2006-07-05 Hammondsport
It's been a while since I last flew, like 3 weeks? The weather finally cleared up and Hammondsport was the call. Forecast was for NNW @ 8mph. Todd, Matt, Doug Fien and myself met around 2pm. The wind was coming in just right and we all scrambled to get our first flight. I was the last to launch.
My first attempt to get it overhead wasn't as stable as I'd like so I started over. Second time was a charm. Took off without a hitch and took a couple of passes along the ridge. I noticed that Doug and Matt were low and heading to land. Not wanting to follow them just yet I stayed close to the ridge but was losing altitude. Matt had landed at the alternate LZ and I didn't want to encounter that walk back so I started towards the main LZ along the ridge. On my way I encountered some lift along the south ridge just east of the main LZ. So I hung around for a minute or two. Then things started to happen. I got a bubble or two and finally just went for it. I hadn't thermalled here before and so didn't know what to expect. There were clouds all over and finally just took a chance. Felt a wing go up and turned into it. The vario started beeping and I stayed with it. I was climbing -- that was good. Caught a couple more of these and managed to get above launch. I headed out into the valley a bit with my newfound altitude. There was a bubble here or there but nothing that lasted. Having caught my first thermal I wasn't worried about anything else :o)
I made it out to the hospital which is just on the other side of the road from the LZ. Up to this point I hadn't ever crossed this road so another first.
I came in and managed a normal landing pattern (downwind, base, final) and had a great landing. Packed up and waited for the others so we could try again.
11 minutes
The second flight was similar to the first. Took off (wasn't as good as I like but it worked) and stayed around launch for a couple of minutes. Nothing seemed to be working and it felt similar to the last one so I headed to the southern ridge again. Bingo. The bubbles were there and I looked over the ridge and there was a gaggle of 5 turkey vultures circling their little hearts out. I figured I was in the right place at the right time. I managed to stay in the bubbles long enough to get 300' over. I got low enough that it was again time to land. Went towards the LZ, did a couple of half turns to burn off the altitude and came in for a great landing.
13 Minutes.
So while these weren't the longest of flights they marked a point in every pilots career where they get their first thermal. The "Thermal High" I was feeling was great. I had finally caught that elusive bugger.
I emailed the group of my newfound friends and Linda was nice enough to reply with the following:
"NICE!!! way to go sean. h-port was where i first thermalled too"
It's nice to have that sort of reaction from someone like Linda. Just a shame that she couldn't have been there to share in my enjoyment. Next time...
2006-05-24 -- Hammondsport
So things looked promising. Bob Roth was going to be there so I made the appropriate arrangements at work and was there when Bob arrived. Ron was there and already set up when I got there. Todd showed up after the first flight. Bob, Ron and I got ready and Ron went off first. I followed shortly after and unfortunately followed Ron straight to the ground -- of course a bunch of ribbing took place about me following him and me stating that I know better than to follow him, etc.
Bob took off about 15 minutes later and managed to stay up for 60-90 minutes. He indicated that it was difficult to stay up as the lift was eratic and he had 2 or 3 low saves. Bob is an amazing pilot -- able to stay up in the lightest lift and is extremely patient. In the end he top landed. Since I've been looking for feedback he was nice enough to come find me afterwards and indicate that the launch looked nice but that I was too far away from the hill (which seems to be an ongoing thing for me...)
So Ron, Todd and I set up again. Ron and Todd took off and seemed to be doing well, but the gusts were concerning and the comfort level disappeared. Just then Doug showed up and we decided to wait. At 6:45 I started packing up because it just didn't seem to be wondering like Doug thought it might. Just when I was about finished Doug started pulling his stuff out and I figured why not -- I'm here and have had one crappy flight why not two?
Since Doug is light on his PG the winds were a bit strong for him so we ended up waiting at launch for 15 minutes until the wonder lightened up a bit. Since I'm heavy on my wing I just waited for the wind that would have kept Doug on the ground and took off shortly after him. We both had good flights. Doug was above me the entire time but the whole light-on-the-wing/heavy-on-the-wing sunk in. Since Doug's light he can fly a lot slower and get higher and since I'm heavy I tend to fly a lot faster and can't get as high. I've been wondering about the speed of my wing for the past month. I've just felt that I've been flying too fast but not sure if pulling half way down on the brakes was smart (the whole stall thing...). This time I did keep the brakes pulled down about half way to slow my wing up and all of a sudden I was able to stay aloft in the same air that Doug was in.
Having gone to an SIV clinic in California I know that my wing requires two wraps and then I can stall if I pull the brakes all the way down. So I knew that without the wraps and pulling a little less than half should be OK.So I stayed up for 18 minutes. Saw Doug top land but didn't have the height to follow and decided shortly after he landed to go to the LZ. Although it was wondering the air was uncomfortable at times and after Doug landed seemed to get worse. The first flight I ended up way short, but this time I arrived with altitude to spare. I did a sharp right circle into a sharp left circle and came in for a nice landing. Ron was there to see the whole thing.
So it was a very enlightening day and I'm starting to actually feel my wing instead of just hang beneath it -- something that other people have said many times but I hadn't experienced it.
Hammondsport -- April 9, 2006
So all of the wind and weather predictions gave every indication that this might be an epic day for flying (5-8 from the NW, high clouds all around). People arrived early (11am) and we quickly did nothing. The only wind at launch was when a thermal was kicking off in the valley.
While you are standing there with that many people at least you are learning about the weather from everyone looking at the sky. It's neat to watch clouds develop and know that the lifting air is beneath it then watch as it deteriorates. Dave Brien came boating through on his PPG and indicated that there were all sorts of boomers out in the middle of the valley if you could get to them (along with huge sink as well). Mukrim was the wind technician that day with four or five short flights as each cycle would come through. I had to question if the cycle was in front of us or whether it was the wind being pulled from a big thermal kicking off in the field
behind us. After the fact I'm inclined to think it was the field behind us as it was in the sun the entire day and the hill (facing NW) wasn't in the sun until after 4:30 or so plus there wasn't any wind to push the thermal to us where it would kick off.
At 5pm I finally decided that my wing was out and I'd just sled down and pack up at the bottom. So after a 4 minute sledder in just crap air I landed at the LZ. While I was packing up I saw a pg take off. Then another, then another, and so on. I couldn't believe it. After waiting for 6 hours for the conditions to turn on does it not happen just after I land? WTF? Lesson: Be patient. If that many people are waiting around for things to happen you can bet that things will happen. So the rest of the PG people had flights of 1-2 hours while I just looked up in awe. 5 pg's just boating around in abundant lift. Was worthy of a picture (if I had my camera with me).
April 2, 2006 -- Indian Cliffs
The weather was a bit flaky, but I was determined to just go. Linda was going to Indian Cliffs down in Corning so I headed out. I had never been there but I needed to get out of my comfort zone. The drive is about an hour and 20 minutes from Rush, NY. I arrived in time to see Doug (pg) have a nice flight. Some hang gliders took off and were up for quite a while. Linda and Mark met me there and we went up. I met some of the locals, signed the paperwork, learned the local do's and don'ts. There was plenty of room for setup but the first flight off a new site is something that seems to freak me out a bit. This is where the training that you receive pays off. I think that you really have to go over everything in your mind and go over your equipment carefully so that you can focus completely on the flight. With the hang gliders doing great I got everything ready and took off with a reverse inflation. Just after you take off you hit a ridge of lift that seems quite close to the mountain. It's a bit unnerving to me at this point. Later I found out from Linda that I was out too far. I managed to stay even with the launch site for a couple of minutes but then headed for the LZ as it appeared to be quite far away. In-between the launch and LZ is a river and a line of trees. At this time of year there aren't any crops otherwise you'd have a long ways to go to get to the LZ. Luckily there weren't any crops because I came up short and landed in one of the farmers fields. It was a 7 minute flight but I considered this a site familiarity flight and was glad that there weren't any problems.
So I packed up and we headed up again. The wind had died down and there was talk of a wonder happening soon. We waited for an hour for the wind to come in constently. With time being limited I set up and waited for the wind to come in straight. I tried a couple of reverse inflations that I just didn't feel comfortable with and let the wing settle down again. The third time was the charm. The wing inflated and came overhead. Everything looked good and I launched. At this point I didn't encounter any immediate lift and just decided to head over to the LZ. I got closer this time but still came up a bit short. When you hit sink around there you really hit sink...
I got a post later from Linda:
I am going to get you on a radio and tell ya when to turn. You launched at a
good time and got out a comfortable distance, then you hit some pretty wide
lift. We were all yelling, "TURN!" and from our perspective it looked like left
was the way to go. It was right after you launched and sometimes it isn;t
comfortable to crack turns so soon.... but... you were pretty far out from the
ridge and I think it woulda worked. And you did stick around the front and try a
while- instead of running straight off. The lift was tough down lower, no doubt.
It got dicey low, and glued together up higher. Fun day anyhow. Nice sun dogs on
the way home. I found my wheels atop H-port, right where I left them....
The "Sun Dogs" are what appear to be rainbows in the sky at cloud level. I can only imagine that the front that was coming in had a lot of moisture causing a rainbow. Very pretty and quite a site when you see them for the first time.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Got two 45 minute flights at Hammondsport today. The wind was coming in about 8-12 mph creating great ridge lift. I hadn't flown since last summer and it was great to be out there again.
Linda and Bob were there flying their hang gliders and Dave Brien was there flying his paraglider.
Dave took off first and I never saw him again until I took off and noticed that he had landed way short of the LZ and was packing up and walking back to the real LZ. Not sure what happened there.
I was really nervous as I hadn't flown in so long. A couple of deep breaths in an attempt to relax and I was set. Contrary to Linda's pov that my launch was scary, it really wasn't. Everything came up overhead great doing a reverse inflation and the turn went without a hitch. Everything looked good so I ran and was airborn well before the edge. Once things were stable I put my gloves on and flew. It was great to be able to look down upon Bob and Linda setting up their hang gliders and keep an eye on Dave as he packed his stuff up. The only incident was a small colapse on the right wing (with my left towards the ridge). Not sure why this happened but it took just a second to reinflate and everything was fine.
I came down a bit and was even with the launch. I didn't want to land short so I headed down the ridge a bit so I was closer to the LZ if I had to bail. Surprisingly there was still plenty of lift and managed to stay up even longer. I though about going back up the ridge a bit but I was still trying to settle into the glider after such a long time away. I finally got low enough that landing was eminent. Moved away from the ridge and towards the lz, did some figure 8's until I was low enough to land. Came in just short of the cut LZ but I managed to keep the wing above as I ran towards the cut grass area and then let the wing come down (I hate trying to get my lines out of the brush). Dave finished walking back just about the time I had finished putting everything away.
Dave and I drove back to the top. I wanted to fly again so I set up and waited for a decent wind so I could do a reverse inflation. The lift was even better than the first flight and was staying 500-1500 above launch easily. I saw Linda top land (wasn't pretty but she was ok) . There were 3 or 4 red-tailed hawks flying around with me this whole flight. Really cool to see birds above and below you who REALLY know how to fly. Bob followed Linda and top landed. I continued to fly but was worried that if I bottom landed I'd have to wait until they were done packing up to come get me. After 40 minutes or so my fingers were numb (need to get some better gloves) and figured I'd better try and top land so I wouldn't be waiting. Got the altitude and I headed downwind to join the rest of the group. Arrived with plenty of altitude, did some figure 8's until I was low enough to come in for my FIRST TOP LANDING. Packed up and helped Linda as best I could with her hang glider.
All in all an awesome day. 2-45 minute flights.
