Flying options for Sun13Sept

[markc]

At the moment, it looks like we might have a Woodstock day on Sunday : NW10-15G25 , becoming W@10 late in the day. If that holds it could be a great day! Who's in?

MarkC

[A.Lloyd]

I'm up for High Rock or Woodstock.

[silverwings]

Looks like Woodstock might be a better choice then High Rock. I hope to fly.

[mcelrah]

Leaning forward in the saddle... - Hugh

[wmelo]

"Waltable" weather conditions this Sunday at Woodstock.
Conflicting weather forecast to HR: strong gust winds (to me at least) after lunch.
Therefore, I am inclined to take my changes at Woodstock.

[darbbb]

Is the bridge field open?

Brad

[mcgowantk]

Presently, I am leaning towards Woodstock too.

Tom McGowan

[Dan T]

Tomorrow is shaping up to be a great day at Woodstock for both wings.

The big gun PGers are pulling off some big XCs out of there in the direction of Richmond outside the Dulles Air Space. Can you guys flying pipes keep up?

Mark C, I challenge you to a race to the far side of the box in the pond near Strasburg and back. The rule is I get to launch first in my PG and if you don't reach goal and I do, you buy the beer. If it's so good that either of us goes OTB furthest straight line distance wins. What do you say? (By the way I had a 3,500 foot altitude gain OTB from Ediths Gap in less than 8 minutes last weekend and two other guys had better flights than I did!)

We need all our Chapter members working and flying together to keep our sites maintained and our sport intact. Let's have some fun as one big family sharing our common passion for free flight.

Dan

PS Two PGers had three state XC flights from the Pulpit yesterday. If only those conditions would have occurred one day later we would have had a fantastic fly in today.

[XCanytime]

I am at the Comfort Inn in Greencastle priming for an XC from the Pulpit. John Dullahan, Charley Fager, and Matt Christiansen all are getting their gear ready by 9:30A tomorrow with Walt arriving to assist launches at that time before driving 2 hours to Woodstock. I plan on launching as soon as it's ridge soarable, which may be as early as 9A. I just got back from launch and it was fogged in, but blowing 5 to 10 MPH straight up the pad! Cloud dives were definitely possible. The task tomorrow is to fly south to The Corner, then fly north up to Cowans Gap Lake (or further), then OTB for distance. Bacil

P.S. FYI we still would have had a fantastic fly in. It's not ALL about the flying.

[markc]

An early flight at the Pulpit might work out well, but keep an eye on the conditions, latest NWS sfc 'cast is calling for G30 in the afternoon. Hope you score some major miles!

I think Jeff's call to postpone was precisely because of the non-flying aspects. A gloomy & rainy day at best, with the forecasts calling for 100% chance of rain into Sat night (at least, as of Friday evening). Head up after the rain, set up a dinner/potluck in the dark, drive back home after a couple of hours.... Sure, some hard-core pilots would do so (count me among them!), but the numbers would be very low. So defer to next weekend, with any luck at all it'll at least be dry!

Latest Woodstock 'cast is now calling for G20-25 between 2pm and 6pm. IF the 'Woodstock Effect' is in-effect, conditions might be ok. And if stronger than forecast, there's at least a chance for a throttle-back late in the day. Keep your fingers crossed!

MarkC

[Lostgriz]

Dan, have flight reports on the big PG XC flights out of Woodstock been posted? If so, please tell me where, I would be interested in reading up on those.

Thanks,

Matt

[Blaine]

I'd be interested in going to Woodstock as well.

[markc]

Hi Blaine! Are you in touch with any of the Observers? AFAIK, John M, Tom M, Bacil D, Matthew G are all among them... Would be great to fly with you in the mtns. I was totally pimping off of you on Labor Day at Highland, maybe I can return the favor tomorrow!

[Blaine]

No I haven't contacted any observers for this weekend. I hadn't really planned on flying with the weather forecasts until I saw this post.

[jyoder111]

I'm heading to Woodstock today but the forecast looks a little strong. Hope the "Woodstock Effect" is in effect.

Jesse

[Matthew]

We're heading to Woodstock.

ETA 12:30.

Matthew

[silverwings]

Going to Woodstock. ETA LZ at 12:00.

[XCanytime]

Got to launch at 7A. Already breezy and soarable. A kettle? of 30+ turkey vultures were soaring above launch. Set up and waited for Walt and Charley to show up by 9:15A. Walt got there a bit earlier and both of them helped me launch into strong conditions at 9:15A. Flew down to The Corner and turned around into a strong headwind component on the way back. Tough going at times. Charley kept me updated on launch conditions. When I heard gusting to 28+ MPH on the ramp and the Hagerstown AWOS stating winds at 320 at 18 knots, gusting 22 knots, I decided to go out and land at the golf course driving range. Had a nice landing at 10:15A and Charley picked me up. Back at launch John Dullahan had showed up and was set up ready to go but decided against it when it picked up to conditions a bit stronger than I launched in. Looking forward to tomorrow at the Pulpit. Looking forward to hearing how it went at Woodstock. Bacil

[jyoder111]

The morning at Woodstock was worrisome, with swirly slot conditions, rain showers, and lulls. Large number of PG and HG pilots came out. Eventually it cleared off by early afternoon but the slot was still very swirly. HG pilots began launching around 2pm or so, with everyone having to wait a while for half-decent cycles. Valerie led the way, then Mark C and Matthew after a while. When it was obvious Mark and Matthew were staying up, I decided to go next. On my launch, I felt the glider settle oddly just as I got airborne so I pulled in and nose-dived toward the trees to get some speed and then pushed out to rocket up out of the bottom of the slot. Got up above the ridge pretty easily as by that point in the afternoon the sun was starting to stir things up and there was decent lift. First 15 minutes were smooth but then the thermals really started popping and it got fairly turbulent. I think I only got 1k or so over launch and then I got airsick after 30 min and went out to land in the primary. Fought to get down and found nasty conditions in the main, with the fence streamer pointing straight at the mountain but the main windsock pointing uphill like usual. I fought to get below the tree line and did some S-turns and landed on the wheels. Missed the cow pies. Had to hold the glider down during breakdown at times but it calmed down after a bit. There were 5-6 gliders in the sky when I left around 4pm.

Jesse

[markc]

It.

Was.

Good!

Finally, a mountain day. Second since mid-May for me, hard to believe that good days have been so rare (at least on the weekend) this year.

Very turb down low early. Struggled a bit to get above, then started strafing the tower and such in relief/joy. Regretted that a bit later, getting thrashed. Lift only to 1000-1500' over for quite a while. Later, with more sun, the lift got crazy-good, but there was crazy sink out there too. Wandered north a bit, but passed on the resevoir/knob because the air was too mean.

Awesome climbs fairly late, to 5200, maybe 5300 MSL, one of them from only 200 over the ridge. Tired, cold, sore, happy!

[Matthew]

Things looked abysmal on the drive out to Woodstock. Dark skies, black clouds... and we got rained on a couple of times on I-66.

Arrived at launch to find a few gliders already set up. Everything was still decked over. And then it rained a little while setting up the gliders.

Ugh!

Krista and Austin and a few PG pilots showed up. The rained stopped and we could see some small patches of blue-- so we hemmed and hawed as the gliders dried and a several other HG pilots arrived.

Valerie decided to go first while it still looked gloomy and had a quick ride to the LZ. More hemming and hawing.

Mark went next and had to fight to get up. I followed, but had to wait 15 minutes for a decent launch cycle. I got up -- but lift was light and it took a while to climb up to 1K over. Mark and I flew for a little while and I started to get 2K over. Mark went north a bit and returned. I decided to run up to Signal Knob. As usual, I got hammered near the reservoir--- massive sink and bullet thermals to 4300 MSL. The turbulence was even worse on the return trip. My elbows are still sore from all of the bar rippers. And then long stretches of massive sink. I wasn't sure that I'd make it back and grovelled my way south getting to launch at a few hundred over. Lots of glider were in the sky and above me.

And then it got really GREAT! Big wide thermals-- easy climbs to 3K over. I flew with Gary and David B..... and even pimped off of Walt a couple of times. Topped out at 5667msl and landed after 2 hours, 49 minutes.

Karen got 2K over and a little under an hour. John M., Jessie and Anthony all had good soaring flights. Steve K DNF because he broke a tip wand.

And while I was waiting down in the LZ, Austin launched his PG about 6:30pm and was still in the air when Karen and I left at 7:15.

Matthew

[dbodner]

FOUND at launch:
One tip bag,
One handscrew (from a GoPro mount?)

Yeah, what Jesse, Mark and Matthew said. I launched later, per usual. There were several belly-scratcher launches that made me nervous. The pilots didn't do anything wrong, it was just the conditions. After a "nice" launch, I decided it was time to fly.

By the time I launched getting up was relatively easy (Steve K, you were right). I boated around as I usually do, occasionally thermalling up and sometimes fighting sink. I bailed out of a thermal as I was approaching 2,400 over launch and didn't see anyone else in the air. As it turned out, Matthew was still up. But, I was high enough, and the relative sparseness of the blue spaces in the skies just made me double-down on the caution.

At one point two very large birds came over to me. At at about 10 feet away, one started flapping his wings as if he was about to land on my glider. I guess he thought better of it, because they were 1/2 mile away when I next saw them.

All the landings I saw looked good. Good thing I couldn't see mine, since it sucked. Not really sure what happened. But, at least I had the presence of mind to let go of the down tubes just before hitting. My wheels did their job, and I just skidded on my chest for a bit. No damage to glider or pilot.

[wmelo]

I was one of the lucky ones who were able to fly last Sunday in Woodstock.
I stopped by Pulpit to help Bacil launch by 9:00am. After he took off, I drove to Woodstock to meet John at the main LZ. I was not very optimistic due to the weather, but things turned out great.

My take-off was not outstanding: did not run enough. However, I was able to fly safely. As Jesse indicated, it was turbulent. I got a couple of times above 2,500ft above the tower, but since the thermals were pushing behind the ridge, I had to sacrifice my altitude a couple of times to move to the front of the ridge, and started the process over again. I was luck to fly behind a bold eagle for my 2nd time at Woodstock.

I flew for 1:30min and landed safely on the spot at the main LZ.

Special thanks to John for observing and my wire crew.

I hope to fly again at Woodstock soon.

Walt