Memorial Day Flying

[dbodner]

Anyone thinking Daniel's on Monday?

[Matthew]

Some of the PGers are thinking Daniel's on Monday.

Matthew

[XCanytime]

I got word on Friday that the road up to the top at Daniels has been "improved" to near the switchback at the top of the ridge. That's great news for the 2WD crowd. Looking good for flying there tomorrow too. A bit breezy in the PM.

Bacil

[eggzkitz]

It was decent today at Daniels. Tomorrow looks improved but possibly too windy late in day. Today was too light if anything. Not sure how Jim, Lazzlo and Noah did late (I left at 4) but things were looking better.

The road is much improved, but only up 2/3 of the way. It is still gnarly the last 1/3 of the way.

Aloha,
Jeff

[XCanytime]

Heading to Daniels. Should be better than Friday at Woodstock. Hope to see some others there.

Bacil

[dbodner]

It was mostly a PG day, but 3 HGs showed up. Bacil went up first a little after 2. He worked hard 100 feet or so above launch. But he wasn't coming down, so that inspired Eric Swanson to launch his Litesport. He worked hard 100 feet or more below launch before finally succumbing to gravity. Looking at all that hard work made me tired, so I waited. I sat on launch for a while (with nobody behind me) and I finally found the beginning of a cycle. That took me up just high enough to work some lift until it got easier. Fun time in the air. After a while my shoulders started hurting from hanging in the harness; I'm not used to the longer flights. The pond was telling me to land across the road, so I did. 1:28 and 1,680 over.

Both Bacil and Eric had interesting launches. I couldn't fault their technique, but there seemed to be an invisible hand pushing them down before they cleared the slot. A little scary. I had noticed a PG taking off and rising in the slot. It lost altitude around where the invisible hand appeared, then it resumed going up. There must have been an area of recurring sink. It easily could've been me, and I easily could've ended up sledding.

[pink_albatross]

Learned something new this weekend which I thought I'd pass along in case it's news to other folks, too:
2 wheel drive tears up gravel roads. I was told to use 4 wheel drive, since I have it. It's more gentle on dirt roads.
Maybe we can do our thing to keep the road up to Daniel's in the shape it's currently in. In the past maintenance has been spotty, so maybe we want to be gentle with it.

Btw, had a three smiley blast yesterday. and lots of great folk to fly with.

-- ellis

[kcarra]

Hey David

What was it like landing across the road? I have yet to fly a HG at Daniels because I don't like the primary.

Kaern

[XCanytime]

Karen it is actually better than the "west" field. In a SE/S/SSW wind that would be the preferred LZ. It's uphill to boot. In the old days when Daniels was flown more frequently, this field was the main LZ, and the "west" field was the secondary.

Dave, after looking at pictures I took of the launch, the bottom of the slot is overgrown pretty good with lots of variation in the height of the vegetation. I would imagine the flow off of that is not the smoothest, which might explain the sink that Erik and I experienced just after getting airborne. A work party should be scheduled in coordination with the Central VA guys to clear the bottom of the slot for the safety of taking off at Daniels.

Bacil

[dbodner]

I echo Bacil's comments about the west field. Not nearly the pucker factor. Plus you get to turn on final over the horse pasture. The horses weren't out yesterday, but the last time they didn't mind me flying overhead.

Bacil, your explanation of the sink might be right. I hadn't thought of that. Looking at launch, I was wishing I'd brought the weedeater. If there are discussions with the Central guys, maybe the two clubs could also collaborate on completing the road maintenance. The new part is so much nicer.