Remembering When We Used to Fly Hang Gliders

[lplehmann]

Happy Holidays to All.

As there has been a dearth of flying posts over the last few months I am taking the liberty of posting an account of my seemingly annual journey to Zapata, Northern Mexico. After Zapata I continued on to Big Spring and, finally, to the reborn Telluride, Colorado. The story is a slightly re-written and expanded version of something originally composed for my fellow Pittsburgh-area Daedalus HGC pilots.

In the interests of brevity I omitted two undistinguished flights at Magazine Mountain, Arkansas and Oklahoma's Heavener Mountain. I can nonetheless highly recommend both the sites and their hospitable locals.

Pray for spring,

Pete Lehmann

Tejas ‘09
By Pete Lehmann

It Didn’t Rain, but…

Once again I let hope triumph over experience, and early in July drove to Zapata, TX for my annual exercise in self-flagellation and caloric excess. As many of you may know, past visits to Zapata have often been marked by enormous quantities of rain in an area that allegedly experiences essentially no rainfall during the summer months. As a consequence we participants in the World Record Encampments have annually prayed for dry conditions to allow the long flights we crave.

Unfortunately, this year demonstrated that one should be careful about what one asks for because one might get it. We only twice saw sprinkles of rain. Oh, it was dry. Damn dry. And hot as hell. The daily highs ranged from a low of 105 degrees to one forecast of 109F. The problem was that while it didn’t rain, we were still missing the other necessary conditions that allow record flights: we needed strong winds from the southeast to bring in Gulf of Mexico moisture to provide clouds as well as the tailwinds to get us up into the Texas panhandle. Unfortunately, the winds were generally light and too southerly to give either the needed ground speed or the critically important early day convergence cloud streets that distinguish Zapata flying.

Flying for Distance: Hang Gliders and Rigid Wing

As a result of the absence of morning clouds, this year’s early starts were done in the blue, and involved a considerable risk of landing out in the mesquite. The more experienced Zapata pilots such as Davis Straub, Dustin Martin and I were very reluctant to go for it early in the blue with light tailwinds. The odds were simply too long against achieving any meaningful records, and the risks of experiencing the infamous Zapata retrieves were too high. As a result the only people who made long hang glider flights were the newcomers to Zapata, BJ Herring on his semi-sailplane ATOS VX, and Zack “Zippy” Majors on the Wills T2C with which he took fourth place at the recently concluded World Championships in Laragne, France.

BJ, who last year set the rigid wing distance-to-goal record of around 240 miles from Big Spring, is a flyin’ fool and accumulated about fifty hours in the three weeks we were down there. That included one flight of slightly over 300 miles for his personal best, and another flight of, I think, 293 miles on the day that Zippy set his personal best of circa 225 miles. I should also mention BJ's wonderful dad Ben, a fit looking, pony-tailed sixty year old, steel guitar playin' retired piano restorer who arrived in a black Porsche Carrera. He fit in just fine.

Scotland's proudest son, Robin Hamilton, flew his sailplane-like Swift on a wildly innovative flight from Zapata first northeastward towards San Antonio, and then eastwards back toward his home in Houston, flying altogether roughly 300 air miles, before landing about 80 miles from his house.

I only three times tried to go far, twice flying 150 miles, once deliberately landing in frustration at the slow pace, and the second time landing in almost the same spot because the sky had, again, gone blue. I only once landed out in the mesquite on a short flight of 28 miles, but miraculously landed on a ranch where the hands spoke English (a miracle in itself) and gave me the gate combination for Annie and my driver David Glover to get in and rescue me. By way of contrast, that day Zippy required some five hours and a lot of walking in 105 degree heat to get out from his 14 mile flight. And Davis Straub’s 26 mile flight required quite a while before his wife Belinda could find her way in to him...only to then find that a gate had been locked behind them; blocking their way out. Retrieves down there really can be nightmares.

Roundy-Round Flying, Record and Otherwise

But if we didn’t do much in the way of long distance flying, some of us did quite a bit of local Zapata flying in a variety of aircraft. Most notably, Dustin Martin set a new 100km speed triangle record that was staggeringly fast. His barogram made it look like he was flying on a different planet when compared to the conditions that BJ and I were experiencing as we tried to do the same thing. We abandoned our attempts at the first turn point as Dustin continued his magical circuit around the course. Earlier during our stay BJ had set two rigid wing triangle records, for 25km and 50km respectively. It should be mentioned that shortly after getting his record Dustin took his ball and went home. Frustrated at the unlikelihood of ever seeing decent distance-flying conditions he left in a huff. We don’t call him Princess Dustino for nothing. Our real regret was that his departure included his charming and lovely driver Laura Henderson, truly a rose upon the dunghill that is south Texas.

In addition to my two decently long flights, I had quite a bit of fun flying around Zapata in my hang glider, sometimes attempting the 100km triangle, and other times just flying locally in the truly excellent late day conditions that would set up most days after about 3pm. We routinely got to deliciously cool air over 8,000agl, an altitude that did much to improve the attractiveness of the Zapata countryside. Altogether, I flew 23.5 hours on the T2, however that was only part of the story.

Sail Plane Flying

For the first time in a while we hang glider pilots were joined by another sailplane, a so-called “World Class” PW-5 glider that was rudely referred to as the world’s ugliest sailplane. The owner, a woman from Houston named Val Paget, seemed a bit out of her depth in lovely Zapata, and barely ever took the plane out of the hangar. However, the WRE’s organizing genius Gary Osoba had with him “Woodstock”, his wonderful little wooden ultralight (circa 275lb empty weight) sailplane that he often flew in the morning, acting as our wind dummy. In the afternoon he would re-launch and go zooming around south Texas in the fine late day conditions. Best of all, he let me fly Woodstock, and I got nearly seven hours in that delightful toy of a glider.

Towing

If that weren’t enough fun, I also flew the Moyes Tug for three days while tug driver Russell Brown left to take care of other obligations in Leakey, TX. While he was gone I was the tow pilot, a function in which I proved lamentably mediocre due to inexperience and a malfunctioning airspeed indicator. Still, it was good practice and I learned a fair bit about towing.

Exiting Zapata

In early August our stay in south Texas came to an end as we and the Tugs had to migrate 400 miles northward to Big Spring, site of this year’s Semi-Nationals (Don’t ask about the Semi- part. It’s a stupid story). Once again I got to ferry a Tug north from Zapata, first flying 200 miles up to Leakey where I spent the night. The following morning I continued on for 200 miles to Big Spring flying in the company of Russell Brown on the second Tug.

The Moyes-Bailey Tug has been justifiably described as the world’s worst cross country airplane, however I simply love using it in that way. It’s like flying cross country in 1913, albeit with a reliable engine and gps, discovering a new world from the front of a simple airplane. Each one of the hourly fuel stops is a mini adventure of discovery as we drop in on ranch strips, roads, and private airports to re- fuel from the extra cans we carry. Mind you at one rough ranch strip I picked up a large thorn that resulted in landing at Big Spring on a flat tire. The trip was great fun, and by the end I had added seven hours to my airplane log book.

Big Spring Nationals: Fine Flying, and Better People

Arriving in Big Spring it was my intention to visit with friends for a day or two before beginning the long trip home to Pennsylvania. However, as once happened before, old friends began working on me to stay and fly in the competition. And, again, I quickly succumbed to their arguments. In this case, it was my old buddy Terry Reynolds and his wife Chris who invited me to join them and Glen Volk in a retrieve. We used my car, and Chris drove for us, marveling at how easy it is in the GPS age (Chris and I together drove for the 1991 US Team at the Worlds in Brazil, but that’s another story). Terry is getting back into hang gliding and competing after retiring from Continental Airlines, while Glen is flying astonishingly well. It would prove to be an excellent retrieval crew.

The meet experienced generally very good conditions, only marred by two days of huge cunim over development. One cunim day was called off in the air (The day could still be scored due to the use of data-recording gps which gave one’s exact position when the task was called off). My team was skyed at a nine grand cloudbase when the task was called off. We all then bailed away from the exploding cumin and landed in varying amounts of wind. It was howling on the surface at my lz, and I gratefully accepted the assistance of two local good ole boys while I broke down in a cotton field.

On the contest’s final day we again had a gigantic cunim blow-up that allowed only one rigid wing (Campbell Bowen) to complete the course while all the flex wings landed short. In the end Glen Volk won the meet going away, but there were a number of new (to me) pilots who did remarkably well. Derreck Turner, a portly middle aged pilot from south Florida won three days, and was only taken out of contention when he once landed (or, “arrived” as he said) short of goal, clipping a fence, wrecking his glider and knocking himself silly. The other great surprise was Region Nine’s own Larry Bunner who was smoking fast, and reliable. He is a very fine pilot.

In addition, I was delighted to become better acquainted with some of the current core US Team pilots, Zac Majors and The Jeffs, Shapiro and O’Brien. They are excellent pilots, and damn nice guys. The have skill, heart and personality. I was greatly encouraged by them, as I was by some of the young kids who showed up. Eighteen year old “Local Bob” Filipchuk from Ridgely flew wonderfully on his kingposted Discus. He once almost flipped out Glen Volk when Glen discovered he had a kingpost with him forty miles out on course. The sport is not yet entirely dead.

My own flying was predictably uneven. If I could prevent myself from getting freaked early by the presence of gaggles, I would do well. If I didn’t, I would land short, very short. I made three of the five makeable goals (all of about 90 miles), did decently on the day called-off in air, and utterly sucked on three other days. Still, I flew almost 17 hours, 425 miles, and had one good fast day running with the big dogs, finishing third. All in all, it was good fun. Big Spring’s flying cannot be too highly recommended.

Escaping Texas’ Malign Gravitational Influence

With the conclusion of the Big Spring meet my stay in Texas was at an end, but before heading back to Pittsburgh I had two more flying stops to make in Colorado. In Salida, home of my old friend, the infamous Jim Zeiset, I didn’t go hang gliding. However, Jim was kind enough to again let me fly his LS3 sailplane. That worked out poorly as, from launch to landing, I had one of my crappiest flights on record. Still, it was a great experience before continuing on to Telluride where hang gliding is again reasserting itself after having become essentially extinct due to problems with the landing field.

With a big lz now secure, a few more pilots are flying there, ironically at a time when the once numerous paraglider pilots are themselves becoming quite scarce. I flew only once, however it was to be memorable. Late in the day I went up the hill on the club’s truck accompanied by some local pilots, my wild, one-legged pilot friend Tip Rogers, and with JZ driving for us all. Worried about a sled ride, I launched around 6pm, flying my Sport 2 for the first time since April. The first minute or two was a bit comical as I over-controlled the wonderful-handling Sport 2 all while trying to climb while untangling my oxygen line. It worked out well in the end and I soon beamed out towards the dark evening cumies above glowing mountains. They were being illuminated by golden sunshine that set fire to the vivid red Iron Mountains. Before landing near sunset, I cruised around for an hour and a half at nearly 18,000 feet above what is truly god’s country.

Now I could go home.

[mcelrah]

Thanks, Pete! That was a great read and respite from anticipating the next sleet storm here in DC. Hang-gliding may not be booming as it once was, but there may be a late-bloomer resurgence as we fit, pony-tailed sixty-year-olds retire from work and pursue our true vocations. And there're always sailplanes as a retirement plan after that! Happy New Year! - Hugh

[Batman]

Well, Spring is just around the corner and hopefully I can dust off the Batwing, fix a couple of downtubes and hit the training hill. I feel like I've been on Planet Earth a little too long over the past year, but Culinary School is complete (Graduate with Distinction no less!) and I'm working as a Personal Chef so I should have more free time as the temperature goes above 50 degrees. Hopefully I can break the Snowboard out over the next month to at least get a little adrenalin rush!

Happy New Year all! Will catch up with everyone who left me emails / voicemails over the holiday stretch. I was busier than I can even say!

Chris

[Batman]

By the way ... check out the new website: http://www.chefchrismckee.com