Woodstock Sun March 4th

[sailin]

Anybody interested in Woodstock on Sunday? Looks like it might work.

Jon

[DanTuck]

Yup. Keeping an eye on it.

[jyoder111]

Interested.

[g.sessa]

Got my attention....

[Ward Odenwald]

I'm in. Conditions are looking like it could be good for flying down to Harrisonburg and beyond. Ward

[Ward Odenwald]

Well, this morning's coffee-fueled excitement over tomorrow's conditions have been tempered by more recent predictions of surface gusts up to 25 mph that are forecasted to last into the night. Not having flown in two months, I’m not overly excited about the possibility of a rodeo ride as my first 2012 experience. If the evening forecasts are consistent with the current ones, I’m going to wait for another day. Ward

[jyoder111]

Looks pretty good now on wunderground, nostepper, and NOAA. I'm getting pumped!

Jesse

[silverwings]

I will most likely be going there also. Looks too windy for teaching at Smithsburg and maybe the Woodstock effect will make it nice there.

[sailin]

ETA 1000ish

Jon

[mingram]

Peter Humes, Gary, Mike Brooks and I will be in Edinburg Gap chain sawing. We'll have our wings and will be looking for a condition report around 1pm. 146.500

Matt

[jyoder111]

If anyone wants to carpool from Arlington, give me a call.

Jesse

[jyoder111]

well, what's everyone thinking, given the diminished forecast this morning?

[g.sessa]

Heading to Woodstock... ETA 10-1030ish

[kcarra]

Anyone thinking of High Rock???

Matthew

[jyoder111]

woah, Wunderground is going nuts. Putting in Winchester says NNW 0-1 mph throughout today while Woodstock says 8-9. What gives? I'm heading out. I'm heading out. ETA 10:30ish.

Jesse

[silverwings]

Even though the weatherunderground forecast is screwey, others still look normal so will be getting there around 12:30

[jyoder111]

Blustery spring day at Woodstock. Lots of HG flights. The usual suspects plus some guys up from Kitty Hawk. Thanks to Bacil and Amy for coming out just to help out! My flight: Launched around noon. Bubbly spring air got me airsick so I landed at 25 minutes, but I had a nice flight and got to play with the camera. Enjoy.

[XCanytime]

Assisted in 8 launches and each was excellent with nose angle control and running hard and picking the right cycle. Wings level and plenty of airspeed got all of them out of the slot with plenty of safety margin. I have to especially commend Dan Tuckwiller for his patience for waiting for the sweetest cycle of the 8 and getting off the moutain cleanly. Then went to pick up Jon from his first solo XC to Funk Road just SW of Edinburg. Then to North Mountain Vineyards for a bottle of vino to celebrate. Then back to launch to pick up Dan's truck and deposit it at the main LZ where he was waiting. Then to the Strasburg Hotel Bar for some food to soak up the vino a bit . Congrats to Greg Sessa too for his first Signal Knob and back trip. Bacil

[sailin]

Nice video Jesse, thank you!

Great day at the Stocker yesterday. Flew for an hour, got a little over a thousand over, and did my first short solo XC, with a planned outlanding (albeit a little short of goal ) on Funk Rd next to Strasburg!!
As we were driving up at 1000 , I was scratching my head because I could already see at least two gliders set up in the slot........arrived up top to find 4 guys from Kitty Hawk that had camped out the night before......they were set up and ready to go.....and it was soarable already! Not long after we arrived Greg, Jesse and Dan showed up. Sweet!!! Lots of gliders and pilots! Bacil and Amy helped wire crew all the Kitty Hawk guys off all in pretty short order not long after we arrived. All had pretty good launches and went up fairly easily. Nice job Kitty Hawk Crew! As the morning moved into afternoon there was a definite ramp up in conditions. Next up was Jesse and then Greg. Again great launches. I was next up, with a good launch, and high hopes of going somewhere for the day. To be honest I struggled for a bit getting more that about 600' over for the beginning of the flight, but soon found some hefty thermals to take me higher. After playing between the north finger an just a bit southwest of launch for a while it started to shade up quite a bit in the area with dense cloud cover and the lift seemed to be more finicky. I took one more nice climb to about 1000'over and then headed north for a short XC flight. I was hoping to fly down to the reservoir and get stinking high and then punch out in the valley and land in a huge field just to the side of RT 11 (Funk Rd/Rt 11). I left the ridge with about 1000' over and was feeling pretty good about my chances to make it, but knew I was going to need at least one boomer thermal and maybe two, to get there. I hit one decent thermal not long after leaving the ridge, but found that I was climbing in it I was drifting pretty far downwind with it...and away from my goal. This also happened a couple times on the ridge where I hit powerful lift and would climb in it , but then have to pull out because the drift over the back was pretty fast......and I wasn't comfortably high enough to commit to going all the way over the back. There was some big lift out there at times.....big hefty Spring thermals lurking out there!!! Anyway, so there I was, trying to punch out in the valley into a pretty decent headwind at times (there was some STRONG gusts) and my backup fields started looking like they were going to be my primary fields. I had a couple of nice fields lined up on my glide path and ended up landing right along Funk Rd in a nice big hay field. It was pretty rowdy coming in but I ended up with a decent enough landing on me feet (I had to run it out for several steps). About a mile short of my intended field but SWEET all the same !! I had a nice chat with the farmer and then packed up..not long after that Bacil and Amy were there to pick me up. Bacil had the wonderful idea of hitting North Mountain Vineyards for some celebratory drinks....he didn't have to twist our arms much and before we new it we were sitting inside, drinking some excellent locally made red wine and talking with the owner about flying. You gotta love Woodstock, where else can you do stuff like that but in the Shenandoah Valley! After that it was back to retrieve some vehicles and pilots and then for more food and beverage in Strasburg. Thanks to Bacil and Amy for wire crewing and driving!!!

Jon

[DanTuck]

Thanks Bacil for the compliment and also for the launch and retrieve assist. Also thank you Jon and Amy for your help. Had to wait awhile on launch for a good cycle. My nose kept wanting to pitch forward when I picked up until I found a nice mellow breeze. The window was short and I didn't hesitate, ran hard and was 300' over within seconds. Ridge lift was widespread I had no trouble staying up. Thermals were scattered but still very nice, I was getting 500fpm sustained with 900fpm on the 2-second avg, a little rowdy but not that bad at all. Topped out at 4,200msl, 2,300 over launch where there was some snirga coming from the clouds. I pulled in so I could pretend I was in Spaceballs - ludicrous speed! Base was still several hundred feet above me and the lift hadn't stopped but I bailed because of the strong drift and the cold, plus I wasn't really interested in getting sucked into the icebox. Flew until my face couldn't take it anymore and landed in a very turbulent primary. Speed, speed, speed. Congrats Jon and Greg for milestone flights each.

PS - If anyone hasn't been reading Jim Rooney's thread about landing technique on the OzReport, you need to. If you think Jim is off base, you are wrong. Read it, absorb it, land better. That is all.
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26379

[g.sessa]

Great day at Woodstock! It was nice to see and fly with several local pilots, and also cool to have 4 of the KHK crew at the site. And I want to especially say thanks to Bacil and Amy for helping launch a majority of the pilots who flew!

As for my flight, I was stoked for achieving a personal goal in making the run to Signal Knob and back. I decided to make the run after taking off and finding myself quickly climbing with ease. I noticed the KHK gliders well over the ridge, and shortly after taking off, found myself reaching their altitude with minimal effort. I figured the winds were working and decided to test my luck by running a few fingers down the ridge. Things seemed to be working so I pushed onward. As I flew down toward Signal Knob, I was finding decent lift and minimal sink. I was steady flying between 1,500 and 2,000 over, without struggling. The flying was going smooth until I started to pass the reservoir where I ran into some real gusty / turbulent conditions. None the less, I was able to work through the challenging conditions and made it to Signal Knob. Once I got to Signal Knob, I circled, and decided to head back. This ended up being the most challenging part of the flight as I was met with pretty good head wind as I started back. At one point, I looked down and thought I was moving backwards. Thus, I decided to pull full VG and tucked the bar to see if I could penetrate, if not, I was eyeing a tear drop / air foil looking field a bit further up off the ridge. I noticed with a bit of effort, although slow, I could move forward without loosing a whole lot of altitude at the same time. I began then creeping along the ridge back toward launch. After a short distance, I let up on the bar and the VG, and found I could again fly somewhat normal, while moving forward. I figured at this point, I would try to make it back to the LZ rather than landing out. On my way, I found flying back was no where near as smooth, or easy, as the flight out to Signal Knob. I had to work a bit to stay up. I even found myself again contemplating landing out when I was about half way back and ran into a good amount of sink. I kept getting lower and lower until I was just barely above the ridge. Fortunately, I ended up passing the sink, found lift again, and was able to work to get back to a comfortable altitude. I pushed forward and made it back to launch with no more issues. The rest of the flight was rather uneventful.

In total, I ended up flying a little over an hour and choose to land in the main LZ after getting a bit cold in the sky. The day ended well with a food and beers at the Strasberg Hotel! Thanks to Matt for the ride back up! And nice video Jesse!

[mercury]

Good time flying thanks john for the observation and launch assistance . Had a fun flight though cold. Thanks too to Jesse at launch. Caught a gust on my second step of launch and even though john said I didn't pop my nose it felt as if I had when it lifted me into the air. Good roll control helped maintain a safe launch as well as extending my flyaway from the mountain before turning to soar. After ten minutes I was freezing cold and fought a desire to land the rest of my flight . Saw Dan going in to land (big wingovers) and headed over to the lz. Had a lot of lift and had to fly fast to not go up. Big grey clouds overhead . Had a strange landing with a lot of headwind on final I had the bar way back arms locked straight for speed to counter such headwind. Finaly past the gradient got into ground effect. All flights I've learned something. All landings ive learned from too. But this landing more than others. Had a blast! Wahoo!