High Rock Saturday 3/23

[XCanytime]

I'll be at the Pulpit probably around 2:30ish. Yes I know it's going to be strong, and possibly blown out. Tell me something I don't know . Looking for a nice evening throttledown flight. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't. Not a big deal. Another opportunity to take a data point: forecast vs. actual conditions, site, time of year, etc. Bacil

And it didn't. Charley and I hung around the Pulpit launch from 3:30P to 6:30P and it did not back off. And the gusts still had sharp edges at 6:30P as well. Bacil

[silverwings]

Richard and I taught at Smithsburg today and it was quite good. Also a number of additional pilots flew there. My student Trevor was able to soar pretty good on one flight. Gliders were spotted soaring at High Rock.

[DanTuck]

Woodstock was excellent. I launched around 2:30 or so. I had a decent 5-7 mph to launch into and got above the ridge right way. For the first few minutes it was hard to get more than a couple hundred over but then I found a good one that went to 2,000' over. Mostly small thermals at about 400 fpm but the occasional bigger one would roll through with 600+ for most of the day. Found myself at 4800 msl (3000' over launch) after sharing a thermal with Ellis so I punched out into the valley and tagged the Woodstock water tower on 81 but not before climbing to 5,300 msl on the way out. Played around over the highway for a few minutes and zoomed back to launch with a 10-15 mph tail. Flew the ridge a little more and then went back out and flew over the Town again. Decided to head back and land, thought of the bridge field, even flew over it but then I went back to the primary because that's where everyone else had landed. Had a nice landing there for 1:20, max alt 5,300 msl way out in the valley. Tom M, Larry B, Bruce E, Joe S, Matt C, and me for the HG crowd. Lots of PG's had great flights also. Thanks to Dan Tm for the wire help and to Bill and Jamie for the ride back up top. Great day!

[Lostgriz]

I haven't flown since November, so I was excited about the prospect of getting out today. I was actually planning on heading to The Pulpit, but as I was filling up the truck, I got a text from Jon letting me know that Tom and Larry were headed to Woodstock, so I decided to follow their lead. Thanks for the intel Jon! I got to launch, just as Tom and Larry were launching and was encouraged at the sight of them launching into fairly light cycles, but quickly getting over launch. As I was getting my gear, Dan showed up, which I was very glad about; first because he is just a great guy and second because it was just my second time flying Woodstock, with my first flight being almost a year ago when I had a fun little XC flight to Strasburg with Jon.

Dan gave me a nice refresher on the site and assisted with my launch as did another PG pilot (former HG pilot), I am sorry that I don't remember your name, thanks guys. Right off launch I found a nice little thermal that got me around 500'. I bounced a round a little and about 20 minutes into my flight, found my self below launch searching hard. Before long I was 2000' over and having a great time in some early spring thermals. I played around over the ridge and boated out into the valley a few times. As the day went I found fewer, but stronger thermals. I saw 7-800 on the averager several times and topped out just under 5K agl. Lot's of fun and actually my first time flying with paragliders while flying an HG. According to my vario, I had 12,000' of climbing in just under two hours of flying. Good times!

As I decided to work my way back to the ground, I had it in my mind that I was going to land in the bridge field. I hadn't taken the time to walk the primary again and I haven't flown in 4 months, so I am not exactly current. Why not head for the nice big field? As I boated around, I watched Dan set up and execute a nice landing and decided I would go ahead and land where everyone else was landing. As I set up my approach, my focus was to stay inside the field, not be high and get back to the far corner of the field on my base leg. Well, I wasn't high..... I was low, as a result I was also flying a little slow. As I made a low turn on my base leg, I got a little pop that just canceled my turn a little. Had I been flying a little faster I may have been ok, but as it was, I clipped my wingtip coming around to final and blew a downtube. Needless to say I was very bummed and the joy of a fun flight quickly disappeared. I am fine albeit humbled and other than a downtube the glider was fine. I entered the primary maybe 20' above the trees on my downwind leg, that was too low. I had a reservation about landing in that field and I should have just taken the slightly less convenient option of landing in the huge bridge field. Not the way I wanted to kick off my season, but a few good lessons learned/reviewed.

Special thanks to Dan for his assistance getting my crippled glider packed up and for the quality feedback.

[jyoder111]

Just some quick things. no time tonight for a long write-up.
1. Felix happened to be by the road at Smithsburg when a local came by and gave him an earful about people driving on the site. I'll let Felix tell the story....
2. High Rock was flyable, but treacherous. It was gusty with some launchable lulls. Matthew flew for a good long time. I landed after 25 minutes, getting tired of pulling in to penetrate and maintain control in the bumpy lift. Uncommanded turns and bottom-drop-outs made it not very fun.
3. Walt launched later in the day and left wing lifted and he went in the trees. He was a champ, holding on and getting his legs around a branch so he could cut himself loose from the glider. Too high to throw a rope to tie off so we called 911. He was in the tree 3 hours or more before they got him down after dark. Others can fill in the details of the rescue.. Glad you're ok, Walt! Try not to beat yourself up too much. I'm terribly sorry we let you launch in those conditions.
4. Surprised to hear so many HG went to Woodstock. I'd have considered it if I'd known there was so much interest.

Jesse

[Matthew]

There were some big-ass thermals. I got 1400 up consistent in a few of them. Sometimes it was easier to just park and push-out than to do 360's. And lots of lift lines out into the valley. Flew for a little over two hours and landed because I got cold-- 3400 over-- I never had trouble with the turbulence.

Matthew

[jyoder111]

[mcgowantk]

Woodstock was kind to us today. Larry Bunner and I arrived around 11:30 to find south winds in the valley and in the slot (yes, slightly over the back at times). So of course, we set up.

By noon we were getting nice cycles and we launched around 1:00. We flew to Signal Knob to the north, then south across Edinburg Gap to the end of Short Mountain and back. The only time I got low was in the middle of Short on the way north, but I eventually climbed back up to 6,000 msl and made it easily back to launch from there. I had a great day with lots of good thermals. The strongest for me was 800+ on the 20 second averager. I maxed out at 6,200 msl but Bun got much higher.

Tom McGowan

[FlyingFelix]

Interesting day yesterday!
Went to Smithsburg to meet Knut, Jesse and Peter (Petaar?). My first time there. It was stock full of students and teachers. Loooked a bit strong but Smithsburg is a nice huge hill - a bit tricky (winds switching like crazy) but great practice. Glad I went.
After I packed up and loaded the glider on the car (car had been parked at bottom of hill towards Smithsburg), the exit was blocked by a guy John (can't remember last name) - he said he was the guy in charge for the farms around and was irate. He started asking about a guy (a name I haven't heard before) and when I said I didn't know him he got all mad and said he saw a car just the other day parked all the way up on top of the hill (way up there, around launch area, not next to the road) - he said there is Alfalfa planted there and that it's expensive and such behavior is unacceptable and that whoever that was driving all the way up there was going to get us all thrown out of there, etc.etc...I stayed and talked to him a while to calm him down, I told him that we have protocols we follow and whoever drove a car all the way up was probably not one of the local pilots, that I'll spread the word and make sure everyone knows how fragile the situation is there, etc. The guy had a bit of alcohol in his system and looked like he was just after a bit of scandal but still, we definitely do not need to get on the wrong side of anyone there.
After finally leaving Smithsburg we went towards High Rock. Matthew was way up there, soaring so we got excited, only to get to launch and find very strong conditions. Short lulls of mere seconds were there but it looked scary and so we just hung out a while. When the lulls got a bit more frequent we set up and waited for launching. Few pilots went off then I got a chance to launch. Interesting launch: Got up to the edge in a decent lull, I heard "NEUTRAL" from both sides for a few seconds, wing felt stable and so I yelled CLEAR and got off. As son as I was left a strong gust hit my left wing, I glued myself to the left downtube and got away from the hill safely. Once in the air it was reasonably smooth, few punches but nothing major.
While hovering right on top of launch I saw Walt take off, saw his left wing come up gently which put him into a turn to the right. I was thinking "oh no!" - he continued the right turn all the way to the top of the trees under launch. Looked like a slow turn from where I was (exactly on top of him, about 600-800 feet over) - I kept thinking I'll see him correct and go left but it never happened, he seemed to stop gently, from where I was I couldn't tell if he was on top of the trees or at the bottom. I saw movement as soon as he stopped and so I thought (hoped) he must be fine. I stayed up about 30 min. total and went for landing since I wasn't sure if my help would be needed or not - I sure wish someone on Launch had a radio.
Since Walt was way up in the trees and the folks on launch didn't think they could get him down safely 911 was called, at least 20-25 cars-trucks showed up (a bit overkill I think) and the whole rescue operation seemed to take for ever , roads closed...huge fuss. Glad Walt made if down safely, I hope he and his equipment is fine.
All in all a crazy hang gliding day adventure...
Glad to hear Woodstock was great and many pilots had awesome flights!
Here's a picture of Launch I cropped from my video right after Walt's crash.

[lbunner]

Woodstock was indeed good yesterday. Tom and I debated where to go but our experience at the Pulpit made the decision pretty easy. I looked at Intellicast, XC Skies and Dr. Jack to analyze the conditions. The conditions at the Pulpit were to be straight in ramping up from 9mph at 10:00 to 16 at 4:00. If we were to go to the Pulpit we needed to get there very early and be ready to fly well before noon. The GFS sounding for the area showed good lift to ~5000' msl but the boundary shear ratio was only a 5 indicating the lift would turbulent. In contrast, Woodstock was showing light winds at 5mph from the NW at 10:00 slowly building to 1000 by 4:00. The conditions however were looking much better (if we could get in the air). The lift was predicted to be in the 600fpm range and the GFS sounding showed top of the lift to 7000'+ from 1:00 to 5:00.The boundary shear was a 9 which meant big fat thermals that would be easy to stay in. The deciding factor for us was that Tom was seeing a trough running up Rte 81 into PA. His experience has shown that this trough indicated the winds in the valley would be stronger than predicted. This meant that the Woodstock effect would be lessened resulting in more wind than predicted. So, long story even longer we opted to head to WS. I posted this to the forum early in the morning and headed out to meet Tom on Rte 66. Tom, told the best part of the story already so I won't repeat it except to say that we flew together almost the entire flight. I had multiple climbs in the 600-800fpm range and topped out just over 7000'. Interestingly, the clouds off to the NW appeared to be higher. Temperatures were in the high 20's at the top of the lift but we were prepared for it. I used heat packs in my shoes and bar mitts to keep the digits warm, wore my full face helmet with a winter balaclava and a neoprene mask that covered my neck up to my nose. It was quite toasty for awhile until my heat packs fell out of my bar mitts. The bar mitts worked good enough however and I didn't consider landing until Tom said he was gonna land to get a body ride up to the truck. I had a good landing in the primary and logged 3:54 in the air. As we were packing up, Pete (two n's dammit) Lehmann called to say he had landed north of Maritnsburg. He was able to get to cloudbase at 7400' msl and put in some good 50+ miles. Tom and I managed 50+ OLC miles as well by running the ridge. Twas a good day for sure.

[Dan T]

Tom's forecast was right on the mark. I don't recall hearing about a "trough" running up the valley canceling the the Woodstock effect before, but it was evident that the Woodstock effect was not in effect yesterday. I was last to launch at just after 5:00 and it was still pretty strong at times. This trough influence is a good addition to the tool kit for you weather prognosticators.

All of us PG pilots had good flights in relatively active conditions. My flight was over an hour in spite of launching after 5:00 and I came down on "big ears" because it was late and I was getting cold. Those who landed early did so for reasons other than getting flushed. For those unfamiliar with PG vernacular "big ears" is initiated by pulling in the wing tips so that they look like a floppy puppy dogs ears. Big ears effectively reduces the surface area of the glider and therefore increases the sink rate.

Dan

[DanTuck]

Sorry to hear about your accident Walt. Glad you are okay.
Here's a pic from out over I-81 yesterday.