Pulpit Redux Sunday 10/26????

[Matthew]

Bacil-- what say you???

Matthew

[XCanytime]

Don't you mean Sunday 10/27? Looks great. Bacil

[mcelrah]

Interested! Also hope to get Sallie out to Smithsburg with her PG is not too strong. - Hugh

[DanTuck]

Pulpit is looking good for tomorrow. I plan to be there around 10:30 - 11:00.

[Dunegoon]

Interested also. ETA 10:30.

Charley

[g.sessa]

I'm in...

[Dave Proctor]

I am planning on going to the Pulpit on Sunday. Is anyone interested in dropping a car at the Gettysburg airport?

DaveP

[Dave Proctor]

I am leaving now (~9:15) for the pulpit. I got no takers on dropping a car at Gettysburg. If anyone is interested give me a call on my cell Three oh one 5oh3-7712

DaveP

[sailin]

Pulpit bound . ETA noon

[Dave Proctor]

Pulpit was great today. Slightly strong thermal gusts thru launch but there were definitely launchable cycles. I got off easily in a nice clean cycle. Climbed out to 5600 msl. Worked my way across the valley, landing just on the other side of the grey quarry on the east side of 81 just south of Chambersburg. WInds aloft were in the 11-17 range. Not significant drift to thermals. Got back to launch via two rides from nice young women. Self retrieve worked out. I was back home and everything put away before 6pm. Life is good. Thanks to Greg, Dan, Jon, and Valerie for the launch help. I know Valerie and Greg flew. Not sure about the others.

[jyoder111]

Glad to hear people are getting to fly down there this fall! I finally got my glider put back together from short pack and headed up to Ellenville today (an hour 45 drive from our new home). It was blown out for most of us till 4pm when it dialed back nicely and the stampede off launch began. I got a nice flight, only 500 over launch, but got to know the ridge and LZ.

Jesse

[sailin]

Like Dave said, it was strongish at the Pulpit pretty much all day, but not out of hand. Launchable cycles throughout, and it seemed, as usual, the most rowdy stuff was happening at launch and just out front. I was clocking some pretty high gusts on the Hall Speed indicator rolling through during the first part of the day (25+mph) and was in no hurry to get off the mountain. A contingent headed out to try their luck at High Rock and the rest of us stayed in hoped things would trend in our favor. They did. It stayed pretty rowdy at launch but there was stuff that was very launchable. There was a gap in time from Dave's launch until Greg Sessa started the second launch at around 215pmish ??? Took a while for him to find a nice cycle but he got off okay. It had picked back up again and no one was running for their gliders. At about 300pmish it started to feel appealing again and I was going to get set up to go. Valerie beat me to it and already had her harness on so I changed gears to wire crew. I'll let her tell her story from first hand pilot prospective but it was very scary for the ground crew at launch.....both the launch and the first 5-10minutes of her flight. After watching that I was in no hurry to go suit up. Not long after, Greg Sessa had called and said he was in the primary so I went down to get him. By the time we got back up, about 4pmish, things had settled down a bit more but still a handful at launch. It was go time. Dan launched at around 415pmish and me at just before 430pmish.
I waited a bit for a cycle that was straight and not too rowdy. As the day had gone on it became more and more north cross. In fact when I had gone down to pick Greg up the wind was blowing parallel to the road out of the north. So I waited a bit on the pad for the right combination of straight and reasonable. The windows were short and I picked one I liked. I had a nice wings level, good run and fly a way from the mountain launch, but as i was transitioning from the the left downtube to the base bar I put what at the time i thought was a too strong of a left turn input in and at the same time got walloped from a gust from the right. What ensued was about 3 seconds of terror for me and the guys watching from the pad as my legs flew out to the right and my glider banked hard to the left. I got right on it and got it straightened out right away but it sure sucked for a couple of seconds. That right there is testament to why you fly away from the mountain right after launch. I needed that extra space and altitude to deal with that event. The rest of the flight was a beautiful , uneventful, late afternoon, Fall flight at the Pulpit. There was still thermals lurking about and some still had a some strength to them. Ironically the best lift was right over launch . I topped at at about 1100' msl over. Me and Dan shared the air for a while and it was fun to have a birds eye view of his speed run back to the ridge from the valley. It ended with a sweet carving turn by launch........that was super cool man!!!! We both ended up in the primary and agreed that the flight had been worth the wait. The Pulpit has been delivering nicely lately!

Big thanks to Greg and Charley for the wire crew....sorry about the sudden increase in your blood pressure, and big thanks to Dan for the ride back up.

Jon

[Matthew]

Karen, Hugh, Luis and I bailed to High Rock because it was gusting to 30 before noon and we didn't feel like waiting around all day for it to get better and/or deal with deplorable, scary and dangerous, launch conditions-- which it sounds like they had throughout the day at the Pulpit. YIKES!!!

Well, we had to wait anyway. As Karen and I were driving up the road near Pen Marr Park, an ambulance flashed and passed us. Up top we found a group of motorcyclists. One had been on the grate in front of launch and had jumped down to the rocks about 4 feet below-- and broke his leg!

So it took well over an hour and EVERY FIRE TRUCK AND AMBULANCE FROM FIVE COUNTIES to haul the guy back up the short distance to the block and get him into the ambulance. They taped off the entire area with caution tape and a half a dozen guys suited up in rock climbing harnesses for the retrieval. They also blocked off the road not allowing any traffic up. Hugh and Luis were forced to turn around and go to Rockies Pizzeria for a good strong lunch!

While we were standing around and waiting, we met a woman that used to work with Sparky and was thinking of moving to Colorado and wanted to get in touch with him. And one of the biker's was the SO of Karen's choreographer and aerial silks instructor. So he hung out till his friend was OK and then watched me launch at around 2:45 after Hugh and Luis arrived. I got 2K over and flew 45 minutes-- sinking out in a flush cycle. Hugh radioed down that it was dead calm on the cube and asked if they should they wait or launch. I told them to wait a half hour and said that it would probably magic off around 4. And so it did. Former HG pilot Louis Truitt also showed up in his antique jalopy and helped wire crew.

Luis launched a little after 4pm, and Hugh at around 4:30, and they stayed up till about sunset. We all had good launches. As to lunches, Karen and I only had an apple we shared.

With a lack of wire crew, Karen and I headed over to Smithsburg and ran into John Middleton, Steve Kinsley and bunch of John's students. Karen had a few flights on her PG.

Matthew

[mcelrah]

Karen, Matthew, Luis, and I showed up at Pulpit, took one look and bailed to High Rock - where we encountered a rescue just getting started. Some guy jumped down on the grating on the front of the cube, then to the narrow rock ledge just to the right of it about 4 feet down from the top of the cube - and...broke his leg! Half dozen fire trucks, helicopter (all inappropriate) showed up, closed the road up to launch, so Luis and I got slices of pizza down in the 'ville. Once we were permitted up the road, we launched Matthew with full wire crew (Karen rigged safety lines for the wiremen) - wind was strongish but reasonable. Crowd of wuffos applauded. Met Megan, a colleague of Sparky's at the Park Service HQ in Harper's Ferry and her friend Jeff. Luis and I set up while Matthew enjoyed a smooth 45 minute flight with climbs to 2000 over and went out to land. M and K was held up in traffic coming back up, so we launched Luis with me, Louis (once and future HG pilot), and Jeff as wire crew. Matthew and Karen arrived as I was carrying up toward launch so I got the benefit of fully-proficient wire crew - my first flight at High Rock in about 3 years (Luis' first ever, but his home site is Miraflores in Lima and he's used to cliff launch). Luis and I enjoyed hour-plus flights in smooth air with a few gentle thermals and landed to find - surprise! - Megan and Jeff in the LZ with the best-ever *apres vol* sunset picnic set up in the pavilion: wine, cheese, apple slices in balsamic, served on Cornish china (they were transporting her late dad's crockery back to her house). Luis and I ended the day with cider and good grub at an Irish bar in downtown Frederick. What a nice day! - Hugh

[rasmussenv]

Conditions at the Pulpit were definitely the strongest I have attempted. I’d known they would be in the 15mph range and so had brought my Sport2. It would have been impossible to penetrate in my Falcon. On arrival around noon I learned that Hugh, Matthew and Karen had left a few minutes earlier to head to High Rock. My wind gauge was reflecting steady 20mph with regular gusts to 25 and one I saw hit 28. Dave Proctor launched during this period and made it look easy. Too much for me. I considered packing it up, but decided I might as well assemble my glider since I hadn’t unpacked the S2 this year and I could make the decision about conditions later. It was smoother by the time Gregg Sessa launched. The bird-watchers there mentioned that it had ramped down by around 2 or 3pm the week before, and by the time I launched – around 2:45 – I was seeing wind steadily in the 15mph range, with periods down around 10 and no gust that I saw above 20.

My launch was not great – but also did not feel frightening. I did not have a camera and don’t know what my crew (thank you!!) saw. Both wings had reported ‘neutral’ just before I cleared and the wing was balanced. All I saw/felt was that I went prone too quickly – not sure if the glider came up to me or if I didn’t move out with force (certainly not enough). This was the first time this year I’d brought the Sport2 out and I had it set at zero VG. My thought was that I would fly it more like a Falcon until / unless I needed the wind penetration. I don’t know if it is not smart to launch at zero VG, or it that was irrelevant to my experience.

In any case, except for a ‘woah’ exclamation as I realized I was going prone, I felt fine as I got in the air and I got immediate lift. I was quickly above launch. It was challenging. Before I moved to ½ VG I was definitely being pushed back – but was never behind the ridge. And I was bounced around a bit – although it could look even worse from the ground – between pulling out the VG and then once I was solidly above the launch I kicked around to get into my cocoon, and played with my vario to start the chronometer. Each time I released a hand, the wind started moving me. I stayed at ½ VG and had sufficient penetration – wasn’t going backward – but was only making slow forward progress. I didn’t worry about it because the lift was tremendous. What did startle me was that I really had to man-handle the glider to keep it pointed west. There was a definite north component, and I guess that is what kept making the glider turn right (north). But a couple times I actually looked up to see if something was wrong with the battens or something – so strong was the glider wanting to turn – always right.

I got up to 5600 above msl – about 3k over launch – which is about the highest I have ever made it – and got there never circling in a thermal, but doing my darnedest to point straight towards the LZ – very steady lift. The one time I let the glider’s desire to turn to the right become a 360 I was pushed back enough not to want to do 360’s. The lift band was very broad – I was well past hwy 16 close to the field and still lifting pretty steadily.

I could have stayed up longer, but felt like a 45 minute flight was enough. I wasn’t floating along enjoying the flying, but was regularly fighting the wing.

I’d positioned a windsock in the upper area of the primary, and was glad I had. I really wanted to land in the grass running north, parallel to the road (but in the upper field), but when I’d set the sock the wind was straight perpendicular to the road (from the west). From the air I saw Greg land in the narrow strip of harvested corn supporting that west wind direction and was debating whether to follow his pattern or risk a cross-wind landing in the grass in the upper field. Having not flown the Sport2 lately I wanted an extra margin of error for landing distance. I was well above the field while contemplating landing, and was happy to see the wind had shifted supporting landing into the wind exactly where I wanted in the upper grass.

Given the turbulence and wind strength, I kept my speed up and did a few S-turns rather than risking the calculations of DBF approach. I did not want to get much behind the trees, and wanted to leave plenty of landing zone ahead of me. Worked great. Had a nice stand-up landing – and broke down my glider there in the upper field by my wind-sock. Much later, after using my motorcycle to retrieve my vehicle, as I was packing to go, Dan landed. His truck was in the field, so he didn’t need a ride – and it looked like Jon would be landing relatively close behind him.

Overall I felt like it was a challenging in a good-way day, not terrifying (as it would have been in a Falcon). I’m glad I got to fly – I have been working again, and have been out of town recently, so not in the air for about six weeks, and have conflicts the next few weekends. That said, I’m not sure I would choose to head out to fly if I knew in advance that the conditions would be the same. I prefer boating around in the air.

[mcelrah]

Hi Val,

Glad you are flying and sorry we missed you. The Sport 2 book says to use half or between half and 3/4 for aerotow and half for landing. Not an expert but I think zero might make it kinda floppy. Your glider is older, but I think the book on S2's is that the sail shrinks and gets tighter... Once at altitude yesterday, I used 3/4. I think you are well within the weight range for the 155, but my experience flying a U2 160 in the light end of the weight range was that it was a handful in rowdy conditions - lots of uncommanded turns etc. It was nice and boaty at HR, but I launched almost 2 hours after you. Just this year I finally tried landing at the golf course SW of the Pulpit primary. The driving range has a bunch of flags (in case you hadn't set up a wind sock) and they seem to enjoy us landing there - even in summer I was surprised to find no golfers actually hitting balls.

Cheers - Hugh

[XCanytime]

Zero VG is fine for launching. In active air you want the glider to react the quickest to your inputs. Zero VG allows the glider to react the quickest. Bacil

[Matthew]

FY!--


Recommended Operating Limitations for Intermediate Pilots
a. Should fly only in winds of 25 mph or less, with gust differential of 10 mph or less.

Matthew

[jyoder111]

I've had my share of flights that turned out to be more turbulent and strong than I'd have liked. Looking back, I see I cut my safety margin big time by launching in strong conditions on a double surface wing I wasn't super current on. One of the reasons I went back to a Falcon was I didn't trust myself to stop launching my Sport 2 in strong conditions (double surface means you can fly in anything, right? With my Falcon, "too strong" is more easily identifiable and that handicap keeps me safe.

Mike of WW has a great article about risk management, hang gliding in general, and how "getting away with it" slowly erodes our perspective of what is acceptable conditions to fly in... until it bites back.
http://www.willswing.com/Articles/Artic ... leOnSafety

From your report, Valerie, sounds like it was a day you had to be 100% on your game. Glad you had a good flight. But in those conditions, better you than me

all the best,
Jesse