Piling in at Funston

Last Saturday I was trying a harness new to me with an unfamiliar mechanism, I failed to use it properly and let it distract me from flying the glider properly. The video below has the last few moments captured quite nicely. Fortunately I bounced softly into iceplant, the glider however, did not fare so well, a broken leading edge and downtube resulted.

I had had 3 or 4 attempts at getting upright in the harness before turning onto final, I believe my mistake was taking my feet out of the harness before going upright. You can see me hanging on the downtube and pushing on the basetube with one final attempt, but with my feet out of the harness it doesn't work, and I am suspended by a line that runs to just behind the knees. That is a big head down moment.

What I should have done at this point is forget about the harness and fly the glider. However I did not.
Also I had not noticed how much more north the wind was on the ground than just 80 feet up, this creates a rotor that I flew into quite slowly. Hanging and pushing on the control frame takes away the feel of airspeed.

Ultimately the gliders right wing stalls and falls to the ground, I loosen my grip and my body assumes the head-down position dictated by the harness and BAM. Unable to get my feet below me, the glider takes the full impact of its weight and mine combined, 5x the force of the glider just by itself.

There are a number of lessons that can be learned from this.
1. Always Prioritize flying the glider.
2. Go upright early when trying a new harness.
3. Give yourself an out if you you can even if its a belly landing.
4. Don't grip the control frame to the point where you cannot feel the air.

Crashing at Funston

Here is a picture of the break in the carbon.

The 2011 Ed Levin Speed Gliding event

Chris [blog] and Brian [blog] did spectacularly good job at organising the 2011 Ed Levin Speed Gliding competition. The weather finally co-operated this past weekend, game on ! Co-incidentally Zac Majors was in town and was able to compete (at least in the first day) other big names include Kenny Brown and Brian Horgan from McClure. We got one round in on Saturday (Chris's Start Gate Video) and one round in on Sunday. After the first round the wind was too strong or air too turbulent to safely run the course. [pic stolen from Mark Suttie]I free flew down and can attest to the turbulence, in hindsight I was glad the second run of the day called off. However I hadn't had a good run that morning and could have used a second shot. But with stiff competition I had small expectation of actually placing. Those guys really are good. Here is Kenny going through an "Altitude Control" gate [stolen from Don Herricks Video]
On Sunday conditions looked better but the forecast was worse. We got a round in with the altitude criterion removed, also finish was moved because the wind is 180 from the landing direction. Two very smart ideas.

I had a great time, I learned I still need more ballast (more for control than performance)

This was my favorite picture from the weekend, the camera was still on self timer from the Tandem with Lindsay. It sums up the casual and jovial mood of the very fun weekend.
lots more pictures here :

Results

Rookie Class:
1st, John Hollander, Falcon 3, 2:55.78, DNF, -----
2nd, Mark Suttie, Falcon 225, DNF, DNF, -----

King Post Class:
1st, John Taylor, Ram Air, 1:53.2, 1:36.6, 3:29.8
2nd, Jason French, WW U2 145, 2:03.8, 1:57.7, 4:01.4
3rd, Mark Mulholland, Freedom 170, 2:19.8, 2:25.5, 4:45.3
4th, Robert Booth, Sport2 155, 2:08.2, DNF, -----
5th, Johnny French, Sport2, 2:14.8, DNF, -----
6th, Jim Bowe, Litesport, 2:26.9, DNF, -----

Open Class:
1st, Brian Horgan, Combat, 1:28.6, 1:18.6, 2:47.2
2nd, Kenny Brown, Litespeed, 1:38.9, 1:14.1, 2:52.9
3rd, Eric Froehlich, T2C 154, 1:43.2, 1:25.6, 3:08.8
4th, Ben Dunn, LS RS 3.5, 1:41.6 (+2 gates X 10 sec = 2:01.6), 1:13.8, 3:15.5
5th, Diev Hart, Litesport, 1:52.6, 1:38.2, 3:30.8
6th, Wayne Michelsen, Laminar Z8, 1:54.5, 1:39.6, 3:34.1
7th, Dirk Moris, U2 145, 1:47.3, 1:49.8, 3:37.2
8th, Zac Majors, T2C 144, 1:35.9, DNF, -----
9th, David Royer, Litespeed, 1:44.2, DNF, -----
10th, Pete Welch, Laminar MR2002, 2:12.1, DNF, -----

New Angles

A nice day was to be had at the local Funston site yesterday. I've been waiting for a good day for a while now to try out some new camera mounts I put together around Christmas.I've needeed to air Tracey's new glider out since my last attempt also. Dingo thought I needed to take some weight off my hang strap, and so gave me something to stand on.Tracey's new Sport 2 135 is incredible, not only does it get a great sink rate with me on it, but retains a great deal of energy.I missed the earlier cloud bank stretching to Devils slide, however if I had flown to Half Moon Bay, I would have missed the rest of the afternoons wonderful air.More on these camera mounts soon...

Windy Hill - what did we do wrong ?

There was a perfect looking sky as Brian and myself headed toward Windy Hill. I had aspirations of getting up high, taking all kinds of neat pictures of snow in the Redwoods, flying around a bit then landing next to the pub in Pescadero. Well you've gotta have a dream don'cha ?Seriously though how did we scratch around in ridge lift for 20 mins and not hit a single thermal in a sky like that ?I did notice the ground was extremely wet and the clouds were falling apart over the top and downwind of us...Oh well we did get to fly in the snow a bit...Urs got this video of me landing in the "tight" Landing Zone. I have been playing with a few different video editors recently. This one is from AVS I kinda like it. It handles GoPro video input, and is fairly straight forward to use. In this demo version there is writting on the screen - I like the rotate, zoom, crop features so I guess I'll be buying it soon.

Diablo at Ed Levin (take-two)

The forecast was very different for Tuesday - but offered up less hope. The road to the top was closed (according to the phone message) and it was considerably blowy up there anyway. Launching from the 600ft hill was the option. Would it be a short sled ride or soarable?It turned out to be a fine choice. Charlie was off first followed by Karl, I had been fiddling with my GoPro only to have the battery die just before launching. I gotta get a spare one of those... The thermals were broken, but the ridge lift was consistent, not huge surprizes since it was blowing the best part of 30mph, the terrain is far from flat and the cloud had fairly ragged bottoms.

Lurking in the sky were some somewhat stationary clouds, ah!?! wave cloud. At somepoint around 2pm they moved around enough to spill some good sunshine in the valley infront of launch, and boom! minutes later 800ft/min took me to cloudbase at 5k.
The edge of the cloud was growing faster than I could penetrate and the lift remained strong. A concerning few moments indeed. Just as I was getting anxious near the bottom of the growing cloud, the sun start glaring through from the top of the cloud, I was free, but I could not slow down. I was just there. Ground speed of 8mph, airspeed of 53mph, butter smooth air, still climbing at 400 or 500 fpm.
Gradually I moved away from the cloud. But still climbing and getting colder. As I climbed the wind seemed to back down back off to 30mph. I am pretty sure at the edge of the cloud the wind was 40something mph.

Somehow I had to figure my way back down, but for now things were OK, the next issue, airspace at 8k, and the fact I was still climbing through 7k.

I figured there had to be sink at the backside of the preceding wave cloud infront.

I was right by the time I had flown out to Mission Soaring I had lost 5500ft, in about 5mins. I was happy to be back below the clouds however. I flew around a bit more, while I considered my landing.

In the end it was no more bumpy near the ground than up 600feet, I chose the most open spot next to the windsock. Quite a ride! I think the new helmet brings good luck.

Diablo at Ed Levin

The windsock fooled many of us into thinking Ed Levin would be at least ridge soarable Sunday.
Tracey has a new helmet also. Apart from being super cute it also boasts CE EN1077 and even fits, which is important if one actually expects a helmet to do its job. The current range of Hang Gliding helmets offer unimpressive protection and really only two sizes large and extra large. This (Giro Revolver) helmet is intended for Skiing, and appears to offer more protection than the Hang gliding helmets I've inspected by a long shot.Traceys first flight in... many months. Textbook launch - good to knock the rust off. I through myself off, but didn't stick long.
Pretty soon I was in the LZ with everyone else.

Angel Island again

This time we found a much better place to put in. seatrek.com Have a protected sandy beach in Sausilito, parking and plenty of kayaks to rent. From there it is an easy paddle around Belvedere point to Angel Island (providing you time the tides right) Tide predictions here Brian and Jackie joined us for yesterdays trip. We landed on a couple of beaches, this one is designated for kayak camping through Angel Island State Park Then we went around to China cove the immigration station, it is the nicer beach.
As the tide turned we headed back across Racoon straight. Georgeous day T-shirt and shorts weather day on the water... in Febuary!
Good views unlike summer when it is freezing with a tonne of fog blasting passed. We explored some of Belvedere on the way back. There are some nice mansions along the bluff. This one had a cable car from the house to the Garage, as well as its own private jetty. Other houses are just on stilts, which made for some fun navigation. Heading back now. Round trip was about 4 relaxed hours maybe a little less. Lots of sunbathers on the beach when we got back. Febuary 5th ! Fish tacos and cervezas. MMMMmmmm

Ground Hog Day

Feb 2nd.

And one of my favorites movies.

Today Cousin Charlie called me for a Windy Hill Flight. I don't remember how long ago I flew there, but the landing approach had me thinking that I was luckier than I was good back then.This time the glide from launch out to the trees was a little uncomfortable.I got up a little and the view was pretty. A few more weeks and the wildflowers will really be cracking.It was a short flight, but I was happy with the landing much easier than I remember, it was an easy day though. Thanks Charlie :)

Montara Peak

Standing above Devils slide and Half Moon Bay, Montara mountain is not that high at 1850 ft, but it is close by and bike friendly. I started my ride in the dark and cold damp fog in a grove of Eucaliptus trees, and it was a slog before I broke into the sunshine.The road up there in places is carved into granite, its neat looking. I think this used to make up part of the coast road 50+ years ago.
From the top you could see Sweeney ridge where we were the day before. San Bruno mountain behind it. What you cannot see is the millions of houses hidden in the fog. SF is top left.The fog was not quite washing into the Watershed lands.
Its very pretty back there, I hope I get to go soon.
The cairn up top.
On the way back down I found myself stopping frequently to try and capture a moment.
At the fog level the sun was starting to set and the lighting was fantastic.
The fog was very dynamic and I shot some video too, but it doesn't do the views justice. And I have not found a good way to import and edit yet, at least not on my 8 year old Dell laptop.It was right about here, the temperature dropped about 30 degrees.