Steve K. and I got a geezer start and headed to Woodstock at noon. Arrived to find HG pilots Bruce E. and Gary S. (Yes, Gary has been found) set up. There was a gathering of PG pilots as well. Typical for the Stocker things went from stone dead to light cycles at around 3:00. Bruce and Steve took their chances and had short trips to the bridge field for Bruce and the main for Steve.
A few PG guys went out after and got up. It started to come in a tad, so I got in line to take my sled. I hit a nice thermal to the right of launch and slowly climbed above launch. I hit a few more and had it made, got to a little over 2000 over. Winds did pick up and no more PGs were able to launch. Landed after an hour and forty in the bridge field after checking out some smoke down by the chicken coops. Winds were strong and out of the north at 6:00.
As I headed to the north I saw someone on a HG specked out near the North Point . Man, whoever it was must have had a great flight if they came from Cumberland. Don't know who it was.
Met up with Joe S. coming back from BlueSky and he and Zelda treated Steve and I to an awesome dinner and beers.
Thanks guys.
Also thanks to the PG guys who helped me on launch. They gave me a hang check and spotted a batten that the string had poped off. (had my old WW Sport) Maybe these PG guys arn't so bad after all
Pete Schumann wrote:As I headed to the north I saw someone on a HG specked out near the North Point . Man, whoever it was must have had a great flight if they came from Cumberland. Don't know who it was.
Pete
It was the Gardinator. He landed 13 miles short of Harrisonburg, VA for about 70 miles.
As The Gardinator is a net-phobic Luddite, let me elaborate a bit on Mark's excellent flight.
He and I launched into a fine, cumie-filled sky and almost immediately climbed off the High Point ridge in some very fine lift that got us to around 6,000msl from where we committed over the back. That was still far below cloudbase, and after heading out it still took us a while to get really high. We stair-stepped ourselves up to base in short-lived, erratic lift that was occasionally quite strong, but seldom lasted long. Nonetheless, we finally topped out at 8,500msl and were cruisin'.
By the time we were approaching the Shenandoah Valley I became concerned that if we were to continue eastward under our cloud line we'd quickly (and easily) run into Dick Cheney's DC airspace. So we then began a hard 10 mile jog to the south with a view to getting onto the Massanutten ridge at Strasburg. We were essentially jumping streets, and a dumb decision decked me nine miles short of Signal Knob, west of Stephens City for 45.9 miles.
After scraping me off Mark was still in good shape and easily made it onto the ridge to begin a wonderful, boating cruise towards Harrisonburg. He crossed the Woodstock launch at 6,500msl, looking down on a tiny little hang- and paraglider far below. As it was now near five o'clock the late afternoon lift became huge, fat and strong at 800-1,000fpm. This aerial love fest continued until he got past the New Market gap at which point the ridge becomes smaller and turns a bit further away from the wind. As a result he landed at six o'clock at the base of the mountain east of Lacey Springs for 74.6 miles. Steve Walko, a new Pittsburgh Hang 3 arrived to pick him up just at dark to begin the very long drive home to western PA. It was a helluva fine day's flying.
mark the gardinator started out when i was still active and out there every weekend. the guy got hooked and hooked hard.
bill bennet, who you young punks wouldn't know, had been around 'from the beginning' and was very steeped in all things hang gliding. he was a hard ass, in a sense, in that he didn't pull his punches when it came to critique and just laying it out there strait - one of those admirable west virginia qualities.
anywho, back when there was no forum and not much in the way of cell phones, and he was a young scamp, he would camp out on bill's doorstep (at times literally as i recall) and absorb everything he could. he came along pretty quickly because of those smarts. then he had the smarts/good fortune to move out with that pittsburgh/wva crew - Lots of no nonsense experience and talent in that group (not knocking anyone else, mind you, it's just the specifics of this story).
anyhow, just something for today's 'fine young cannibals' to consider.
garyD
Well here I am, having to do a bloody book report since I was fortunate enough to have one of the first long xc flights of the season.
It started out innocently enough……..
My buddy JR called me up as usual and presented the sketchy forecast in the best possible light.
I hadn’t flown in a couple months, so I was generally motivated, and it probably wasn’t gonna be colder than a witch’s.
It was my good fortune that Pete came down to Cumberland as well, because the truth is that I basically topped out in my talon and milked it around near cloudbase while Pete pushed ahead in his sport 2.
After he plummeted downwind through the sink and started climbing again, I would pull max string and arrive at his thermal and climb with him.
I repeated this well honored tactic throughout the flight until the lack of performance of his sport 2 and his eagerness to drag me along for a 100 miler got the best of him and he had to land just south of Winchester.
As we were approaching Winchester, he let me know that we would need to cheat south to avoid airspace issues.
I was able to jump a street or two, crosswind to the south, and got onto the ridge at Strasburg.
I dawdled along figuring I had a milk run to Harrisonburg, but the lift shut down around 6 PM and I got scraped off and went out to land near Lacey Spring for about 70 miles after 4 hours in the air.
There were several factors that went into the success of this flight.
The first is the relentless call to arms from my boy JR……….
As most of you know, once you’re married with children, there are just so many other things to do.
For many years, JR hasn’t given up on me, and without him calling me on every possible flying day and passing along mis-leading weather forecasts, I am certain that I would be flying much less than I already do.
The other major factor is the support of my lovely wife Sheila. I am very thankful. Not only do we have two wonderful children, she actively motivates me to go flying and doesn’t mind living in a broken down shack with a leaky roof and tall weeds in the front yard.
Of course there’s Pete, who is desperately trying to retain flying buddies to inspire and challenge him. He has also been relentless in his pursuit to get me out flying more.
On that Sunday, as is often the case, he brought a volunteer driver, Fred Sherick, and also our latest XC prospect Steve Walko.
As I was setting up he simply came over and gave me Fred’s cell number, which in hindsight, was a hint that I had better join him if it turned into an XC day.
I recall that as we initially climbed out, I saw that Pete was lower than me and farther back. I radioed and said “so………what are you gonna do? Stick with what you have and just keep goin?” to which he replied “YUP” ……………..I knew what I had to do.
Steve, whose flying experience is mostly through towing, had a nice soaring flight and the usual interesting approach and landing at the infamous Cumberland fairgrounds LZ. He was kind enough to burn the midnight oil to come and retrieve me, and was rewarded with an arrival at home sometime in the wee hours of Monday morning.
I would like to testify that this should be an inspiration to all of us average hang danglers. We may never reach the consistency of our XC heroes, busting out hundred milers every year or two, but any one of us can break a good one now and then if we just keep flying.
Your favorite knucklehead,
-gardner
PS:
I have been reminded that there is an unusual amount of “hang-lingo” in this report, so I will offer a bibliography? Below.
Bloody book report - I flunked out of English in my junior year of high school cause I hated book reports so much I just never done em.
xc - this is shorthand for Cross Country. It is when you fly away from the well known landing field used when you fly a hang glider from a launch site, to an unknown future location until you “run out of air” and have to land.
JR – Jim Rowan - a dubious character who has been the lynch pin of the West Virginia mountaineer hang gliding club for many years
Sketchy forecast - Hang glider pilots live and die by the weather, which we refer to as “micrometerology”. It is the study of very localized weather conditions that can help us determine if it is reasonable to drive several hours and burn an entire day trying to launch a hyper light aircraft from a mountainside
witch’s - well known weather phraseology most often used in conjunction with glass bra.
Pete - Pete Lehmann is a well known hang glider pilot who owns a world record for hang gliding, has flown over a hundred miles dozens of times, and of those, has flown many in the 200-300 mile range. He is recognized as one of the best pilots in our region.
Talon - That’s the model name of my hang glider and is one of the top performance hang gliders currently being manufactured.
Sport 2 - Although Pete is known world wide as one of the top hang glider pilots, he often flies a lower performing hang glider with this model name and it generally means that the glide ratio at higher flight speeds is less than that of a high performance model.
milked it around near cloudbase - milking is a term to indicate an unhurried or dawdling pace. In this case, there are generally some scraps of lift around near the bottom of a cloud that has been thermalled to, but most xc pilots won’t waste time there once they have climbed that high.
Plummeting down through sink - that’s what happens once you climb to the top of your thermal and move on toward the next possible thermal. The air that you just went up in has lots of other air all around it going downward that we call “sink” meaning sinking air.
Pull max string - my hang glider has a string that I can pull to vary the geometry of my planform to increase the glide ratio of my wing during high speed flight.
(I was hoping to make it sound even more aerodynamically technical, but don’t know that many fancy words)
100 miler - .the dream of every hang glider pilot is to fly at least 100 miles xc for bragging rights.
Air space issues - around airports there are areas of FAA controlled airspace that require special rules to operate an aircraft in. ( a hang glider IS an aircraft….a craft used to fly through the air)
jump a street or two - there are sometimes certain weather conditions that allow for clouds to line up and provide for a “street” of lift for us to travel many miles underneath of, with good success. To jump a street can be difficult, because between cloud streets, there is usually an extraordinary amount of sinking air that can put you on the ground.
Awesome job You Da Man. Similar to flights Tom and I did two years ago, except I thought I would try something different and rather than glide onto Signal Knob, I headed for Front Royal, hoping to get high, go a little further south and jump Skyline drive. Decked it at Front Royal. Valley is pretty narrow back there and heavily developed with few landing options. If I get to that point again I will glide onto the ridge... you of course being much smarter than me... figured this out the first time
Congrats on your great flight. Awesome read. I'm still struggling to break the 25 mile mark but I am confident everything is going to come together this Spring. I, too, got stuck at Front Royal once, not going there anymore.
