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!