High Rock Monday PM

[mcelrah]

Tom McGowan has initiated a call for High Rock this afternoon (he has pre-loaded his vehicle to take to work and arrive by 4 PM).

I am looking for an opportunity to do practice tandems at HR. I need rated pilots to serve as passenger/victim (must have "nice masses" - Carlos?) and wirecrew.

I too will lean forward in the saddle, load my vehicle this morning.

Any takers? - Hugh

[bustedwing2]

I'm game,got off all week,up for pulpit,high rock and bills,tandem footlaunch sounds like fun,all I need is my harness? RichB

[mcelrah]

I have akneehanger for you, but bring yours just in case. I have a bicycle helmet for you also, but again you may be more comfortable in your own. Other concern is condition of LZ zince I plan to wheel it in, so you may want your own glider in case it is only suitable for footlanding. The wise men are sayig that foot landing a tandem is "tackle hang-gliding" and advising against it. Thanks for volunteering! - Hugh

[bustedwing2]

Hope the weather cooperates,lot of overcast on the satellite going way back west,30-40% predicted thunderstorms.If the sky don't bust open I'll be there. RichB

[mcelrah]

Rich and I made it to HR, but Tom got tied up at work.

[It's not good to be so important that you can't get away with sneaking out while the boss's back is turned. My big boss is in town and wanted to meet this afternoon; I apologized and stated I would be out of the office, how about tomorrow? Go thou and do likewise! (It helps that I'm retiring in six months...)]

Tom did give me a report on the radar showing a rainstorm just passing over launch at 3:45 and a couple of small cells further west dissipating. It was STFI at 5-8 on launch. Let the record reflect that I did not for one moment consider enlisting the two motorcyclists hanging out on launch as wuffo wirecrew.

The cube is no worse than it was. When can we have a work party to put in the new platform?

We checked the LZ, which was newly mowed. No sign of soybeans. Looks fine for wheel landings.

We started driving to Kirchners to practice on the training hill (counts for tandem launches!) but ran into rain and bagged it.

On the way to HR, I stopped at Carlos' work and picked up his kneehanger and Blackhawk harnesses. Gotta check 'em out, but idea is to start using Bunkhouse' kneehanger myself 'cause it has a nice big parachute pouch for the tandem reserve, and stop getting my Z5 all grass-stained. Put the QS330 back in the Z5 and have completely separate rigs for solo and tandem.

Let's keep looking for HR conditions and get a quorum!

- Hugh

[Richard Hays]

If I understand what Randy was telling me the other day......he was going to get a good cutting off of the LZ and then let some guy come in and plant it in beans, leaving a "strip" for us to land in and to walk our wings off to the side to the pavillion.

At the MHGA meeting last friday ( good meeting, about 18-20 in attendence ) we discussed having the fly-in in late November...calling it the "Turkey Fly" So....tenatively we're looking at a nice, chilly late November fly in...so long a the beans are harvested by then.

Rich Hays