Woodstock Wednesday

[mcgowantk]

I am thinking of trying again on Wednesday. It looks somewhat lighter winds than tomorrow but dew points remaining below 50 degrees. I am thinking Woodstock may be the best site based on the current forecast.

Tom McGowan

[sailin]

I am hoping to make it out on Wednesday....work will kind of dictate when, but hopefully be there by 1pmish

Jon

[markc]

I'm looking at WS tomorrow pretty hard.... Might be a speck-out kind of day!

[mcgowantk]

I am planning on heading out to Woodstock. Will try to post in the am. Pete Schumann plans to come too. We will see what the day brings.

Tom McGowan

[XCanytime]

It twas a 100+ mile XC day today and tomorrow should be the same. Looking forward to multiple XC reports. Bacil

[Ward Odenwald]

Wish I could! Tomorrow is shaping up to be really good from all forecast angles and east of the Blue Ridge the thermal casts are equally good. Let us know the details.

Ward

[markc]

We were hoping for epic, but what we got was more like "ehhhh...." Don't get me wrong, still a fun flight, and I definitely learned a lot. But dreams of making it to Manquin did not come to pass.

Tom McG did the best, with about 30-ish miles or so, crossing the Blue Ridge a bit north of Stony Man and then passing over Old Rag and into the (relative) flats to the east. Pete S and I were about an hour behind, and we wound up soaring Stony Man at the same time. Pete jumped, but I held back, ultimately heading back into the valley for a landing E & S of Luray. I wimped out!

My flight started with major frustration, unable to get more than a few hundred over the ridge, south of launch. It seemed like I was struggling for an hour, but maybe it just seemed that long. Tom had launched first, and he was at 7k MSL under the tail-end of a street by the time I was in the air (launching last). And I think that things just majorly shut down on the ridge as that street headed downwind..... Couldn't find a core no matter what I did! But luckily, about halfway to Edinburg Gap, another street started to set-up upwind, and I slowly clawed my way up into better lift. I took that line OTB, eventually topping out at 5k+ above launch.

Pete was with me, but he jigged south at the same time that I jigged a bit back up-wind to one of the clouds in the street. That's the one that got me to 7k, and it was the best lift of the day. I lost track of Pete at that point, and burbled past Fort Valley and towards Skyline Drive.

I bumped up against the foothills of the Blue Ridge pretty far north of Luray. There was a dramatic forest fire a bit further up the slopes, and I didn't want to fly straight over it (concerns about helicopters), so I skirted the edge. Too bad, there was a big Q just downwind of the fire, and other clouds visible through the haze and smoke. There was a second fire far to the north, on the backside of Fort Valley.

Good lift was very hard to find. I think that the winds aloft were significantly limiting the day's possibilities. Broken thermals, and lots of clouds visibly leaning with the wind. And overall it was a pretty darn blue day, sigh.

Eventually I burbled along to Stony Man, arriving maybe 1500' above the ridge. I flew south, over Skyland Lodge, and checked-out MIller's Head. Then I punched upwind and north when I saw a couple of clouds starting to form up, and began riding light thermals back to Stony Man. As I was climbing, I saw Pete downwind and a bit higher, cool! Things started to firm up a bit, and I climbed to maybe 4800' MSL, drifting back behind the cliffs.....

And you know what's between Stony Man and Old Rag? Absolutely nothing but trees and rocks. Zip/nada/zilch for an LZ.

Earlier, Tom had radioed that he crossed at 7k MSL, losing 2k in the process, and that it was the most sinky/rowdy air he'd ever experienced in a crossing. Pete left around 5k MSL, and he also lost 2k, arriving at Old Rag about 100' over the mountain. Me? In my old U2? No. I had a moment of clarity (assisted by Tom's description) and decided that this would not be the day that I crossed. The thermal *was* pretty good, but there were no clouds ahead. I would probably have felt more confident if there had been; maybe it will happen next time.

Found a great uphill/upwind field, and our driver (Quasar) was there before I was even broken down. We then chased after Pete (landed just east of Old Rag), and then Tom (landed 10 miles south of Culpeper, next to Route 29).

All in all a very worthwhile day, certainly worth burning a day of vacation. But it would have been fun to get further.

Thanks again to Quasar, he's become an excellent chase driver!

MarkC

[mingram]

So awesome! Congrats! Great write up!

Matt

[sailin]

Nice flights Tom, Mark and Pete!! I ended up launching at 4pm and had a really fun flight, mostly staying in the fishbowl. Topped out at 1400' over. It was a lot of work to get above 700 over the ridge and I lost count of the 360's and numerous passes, but once above 1000' it got much easier to stay there. I had the whole ridge to myself and spent most of the flight being chased by several birds that were just having fun too. Big thanks to Amy for helping me get into the slot, the good radio chatter and picking me up Beautiful day!!

The forest fire over on the NW face of the Blue Ridge looked pretty impressive!!

Jon

[mcgowantk]

Mark summed up the day pretty well. I had a nice start to the day. I got up pretty easily but the day was on the rowdy side. I hoped things would be better in the valley, so I flew out past the LZ and hung out at 2k - 3k over waiting for the others. The thermals were not well formed out there either even though the winds were not that strong. Go figure. I finally headed south to a building cloud street and found a good climb to base at 7800 msl. I headed down wind and found lots of strong sink - more than I expected. That was a common experience that day - finding exceptionally strong sink for quite a way after leaving a cloud. I worked my way across the valley and got to the east side of Shenandoah National Park at the Rt 211 crossing at 5500 msl but could not find a good climb that would have encouraged me to drift back over skyline drive. I dove south to another building street and took a 300 up thermal back to over Stony Man Mountain where a nice cloud formed at the perfect time. I left at 7200 msl to dive at Old Rag and again hit major sink for quite a while - in the neighborhood of 1500 down for 2 miles until I reached Old Rag. I found a few weak climbs after that but sunk out and landed a field to the east of Rt 29 in Leon Va.

Crossing Skyline drive was a major effort and flying over Stony Man and Old Rag was a first for me. I measured about 7 miles of trees and mountains to cross. The issue though, was at mile 6.5 there was a 3000 msl mountain guarding the land-able fields to the east. It is much easier to cross down by Elkins, Va where Rt 33 crosses the mountain.

Overall, it was a fun flight but I had trouble working the broken up thermals. Thanks to Quasar for driving for us and for Pete's and Mark's company. I even got home in time to go to Wolf Trap to see Norah Jones. Another highlight of the day was filling up for $2.99/gallon near Remington, Va.

Tom McGowan

[markc]

Another lesson I learned yesterday : I have a problem "switching gears", from go-go-go XC mode, back to a just-fly-and-have-some-fun mode.

At Stony Man, the glide OTB is a serious proposition, and even the glide out front towards Luray and the LZs is a little iffy. But on the other hand, I had boated around for a bit, and there was light lift to be found over a broad area. So what I *should* have done was go back to 'just-have-fun' mode, hanging around and milking lift, staying in range of the LZs, and enjoying the experience!

With a bit of luck, maybe I would have connected with a better street than before. Or maybe not.... But even so, I'd still have had more airtime, and some great sight-seeing.

But my mindset was more along the lines of "find something or call it quits!". I headed out from the ridge towards some wispies, they dried up, and I had basically decided "Ok, if I don't find anything, then that's it for this flight", in advance.

Which was a huge mistake, you never know what might happen! Maybe I could have survived the blue cycle and gotten to 7k like Tom did. I should have hung out a bit upwind of Stony Man, looking to simply extend the flight, and set a "I'll head out once I'm below XXX' msl" threshold.

Sometimes you've just got to be patient. Conditions might have improved. Should have given it at least 30 minutes or so, grrrr!

MarkC

[tomceunen]

When I recently crossed the Shenandoah I noticed that the face at Mary's Rock must be a a good place to beam up and cross the Shenandoah.
Somehow I was too intimidated and kept on going cross on the wind East behind (to) Luray. It was right between Luray and the mountains in the flats next to the little hill that I hit this monster thermal that elevated me to 6000ft. Now I had a cloudstreet all the way to the other side of the Shenandoah. All the way up to Old Rag I did not loose too much height well I did no hit major sink. But at Old Rag flying straight east I missed a thermal and lost finally 3000ft from the 6000ft before hitting another thermal in the flats further east.
I noticed that flying to Old Rag there are some fields to land just north of it = cutting short the 8 miles of tree that has to be crossed.
I do have a lot of respect for those who cross the Shenandoah at Stony Man. But being at cloudbase over 6000ft makes things a lot safer and easier.
Safe flight!
My flights;
https://picasaweb.google.com/1113086422 ... 5245493970

[mcgowantk]

Tom Ceunen - Thanks for sharing your experiences crossing the Shenandoah. It is even more impressive with a paraglider. Hope to share some XC flying with you one of these days.

Tom McGowan

[Pete Schumann]

Thanks to Tom & Mark for their encouragement and to our driver Quasar. As may times as I have rock climbed and hiked Old Rag it was pretty cool to soar it even if just for 10 min.

As Mark wrote it was frustrating for us as it took a long time to get up to go over the back. It took me at least an hour to get to Skyline Drive and another 40 min to be able to climb up in very light lift to make it to the Drive. I was on the south side of 211. I got up enough to make it to the Drive then got additional lift at Stony Man. I was about 200' above the cliff face!

Got in a good thermal and told Mark I was going for it. (never heard Tom's warning... eek

The pucker factor was high and I made it through ratty sink air (lost about 2000') to arrive at Old Rag with about 200' over. Very little lift mostly sink and trash on top some minor lift to the north so I soared for about 10 min then left the ridge and landed about a mile away from the east face of Old Rag. It was pretty cool to have made it but a tad scary too.

Pete

[Roger]

Thanks for the write up everybody. I wish I could've been with you

[XCanytime]

With a bit of luck, maybe I would have connected with a better street than before. Or maybe not.... But even so, I'd still have had more airtime, and some great sight-seeing.

MarkC

Hey Mark,
Don't beat yourself up too much . You've been flying your butt off this whole month . 2 weekends in a row both days. High Rock last Saturday. And now this adventure. Some of us haven't been so fortunate. Still musta been awesome looking down the pike from Stony Man. That's big medicine crossing there as you guys said. A very serious undertaking. With Skyland at 4010' MSL and the top of Old Rag at 3291' MSL in the way a stiff tailwind and lotsa altitude makes for less pucker factor. Ward told me about being in Pete's position back in the day in a Seagull! Bacil

[markc]

Believe me, I realize how lucky I am to have had a very good run of flights in recent weeks. Hope my comments didn't come across as whiny... I really *do* think I had an insight into how I approach a 'goal-oriented' flight. Ie, I need to be better able to switch gears and get back to enjoying the experience if it doesn't seem that conditions will allow a flight to continue. At the very least you'll have more fun. And at best, maybe conditions will change for the better, and you'll be in a position to take advantage of that change.

I've got some video of the flight, and I'm hoping that there are some decent segments of Stony Man, etc.

MarkC

[lbunner]

Yeah Mark, I agree. Changing gears is critical to the experience. At Zirk's, we missed the better part of the day so I changed my objective and decided to see what I could do even though I knew the conditions would be softening quickly and I wouldn't be able to achieve my original goal. It's all a learning experience to be put to better use on a later date.

[Ward Odenwald]

Great write-ups! So good they triggered a “geezer” memory. MarkC’s, Tom’s and Pete’s descriptions of passing by or flying over Old Rag and Stony Man got me thinking about how neat it is to make it to the blue side of the Blue Ridge. A while back, I took a similar path after climbing up in a thermal just south of launch and wrote about the flight in the Skyline (CHGA’s publication). Although our gliders and the way we communicate have changed (pre-cell phone era), the excitement, joy and XC decisions remain the same! Here’s the text (couldn’t find the photos).

Woodstock to Etlan; September 26, 1980

Conditions in the slot were, in a word - intense! The cold front that passed earlier that morning had brought excellent visibility, 15 to 25 mph northwesterlies, and a lapse rate that gave new meaning to the phrase “thermal-induced turbulence”. Rick Gilliam and I were in position by 12:45 pm with Rick leaving the slot at 1:00 pm in a respectable 15 mph window that vanished before I could hook in. I spent the next twenty minutes trying to keep my Seagull 10.5 meter intact and on the ground. The thermals blasted their way up the slot with the seemingly single purpose of tossing my glider into the surrounding trees and bushes. The relatively smooth air we had set up in was gone. Left behind was probably the most supercharged solar-powered air that I had ever exposed my wings to! The lonely wait for just the right window coupled with the anticipation of what I hoped to experience above was taking its toll on my limited supply of energy. Finally, I settled on a 20 mph straight-in flash and left the slot heading south with the bar to my knees.

By now, the cumulus clouds were forming in well-defined streets out in the valley as small wisps swirled and raced over the ridge. Earlier, on the drive up, Rick and I had decided we would employ the strategy we had used on our first excursion to the ridge (see Paul Banken’s article “Massanutten 1st Impressions” in last month’s Skyline). If we couldn’t make it across the Edinburg Gap, our alternate plan was to head north to Strasburg-looking for that perfect “Endless Summer” thermal which would carry us back to D.C.

Our strategies and hopes were no different than those of countless other rides to various sites, when the imagination, fueled by great expectations and adrenalin, soars to yet uncharted heights and “Specks Out”. The way Rick and I talked and planned, you’d think we were expecting to forgo calling the Woodstock’s Sheriffs office after our flights and notify Houston’s Mission Control instead.

Such wishful thinking was quickly dispelled as I found myself bouncing around below ridge level on the decidedly rough flight south to the gap, complete with sail inversions and zero g’s. Quick gains in altitude were accompanied by equally rapid losses. After two attempts at crossing the Edinburg Gap, it became clear to Rick and I that our attempts were just that. The strong horizontal flow and down air surrounding the thermals would put us below ridge level before we were halfway across. Alternate plan B was selected. While I was still below ridge top level, desperately trying to recover from my last drilling in the gap, Rick, by now a quarter of a mile to the north, had hooked into one of those incredible rockets we all dream about. Within minutes, he and his Sensor were a white dot at about 3000 ft above and getting smaller with every glance. It felt good to see my close friend successfully disappear into the deep blue!

Some of my closest friends are pilots and we all share the great desire of putting as much distance between us and takeoff as possible. It’s one of our common bonds. But when one of these “Turkeys” is in the process of doing just that, of leaving me somewhere in between, the friendship takes a momentary back seat to the old “Me Too!” feeling. While Rich was doing this incredibly disappearing act, I was growing increasingly miserable dodging trees while struggling to fly out of what seemed to be the only sink-hole in the valley. Fifteen minutes later and a mile north of that rather humbling experience, I lined myself up directly downwind of one of the cloud streets that had developed out in the valley and waited for my turn.

The thermal I flew into, or more accurately, the thermal that ran over me was one of those columns of air that you have to put the bar to your knees to get into and keep it there a few seconds so that it doesn’t toss you out. After recovering from the initial acceleration, I eased the bar out and quickly climbed above the ridge. The sudden rise in temperature was not only pleasant but was indeed conformation that I was “thermaling”. Using the technique of turning in the direction that offered up the most resistance, I flew into an area of lift that was taking me up 500 ft/min. My upward velocity gradually diminished to a consistent 200 ft/min. On the way up, I took a snapshot of the Massanutten ridge looking north towards Strasburg (see cover). Turning downwind, after losing the lift at approximately 6,000 feet MSL, I was over Fort Valley and heading for Massanutten’s eastern ridge and just beyond that, the south fork of the Shenandoah River.

I didn’t find my next thermal until I was back down to approx. 2,000 feet MSL, just east of the Shenandoah River and north of Rileyville. Using this thermal and a series of other, I was able to stay between 3000 and 5000 feet MSL while working my way south. At this point in the flight, possible landing fields downwind of Hogback Mountain and the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains were out of reach, so I had to leave the thermals as they drifted over the mountains and continue south. Two miles south of Route 211, I was back down to approx. 1,500 feet MSL and faced with the decision of either continuing south, gambling that there was another thermal up ahead, or heading southeast and making a downwind run for the lift band out in front of Stony Man Mountain.

I opted for the latter and entered the liftband approximately 200 feet below Skyline Drive. It was here that I flew into perhaps the best thermal of my flying career! After several bumpy 360’s, I entered an area of 500 ft/min lift that was smooth and big enough to allow me to settle into a gentle bank and watch Stony Man and Old Rag Mountains drop away beneath me. Drifting with the thermal over the mountains, I stayed with this one as long as I could. It never occurred to me earlier that day when I left the slot at Massanutten that I would be passing several thousand feet over the Blue Ridge Mountains – What a feeling!! At approximately 5,500 MSL, the smooth lift turned into 500 ft/min sink. Flying as fast as I could downwind to escape it, I flew by the north end of Old Rag Mountain. My last small gain in altitude that day was in a lee-side thermal, which I worked with a couple of Turkey vultures.

I landed in Mrs. Miller’s field, approximately four miles downwind of Old Rag and approximately 28 miles from takeoff. The flight lasted a little over two and a half hours. Ralph Yowell, the youngest of the Yowell’s seven sons that own the neighboring farm, came over to greet me. The hospitality extended to me by the Yowells was a perfect ending to an amazing day. They took me in as a special guest, listened to my crazy babbling, and fed me wonderful meal!

I thank the Yeowells for taking me in and Les King, Marilyn Boehly, and Carol Wolfe for retrieving me.

Ward