doing what Tom called "stress testing his glider". Too tricky to get pictures of any of the wangs, but here he is in level flight.

Among other things, this was my first time trying out one of my remote cameras. I bought three Pentax Optio A10 cameras last winter, two of which have broken LCD screens. I usually fly with one strapped to my control bar, but the real reason that I got them was that a camera on a wing or keel doesn't need a screen, since you can't see it anyway. These cameras use an IR remote, and this was the first time I've gotten around to actually trying that out. The people who live near launch has asked the club for aerial photos of their houses, and nobody had gotten around to actually taking any. I put a camera on my keel and snapped some pictures like this one as I flew by (launch is visible here, not at the peak of the bluff, but about halfway from there to the next house back).

This was the easiest flying I've ever done. Nice smooth laminar coastal air at just the right speed made it a cinch to maintain altitude without worrying about it, and there were even thermals coming off the water now and then which got us way up. It was a surprisingly clear day, and we could see the entire length of Cape Cod all the way across the bay. The wind remained steady all afternoon, and the main factor affecting our decision to land was the tide. There were a couple of exposed sandbars, once of which had a fisherman on it, and I decided that when it went under, I'd head down. Tom agreed, and we discussed the best spot and direction to land, avoiding the boulders that were strewn across some parts of the beach, while trying to land reasonably close to the stairs that we needed to use to carry our gliders back out.

Tom went first, and I watched to see if it was going to be difficult. I kept thinking that he had landed, but then I'd see that he was still moving forward. Seemed like it took him an awfully long way to get down. He reported that the wind in the compression zone on the beach was pretty light, so the crosswind conditions weren't too bad. I was a little concerned that I might have trouble getting out of the lift in order to lose altitude, but by flying out over the water, I was able to drop down to where I wanted to be for a final leg. The landing was as smooth as the flying had been. As I approached the sand, I considered just going into a comfortable walk as the glider flew slowly, but with a small flare I was able to bring it to a stop, though I did touch the sand with my right wingtip, no big deal.

Tom used the "Aussie breakdown method", tying his nose to a post and keeping his wing off the ground, while I used the normal approach, saying to the Mark IV, "Welcome to your destiny, beach glider -- SAND!". It was my longest flight of the year at 2:36, and my second-longest flight ever.

XC? Not quite yet...

jjcote — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 03:45:24 GMT

After a day when Tom L. and I almost headed to Ascutney but changed our minds at the last moment, we tried the next day and headed for West Rutland. John B. came along as well, and Calef L., PK, Bob R., and ARt G. were waiting for us when we arrived. It was another case of Tom carefully scrutinizing the weather and alternating between optimism and pessimism, in part because there seemed to be great cu clouds all over the place except right where we were going to be launching. And we had John with us, who had a reputation as a jinx for West Rutland.

(End of the season, and it looks like that windsock is just about used up!)

Conditions at launch were very light, as predicted. Calef was ready first, since he's a PG pilot and setting up a PG consists of dumping out the contents of a backpack. He took the wind dummy flight and sledded. Hmm, not enough going on to keep a paraglider in the air -- not a good sign. Bob went next, and managed to stay up for a little while, though he never got very much higher than launch.

ARt was ready at about the same time that I was, and we both moved our gliders over to the ramp behind Tom. If anybody could make this work, Tom could. He typically soars for a couple of hours while everybody else sleds. Sure enough, he hooked into something pretty quickly.

Seeing how well Tom was doing, PK asked if I was okay launching by myself, and ran for his glider. I stowed my camera while ARt launched, then I followed him without delay. I went to the right, as is customary, then came back toward launch, and then the vario started beeping and I started turning. In the next 15 minutes I picked up over 2500 feet of altitude, which isn't bad for these parts in September.

This was a really successful climb. John and PK launched after I did, but from their topless gliders they were just watching my antique wing speck out. Next thing I knew, I was on top of the stack. Except it turns out that that was because Tom dropped down from cloudbase to see if he could get a picture of me from below.

The three Lightspeed pilots were all looking to go XC, and I had mentioned to Tom on the drive up that I had some thoughts of going over the back for the first time myself, if the opportunity presented itself. On the radio, he pointed out some likely LZs within reach downwind. I took note of them, and I thought about leaving the mountain, but around that time I also lost the lift. Easy come, easy go. The three of them took off while I just went down, down, down, until I was back at launch. I figured if I could do it once, maybe I could do it again, and tried to find another good thermal, but I wound up just scratching for a half-hour or so. Calef had come back up in the meantime, and the two of us boated around for a while.

After flying for about an hour, I lost enough altitude to warrant heading for the LZ, though I tried to milk some little bumps that I encountered on the way. Calef had a low save near the LZ and rode it back up to 1000 over launch.

The day actually turned out the way I had wanted a day to go: I drove up with some guys who were flying XC, and I flew for a while before landing in the normal LZ, then hiked up the mountain to get the car, and drove retrieve. A chance to make myself useful. There was a little detail in that a vehicle had gotten stuck on the nasty 4WD drive road to launch, and I got to help in getting it freed up.

PK and John flew about 19 miles and landed in a nice big field that had so many mosquitoes that the two of them were lifeless husks by the time I arrived. Tom did a little over 25 miles and landed at the Middlebury Airport (third time he's done that this year, I think). No mosquitoes there, and he was surfing the web on his cell phone and had already posted a brief flight report by the time we got to him. Dinner after that, and home at about midnight -- a long day!

Ascutney at last!

jjcote — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 04:53:45 GMT

The premier flying site in New England is Mt. Ascutney, in Vermont. It's the jumping-off spot for most of the long XC flights in New England (not counting those incredible flights that start in New York and wind up in New England!), and if you take lessons at Morningside (the main flight park in this area), you become very aware of it from your first day of lessons, because you can see it from the training hill, and it's common for people to fly over from the mountain and land at Morningside. Ascutney is a H3 site (though occasionally you hear someone say it should be H4), and getting to fly there is something of a rite of passage. In this area, it's the big time.

It has been a crappy year for weather in northern New England. Rain, rain, rain, usually with thunder and lightning. A number of people were thinking about flying Ascutney yesterday, but the conditions were very strong, and only one (Jake, the site director) actually did. Today was the opposite, wind direction looked okay, but the forecast was for very light wind, and low top of lift with no clouds. Most of the pilots who had been eyeing the day checked the morning forecasts and went back to bed, but Jake wasn't going to pass on a dry day. I was looking at a day that was exactly what I wanted, gentle conditions for a site intro, so I loaded up the car and hit the road. The ranger station where you sign in to fly has a very cool sign:

I wasn't the only one getting a site intro today. Ed G. was there for the first time as well, and Phil A. would have been, but he couldn't find his USHPA card, and the park won't let you fly without showing it. He did come up to the launch, though, and helped schlep some gear. The hike out to launch is notorious, very rocky and uneven. It took me almost 18 minutes to carry my glider out there, but I brought my harness out on a separate trip, so it was 35 minutes altogether. As we were setting up, Dan A. (who had flown the mountain once before) and Dave D. also arrived.

The launch is kind of unusual. It's a granite rock that you perch on top of, with a wooden deck built on the left side for doing hang checks, and for one wire crew person to stand on. When you're ready, you run down the face of the rock, which is steep enough that I can barely crawl down it in sneakers without slipping. There's room for about three steps, and then it drops off abruptly. It's really quite a nice launch, but it looks pretty intimidating.

Ed went first, and didn't find much lift near the mountain:

The cycles were feeling reasonable, so I launched shortly after him. After several years of anticipation, the launch was quite fine and uneventful. Although I had a bit of wind to launch into, I also didn't find much lift, just a few bug farts, but not enough for me to hang onto, so I sledded down behind Ed. Although he had gotten some lift over the field with the line of trees in it, and moved on to the field behind it, I lost my altitude more quickly and landed in that first field. Jake launched after me and stayed up for 30 minutes or so, I think, and Dan also had an extended sled ride. I'm not sure what happened with Dave, he might have decided not to fly after all.

Landing was a bit interesting. I circled the field several times, and it really didn't matter what direction I landed, because there was no wind to speak of. I retrospect, I would have been better off to have landed in the opposite direction. I set up to land in the direction of the general light wind that we had been seeing, which followed a mowed path in the field. I turned onto final just over the trees and dived in, and at that point got a sense of the slope of the field, which was slightly downhill in the direction I was flying. I glided along at high speed, then turned right a bit in order to use the full diagonal of the field. The ground beneath me still wasn't getting any closer, but the trees on the edge of the field were, so I sat up tall, spread my legs for maximum drag, and really pulled in hard. That got me down to weed-top level, and I continued to glide along in ground effect for a long way, finally ending with an excellent flare that earned me compliments from some passing neighbors. I had a comfortable amount of room left between me and the trees, but the final leg had been almost 1300 feet long. Sheesh! Should have landed uphill.

Total airtime was less than eight minutes, and the whole trip was nine hours from when I left the house to when I returned. The weather was beautiful for hanging around outdoors in Vermont, and it was a damn sight better than sitting in the office. Overall assessment: resoundingly successful day.

Entertaining the souvenir shoppers

jjcote — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:46:17 GMT

The weather in New England has not been so good for flying this year, and I was facing the fact that I'm going to be out in the Rockies for over a week (with no glider), so I wanted to get a little airtime before that if I could. Friday looked like the best prospect, and I was able to get out of work. Couldn't exactly go flying alone though, so I pestered the most likely person (Tom L) to see if he was interested. As late as Friday morning he was still on the fence, but decided to give it a shot, and said that PK was interested in joining us at The Trail as well. I had just finished building extenders for my rack to allow me to carry two gliders easily, so I offered to drive. The forecast looked okay to me, but Tom was worried about overdevelopment, and when we got there, we were faced with more clouds than we really wanted to see.

PK arrived, and we left my car in the bailout LZ and took his up to launch. Although the sky was looking a little dicey, and there was some concern that it might rain, we set up our gliders anyway, and then set about eating wild blueberries while we waited to see what the sky would do. Tom and PK, stylish guys that they are, had matching outfits as well as almost matching gliders.

It was one of those days when nobody is sure whether to launch because the cycles are weak and irregular. The clouds improved somewhat and we started getting enough motion in the leaves that I was willing to roll the dice and see if the air was interested in keeping me up. I tried my best to time my launch right, but I pretty much got nothing, and just flew gently down, down, down, to the bailout LZ, less than three minutes in the air. My landing was pretty easy, and I considered it to be a successful, if far from spectacular, day, because I flew without bending anything. Hard to be disappointed when you actually get up in the air. I also hoped that the other two would make better luck for themselves, and I could drive retrieve. (I've never really done that, and it seems like a cool thing to do.)

I waited to see the other guys launch, and when they did, they both seemed to gain some altitude, then started losing it, and then gained it back again and more. After 10 or 15 minutes of this, I heard Tom say on the radio that he was heading out, and both of them went south to the bigger part of the ridge. I packed up my stuff, loaded the glider on the roof, and headed toward town. When I got close to the main LZ, Tom and PK were talking on the radio, and PK said that he had just landed and asked Tom to let me know. I replied that I was just pulling into the parking lot and could see him. The main LZ is a golf driving range, and he was way out at the far end, beyond the reach of anyone but Tiger Woods. I walked out there and got to watch him pack up his glider and helped him carry it back to the car.

That just left Tom, who had been high over the ridge, but who I could no longer find in the sky. We asked for his location, and he said he had flown a few miles north of launch and was finally approaching 5000'. Since it looked like he might still be up there for a while, PK offered to take me back up and help me launch again. (He had schedule constraints that wouldn't permit him to do any more flying.) The wind conditions were looking more favorable, so... sure!

My second launch was really easy. I brought my glider out front, it was blowing in okay, and the leaves below were moving, so I didn't have to wait, I just said "Clear!" and ran off. Here's what launch looks like; the bailout LZ is the field that you can see.

The first few minutes of the flight brought some anxiety, because the lift was light and elusive, and I was concerned that I might just sink out again. I managed to climb to almost 500 feet over launch, then sank back down to 100-200 over, and couldn't get any higher. The rule of thumb at this site is that you want to have 500 feet before jumping the gap southward to the larger part of the ridge, but you don't have to go there if you don't want to. After a little while, I realized that although I couldn't gain any altitude, I wasn't have too much trouble hanging onto what I had, either, and settled into flying back and forth repeatedly over a short section of ridge right in front of launch, just about a kilometer between turns.

Flying in New England means flying over trees, unless you want to spend all of your time at the beach. Friends sometimes ask me if it's scary being thousands of feet up, and my answer is that no, that's the relaxed part. What scares me is being close to treetops, especially if I'm worried about being able to reach an LZ. This was a good day to work on that. Here's a view of launch from the altitude that I spent most of my flight at.

Since I spent so much time just over those trees (sometimes dropping as low as 30 feet over launch), I got a lot of practice maneuvering the glider while scratching, and feel considerably more comfortable with it now, with a much better sense of how much I can expect to drop in a turn, for example. The road that you can see in that picture is a popular scenic drive, and quite a few cars coming up the hill beeped their horns, and I waved. At the top of the hill, there's a souvenir shop, and a lot of the people who stopped there watched me fly for a while, and some took my picture, so I returned the favor.

Tom mentioned that the far side of the valley was going into shadow, and wonder wind was likely to start picking up. After a little while, it got easier and easier to maintain my altitude, though I still wasn't able to climb very high. I did extend my excursions, going a mile and a half up and down the ridge. Lift was easy enough to come by that it would have been a cinch to fly south to where I could reach the main LZ (where Tom had finally landed after over 3.5 hours in the air), but PK had enlisted some people to shuttle my car down to the bailout LZ, so there was no need to go anywhere else. I decided to play a little game where I would keep flying as long as I could keep myself above launch. A couple of people showed up on launch to watch the sunset, and after waving to them, I tried another glider-handling trick, that I got on my second attempt: fly so that my shadow passed right over them. I eclipsed the sun, yeah! I hope that looked cool to them. Finally I dropped a few feet lower than launch, climbed back to just over launch height, and headed down. I had plenty of altitude, so I had the luxury of being able to set up a very clean DBF landing (well, sort of -- there was no wind at all in the LZ), and when I touched down, I had been in the air for 2 hours 19 minutes, my second-longest flight to date. Packed up, picked up Tom at the driving range, and we headed home. Definitely a day that was worth the gamble.

Interstate adventures

jjcote — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 14:45:45 GMT

I had a trip scheduled to the DC area for a reunion of people who I knew from college, centered around an activity (model rocketry) that I pretty much lost interest in 25 years ago. It seemed like an interesting enough prospect to see my old friends, but if I was going to drive all that way, I ideally wanted to do something else to make the trip really worthwhile. I figured that there had to be someplace where people would be flying in the mid-Atlantic area that weekend, so I put out some feelers, and the most likely venue seemed to be the Cumberland Fairgrounds in Maryland. After a nine-hour drive (from Massachusetts) on Saturday, a couple of parties, and about three more hours behind the wheel on Sunday, I arrived at the fair.

The forecast had been for somewhat light wind conditions and moderate lift, but with a possibility of thunderstorms. The storms developed farther to the east, but as I was heading into town, it sure looked like the wind was stronger than the predicted 5-10 mph. Since I was in an area of narrow valleys, I wrote it off as local venturi effects. On the positive side, when I arrived at the fairgrounds I saw that the overflow parking lot (aka LZ) wasn't nearly as full as I had feared, so there would be more room to land.

I met JR and Mark G at the LZ. The situation as I understand it is that the folks who own the fairgrounds give the local club permission to land there provided they fly as much as possible during the week when the Allegany County Fair is happening, for the entertainment of the patrons. I was pleased to be able to help the cause. A couple of sailplanes were cruising the ridge when we arrived, so we could see that there was lift available.

Due to the wind direction, we didn't go to the Fairgrounds launch, which is right above the LZ, but went instead to the High Point launch, a mile or so south of there, and across the river in West Virginia. A new state to fly in! I set up my glider next to JR with his Sport 2.

This was the first time I had flown my Falcon since early April, and it felt surprisingly strange to set it up. For one thing, it's so light! 16 pounds less than the Mark IV is really noticeable. In addition, it has hardly any battens. I got my gear together first (I put some effort into being expedient about setup, since I'm often the last one ready), and got to be the first one to launch. This has its drawbacks, because there's some value in watching somebody else launch, but in this case it was very nice to have two highly-skilled (and self-deprecating) pilots as wire crew. As I noted above, the wind was stronger than the forecast has called for, and JR recommended that I start pretty far down the slope. I waited and watched the wind for several minutes before picking a bit of a lull -- it was way too strong at the peak of the cycles. Launch was quite fine, and I started climbing moderately right away.

I made a few passes on the section of the ridge near launch, gaining steadily, and Mark launched after me. Ben came on the radio and asked how the air was, (wondering about flying his PG) and I replied that it was a little bumpy. JR joined me soon after, and said that he thought that "a little bumpy" was kind of an understatement. There was no problem gaining altitude, as the thermals were quite strong. My wacky vario recorded lift/sink of 2000/-1220 fpm, and my more credible GPS said 1500/-945, or 1395/-765 for a 20s average. Definitely the most active air I've ever flown in. I also now know what people mean about "sharp edges" on thermals. I'd be flying along, I'd feel forward acceleration, and brace myself (getting ready to pull in) before I hit the rising air, which was kind of like being hit in the chin with a 2x4. (I exaggerate for poetic purposes.)

Looking at my GPS track, it doesn't appear that I did much circling, but it wasn't necessary, because I certainly was able to climb. Unfortunately, what would happen was that I'd get a couple of thousand feet over launch, then get concerned about being blown over the back, and push hard upwind, losing the altitude that I had just gained. I had brought the Falcon instead of the Mark IV because the forecast was for light winds, and I was concerned about having very little room in the LZ, but I think I would have been happier with the DS wing. I would have been even happier with something like a Sport 2, I bet.

After wrestling with the air for around 45 minutes, I heard JR say on the radio that he wasn't having any fun at all. Mark was specked out, and I had to make a decision. I could try getting up again, but I didn't like flying into the wind really fast and not being sure if I was making any forward progress, as opposed to just going straight down. Flying downwind would have been an option, of course, and I think the XC guys would have had a great time with these conditions, but adding the delays of an uncertain retrieve wasn't going to work, considering how much driving I had left to get home. So I exercised my wisdom muscles, and tried to get to the fairgrounds parking lot.

I was a little concerned about whether I'd be able to penetrate enough to get there, and I had been warned that the big friendly-looking hayfield directly in front of launch ("The Dog Pit") was to be avoided if at all possible, due to landowner relations. Once I got lower, I could see that I was making progress, and as I flew across the Potomac, I entered Maryland, adding another state (I believe I'm up to eight now) and making my first interstate flight, though I got only about 100 seconds of airtime in MD. A radio call came in at around this point suggesting that I consider landing in a big field about a mile and a half to the south, but I was too low and already committed to the fairgrounds The air wasn't any less boisterous as I approached the LZ, and I dreaded the worst-case scenario, which would involve something like crashing into a Ferris wheel, since I pretty much had to fly right over the fair. I couldn't see the streamers that JR had set up, so I based my landing direction on the flag that I had flown past, and decided to land to the north. I was really getting tossed around as I did a figure-8 and got unzipped, but when I dropped down to phone pole height on final, it smoothed out and I did a no-step flare just into the rough at the end of the lot.

As I was breaking down, JR called on the cell and said that he had landed about five miles to the south. I finished packing up and met him down there, along with the PG pilots who had driven his truck down because it was too strong for them to fly. We waited for Mark to come land -- took him quite a while to get down.

A very successful outing, all around. I hit the road right after that, drove for 9+ hours, and made it back home to Massachusetts at 3:45 AM.

Busy day on the ridge

jjcote — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:45:12 GMT

A favorable forecast sent dozens of pilots, both HG and PG, to West Rutland. After some delays due to waiting for people who were late, and one pilot who got lost on the way, we drove up to launch to find most of the setup area already occupied, and we had six gliders on the truck and another five or six on the two vehicles that drove up with us. Fortunately, it got soarable right about that time, and a lot of wings moved out into the air and made room for us.

I decided to fly with all of my accoutrements (vario, GPS, radio, still camera, video, camelbak), and combined with the fact that it was hot and humid, it took me a while to get set up. It was blowing in pretty hard for a while, causing at least one pilot to do a potato routine on the ramp, holding up the line for a long time. It had mellowed by the time I was ready, and I was on the ramp for less than two minutes before launching. It wasn't as crowded in the air as it was setting up because a few people landed early, and some others went X/C.

Lift was easy to come by, although I didn't manage to take advantage of it as well as I'd like. I spent what seemed like a pretty long time bouncing around between 500 and 800 feet above launch before I found a core that took me up to 1800 over. Eventually I got bored with just hanging out between launch and the towers, so I ventured out to see what I could find. Going west on the ridge, I managed to not lose very much, and when I came back, there were some people circling under a cloud out front, so I joined them and gained a bit. When that faded, I headed west again to check out another cloud, but it wasn't productive. I was down to launch altitude at this point, so I looked for lift over the highway (nope), and then over a hayfield that was being harvested. That did give me something -- the vario started beeping and I could feel the warmth. It was rowdy lift, and hard to stay with it (I suspect it was a bubble thermal), but I managed to gain a few hundred feet and stay up a little bit longer before crossing back over the little road to land.

Afterwards, a few of us drove over to the quarry for a swim -- a fine way to wrap up a classic summer flying day in Vermont. Pretty sweet that so many people managed to get airtime on the day of Phil Haynes's funeral. There were also 18 tandem rides and four or five solo tows at Morningside, not to mention all of the students on the hill. A fine tribute to the guy who made a lot of this possible.

With a Little Help from my Friends

jjcote — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:44:43 GMT

I had been wanting to fly Brace Mountain (www.thebraceclub.com) ever since I first heard of it. Although it was pioneered by HG pilots many years go, these days it's almost exclusively a PG site, due to the difficulty of getting gear up to launch. After a half-hour drive from the LZ to the parking behind the mountain, there's a 1.75 mile hike with about 450 feet of climb to get to launch. I don't mind a little effort in my flying, so since the forecast looked perfect, I announced that I was heading for Brace if anybody would join me. Jeff C. was up for it, so we hit the road reasonably early and arrived just as a couple of carloads of PG pilots were getting ready to head up. The trail goes through some sections where there's dense mountain laurel on both sides, and it was in peak bloom.

I came with a plan. I wasn't particularly keen on the idea of having the glider on my shoulder for the entire hike, and I don't do very well carrying the glider and harness at the same time, so I brought my cart. This is the remains of a Cannondale Bugger bicycle trailer that my cousin used for delivering newspapers back in the 1970s, and that my family has found many other uses for in the intervening years. I had tried the cart once before, pulling my glider up to the 450' launch at Morningside, so I knew that it should work in principle. In practice, it was excellent. I was the last one to leave the parking lot, since it took me a little extra time to get everything strapped down, and then I was able to easily trot along and pass people. Once the path got steep at the end, the cart became less useful, and I took the gear off of it. One PG pilot offered to carry my harness, and another took one end of my glider to get up the steep section (PG pilots had also taken turns helping Jeff carry his glider).

There was a decent crowd at launch, mostly PG pilots, plus some hikers who stopped to watch the excitement. The wind was very light, so we took our time setting up the HGs, since the forecast was for it to pick up as the afternoon went on (and we hoped the sun heating the western face would help as well). Some of the PGs managed to get up nicely, and picked up substantial altitude, while others just boated around at ridge level for a while before sinking out. We waited until they were all launched before going ourselves.

The launch is a tricky, flat slot with bushes that look eager to grab a control bar, so we were apprehensive about launching with so little wind. We did both get into the air, although not for so long -- I flew for 26 minutes and Jeff managed only about 12, I think. No ridge lift to speak of, the only thing going up was some elusive thermals, which got me up to almost 500 feet over launch.

Since the sun was going to be up for a long time (solstice and all), I hiked back up over the mountain to retrieve the car, stopping briefly at the top to watch a couple of PGs launch for a second time. it wasn't an epic day for us in terms of airtime, but it worked out well enough in terms of learning our way around the site, and knowing what to expect when we go back (and I fully intend to go back).

Twofer

jjcote — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 14:43:51 GMT

Despite some weather pessimism (or unvavailability) from most other pilots, I drove up to West Rutland myself and met Bob. The sky looked awful when I rolled into town (treetops doing the jitterbug), but it cleared up by the time we drove up to launch (stopping partway to chat with Gary, Don, Mike, and Linda, who were working on road improvements). Bob launched first, but I held back for a while until I decided that the big cauliflower clouds on the horizon weren't heading our way. We each flew for about an hour, and I had my first experience looking for lift under cumulus clouds.

As we were packing up, PK and Brian rolled in, just back from the comp in Maryland. After all that driving, they were itching to fly, and encouraged me to come along. I had figured that I was done for the day, but I agreed to at least ride up with them and drive the vehicle back down, and I might as well bring my glider along in case it looked good and I got motivated to fly again. That's in fact how it turned out, the overdevelopment that was threatening all went away, and we all launched, with me going last -- first time I had launched from a mountain site with nobody else there to assist.

In addition to chasing clouds for the first time, I also had the privilege of flying near a bird. A hawk of some sort showed up and bopped around, at one point soaring less than 50 feet off my wing, until he could see that I was established in the lift, and then he rocketed away. Flew for another hour, and headed for the LZ when the wind picked up and I decided to land before I got stuck up there unable to penetrate.

I had a camera mounted on my control bar, and took a lot of pictures, of both the other pilots and the hawk. Unfortunately, I had grabbed the wrong camrea out of my bag, the one that didn't have a memory card in it, so I only got one shot from the air before the internal memory filled up. Oh well. At least I got this cool shot of SonOfBob taking in an inverted view of the world from the ramp.

On our own

jjcote — Sun, 18 May 2008 15:37:43 GMT

I posted a note on the VHGA list asking if people were interested in flying at West Rutland on Sunday. There was one response saying that conditions looked unfavorable, but the forecasts I was seeing looked very different. In the morning I got a call from one interested pilot, and then made a couple of calls myself. In the end, the experienced pilots all decided to pass, and that left just me and Bob R. Bob lives local to the site, but for me it's a 2h40m drive. The conditions at my place were looking excellent, but the forecast was calling for clouds to really come in up in Vermont by noon. I was waffling on what I wanted to do, and finally decided to head up, and call Bob from Keene to see if things had deteriorated.

Since it didn't look too horrible, I did drive the whole way up, and as I made the left-hand turn to head to West Rutland, I saw a truck just ahead of me: Bob and Beth (with the spiffy new glider rack!). We both pulled into the Stewart's, and Bob said that a couple of other pilots were showing up as well. When we got to the parking area (hey, where did the pile go?!), it turned out to be Matt M and Dan G, both H2s who hadn't flown the site before. That would require an official observer, but a couple of phone calls didn't find any who could come out. No matter, they were willing to just come up, take a look at the launch area, and lend a hand.

There were six of us in the pickup going up the mountain (Matt's wife was there as well). The road up does seem to be significantly improved already (promarily due to the efforts of Bob and Beth, I believe), and there's supposed to be some more work done shortly. When we got to the top, we were in a new situation. Instead of being the newbies, with some sky gods chaperoning us, Bob and I were the only ones flying. It was the first time for either of us to fly the site without at least one H4 around, as far as I know. (In fact, I think PK, the site manager, had always been there with us before.) Other than at Wellfleet, I had never flown without a senior pilot to keep an eye on me. It was up to us to not do anything stupid.

In addition to not being the noobs, we were also in a sense the experienced guys, since we had a couple of H2s with us who we were sort of showing the ropes to, even though they couldn't fly. It was nice to have them there, actually, since they were available to serve as knowledgeable wire crew. The wind was coming straight in at a steady 10 mph, so even though the sky was completely overcast at this point, we went right ahead and set up. Bob was ready first, and he was closer to the ramp anyway, so he went ahead and launched.

Yeah, it was soarable: he started climbing right away, and the others estimated that he was 1200 feet over by the time I was able to carry my glider to the ramp. I waited about a minute for the flow to straighten out, and had a fine launch, running all the way down the ramp, and doing a good job of showing the new folks how to do it right. I was also able to climb easily, and after a few passes I was more than 1000 feet over.

I was expecting all ridge lift, but there were some pockets of rising air that we were able to turn in and get up (and as there's no free lunch, there was also plenty of sink around). I topped out at almost 2400 feet above launch (4200 MSL), and Bob was probably about the same. I had a camera in my pocket, and snapped a few photos, though I lost a lot of altitude in the process of screwing around with it. There were times when he was much higher than I was, and vice versa.

Most of the time we weren't flying that close to each other, and he doesn't have a radio, so were weren't in contact. It did get a little chilly, and I started to try to take my gloves out, but I had them in the wrong pocket, so it was too much hassle. I was glad that I had put on a jacket, unlike Bob who was flying in a T-shirt. He headed toward the LZ after flying for about 45 minutes, and I went after him a few minutes later. There was some lift well away from the hill that I circled in a little, and I also tried stuffing the bar to see how the Mark IV feels when going fast, and I did a stall to see how it handles in that situation (seemed more gentle than the Falcon).

The only slightly worrisome moment came on final. The wind was directly out of the west, and the glider started rocking and rolling as I came through the last couple of hundred feet. I was concerned that I wasn't going to be able to flare, and that I was going to drag a tip and ground loop. What was going on? PIOs? Was I going too fast? It settled down as I came into ground effect, and the flare was fine. I remembered later that this site has a reputation for that layer of turbulence, due to rotor coming off the small hill to the west. Just shy of one hour in the air.

The weather call was timed perfectly. Bob had headed out because he thought that it had started to feel damp, and he thought rain was coming. Sure enough, it started to sprinkle as were were packing up. It was probably best the way it worked out for everyone, as it was fine flying weather for us H3s who just wanted to boat around the ridge, it was maybe a little too bumpy for first-timers, and the old hands who would have wanted to go X-C would have been disappointed. For my own part, I was glad to get in a real day of flying, since the next two weekends I'm already committed to other activites.

Peter Pan

jjcote — Sat, 17 May 2008 20:55:39 GMT

[ Mood: Amused ]
I had agreed to help the mother of my 5th-grade friend Stephen (see Shoebox Diorama) with some yard work one morning this weekend, and the best day for her schedule was Saturday. That put a constraint on the early part of my day, because I couldn't head out until about 11:30 AM. And on the other end of the day, I absolutely had to be back by 7 PM, because Stephen and his sisters were performing in a production of Peter Pan (he as a Lost Boy, the girls as Indians), and my elderly parents were also coming. Add in a couple of hours of driving each way, and that didn't leave much time for flying. One thing I wanted to accomplish was picking up my Falcon from Morningside after having an annual done. So I drove up there and got it, but I also brought the Mark IV, because I figured that I should really get in more launches and landings with it to get used to the idiosyncracies of the wing.

The day didn't start out too well, because first of all, I realized just after spreading the wings that my tie-down was in the car. I trotted over to get it, and by the time I got back, the glider (with big wheels on it) had started to blow away, but one of the instructors grabbed it. Then when I went to put on the nose cone, I got the tail too high, and the breeze flipped it right over onto the kingpost. It was a clean roll on the nose, and three other pilots rushed over to give me a hand, so no harm was done, but I felt like a dope.

The weather turned out better than a lot of people had figured, perfect cumulus sky, and blowing straight in at a reasonable speed. There were maybe eight gliders out (plus a couple of students who were just finishing up a lesson when I got there), and it was strong enough that the ATV drivers were hanging around at the top of the hill to wire the pilots off. As a result, things were moving kind of slowly. I drove for a couple of trips, and we started shuttling gliders up the hill faster, letting the arriving pilots serve as wire crew while the drivers went down for the next pickup. The wind backed off around that time, and next thing we knew everybody was up at the 450' launch, including all of the instructors.

Most of the pilots were getting extended sled rides, though if anybody really good had been there, I think conditions were adequate that they could have climbed out. I was near the end of the line, and when I got out on launch, the wind just petered out. I didn't have to wait too long, just a few minutes, and it picked up enough to get going. I didn't want to wait for it to get really good, because I had set myself an absolute deadline of 4 PM to start breaking down, in order to be able to get to the theater on time, and it was getting close to 4. A simple sledder would suffice.

I launched well, ran all the way down the ramp, and felt a bit of lift as I headed away from the hill. Turning left, I started to climb -- yeah! A couple of figure-8s and I was able to get above launch and flew back toward the ramp. I was very entertained to see all of the instructors looking up and wildly gesturing in circles over their heads, encouraging me to try and circle in the lift. I was still too close to the trees to do that comfortably, and when I did get a little higher, about 130 feet over, and tried it, I wound up going over the falls pointing toward the hill -- yikes! I had enough altitude cushion, though, and was able to swoop out without clipping any foliage. I continued to milk it for a few more passes, and then came in for a pretty good landing, not right on the bullseye, but reasonably close, and with an acceptable flare. Just about six minutes in the air, which I've only exceeded at Morningside twice before. And my watch said 3:59, just in time to pack up and head out.

At that point, I had had the best flight of the day, though another pilot shortly afterward got 1000 feet over launch and stayed up for a while. In addition, as I was packing up there were two less pleasant events. One pilot got caught in a thermal cycle that switched the wind direction as he was setting up his landing, and whacked it in downwind, breaking a downtube. I ran over to him and determined that he was unhurt, and helped him get unclipped and carry the glider back. The other was a very experienced pilot who tried to do one more 360 than he really had room for, and disappeared behind the berm at the edge of the pond. He was in a steep bank, and it looked to me like he was going to catch a tip in the water and cartwheel across the field. He popped back up over the berm and landed okay, but sure enough, his left wingtip was all wet. Yikes! It would have made for an awesome piece of video if anyone had been filming, but its's not the kind of thing I'm looking forward to seeing in real life again!

I hit the road and drove back with both gliders on my ladder rack. I had figured that this should work okay, but this was the first real test, and it was absolutely fine, you don't even notice that there's anything on the roof. And the car still gets about 30 mpg even doing 70-75 on the highway.

I made to the theater in plenty of time, and the show was quite fine. This is Peter Pan, a show which traditionally involves aerial special effects.

Only enough time for one flight today, but I still got more airtime than the kid on the stage with the wire attached to his back.

Shoebox diorama

jjcote — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:33:36 GMT

[ Mood: Very Sad ]
Sad? After this flight? Isn't that the wrong mood? Hmm, maybe "relieved" would be a better choice, but that wasn't on the list. But the mood doesn't really have anything to do with the specifics of the flight, it's all about the shoebox diorama. And that's where we'll start, but first, here's the new glider, all set up and ready to go:

(Yeah, that stuff is snow. Doesn't scare us off!)
I said that I would help a 5th-grade friend of mine with his social studies project, building a diorama of a frontier homestead. The original plan was for me to arrive at his house at 4PM, but with the forecast looking very good for flying, I called his mother and discussed the idea that I would show up somewhat later after going flying. Drove out to the site known hereabouts as "the Trail" with Tom L, and got my brain injected with several hours worth of the finest kind of knowledge and wisdom in the process, which makes the whole thing worthwhile irrespective of the flying. We toured the LZs (it was my first time at this site) and noted that the wind direction kept switching between N and S, which made us a bit apprehensive about the prospect of landing. We drove back up to the top, carried our gear out to launch, and set up, being joined up there by local pilot Brooks E.

The wind, that had been looking reasonable, got pretty light, and after waiting a while for a good cycle, Brooks launched. He got tossed around some, but by the time I got hooked in, he was 500 feet or so over launch, and the wind had gotten more consistent. My launch was pretty comfortable, but I got bounced around as I started making passes out front.

It didn't take me long to get enough altitude to make the jump southward to the higher section of the ridge, but once I did, I ran out of lift and got a little bit concerned. I still had enough room to turn around fast and head for the bailout LZ, but the main LZ looked an awfully long way off. Between being unfamiliar with the site, and not having any kind of feel for the glide slope of this new glider, I just had no idea whether I could reach that field, and I was scoping out closer ones in case I got into trouble. The trees under me were also feeling kind of close, but I found a little bit of climb to turn in and got some breathing room. Then a bit further south I hooked into some much more serious lift and headed for the blue in a big way.

As often happens, there were some fine opportunities for learning. Here are a couple of things that I learned:
-- It is possible (though not easy) to get gloves out of a jacket pocket while flying. Brooks had launched with bare hands, so I hadn't put my gloves on either, but as I climbed, it started getting cold, and I fished them out without dropping either one. Would have been a lot smarter to put them in the harness pocket where they belong.
-- This glider, like my Falcon, flies just fine with no pilot input. Before trying to deal with my gloves, I decided I should find someplace where I wasn't sinking. Arriving at a thermal, I cranked it over, then let go and started fishing around in my pockets. When I looked up, I saw that I was circling just fine and climbing at 600 fpm.

I had no experience in air that was anything like this, and I didn't have a good basis of comparison. It felt kind of bumpy at times, but you don't know what qualifies as "bumpy" until you have some kind of reference. Maybe thermals are supposed to feel this way? I was flying with a radio for the first time, and I didn't know whether I had everything hooked up properly until Tom called asked where I was. At that point I could see both of the other gliders way below me to the north, and I was somewhere above 5000'. Tom asked if I was getting tossed around like he was, and I didn't really know how to answer. (I later found out that he got thrown against the keel a couple of times, which was much rougher than anything I ran into.) I had to change the scale on the graphic bar of my vario because it kept getting pegged. I had never encountered lift before that was anywhere near this strong, and I had to set it to +/-1000 fpm to keep it from saturating. The highest value that I saw on the 20 sec averager was 900 fpm, but after the flight the vario reported that the max climb rate was 1200. Yow!

Tom had trouble finding lift, and I watched him heading for the valley, not sure whether he was going to make it, while I continued to go up, eventually getting almost to 7000', with the thermometer reading 33F. Tom finally found something down low, and I watched him climb back up to the top of the ridge, and then I lost track of him. I quit looking for lift and dropped down a couple of thousand feet to where it was a little warmer, and eventually Tom and I found each other when we communicated that we were both at about 4500', and I could see him well to the east of the ridge. He continued up to 7700' while I headed for the valley to look into landing. I was somewhat concerned about what I was in for, since he said that he wasn't looking forward to landing.

I got to the LZ with about 3000' of extra altitude, so I had time to cruise around and look at the windsocks and flags. They were now blowing consistently NW, which was good, but when I tried to bleed off altitude, a couple of things happened. One was that there was a lot of lift coming off of the town, and as I boated around, I was gradually going up. The other was that when I did get down a bit, at the level of the ridge to the west I got slapped around big time -- turbulence coming off of the ridge, I figured. It was enough to make me not want to try and land there, and I considered some big fields to the south, but Tom pointed out the value of having the windsocks nearby.

Once I got down to about 1000' AGL, the situation changed, and I started dropping rapidly. My approach was okay, but when I was on final, the right wing got low just as I was approaching trim speed, and I didn't do much of a flare, because I didn't want to go into a hard ground loop. And the result, instead: whack. Not real hard, but an unambiguous whack nonetheless. A rather undignified way to end my first "real" flight with this glider. Hard to get a firm impression of how it handles, since the air was so rambunctious, but it seemed to be adequately easy to handle. This was a new PR for me in altitude, as well as the greatest distance flown (just under three miles), and the first time in conditions that were this strong in terms of lift.

Tom had even more trouble getting down than I did, but eventually found some sink to core and came into the same field, followed closely by Brooks. We got on the road as soon as we could, but I was already in the doghouse. Remember that social studies project?

I was on the phone with my friend and his mother a number of times on the drive home, and she was basically furious with me, because her son was reportedly in tears, due to my having let him down. He sounded okay when I talked to him, but he's pretty good at just putting on a brave face. I finally got there an hour before his bedtime, and we worked pretty efficiently, with a little bit of drudge-work gluing left for me to finish up while he was sleeping, and a final ten minutes of work for us to do together in the morning. So: very sad that I gave that little guy unneeded stress, though in the end it all worked out okay, with respect to both the flying and the project. I think it turned out pretty well (and he was quite proud of it):

First DS flight

jjcote — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:08:54 GMT

Picked up my new (to me) Vision Mark IV 17 from inspection, and took it for one very short flight. The wind was predominantly north at our west-facing site, so I just carried it 100 feet up the training hill and waited for one suitable cycle to launch. Felt slightly different from my Falcon, but not bad, and I timed the flare just fine. Next time I'll take it up to the higher launches, and if I get a bunch of good flights in, then I'll be okay with taking it to the mountain sites.

VTOL

jjcote — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:43:46 GMT

[ Mood: Embarrased ]

Back to Wellfleet, with Jeff C. this time, and had significantly stronger winds than the day when I couldn't manage to soar. We had some difficulty setting up the gliders, and once we did, we waited a while to see if the wind would abate. It dropped to a tolerable level, and Jeff helped me carry the glider out to launch and held my nose wires while I got established. When I was ready, it was a classic elevator, just one step forward and I went straight up (to the delight of the onlookers in the parking lot who tooted their horns in celebration). One of them helped Jeff get launched, and then we were both flying.

Not so easy going, a lot of the time I was just parked above the dune, pointing straight out, and hovering with the bar pulled in pretty far. I flew for an hour, doing a bunch of passes over the mile and a half stretch north of launch, while Jeff eventually headed south and made it to Nauset Light and back.

I did not demonstrate the maxim about a good pilot using his superior judgment to avoid the need to use his superior skills. Instead, my poor judgment necessitated the use of the tolerable skills that I have. The wind was picking up now and then, and making it hard to penetrate with my Falcon. There were some stretches when I couldn't go along the beach at all, it was just a matter of pointing straight out and flying pretty fast in order to maintain my position. What's the right thing to do in a case like that? Landing as soon as you get a chance would be a fine choice. Another would be to make sure to fly well out in front of the slope in order to maintain some reserve in terms of position in case a gust comes along.

Well, that gust did come along, and I was in the flight regime where pulling in more makes the glider go faster, but not faster forward, just faster down. I was almost managing to maintain my position, moving backwards just a tiny bit, and losing altitude. I got pushed just behind the lip of the dune, and it looked like I wasn't going to make it far enough forward before I touched down. Top-landing on the dune, not a good thing from a regulatory point of view (though I've seen PGs doing it).

But then I glanced backward (as in, below my feet, since that's where I was heading), and I saw SHINGLES! Aughh! I was about to land on a house! Very very not good! The last 10-20 feet of descent went pretty quickly, as I dropped into rotor, and I landed vertically, on my belly, on the edge of the driveway (well, sort of in some thorns). The building was a garage or something, and I moved my glider into the lee of it to break down and carried it back to the parking lot.

Could have been a lot worse. But I could have been a lot smarter, too.

On the other hand, in addition to my first toplanding (such as it was) and my first X-C out landing (sort of), I also flew with a GPS for the first time, a cheap datalogger, and got a track of my flight (see above). Reasonably cool, though it will be even more interesting at a mountain site.

Sledders to the beach

jjcote — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:48:16 GMT

The chatter on the NEPHC Flyline said that people were heading to Wellfleet, and the forecast looked pretty reasonable to me, so I called in to work and said I'd work on Saturday instead of Friday, and headed for the beach.

There were about 10 PG pilots there throughout the day, with a wide range of skill levels, from wizards who could cruise by, hover over a buddy, and tap him on the helmet with a foot, to one guy who spent well over an hour on launch without ever really inflating his wing (I think he was learning to build a wall or something). A bunch of PGs were in the air when I arrived, and they were generally staying up.

Not so good on the HG side, though. I was the only HG pilot who actually flew, though Phil A. also showed up and assembled his glider, but never took it out of the parking lot. The problem was that the wind was nice and constant at about 12 mph, and at least for someone with my skill level, that's not quite enough to soar. Most of my glider's airtime was as shown in the picture, with me holding onto the nose wires. I had seven sledders to the beach, two of which lasted long enough for me to make one turn. Six landings on my feet, and one on my belly after successfully following the two cardinal rules of flying at Wellfleet:
1) Do NOT, under any circumstances, land in the water.
b) Don't run into the big stick thing.
I had gotten myself into an inadvisable spot where I was on the wet side of the big stick, and I managed to avoid it and not go in the drink, but once I got out of that situation I didn't have it together enough to flare. No big deal, just felt a little stupid.
A day like this builds character! Umm, yeah! Seeing as how this was my first time flying at the beach, I had the opportunity to learn a bunch of things:

The wind was predicted to pick up, but it never did, and eventually it started swinging to the south, so we packed up and headed home. Finally managed to fly (such as it was) in the state where I live, which gets me up to six sites in six different states.

A step up? A step back?

jjcote — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:03:14 GMT

Today looked like a pretty good day for flying, actually. Moderate west wind, great looking cumulus clouds. But I didn't fly today. I did, however, purchase something:

Good idea? Bad idea? Will I like it? Anybody out there enough of an aficionado to identify it from this tiny picture?

A Mid-winter Flying Fix

jjcote — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:15:03 GMT

2008-01-28, Ellenville

I hadn't flown since early October other than a 15-minute sled ride in PA the first weekend in November, and in particular I hadn't been able to get out since I passed the H-3 test in mid-November, so I was itching for airtime. Next chance came on January 27, when the forecast looked good for Wellfleet, and I got up at 4 AM to drive down there. I arrived at dawn, and it was way too windy to even think about taking the glider off of the roof, so I drove home. I had missed an epic day at Morningside a couple of weeks earlier, and I really wanted an opportunity to fly. Since the glider was still on the roof, I decided that Ellenville was worth a shot. Some email exchanges with Tom G revealed that he was planning to fly in the afternoon, so I checked the forecast when I woke up and headed out.

I got there at about 1:30 PM, found Tom (who had just arrived), filled out the waiver, and got a a day pass from Tony. He remembered me from September, and asked what brought me down that way. He was pretty surprised when I told him that I had come down just to fly. Dave H was also going up, so we loaded the three gliders onto his van and Sharon drove us up to launch. On the drive up, I recognized the name and asked Dave if he was the guy who flew from Ellenville to Devens last summer. Yep, that was him! I set up my glider, and tried to pick what clothes to wear. I decided on a long underwear top plus a long-sleeve T-shirt, fleece vest, and running jacket, with just my regular flying pants, because it was "pretty warm". I chose my 180s gloves, and I planned to wear the neoprene facemask, but I forgot to put it on before I flew.

Dave and Tom (pictured) had launched first and they got up right away, but I started out not as well. Turned left initially, but then on my next pass back past launch, I got a little slow, and the glider started to dip to the right, turning me toward the hill and getting me closer to the trees than I cared for. Pulled in and got out of there, and lost some altitude on my way to the Second Knob, but then got settled and started climbing. Once I was a few hundred over launch, I felt a lot more comfortable.

Almost all of my flight was between the Second Knob and the cliffs behind launch, and in fact most of it was over the launch area. The air was pretty nice, and staying up wasn�t tough. The gloves that I had picked weren�t really warm enough, and my fingers got chilly. I put my thumbs behind the control bar to keep them out of the wind, and for a few little stretches I also put my hands under my arms to warm them up, and just flew no-hands for a while. Curiously, doing this (as well as other things that took my hands off the bar, like fiddling with the vario or trying to take pictures) resulted in my gaining altitude! The glider knows how to fly pretty well if you leave it alone. Taking pictures didn�t work, because the camera had shut down before I tried. This was presumably from a combination of my not having fully charged the battery the night before, the fact that I forgot to turn off the LCD backlight, and the cold temperature (just above freezing).

Dave got up and flew away on his ATOS pretty quickly, although I did see him come by briefly later on, and then he landed shortly before Tom and me. We bounced around the launch area for a while, and later headed in when the sun got low, after about 90 minutes in the air. When it was clear that Tom was heading in, I flew over to the ridge past the second knob, hoping to find a little lift on the sunlit hillside, but there wasn�t much going on. I did a pass by the lower ridge without finding anything there either, then headed for the LZ. Made sure that I flew over my intended spot a couple of times, looking for streamer/windsock action, picked a direction, and did a nice tight DBF approach. I was a little apprehensive after my idiot landing in Pennsylvania, but this one was totally sweet.

I got to help Tom out a bit as he packed up, when he dropped a nut and I supplied a headlamp to help him find it. He got to return the favor a little while later: I forgot my harness bag when I left! Tom called when I was about 10 minutes down the road, so I was able to turn around without wasting much time. A lot of driving in two days to pull this off, but I was pretty pleased that I got the chance to do it.