Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge

I've returned to the blog now because I wanted to write something about my trip to the Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge. I attended as a free flyer (non-competitor) since I'm still H2 and since I couldn't get enough time off to stay for the whole week.


I arrived on Friday night near midnight and slept in the Clubhouse bunks. When I got up in the morning I got a chance to see the spectacular view off the great big wooden circular launch ramp. At some point late that morning people started talking about the conditions. They were surprising good. I don't think many people expected good conditions after the rain they had the day before and the low clouds building over head, but the wind was blowing strait in at 12 mph or so and the valley floor was illuminated in sunshine.

The first few launches I got to see off the ridge were tandems. And by the time I had my glider setup and preflighted, I missed the first solo pilot launch that day. My fellow Ohio Flyer Michal launched second, I watched him and tried to take notes. I had been pouring over youtube videos of launches from Henson Gap in order to try to prepare myself for the real thing. After a little bit of struggle keeping the glider level and controlling pitch on his own, Michal coordinated with his wire crew what he expected and what he needed from them so that everyone was on the same page. He stepped back up to launch and had a smooth run off the ramp pulling in as he took the first few steps to follow the contour of the ramp. I reminded myself that I would need to do the same thing.

When I suited up and walked my glider out toward the ramp Ollie gave me a hang check and went through a few key points of advice with me for my first launch. I also explained to my wire crew what I wanted from them and that when I felt comfortable and in control I would yell "Clear, Clear, Clear" and would then immediately launch. It only took me a few moments when I stepped up to the red line on the launch ramp to feel comfortable and in control so I launched pretty quickly. I remember only taking a few steps before the ramp dropped away and I was flying. I kept myself pulled in for speed but I think I could have done a better job controlling pitch in those first few moments. Anyway, I flew strait away from the cliff, put my feet in my harness, switched my grip to the control bar, and banked a turn to the left to stay in ridge lift.

From there, I spent a few minutes drifting back and forth along the ridge, trying to make my turns when my vario was beeping slightly higher. I climbed above launch, drifted a little further up and down the ridge, and spent the next 3 and a half hours soaring the ridge at Henson Gap.

My first flight at the site was 3 times longer than my previous best flight. It was amazing. I followed birds around, explored different parts of the ridge, followed other pilots around, and generally tried to relax and enjoy the view of the valley stretching out below me.

The flight even included a low save. There must have been a sink cycle, or a lull in the wind and I ended up sinking out. There was a 6 or 8 minute period where I heard no beeps from my instrument. And drifted up the ridge toward the LZ while I tried wishing thermals into my path. I aimed my glide toward to the LZ to pass over a small knob at the base of the ridge that I guessed might be a place to find lift. I can't be sure if I just got lucky or if I guessed right, but I did find weak lift right over that bump. It took me another minute once I found it to center myself and drift with the lift, but then it carried me right back up to the top of the ridge. It wasn't the most comfortable thing making full turns in lift so close to the tree tops, but I was fully aware of my proximity and was careful to keep in mind the possibility of getting turned into the ridge. Anyway, I controlled my anxiety and stayed as centered in the lift as I could, and kept my turns as coordinated as I could, as I followed the contour of the mountain up toward the ridge top.

A view of the tracklog from my 3.5 hour flight at Henson Gap, Tennessee. The lowest part of the track is the low save as I drifted from the right edge of the picture toward the LZ. I found lift over the very last bump in the ridge.

Other notable moments for me were the gaggle flying (I had never flown with any real traffic before), thermaling up thousands of feet over the ridge at the highest, and finally getting so tired that I actually decided to go land (I've never had a flight where I got to dictate when I landed, mother nature has always done that for me).

So, the summary of my trip to the TTTTC goes like this: the day before the event started I soared my butt off, then sat for the next 3 days in the rain hoping the clouds would break and we would get to fly again. However during the rainy days I did get to listen to some of the best, and most experienced pilots in the world talk about flying techniques, safety, glider tuning, instrument use, cross-country flying, weather, and more!! So even the rainy days ended up being extremely valuable. I headed back to Ohio in the middle of the week to return to work and also for the rare chance to soar the local ridge site in Ohio.

Bringing the Blog back up to speed

I've been neglecting this blog for a few months now. It's not that I haven't been flying either, I'm still recording and editing together clips of my flights but I've been "too busy" to get on here and put some thoughts down. I think the best way for me to catch up is just to point to a few videos on my Youtube channel:

Now that I look at the videos, I've realized I've broken my record. I've missed one day. I'm sure I have video from day 34, but that was probably the day I had a few poor landings and got frustrated. If I remember correctly I turtled the glider when I landed off balance and ground looped in a small headwind for instance.

I've also been neglecting this writing because I wanted to change the way I do this blog. I've seen a few other pilots who release videos often (relate2, and LAGlide on Youtube) set themselves up with a microphone and record themselves talking in flight. I like this idea and think I could illuminate a few interesting things about flying that aren't obvious from just watching a flying video. Anyway, I've been trying unsuccessfully to get my voice on camera during the flight.

I'll have a solution to this soon though.

Casual day at Wesmar this weekend. It was actually something of a Fly In and a birthday celebration for a number of club pilots so there was a gathering all weekend. I was busy on Saturday but went out on Sunday to try to fly. The weather looked great in the morning, and Larry W. had a decent flight early on, but the conditions deteriorated to marginal. And in fact it was literally marginal since you could draw a line right down the middle of the sky and to the north, there was a dense field cumulonimbus clouds popping up and to the south, clear sky and high cirrus clouds. So we were right on the margin.

My big goal for the day was just to get some more time on the new harness. I have been making adjustments to the shoulders to try and get a good feeling but it always felt slightly small when I put my feet in the boot. However, it was mostly just the 1 inch thick block of foam in the boot that was restricting my shoulder room. Removing the block gave me too much room. Now I have to go back to adjusting the shoulder straps and try and find that ideal setting.

My  flights were short and didn't consist of much climbing, but they were enjoyable. The tows were behind a trike, which was a first for me. There was significantly more motion and correction needed since any lift that the trike encountered had a huge effect on it's climb rate so I had to make larger corrections to keep up. In the end both my tows were smooth and incident free and provided a total of 38 minutes of flight time.

First Flights on a New Moyes Contour Harness

Finally, the harness I ordered arrived!

Frank was Aerotowing on Sunday so a number of people came out to take advantage of the fantastic weather. It was also the first opportunity I have had to fly my brand new Moyes Contour Harness. I have to admit I wanted to just jump right in and Aerotow on the new Harness but everyone advised against it. And I agreed that it would be sensible to get some scooter towing in on the new harness first. This meant that I sat around all day and watched everyone get 3+ hour flights off Aerotow while I waited for the scooter to be brought out. That was hard to do.

So, the Contour harness: It's a single suspension harness, which means it has a back-plate in which the main riser can slide back and forth. This also means that you can hang with your bodies center of mass (about at your belly button) either fore or aft of the hang point. If you have the slider all the way forward, your center of mass is behind the hang point and you tilt upright so that your almost vertical. And likewise if the slider is all the way to the rear, this puts your center of mass right at, or slightly in front of the hang point, which means you'll be hanging perfectly level, or even slightly head down.

It also has lots of internal storage, one long pocket that covers the back-plate on the inside, two medium sized pockets beside either ankle, also one pocket that opens to the outside of the harness with a flap door on the left side, and then a few small pockets with double zippers beside the parachute pouch. I can comfortably get my whole glider bag w/padding and baton quiver and tip bags into the various pockets and still have room to spare.

The main zipper is velcroed in pretty solidly but can be replaced if needed. And the separate pulls to zip up and un-zip are easily reachable. Although the velcro that holds the pull tabs in place could have been better situated. It comes with a very nice harness bag with shoulder straps and extra pockets.

At first glance, I didn't like that it doesn't have padded leg loops, so if I do choose to spend any time weighting the leg loops, it's slightly uncomfortable. Realistically though, I'll probably only spend a very short amount of time with lots of weight on the leg loops.

My conclusion: This is a fantastic harness. It's effortless, and really mean effortless, to rock upright and go head down again. I've heard people with older Contours say that the slider ends up wearing out a little and could be harder to slide with age, but at the moment, it slides like butter. I don't think I'll ever be wishing I had more storage, and the construction and craftsmanship of the harness is very clean and the harness looks beautiful.

I can't wait for some longer flights so I can really get a feel for the comfort of the harness. My 3 short flights on Sunday (2 minutes each) weren't enough to get a feel for any points of friction or rubbing that may be the result of a poor fit.

Last Weekend I had 3 great Aerotow flights. They were great primarily because I've finally figured out my launches, but one of them also led to a 1 hour flight playing around in decent lift.

The first tow on Saturday started off with my typical poor launch. I have had this tendency to leave the cart and dip back down, sometimes touching my wheels to the ground, and sometimes my feet hit the cart as it starts lagging behind me. Some people thought I was leaving the cart early and getting hit by a tail wind or something but as I saw this over and over we scratched that idea. It turns out that I have a tendency to pull in immediately after leaving the cart, and I end up diving the glider after lifting off. Of course I'm not doing this intentionally, I think it's caused by how I'm sitting in the cart, how far off I am from trim position, and my experience scooter towing.

While scooter towing I end up applying a lot of bar pressure (pulling in) in order to control my climb and dampen any bumps and yawing and make the small correction I need to. I think it's this habit of immediately applying a lot of bar pressure that is the biggest cause of my bad launches. Instead of pulling in so hard on Aerotow I need to pull in exactly None and let the glider climb to the 6 or 7 foot height that I see from so many other pilots. Then I can start applying control input and keep the glider at that height while the tug lifts off the ground too. From there it's just a matter of flying the glider in formation behind the tug and climbing to 2000 feet.

Anyway, my first launch on Saturday had the same problem, I end up touching my wheels to the ground for a second (Dangerous!) immediately after leaving the cart. But I towed up into an overdeveloped, but calm, sky and boated around for 15 minutes. I also had a good landing.

My second flight was 100x better. I resisted the urge to pull in at all and instead let the glider climb out of the cart. I finally executed the launch I've been trying to do since the first time I tried. It felt good. The flight also ended up being fantastic and lasted an hour.

I towed up to 1700 and got off in what I thought was decent lift. Either it wasn't that good or I couldn't find it because I didn't gain almost anything for the first 5 or 6 minutes. I ended up watching another pilot, Larry B. (flying a T2C) get off lift and start climbing obviously. I headed over to where I thought he was and encountered workable lift. I used it to climb up to a few hundred below cloud base, which was around 3800. From the moment I started circling below Larry I lost sight of him and didn't realize I was turning the opposite direction he was. I noticed my mistake when I saw him drift out in front of me during a turn. He was only 400 above and looked like he was right at cloud base.

Since I started getting high flights for longer duration I haven't actually had the chance to fly with anyone. I've always been in my own thermal on the other side of the field, or been the only pilot up or something. But today I decided to jump at the opportunity and shadow Larry as he, most likely, started off cross country. I figured I would follow him around for a little while and then head back to the field before I got too far to return. And sure enough, shortly after I spotted him right above me, I saw him start off toward another cloud 4 or 5 miles away. I followed.

After the first glide I tried aiming for the lift he was already working and ended up getting a very nice climb, this time, there was very little drift and lots of lift. We climbed to cloud base a second time and I tried following him again. At one point he made a turn in sink out in front of me and I could see the top of his sail (barely) but he made another turn or two and was above me again. It's the only time I've seen a top side of a flying T2C!

Larry didn't end up going cross country, he headed back to the field shortly after I did. The only reason I did was because I was downwind at this point and knew that I was getting very close to the edge of my glide back to the field. But I made it back with 500 to spare and made a good approach and a good landing.

Following another glider around really did make my day. This is also the first time I've actually climbed in 2 distinct thermals. My other long flights have just been milking one thermal until it disappeared. I would always stay in the exact same place. This time I actually traveled a good distance throughout the flight. Now I'm even more excited about signing up for the Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge in a couple months. I've had a very small glimpse of what I imagine it would be like to fly cross country in a team setting and think there would be loads to learn by following experienced pilots around in the air.

This video was an experiment in how to cut down an hour of footage into only a few minutes. I also tried finding some music to include in the video (which is very hard if you want to avoid violating copyright laws) so maybe the video will be more entertaining to watch. I'm sure some of those 20 minute videos I've put up with nothing but wind noise in the background aren't entertaining to watch, but they weren't intended that way. I hope you enjoy.

Successful trip to Colorado Fly Week 2012

I made it!

That is to say, I managed to finish (with very generous help from a number of people) the last of my many preparations for my week long trip to Colorado Fly Week. I also (since it is now July 10th) made it home safely too, so I now have the chance to write it all up.

The Colorado Fly Week was held at the Smith Ranch outside of Villa Grove, CO and was absolutely fantastic. I learned a huge amount, met lots of fantastic pilots, saw some spectacular weather and had some nice flights too! Below is a lengthy summary.

To be honest, I had expectations of attending Colorado Fly Week and racking up huge amounts of air time soaring up and down the Sangre De Cristo mountain range. It turns out it isn't quite so easy, although a number of people did it over the course of the week. I only ended up with less than an hour of air time over 4 days and 4 flights. But the discrepancy between my expectations and the reality doesn't really disappoint me at all because like I said, I learned a huge amount and can say I flew safely and conservatively in a new and somewhat extreme (weather wise) location.

But first, I have to thank John, Willie, and Wes again for their enormous efforts getting me out of town. I had some big help building a roof rack for my car, replacing a leading edge and flying wires on my glider, and packing my parachute, all of which was pretty much done at the last minute. So thanks. I owe all three of you big time and in my mind will be in a debt of gratitude to you for a long time.

To summarize my trip: I left Ohio right after a great big storm rolled through and did loads of damage to power lines, trees and roof tops from the Midwest all the way to the East Coast. I left town on Saturday evening, drove 3 and 1/2 hours to Lincoln Trail State Park in Indiana where I camped for the night. I got up bright and early and proceeded to make the remaining 1100 mile drive from there to Villa Grove in about 22 hours. I set up camp there at the hang gliding head quarters feeling a bit like a zombie but woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and ready to fly.

I somewhat nervously set up my glider at the launch area while going over in my head all the things I needed to remember about launching at a high altitude flying site. I knew I would need a very strong run on launch, good control over my angle of attack throughout the run, and a good awareness of my position with respect to the terrain immediately after launch.

I think I executed my first ever mountain launch quite well. And felt great for the duration of my short sled ride. But I had a very late, or even non-existent flare on landing and ended up setting the glider down on its nose briefly. Not a big deal but still not how I prefer to do it.

The next 3 days followed routine of waking up when the sun rose above the high mountain range east of the LZ, attending the pilots briefing to hear news, weather, and safety information, followed by a mad dash to the shuttles to get up to launch. Those shuttle vehicles needed to be pretty rugged to get to the top of the 4 wheel drive road carrying up to 4 gliders, just as many paragliders, plus the pilots for each aircraft. At least once I saw 10 people in one vehicle! Once we were setup at launch, we generally watched the paragliders launch first, then the H2's and any others just looking for a sled ride would take their flights. I believe I was one of only a few (maybe 3 or 4) H2's at the event and none of us got any significant soaring flights (There were however other single surface gliders that flew quite far).

I brought my camera and was able to film all my launches, but only 3 full flights and landings. The battery died during the 4th (and best!) flight so I failed to capture my only good climb all week and my no step landing afterward.

Looking at the video I think I managed to make decent launches (I avoided ever popping my nose up on launch anyway), although I think I missed 3 or 4 opportunities to work decent lift just because I was making poorly coordinated turns or whipping around instead of gently drifting with the wind to stay in the lift. I think I've got a lot to learn about making the most out of the small diameter, or "precise" lift. On my 4th flight, the only time I climbed much at all, I fixed a few of these things and saw some good results. But my drift and proximity to the mountain ended up scaring me out of the lift in order to head to the LZ. I'm still not entirely comfortable with the idea of landing a long way away from head quarters and requiring a retrieve. Cross country flights will come in time, but I'm not there yet!

This ended up being a fantastic Ice-breaker trip. That is I think I'll be far more likely to plan another road trip to somewhere closer by in Georgia, or Pennsylvania. I wanna start getting more experience flying a variety of sites. The Tennessee Tree Toppers event is at the top of my list at the moment. I really wanna go to that!

Saturday, June 23, 2012

So, I've been putting off writing up my last day of flying. There have been a number of reasons for this but I guess the biggest reason is that it was my worst day of flying ever. How does this sound: I had 2 more blown aerotow launches which resulted in a belly landing once, and a nice controlled flare the second time. I was still making the same mistakes I was on my first few attempts but couldn't figure out quite what the problem was. On my third tow I launched successfully, towed up to 2100 feet and soared for an hour, climbing to cloud base once at 6000 ft AGL. Sound like a bad day so far? Well, I even had a nice landing on that flight.

However, at the very end of the day I decided I didn't want to carry my glider all the way across the field to the hanger where I would be packing up. Instead I took a short scooter tow thinking it would be nice to boat around for a few minutes and land back at the hangar. It really was quite pleasant in the calm air late in the evening. But I was lazy, or not focused on the important things, or tired, or something, and I ended up setting up a poor approach that brought me in a little too high into a restricted landing area. For what ever reason I chose not to use the thousands of feet of runway, and wide open field I had available to me and instead chose to land in a "convenient" spot. As I rounded out my final and was skimming the ground waiting for my glider to loose energy so that I could flare, I realized there was a large wooden pole coming at me surprisingly fast. I don't think there was any chance for me to turn, not when I was going 25 miles an hour and only 2 feet off the ground. I stared at the pole and had some instinct to flare early and try to bring the glider to a stop before I ran into the pole. I flared, and flared hard. But I had just a little too much speed so my flying wire and leading edge made contact with the pole almost at the same time. Immediately after the collision I landed on my feet but was off balance and had no grip on the glider so my left wing tip hit the ground hard and broke the tip wand and bent one baton.

I stepped out of my harness a little shaken and stunned at what just happened. A quick inspection of the glider showed me a bent down-tube, a broken tip wand, a bent baton, a flying wire striped of some of it's plastic coating, a small tear at the seam of the sail right at the leading edge, and worst of all, a large dent in the leading edge tube inside the sail.

Uncharacteristically, I didn't have a camera running. I can't watch or post any video of the accident and no one else saw it.

I made a terrible choice in landing direction. Since there was calm air, I could have landed in any direction at all but I chose pretty much the smallest landing area I could have, even then I came in too high and had too much speed when I rounded out.

This accident was made worse by the fact that in one week, I was planning on driving to Colorado to attend the Villa Grove Fly Week. So the roughly $500 in repairs I would have to make, needed to be done within 5 days if I was going to make it.

Since I'm writing this on Friday, and the accident happened on Saturday of the week before, I can spare you the details of all my stress and worry and frantic preparations. In the end, the people at Northwing Designs were extremely helpful, and did everything they could to rush the parts to me on time. And despite all the things I had going against me (I hadn't built my car roof rack to transport my glider, I still needed to make some car repairs, and I was struggling to find a harness that I could borrow for the week) I have managed to get almost everything taken care of. I have a car that is in good shape for the 2600 mile trip, I have a sturdy roof rack built, I have a harness packed with my new parachute, and I have the replacement glider parts in route.

The only real issue that is still eating me up inside is I have to hope that the parts survived the 3 day shipping. The 108 inch long leading edge is delicate, and I don't seem to have any trouble imagining a fork lift tong puncturing right through it. This evening will determine weather or not I will actually be making a trip to Colorado or not.