Thursday, June 17, 2010

Nevada Wings - Fly In

The Washoe Valley has had a long history of regional level competition. It is great to see a revival after a 10 year hiatus. Bruce a long time flying buddy of mine moved up to Reno a couple of years ago and is now the local club president. This event is one of many recent improvements in the area.Bruce did an excellent job of organising the event. Not even flying himself, making sure everything went smoothly. Big E & Paul helped at Launch. I was very grateful of the help, getting over the higher guard rail is a pain, not only is there potential for scoring your flying wires but it leaves the pilot quite exposed to dust devils and other turbulence.
Steve nailed the weather forecast, with accurate top of lift and thermal strength. Bruce set an interesting and challenging set of co-ordinates to collect in pilots choice order.
As you can see I missed 3 turnpoints, good enough to tie the max collected. The overall winner of this Accredited Competition Event (ACE) was David Gray a H3 on his Falcon. He and his Father Wayne flew amazingly well, working together as a team to tag a number of waypoints, then crossing the valley and spot landing at Duck LZ. Very impressive.
Above is Mt Rose. I had several attempts at getting the waypoint. First I left Slide a bit low, thinking I would climb toward it in the East wind, it turned out the wind switched to NW 18km/h at 11k. Hmmm back to Slide try again, this time I got over 12k at Slide and tried t glide to it. Hmmm -800fpm, turned around again. Last attempt I climbed to 12k and followed the ridge around the west of Mt Rose, nice glide this is working... Until 1/2 mile from the peak I started hitting what felt like rotor or mixing air sinking at 1000fpm I tried to keep the glider pointed at the Waypoint and fall passed it. As I got closer to the waypoint (in altitude as well as horizontally) I wasn't comfortable with my turbulent flailing trajectory, I veered away thinking "if i didn't get it, there's no way I'm trying again!"
Eric F was having a much better time to the south. So after climbing back to 12k, I headed that way with a beautiful view of Lake Tahoe to my west. Nearing the southerly waypoints, the anticipated climbs had not materialized, I didn't have the altitude to get back to the valley from the turnpoint. I turned back to the lower range to try and catch a climb from there. That did not work either and I almost ended up landing in the end of the valley. A weak climb got me high enough to dolphin fly to the duck LZ. I was setting up to land when a ripper came through. It was torn up but a powerful 1000fpm. It reformed a little upwind this time a solid 1100fpm with peaks of 1700fpm. I was soon back at 12k and completely parked in the 30mph headwind. No sink though. You can see evidence of the convergence on the lake, where the NW wind meets the NE. Slowly I drove forward and tagged McClellan peak, still at 12k it was time to land. typical !!! spend all day struggling to stay up, now I can't get down. I drove into wind all the way across the lake not losing much at all, trying to avoid lift. Washoe has been developed ripidly in the last 10 years. There is the Reno airport straight ahead. Eyes pealed for traffic. It was turbulent below 8k. Fortunately it calmed down 300' over the ground, landing was easy.Here are Bruce and Big E. He has the attributes of a very very handy launch assist :)
Congratulations to Bruce on such a sucessful meet, and Thank You to all the helpers, I look forward to next years event!

You can see more pictures here :

Sunday, May 30, 2010

The flight home

I went through Denver on the way home, the flight across the central divide is pretty. It started with some nice looking cloud streets.
Unfortunately I had packed my GPS in my luggage, so I was lost for a good part of the flight. But I think I recognized Breckenridge ski area.
Then the north end of Owens valley.
Mono Lake.
Half Dome in Yosemite.
Lake McClure.
New Jerusalem.
Mission peak.
I flew 6 sites in one day! A big thanks to Sharon for the early morning drop off at San Antonio airport.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Single Surface Awards

It is Nation Hang Gliding and Paragliding Day today (May 29), and we flew with high expectations. The day turned out to be very challenging, I sank out on my first attempt and went to get a re-light. Davis has the day well described on the Oz Report. Joe and I spent for ever over the same field trying to get up. It was in fact the field Davis had landed in. The thermals were broken, slow and drifting down wind at almost the glide back into wind. Determination won out and eventually we cruised back to the airport (turnpoint 3) and didn't hit a bump all the way to the ground.Joe landed 50 feet passed me and won the day.
Then we headed back to the Awards ceremony back in Luling. Joel Froelich did a great job at the meet. Lots of happy pilots.
Davis won the meet flying consistently through the meet, me in 2nd and Joe in third. Thats a 1, 2, 3 for Northwing. We were happy for this result but it was no "give me". Chris Zimmerman and Ken Robinson both put up a valiant fight.
I really should emphasize the above and beyond effort Joel has put into making the meet fun welcoming and convenient for the pilots. He really has spoiled us. I for one am looking forward to next year.

Thump Queens and Limosines

As you have noticed I have been getting into the spirit of Luling and their water melon obsession.
And who would you vote for ?




You've seen the water tower, but it all goes so much farther than that.
Shoes, bags
Umbrella ! Haven't found any underwear yet though...

Friday, May 28, 2010

Crossbar fairings

Results
Look at the lines on this glider, there is much attention to detail on the Freedom, what a beautiful glider. A few folks have asked for pictures of the crossbar fairings. Well here is the freedom. When packing up you just rotate them down and fold as normal.Chris is flying the pimped out Falcon 195 - it too has crossbar fairings. They are Mylar with a velcro together trailing edge.
Todays flight was very fun. Good racing conditions, fun climbs and a nice course. 5 made it in to goal, the day was under called deliberately as previous have been over. Todays weather just blew the rest of the week out of the water. After crossing the finish line I climbed back up and flew over town for fun.
It was much cooler at cloudbase. Hot on the ground 97'F ? I got to fly back into goal with Chris Zimmerman.
It was interesting to compare top speeds and glides. 4 of 5 Freedoms in goal today, just one Falcon.

Flying the Freedom 170

Results
After sinking out early on the second task I decided to fly more conservatively and with others. Yesterday I flew with Joe and Jeff Hunt. Davis was out in front with Chris Zimmerman. Joe is flying the stealth Freedom, Jeff on a Falcon 195. This is the area around Carter Airport that we are operating out of. Airstrip just off Jeff's left wing tip.
I am having a lot of fun flying the Freedom, it is a very confidence inspiring glider. It has a perfect balance in thermals and does not fight back at all, even in the snakyist fickle climbs.
I have flown low over some terrain where I would have been very concerned on the lightspeed, but feel quite comfortable on the freedom.
Up near Austin, Tx, there are some more upmarket resturants. The houses (well mansions) are considerably bigger too.
The confident feel of the Freedom enabled a couple of low saves yesterday. One around 200ft agl! I was unzipped and ready to land any point, and was down there for 5 mins or so before hitting the spiney sucker that got me back up. Still no-one in goal, though Kent Robinson was within spitting distance.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Single Surface Shootout, Luling, Texas

Here we are in Luling Texas. Its a small town with the friendly small town feel, and oil pumps liberally scattered in and out of town. It appears that the town is known for water melons. In a few weeks here a Water Melon Thump Queen will be chosen. There are some entertaining posters scattered around town, soliciting votes. I am lucky enough to be flying for team Northwing - manufacturer of the Freedom Hang glider. The team consists of Kamron (northwing owner), Joe Evans, Davis Straub, Dan, Chris, Joel Freohlich. Day 1 - a task was set west of Austin airspace, open distance but limited to 4 hours from the first start. Here is Joe taking off on the PX15 Freedom, notice the flat sail.
It turned out to be a very soft day, Joe and Davis managed to get up to base just over 4000ft, I pinned off at 2300ft and drifted in zeros for 15miles or so. Occasionally with 50ft/min up. But mostly just trying to stay in the air. 12 miles out I was joined by Chris Zimmerman, we worked together to try and survive. I seemed to maintain, while Chris sank through me, all the while drifting across not particularly good LZ's at 500 feet.

I was thinking Davis and Joe were way above and infront of me, but actually they were just off to my east. I continued to drift toward the control tower you see over Joe's head. I had looked at the airspace map. Why was there a control tower ? Control tower usually means at least class D. And there were big planes there and I was about 400ft. Thinking I was going to get a "welcome party" I landed next to the windsock out of the way next to the Pilot lounge. No-one came up. I broke down and went into the arrivals lounge, to find San Marcos airport opens at the end of summer. Phew !!
Thanks to Kamron for setting me up with a great flying glider. Right now I can only attest to its sink rate and nice climb handling, since I never really flew straight ! I am sure it does that great too (we will see soon).
The weather looks to be improving through the week.