The Pulpit : Mon30May

[markc]

That first phone call from Dan Tm? I just rolled over and snoozed some more. Jet-lagged after a trip to Japan, and although I had socked away lots of Z's on Saturday night, Sunday night wasn't as successful. Then I get a second call, and Dan's telling me "Come on man, it's gonna be epic! What else are you gonna do? Play golf? Mow the grass? Hit the road sleepy-head!".

Bottom-line: He talked me into it. "Ow, let go of my arm, I'll fly, I'll fly!"

I arrived pretty late in the afternoon, and was set-up by maybe 4:30 or so. But the winds... Wow! Talk about better (for HG) than forecast! It was blowing hard, predominantly NW, gusting to near 20 occasionally, with some West cycles. For a variety of reasons (sleep included), I didn't feel comfortable dealing with the cross winds from the middle launch pad with only Dan for wirecrew... So I stayed put for a while. Ellis, Tom C, Lazslo, Petr, and another PG pilot I haven't met yet, had all decided to go for a hike, so I waited for them to get back, burning some time with a little site clean-up near the campfire ring.

When the PG'ers got back, I hopped into the harness and launched from the north ramp, with help from Ellis, Dan, and Petr. Thanks so much guys, this flight was much needed, and it wouldn't have happened without help from my friends!

Conditions in the air were EPIC!!! Well... Kind of epic! Well..... Ok, it was majorly inverted, and the best that I could manage was 750' above launch, fairly early in the flight. But once I stopped chasing phantom thermals and simply pushed-out as much as possible, the flight became a lot of fun. I tried to find lift lines out in the valley, flew south for a while chasing Tom C (but not for long, the LZ's don't look very HG-friendly from only a couple hundred feet over the ridgetop), strafed launch a bunch of times, chased after some redtail hawks and buzzards, and then headed north for a bit after it went truly magic (ie, 400-500 over without effort in the HG). Unfortunately, it was late in the day by the time that I realized that conditions had gotten super-solid, and so I couldn't get very far with the available daylight. Argh! Next time.

I probably flew for close to three hours. A few photos from the day are included below... It would be great to see some from the PG pilots who were flying today, and perhaps hear some tales of their flights!

MarkC

View of launch and beyond. Can't get over how green it is!

Looking out toward McConnellsburg through the haze.

If you squint, you'll be able to see Tom C climbing out after his launch.

Second PG pilot to launch. Can anyone identify the colors?

Second PG pilot working a light thermal.

Co-altitude with the second PG pilot.

Best pic of a redtail hawk that I was chasing. Lots of others, but none turned out, darn!

Floating north after it went magic. Cowan's Gap in the distance.

Heading for home.

[laszlo]

Mark,

That is my orange-red paraglider in the pictures. It was nice flying with you, and thanks for the photos!

Laszlo

PS. I had to hang on to my hat when you buzzed us at launch.

[jyoder111]

nice!

[FelixH]

Hi,

It was a great day for PGs too, but a bit more testing. First time I've flown pulpit and when I arrived at take off at about 11:30 conditions looked fun, but no one else was there other than the birds, who were having a fine time. I sent some texts and slowly got ready, before taking off at about mid day.

Although take off was strong, it was initially lovely smooth thermic conditions, gentle edges but going fairly high - 1258m on the gps. It appeared slightly north so I went with it, working my way down the ridge to a point about 10k south. Not hard, but thermic rather than soaring all the way. I thought it might be harder work coming home, but it seemed the wind had backed to due west and I had an easy run to near take off using the same thermals as on the way down.

Getting near take off I saw a car drive up and some pilots getting bags out. Conditions were a little rougher, but not too bad, so I gave a wave and carried on over the biker bar towards the masts. I hit lift here, but rough, and was beginning to feel like I'd probably pushed the envelope far enough so headed back to take off. As I passed the road I hit a load of sink, so with continuing strong winds I was starting to worry about glide angle. I've got fairly good top speed on my Aspen 3 so I headed out at full bar, but was getting nervous. The track log shows -4mps for a while. I was looking at the little garden in the middle of the trees below take off and seriously thinking about it!

But things calmed down once I got to the road, so I scooted right, to land on the drive way in the middle of the hay.

I'd just packed up when Petr phoned, and said Lazlo would come down to pick me up. Thanks guys!

Took off again around 6 after it had been blown out for the afternoon. Tom followed after a short while, and I followed him down the identical trip, not needing to turn once - seemed a bit of a cheat after my harder work in the morning

Super day, great site and another instance of the early bird getting the worm! (it was good on Daniels before everyone arrived the day before too)

Felix
(The british bloke)

[markc]

Ok, if the orange/red PG wing is Lazslo's, then the first of my PG pics might be Felix, and I may have missed Tom. Lazslo would be the third one off, late in the afternoon.

Lazslo, I've got higher-rez pics of you, just let me know if you'd like them.

Glad it was a fun day for everyone! I'm envious of Felix's first flight, sounds like conditions were much better, earlier.

MarkC

[FelixH]

I logged the track of the 1st flight if anyone's interested http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/458559
I'm trying to get track from most sites as they are a really useful resource for visiting pilots.