Landing Practice, Hang 3 Written Test, and a Harness Failure

This weekend is the last before the Team Challenge starts at Hensons Gap. I wanted to get some landing practice in and take my Hang 3 written test, which would be the last requirement to earn the certification. This would be necessary to attend the Team Challenge as a competitor and not just a free flyer.

The landing practice went great, and on each tow I tried pretty hard to find a bit of lift to get up, but I never managed it. Larry W. and Dan both got flights longer than 20 minutes. Larry's might have been closer to an hour, but it could have been one of those days where you needed both precise flying and some good luck to launch in time to catch a rare thermal that was well defined and workable below 600 feet.

On my 4th tow I had a failure of the dangle angle limiter on my harness. This is the cord that attaches between the carabiner at the hang point and the harness right at the back of the neck. The point is to keep the harness from tipping head down past the prone position. During scooter towing this dangle angle limiter gets loaded with some large portion of the tow force while the mains hold the force of your weight and some smaller portion of the tow force. In my case my dangle angle limiter, which was a braid-on-braid cord, (hollow single weave rope constructed around a smaller rope core) had a severely worn sheath at a point inside the harness and during tow, the sheath broke and was pulled down by the cleat holding the end. This resulted in the dangle angle limiter lengthening suddenly on tow. A longer limiter meant that my head was allowed to be pulled further beneath the control bar by the force of the tow.

Check out the video I recorded of the tow. I show my first 3 landings and then my entire 4th tow. On the 4th tow you can see the fray just barely showing behind my neck.

I went to my local Climbing Gym and bought some 5mm cordlette that I think will be a strong and appropriate replacement for the failed limiter.

I also took my hang 3 written test and missed 8 questions out of 50. So I passed. And John was finally able to sign me off for Hang 3. I don't remember all the questions I missed but a few stuck out. There was one that asked what the best approach would be for a tight landing area in high wind. I chose the traditional aircraft approach, but it's obvious to me now that I think about it that the figure 8 approach allows you to make your turn to final and almost any time so that it becomes easier to judge the altitude required to not over shoot. I also missed a question that asked about the speed to fly if you are in sinking air with a high tail wind if you want to fly the farthest over the ground. I chose best L/D thinking that no matter what kind of air you're in, sinking or rising, you go farthest at best L/D. In actuality the key is the tail wind, which pushes you much further over the ground than the difference between best L/D and min sink. Which means that the correct answer is minimum sink or equivalently slower than best L/D.

Anyway, I think I'm ready to go to Team Challenge next week.

A New Season is Nearly Finished!

This post is quite late, but I have recently gotten the inspiration to re-continue this effort. So I'll try to catch up on what I've done so far this year.

Date: March 2013

I didn't fly at all in the winter. After the season ended in November the winter began setting in and no training took place. I was happy doing lots of other things in the cold weather. But once March hit and things began warming up, I did get back out for some scooter towing. In fact that first day was surprisingly good! I had 5 tows that day, the first 4 of which were good landing practice and short flights. I quickly realized the effect that even four months can have on your landing abilities. I had one real bad landing that was a belly landing and a sudden whack that resulted in a slightly sprained elbow. Despite that, I quickly gained some confidence back and on the 5th flight, I found some nicely workable lift and ended up soaring for over an hour! I climbed in a few separate thermals and enjoyed boating around high over the north east end Wesmar.

In April and May I had a few more weekends and some weekday evenings of training flights. I feel like I'm now as good as I've ever been with consistent approaches, and flares for comfortable landings.

The most recent day of flights was in June 22. I was the second person at the field around 10:00 am and was the first to start towing. There were a few spectators there (bicyclists on a ride through the area) and I was happy to get the first tow in and demonstrate our launches and landings. I think they were impressed! I had three rapid fire tows, each short and only encountering the very lightest lift. I also experienced quite a bit of drift in the lift that I could find. The wind was 5-9 mph and out of the SW. So we towed long way where the traditional aircraft approach (DBF) for a landing at the launch end of the field would require the base leg along the power lines. It's always a more nervous approach than the other end of the field where you have enormous empty fields to make an approach over and only a few tall trees to worry about. I think I was consistent and was able to stay safely away from the power lines, although I did find a little bit of rotor that was generated by a nearby house just upwind of my base leg. A strong rotor in just the wrong spot could force a turn into the power lines in the worse case scenario.

Anyway, after those first three tows, I started taking turns with Matt D. and some of the other pilots that started arriving. In the end I got 7 scooter tows and one flight 24 minutes long. On that flight I climbed to 1800 feet after a 950 foot tow. Throughout the day we were dealing with very strong drift that would carry you quite far downwind of the launch end of the field, which meant that any commitment to a thermal would likely require landing out. So I was never able to do it until the end of the day when the wind backed off a little bit and I was able to catch a thermal passing through right at the end of my tow. Larry W. was talking about how this marginal sort of day is really typical of "pre-frontal" days when we have winds out of the southwest. The better day would be the "post-frontal" days in which we have northeasterly winds. And looking back at my longer flights at Wesmar, they were all but one out of the north east. It's those days that I'll have to keep an eye out for in the future.

I'm overall happy with the start of my season and look forward to a few more soaring flights in these hot days.

Another new development this season is the dragonfly operation out of Carry's. A private field towing site near Cincinnati. It's 20 minutes closer to me than Wesmar is, but I have the problem of storing my glider at Wesmar, so any trip to Cincinnati to fly would first require a trip to Wesmar. I've really got to find a good way of storing my glider at home in Dayton. At the moment it is nearly impossible to store it in my apartment on the third floor of the building. I'll have to consider renting a garage, or storage unit or something.

I'm also looking forward to the Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge again this year. I'm going to try to make it for the entire week instead of just the first few days. And hopefully I'll have my H3 by then so that I can participate in the competition instead of just free flying.

I've got new goals to work toward and I think I've got a great foundation of skills to continue improving on this year!

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.