Epic glass off at Woodstock plus an HG bonus

[Dan T]

Several of us PG pilots and one HG (Matt) got to fly in perfect late afternoon glass off conditions at Woodstock yesterday. It was one of those fly until you are looking down at the sun on the horizon days.

After it all Ellis and I stopped by the Inn at Strasburg for a late light meal at the pub. As I was pulling up to park I noticed a vehicle with 3 hang gliders on it. They hadn't flown with us so I couldn't figure why they were there. When we got inside the mystery was solved. It was Larry Bunner, who had just flown from Cumberland, his wife, Dave Procter and Tom McGowan. Great flight Larry!

Dan T

[XCanytime]

Nice flight Larry! The lady was the driver, not Larry's wife Sue. Bacil

[Lostgriz]

Woah, Nice flight guys! Looking forward to hearing some details on that one.

[lbunner]

On Friday, Tom McGowan, Dave Proctor and I discussed where to fly on Saturday. Although the conditions looked to be outstanding, the wind direction had us concerned. It looked too NW for the Pulpit and the Sac but perhaps good enough for Cumberland. I got up early Saturday morning and consulted all the weather resources, Intellicast for the high temp, Dr. Jacks for wind, climbs, top of lift etc. and the FSL sounding as a confirmation of what was going to happen. It just looked too north for the Pulpit and too west for the Sac so we chose to head out to fly Zirk’s. Forecasted winds looked reasonable at 10mph, and climbs were predicted to be 800 fpm up to 9000’(!!). We met up early, were on top by 1030 and ready to go by 1145. We programmed in an aggressive route with a waypoint at Capon Springs and Woodstock then to Blue Sky. JR, Gardinator and Pat Halfhill showed up and mowed the sweet launch and shared their experience regarding what to expect and where to expect it. The site is 800’ high and very steep with the LZ almost straight below launch. We three suited up around 1:00 and waited for some air to flow into the launch. The clouds were streeting overhead from the time we arrived. They were quite high and moving fairly well through the valley (maybe 10mph or more) however there was nary a puff at launch. Around 1:30 the birds started periodically cruising by and into the valley slowly climbing at times but didn’t really show us anything good enough for us to want to dive off the mountain. So, we waited and waited and waited while these awesome looking clouds kept passing overhead. Around 3:00 I mentioned to Dave that we should have been over Woodstock about this time. Pat Halfhill volunteered to wind dummy and took off in near zero for an extended sledder. A few minutes later, Tom launched and slowly started climbing to the south. He radioed and yelled down for me to launch once he started 360ing. I had a good run (3:20) and joined him to about 1000’ over before it petered out. Dave and Mark launched and we all started bouncing up and down over the ridge getting up to 3000’ on a couple occasions. I radioed that it felt like an inversion at that altitude as the lift would get ratty. Dave said we needed to punch through it. About 45 minutes into it, Mark hit a strong climb out front; he and I beamed out in solid 500 fpm. We both topped out at cloudbase (8500’msl) and I headed to the SSE thinking I could get a few miles in before the day died out. Dave was also with us but lost the lift and opted to head back to the front of the ridge before eventually landing in the LZ. Tom couldn’t find our climb and kept searching on the ridge. He caught one and climbed out of there eventually getting over 6000’ (I think). He landed east of Fort Ashby sometime after 5:30. Meanwhile I put the hammer down on my first glide. The glider had a severe turn with full VG on; it would start diving off to the right. I looked up and saw my 5th outboard batten tip had popped up. So I backed off on the speed and just tried to keep it straight for the rest of the flight. East of Romney I was down to 3800’ before connecting with my second climb at ~300-400fpm. I tried to base it out but the lift got soft above 6500’. The sink however was less pronounced too so I was able to stay above 6000’ all the way to just east of Augusta. I left that climb at 6600’ and headed southeast to the next clouds. Each successive climb became weaker and weaker as the day was waning. At North Mountain I was down to 3800’ before connecting with a smooth 150-200fpm. It took forever to climb up and over the mountain and I eventually topped 6000’. The glide to Strasburg and into familiar territory was cool but the day was dying out. My vision of getting to Blue Sky actually was over when I left Cumberland at 4:30 but it is still good training to max out the end of the day. I glided to the west side of Strasburg looking for one last climb and had a nice huge field picked out west of 81 when I hit solid lift. Twenty two minutes later I was back at 4500’ and headed toward the mountain. Halfway there I changed my mind and headed southwest into the valley as that was where the remaining cu’s were. At Tom’s Brook I hit one last thermal slowly climbing up to 3600’ before deciding I’d had enough. I picked a large upsloping field just outside Woodstock and spiraled down to land in a light west wind at 7:00pm. Judy with Tom and Dave, picked me up at 8:30 and we ate in Strasburg before the long drive home. It wasn’t quite what I’d hoped for but still was good to get acclimated to a new site that just might be the place to break 200 miles in the northeast. It was good to finally meet JR and get to fly in the awesome mountains of western Marlyand and West Virginia. Thanks for the hospitality; my only regret is I didn’t get to share a few beers with you all.

[markc]

Any chance of a tracklog Larry?

[lbunner]

Here's the SeeYou file of the flight. Can't seem to add the kml file for you Google Earth fans.

[markc]

So this would be a separate something.kml file Larry?

If so, it's easy to config the attachment rules to allow that extension....

[lbunner]

Yes, a spearate kml file that anyone could download to Google Earth to view the flight path.

[chgpa]

This fell off the radar for a bit, but I've finally config'd the forums to allow .kml and .kmz attachments. Larry, if you have a moment, could you attach the .kml of this flight? Thanks much!

Oh, also, if you have a rough idea of how big .kmls are compared to .igcs, that would also be useful info.

[lbunner]

I tried but got this message: The upload was rejected because the uploaded file was identified as a possible attack vector.