March 31 and April 1

March 31

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.