Central PA report (long)

[brianvh]

Dennis Pagen had been suggesting for months that I come up and fly with him and the locals one weekend, so I finally caved in and made the drive friday morning with the promise of two sites I had never flown before pushing me out the door.

Arrived at the base of the Pleasant Gap site just in time to follow a truck with a glider up to the top...even with Dennis's careful directions I think it would have taken me a while to figure out all the turns. Nice ridge site, with good XC potential. In fact a couple pilots have actually flown to Baltimore from here! My first impression was "wow, what a beautiful site!". but I think I must have that same puppy-love reaction to all new sites: much of the valley below is filled with a distinctly unbeautiful quarry that must be flown over to reach the primary LZ. Dennis pointed out falcon bail outs, as well as fields that look good from about 500 feet but you'll discover almost too late that they slope too much for a fun landing.

I was the last one off, launching into winds slightly less than 10 mph, but which increased quickly with altitude. I could never thermal effectively in my SS glider without getting pushed back too far behind the ridge for comfort, so rarely climbed up to meet the others. But I tootled around happily between about 200 and 700 feet until the lift began to die. There was a cross, but everytime I moved upwind in preparation for heading out I sunk down below ridge level. Finally gave up and headed out from ridge level despite Dennis' warning I may not make the primary from that altitude. Flew over what I thought was the bailout he had pointed out, and saw nice grass, but contoured like a putt-putt golf course with what basically amounted to a 30 foot moat running around 3 sides of it. Yikes! Turns out I misinterpreted his directions. Fortunately I was able to make the primary with good altitude and had a nice approach and landing. Then had the satisfaction of watching master pilot Pagen come in and do a beautiful approach on his topless, slow down, flare... and ground loop. What a pleasure.

Spent the night at Dennis's house, within over-the-back distance of the pleasant gap ridge (he has a landing field). He's got an incredible view. There are only two rules in his house: shoes come off, and all males must pee outdoors. Very Dennis.

The next day we went to the superbowl, expecting sleds in light winds. This is a true 4WD site, but this time I can say without qualification that the view is SPECTACULAR. A bowl-shaped valley so large that the mountains on the far side are just beginning to fade blue, populated by the picturesque farms of the Amish. A paraglider took off first and sunk out. I figured there was no reason to wait so launched next and sunk out to his same field. All the Amish kids abandoned the paraglider and came running over to check me out. I started zipping them into the harness and doing the kite festival thing with them. Not that they were at all unfamiliear with hang gliders (one 10 year old boy provided a wickedly accurate critique of my landing), but they hadn't had the harness experience before.

It turns out all these kids were from the neighboring farm, because one of the older brothers from the farm we landed on came over with a flat bed wagon (pulled by these beautiful massive limbed horses) and he had a flock of kids from his farm with him. Seems the kids that are too small to work just ride around all day with the older ones. He was carrying 4 little girls ranging from 3 to 6 years old, all wearing scarves and black rubber boots...even the smallest one. I just melted. The farmer said he had to go load some wood, but he'd come back and carry our gliders out. We quickly volunteered to help him load the wagon. So hop on and coax the girls to talk on the way to a fallen tree. then the farmer, dressed in white and black with a broad brim hat, fringe beard and suspenders, fires up a chain saw and starts chopping up the tree. These aren't Luddites, they're just folks who dress and act modestly, while recogizing that horses are cheaper and cuter than tractors. They have electric fences for the cows.

Around this time we note that as we're sweating away loading logs, the gliders who launched 20 minutes after us are staying up. I didn't care too much, I was happy. When we got back to the farm we got picked up by another boy in a black buggy who offered to drive us back to our cars. So we offered to help him load up the feed he was buying, and off we went. Found out his farm sold sausage and yogurt, so rode all the way to his farm and bought some.

The last glider finally landed around sunset, drawing in the rest of the neighborhood who were finishing up chores and we hung out and chatted as he broke down. Just the cutest kids ever, and though rarely boisterous by culture they also have never learned the need to be shy of strangers.

That night I brewed some imperial stout with a friend, and thought that maybe I should start checking out job opportunities in central PA.

[hepcat1989]

That was a good story Brian. I would like to get together with you soon and fly some of these sites.Central PA is pretty nice.Are these sites flown by Macduff's club? Thanks Brian,
Shawn

[CraginS]

[quote="brianvh"]>>SNIP<<
thought that maybe I should start checking out job opportunities in central PA.[/quote]

You mean uh, like with AccuWeather, one of the largest private weather services around? the one based in State College? The one who provides on air forecasters for several DC radio stations?

cragin

[Lauren Tjaden]

Thanks for your great post, Brian. Your adventure is exactly what hang gliding is all about (well, you know, aside from WINNING).
Lauren

[breezyk1d]

Brian;

You didn't teach those cute Amish girls to worry about strangers, did you? <grin>. The 3 year old could probably kick pretty hard with those rubber boots....

Enjoyed hearing the human interest side of a flying story. How were the sausages and yogurt? The circumstances must have been wonderful to keep you from racing up into the air at the first sign of lift. Gotta admit, you might be a better man than me on that account - LOL!

-Linda

[brianvh]

It's a pretty serious 4WD trek to get up to the top, so rushing back up is not really an option.

For those who want to fly these sites, the best approach is to go to the Hyner weekends (any 3 day holiday during the summer to early fall) and get to know the local pilots. And as a member of the Hyner club, you can go up and camp at Hyner and be well located, except for communications. You can often get cell phone communication at the top of launch, though.