Saturday was windy and rainy in places but Sunday had a decent chance for clear skies over wesmar. And despite being a little strong, 5-10 mph on the forecast, we expected to be able to soar. Our tug pilot and 6 other pilots came out today. And while us H2's scooter towed, the experienced pilots aerotowed. Few people climbed much, but were able to work lift and extend their flight times. My best was a 15 minute flight off of an 1100 foot tow. I climbed to 1600 at the highest but quickly sunk after that. In general the lift was small and punchy and hard to stay in. One of my fellow H2's, named Matt, brought out a newly acquired glider, a Wills Wing Sport 2. John test flew it and Matt had his first flights on a glider other than the Falcon. I think he got a longer flight than any he had had before and the landing was decent, so I'm sure he's happy with his new equipment. I also acquired a used, but very fancy, Flytec vario and flew with that today. It's got loads of feature to learn about and settings to customize but the most interesting thing about it is that it will record lots of data about my flights in a convenient format that I can publish. So I may have some additional media to add to this blog in the future. Or more truthfully I will have another medium in which to analyze my flights in the hopes of learning something new.
I think I flew pretty well, but had one bad landing where I flared pretty early. I ballooned up as high as 10 feet and landed hard. Otherwise I had 3 no step landings. Because of the switch-y wind and variable conditions I consistently came in with lots of speed in order to avoid the hazards of the ground effect. By the end of the day though I was exhausted and sun burnt and a little dehydrated. I need to better prepare for the warm sunny days by bringing sunscreen, and extra water.
Next time the club is Aerotowing, I might get a chance to start training for that too! It would be nice getting dropped off at 1500-3000 feet and getting to fly from there.
The forecast looked excellent with winds 3-5 miles per hour and sunny skies. We've had little to no rain in the last week so the ground was dry and the air pleasant on the ground. The club Tug pilot named Frank worked on Friday to get the Dragonfly ready for the first day of Aerotowing of the year and a bunch of pilots came out to take advantage. When I showed up at the field at 1:00pm there were 12 gliders set up and ready to fly and a few in the air. I set mine wing up to join them. They were running both the scooter for us H2's and the Aerotow for the others. I watched a few people launch and then stepped up to the scooter for my first tow.
It was a smooth ride to about 800 feet. Since there was little or no wind we didn't expect very high tows. When I released right over the top of the tow rig the beeping vario didn't stop so I immediately started circling in lift. I think I climbed up to 2100 or so and was ecstatic the whole time. What an excellent way to start off the day: immediately climbing higher than I had ever been.
The thermal wasn't strong and didn't seem very large (wide) but it persisted until around 2100 ft. At that point I decided to try gliding over to a bend in the river where I had seen pilots circling in lift in the past. Apparently there's a feature near the bend in the river that is a consistent trigger for the thermals. But I didn't end up gliding all the way there. I was in sink the whole time and suddenly thought it might have been a bad idea to venture away from what little lift I had. I turned around and glided down toward the end of the field where people were launching from. By the time I got there I was around 1000ft and was starting to wonder if I was going to have to set up and land.
As I was drifting down below 900ft above ground level I found some more light lift and tried working it. It got stronger as I climbed and by the time I was above 1200ft it was climbing nicely at around 350 ft/min. There was another pilot about double my height in close to the same area. I figured I might be able to find what he was in. It didn't end up taking very long before I was level with and climbing past him. I think he was in an adjacent thermal. By the time I was at 2200 I was climbing at 500ft/min or better and making fairly tight turns to stay in the strongest of the lift. I climbed that one all the way to the top at around 3900 ft. I think that was close to the same height everyone else was topping out at. I looked over toward the bend in the river and saw a group of 4 gliders working it. Those were the 4 that had been up since before I launched. Two of them had even been up since I drove in to the field in the afternoon. I was about level with the glider at the top of that stack.
I sunk twice more either because things got quite or because I just wandered away from lift but I climbed back up to 2800 or so each time. In the end I landed nicely after experiencing my first hour long flight. My legs were weak on the landing and I stumbled a little. I'll have to remember to stretch or move them some when I open the doors on final approach. I was feeling great and couldn't have been happier with my flight so I just hung around for the rest of the day and watched the other pilots soar and eventually land. I think at least one pilot had a 4 hour flight.
If Saturday was any indication, this spring and summer are going to be excellent. I'm looking forward to seeing some more soaring flights.
On Saturday, the forecast was misty and low visibility in the morning so the beginners training was canceled. It was overcast all day and a little humid but 2 of us showed up at noon when the conditions were expected to be clearer, and much stronger. It ended up being pretty light and pleasant and in fact I had the smoothest tows to 1000' I've ever had. It was completely effortless with almost no turbulence or bumps on the way up. I even got off tow in light lift and climbed 100' or so making it a 12 minute flight. The flights after that got progressively shorter so I focusing on landings.
Two weeks ago when there were a number of other pilots out at the field towing I saw Larry do a really smooth moonwalk landing. Later that day I tried it myself and manage to do a pretty good one so today I wanted to practice that. Today there was very little wind on the ground and although I never really thought about it until the end of the day, moon-walking in no-wind conditions is really hard. Or at least you have to moon-sprint in stead of moon-walk. Anyways the lack of wind and my determination to practice the technique led to some silly landings (belly sliding to a stop). But all in all a very nice day. Matt and I were the only two out today so we traded tows all day. I got 6 flights and 35 minutes of flight time
April 1
Sunday was expected to be a pretty good day to fly at the ridge and since it's the start of the season there was maintenance to do. In total 13 people showed up, most just to help with the clearing of undergrowth but a few other people came to fly too. Matt and Sri were looking for their first foot launches and I was there for my second foot launch. I spent about an hour or so helping clear the thick briars that have grown over the hillside below launch. It's hard enough to stand on the steep 45 degree slope in normal conditions but add to that a thick net of sticker bushes and thorny branches under your feet and below you on the slope and you have a really rough time. Apparently if the club is good about doing yearly maintenance it isn't too difficult to keep it up, but last year they didn't do much clearing at all so we had double the growth to remove. I'm pretty sure I can count a pair of socks and my jeans as casualties and my hands came out with dozens of scratches. And in the end I only spent an hour at it. A few of the other pilots that weren't planning on flying worked at it for closer to 2 or 3 hours. So my respect to them for their efforts!
Anyway, the first to launch was a paraglider pilot named Mert, he had a fine flight and proved that the ridge was soarable. Us newbies were setting up while Mert launched since the conditions were still slightly lighter than ideal. I was the first of the H2's to launch and spent quite a few minutes on launch waiting to get my courage up and for the conditions to be just right. When it looked like the wind was straight in I made 4 or 5 strong steps down the hill before I was airborne. I made only a couple passes across the hill before I "fell out" of the ridge. I don't really know what I did wrong, but I left the ridge pretty quickly despite the conditions being good. Perhaps I was just overly cautious but after three and a half minutes I pointed away from the ridge and went to land. I had a good landing with a strong flare and managed to land right on the dirt road in the middle of the winter wheat field.
I spent about an hour or so at the base of the hill watching Sri sit on launch. I think he never felt quite right to launch so Matt stepped up to try. Matt launched after 15 minutes or so and made 2 or 3 passes along the ridge before he headed out to land. Around this time I decided I should figure out how to get my glider back up to the top of the hill so Mert and I walked up to start ferrying cars. Sri launched while we were back at the bottom and I missed his flight, I did see him head out to land though. Pretty quickly after Sri launched John and Larry (the experts) decided conditions were good enough for them to soar. They launched and in only a short time were above the top of the hill, then Larry even took advantage of some of the thermals that we knew were blowing up the ridge and started circling. John did the same and Ken followed soon after and we watched them soar for close to an hour. Larry landed just when we got back up to the top of the hill to start setting up again. John stayed up for another 10 minutes.
When I walked out to launch to survey the conditions I noticed it was much strong than my first flight. It was much closer to the ideal 15mph. So we started setting up frantically in order to take advantage. I was first to launch and had another strong run down the hill which got me airborne in only 3 steps. This time I tried paying closer attention to my position on the ridge and making my 180 degree turns to change direction only when I encountered lift. I ended up scratching for 15 minutes before the lift "turned off". I'm felt that I manage to squeeze as much flight time out of it as I could, and I only flew away from the ridge when there really was no more lift. This time instead of aiming for the huge wide open field I tried aiming for the spot landing by the wind sock. It's fairly restricted and even has a shallow trench most of the way around the spot so it's much more difficult to hit. When I left the ridge I flew towards it on approach and dove at a spot 100 feet in front of my target, I rounded off and glided the rest of the way in and made a very strong flare right at the back of the target. My feet touching down only a foot or two away from the edge of the trench.
Matt launched next and had a sledder. He said there was almost no wind blowing into launch. Sri did the same. And Sri even manage to hit the same spot landing I did. Doing a strong flare right at the back of the landing zone only a few steps away from the treacherous trench.
In the end it was a fantastic and exhausting day that gave me a bit larger taste of ridge soaring. I think I still have a lot to figure out like how to better read the hill and the lift I encounter while making passes back and forth. I also need to better adjust my harness. I felt like I was having to exert a huge effort to making my course corrections and turns in the strong ridge lift. It has something to do with either my dangle angle or hang strap length and the fact that my arms are almost fully extended at trim. I'm using a Wills Wing harness and a Northwing glider. I think they use different standards for the length of the control frame so there is a slight incompatibility issue. I've never noticed it under the gentle conditions of scooter towing at Wes/Mar but under the stronger conditions of ridge soaring I want to be more comfortable. This is all the more incentive to buy myself a harness made to my own measurements and one that will use the same mains length as the glider. This harness that I'm renting is good but not as good as it can be. Soon I'll be ordering a harness of my own.
