I had come down to stay at Ellis' dacha in Front Royal for Thanksgiving. Looking at the weather before I left, I saw nothing but L&V from Friday on, so made the rather radical decision not to bring my glider. Of course it was soarable at High Rock on Friday. All due to my not bringing my glider, but did I get a single word of thanks? Went winery touring instead.
On Saturday Ellis' room-mates Margarita and Damien and I decided to go hiking, and I was anxious to check out the new Edith's gap, so followed Ellis' suggestion of a good hike starting from launch. We got up there to find the place overrun with paraglider pilots, and a roughly 8 mph wind blowing more or less straight in under largely overcast skies. Figures it would be not only launchable but borderline soarable, being that I arrived without a glider. The one hang glider there was under the auspices of Trevor, who was a H2 so not cleared to fly there. Yet after a few minutes of talking, he decided I was qualified to do the deed, and offered up his glider. Mind you, he had never even heard of me 5 minutes earlier, so though I was floored by his generosity I wasn't about to give him enough time to change his mind.
We burned rubber down to the LZ to check things out. I had earlier checked it out on Google Earth and come to the conclusion that a downwind, uphill landing was the only way to go. Upon walking the field, we picked out two possibilities. The one shown in yellow below provides the longest uphill stretch, but it can be a tight squeeze between the clumps of trees. I decided I preferred the one shown in green, which was mildly uphill but broad, and crosswind rather than straight downwind.
Trevor had a Falcon 195, bigger than my standard wing, hence more soarable. Launch was effortless, and on my first pass I was slightly above launch. The winds were actually crossing from the right once in the air, and since I wasn't so familiar with the wing I decided to go a bit downwind to give the paragliders some breathing room. Soon enough I hit wide sink, and since I was never much more than ridge level and on somebody else's glider going into a far and tight field I had never landed in before, I decided not to fight to regain altitude, but to cut and run for the LZ. Hit a pop from a shoulder about halfway out, but after that it was all sink. I was gritting my teeth, but arrived at my final approach point with nearly 100 feet of altitude. Burned in a turn to final, and landed lightly on my feet.
Trevor turned down my offer of a late lunch, but I owe him several drinks or dinner. If anyone runs into him and knows me, I'd be grateful if you'd treat him and send me the tab. I'm not down from NYC that often, so it may take a couple years for me to get around to it myself.
As for my thoughts on landing a hang glider in the current state of the LZ, I'd say with a single surface in the non-thermally part of the day (I had an overcast) it's a non-issue with the approaches I show above. Double surface would be tighter but possible if you trust your skills. Taking out the clumps of trees would result in a beautiful place to experience uphill downwind landings.
