I drove up from LA saturday to meet Kurtis, Anthony, Karen, Robert, Clay, Andrew, Zach, George, and Jesse at Dunlap. Most of us flew saturday with a few locals and most of us except for Kurtis (I think) essentially had ~10-15 minute sled type runs although kurtis and the locals made a decent day out of it. On the bright side, we had dinner at Pinehurst, which was impressively delicious, full of beer, had free pool, and included a variety of songs like 'rock lobster' on the digital jukebox. Sunday we started with morning sledders, which were mostly uneventful, and then proceeded with flights after lunch. I launched as wind dummy and stayed up for a while, getting over the launch (~400 over probably), then surviving the first flush cycle to a point but then getting killed in dirty air at north point until I decided to head out toward house ridge and the LZ. I probably netted 35 minutes. Big thanks to Zach for finding a good thermal that I pimped. In any case, most of us agreed there seemed to be an inversion not too far above launch as all the lift just seemed to die up there. Anthony did well on his U2, soaring well over the southern edge of the ridge, before returning to the launch bowl and finding The Flush to End All Flushes. The club sonic I was flying flew decently; in any case a big thank you to you guys who fixed it over the last year (?), as I collect it was in a much worse shape when it was 'inherited'. The hang point on it has been fixed such that the trim is now more or less correct (depending on how you carry the glider bag) but the hang straps are....uh.....deserving of replacement. There's some other things as well but that's for another time All in all a fun weekend although the flying wasn't the best. We got to fly, and it was a safe weekend, so that's what matters. Hope to see you guys in the mountains more often. Michael
Cleanpants here... we left early Saturday morning to go to Dunlap (way too early); we ended up having time to tour the Dunlap valley, walk the ranger station LZ, play soccer in Dan's LZ, go grocery shopping, eat at the mexican place, and still find time to wait on launch for a few hours. Robert Booth (wingman) was there and he launched early as did Dan Fleming. Dan sunked out almost immediately despite his best efforts to stay up. Robert, however, managed to stay up- barely. Not encouraged, I continued waiting a while before launching. Eventually, I get to launch and wait for things to improve, which they don't and decide to launch anyway. It turned out to be a hard day! The thermals were tiny and some were pretty strong (I went weightless a couple times falling out of the thermals). The best part of the day was near the end of the flight, when I was coming in to land. 4 gliders were in the air at the same level (Pat, clayble, Robert, and myself). We needed to get into some kind of landing pattern, and it was obvious that Robert had no intention of trying to get down. Being the highest up, I had to try to stay up to give the others time to land. So, Robert and I tried to work the weak lift above the LZ while Pat and clayable came in to land. It turned out Robert and I did this a little too well, because we both managed to climb up to ~5300'. Robert was going crazy on the radio trying to figure out who was climbing with him, but I accidentally had my volume too low to hear him. Anyway, I squandered all my altitude soon after, and had to come land anyway; I got an hour out of the day while I think Robert got close to 3 hrs.
The next day was much stronger. We ended up launching at about 1:30-2pm instead of the 3:30-4pm I had been getting used to. Lots of people launched and everyone managed to stay up. Andrea, a new mountain pilot managed to get about 1.5 hours out of the day- very impressive! Quite a few Berkeley pilots made it to Sampson (I unfortunately was not among them). K-dog decided he was bored of the Dunlap ridge and didn't want to land in cross conditions, so he XC'ed over to the pizza joint with his new glider and had a few beers. My flight wasn't particularly interesting, I got up and got low and got up, and nearly reached cloudbase (I'm now looking both down and up for thermals now). I had a 2 hr 20 min flight which was well worth the trip.
Punchline: - First mountain flights for Henrik, Andrea, and Lise - More mountain flights for Aircurls, Jeremy - Other pilots flew - Clay, Cleanpants, Dan, Barry, Leon, Victoria - No incidents other than coming in too high on final, radio malfunctions, and whacks. - Taught the boys how to tear down my glider. $1 a pop. - Seed planted for 'Men of BHGC' calendar. - Meat was consumed.
Flight Log:
Aircurls - 4 flights Everybody else got some too...just don't have the stats. :)
A few of us headed out to the Sierra foothills for some fun mellow soaring flights. Cookie Girl, Leon, Eric, and the Hardys were out in force to take full advantage of the conditions.
Flight log:
Aircurls 3 flights, 500 over launch
Cookie Girl - 2 flights, highest at Dunlap so far (6500')
Leon (needs a nickname) - 2 flights, longest flight to-date (7000'?)
Erik - 2 flights (8000'?)
Dan - 2 flights
Happy Mother's Day aircurls, and thanks for shooting!
Saturday offered most pilots two flights, except for cleanpants who kindly watched Owen and Liam in the LZ. The air was calm in the morning, made my arms sore at 3 pm, and boaty at 5! Aircurls and another new H-2 (whose nickname shall not be named here) checked off 20 min flights with several passes at launch! I finally found some stubbornness to get up in the launch thermal, and got above launch both flights, high over ... though I found the best thermal over the switch backs. Took me to 5400' the second time, and to 5000' as many times as I wanted to play in it. The panorama of snowy Sierras in the back... Dunlap has finally been good to me.
Rain drops on my sleeping bag woke me up Sunday in the early am. Slightly wet and sleepy, we packed camp, enjoyed Mother's day breakfast, and set sail back to the bay.
Went to Dunlap August 28-29 expecting good conditions, and we weren't disappointed (some of us anyway). Being his first time at Dunlap, *C* needed to do a sled run and Barry wanted someone to show him the way. I volunteered. We got to launch late morning, so I set up quickly and launched. I went up like a rocket! (I was the first one to launch in the video below) I really, really wanted to circle in the lift I found myself, but I steadfastly followed my flight path. I even found myself higher than launch above the LZ! Being a good example for *C*, I set up my approach using S-turns over the back end of launch. But after 10 minutes, I had lost maybe 500ft-1000ft! I was doing S-turns in lift and I was only losing altitude when I pulled in hard. Needless to say, I got pretty tired doing this, but I eventually managed to get the glider on the ground. I had my best landing of the weekend- and of course no one was down in the LZ to see it! After I landed, *C* launched, and I talked him into the LZ. Fortunately for me, he discovered the valley of sink between the house ridge and the ridge behind last chance, so I didn't have to wait long for him to land :) After he landed, I performed the quickest tear-down of my life and got into my car for round 2!
When *C* and I got back to launch, everyone else (besides Victoria) was just barely starting to think about launching- why did they wait?? It was fantastic already! I set up as quickly (and safely) as I could and proceeded to launch. After I was in the air, it didn't seem as lifty as it was before, but it was still plenty strong. I found some good thermals and cored it up to about 6800'. I made a couple attempts at tagging Sampson, and I finally succeeded! I went down the ridge and tagged Santog. It was no problem staying up, but eventually things started dying down. Everyone else landed, so I started making my way to the LZ. I had never had much luck finding lift on the north side of the ridge behind last chance, and because I had some altitude (4800' I think) I went along the south side of the ridge. As luck would have it, I found a nice thermal that took me back up to 6400'! I decided that a nice way to squander that altitude would be to tag the Daltons, on the opposite side of the valley. I made it, got back to the LZ and made an excellent approach, but didn't flare strong enough and landed on my knees. That was a great day...little did I know that the next day would be better!
The next day, I get on launch after *C*, and I'm almost ready to go....and my left wing gets lifted as I'm about to take my first step. I stumbled a couple of feet down the ramp, but manage to get control of my glider again. Barry got on the nose of the glider as I calmed down from the scare. When I was calm again, I waited for a little bit of a lull (the conditions were rocking!) and had a good launch. Very strong lift this day! It was a little strong on launch. Cookie girl sagely decided to wait for more of a lull- an especially good decision considering what almost happened to me! By the time she launched, it was a flush cycle...there was lift to be had, but you needed to be above the ridge to really use it. Clayble and Barry waited a bit longer before launching because they were hard at work replacing clayble's downtube. Anyway, while they were on the ground, I found a strong thermal that took me to cloudbase! I was at 7600' and only a hundred feet shy of cloudbase. I was sure that this would be enough to get me over Delilah! So, I made my way to Sampson first, which I made easily. And as luck would have it, I found a thermal there that took me back to 6500'. I really wanted to tag Delilah, so I started making my way there. About half way between Sampson and Delilah, I decided that I didn't feel comfortable being that far from launch, and I since I couldn't radio (some kind of malfunction), I didn't want to risk bailing out at the ranger station. So, I turned back despite having an easy glide to the top of Delilah...oh well, I'll tag her next time! By the time I got back, clayble was in the air and Barry was about to launch. Wow! Their day was about to start, and I felt like I was nearing the end of mine. I flew with them for a while, I tended to like getting up over the switchbacks while they got up behind launch.
I saw the whole ridge go under cloud shadow, so I decided to call it a day. I went to the ridge behind last chance, found a thermal that took me up again and below I see clayble. It was hard for me to tell how high he was, but it looked like he was scratching and doing a good job of staying up despite being low. I made a run for the Daltons, and when I got back, I was actually a little lower than clayble! We both had to come in and land at the same time; I landed short and he had a great approach and landed just past me. On approach, I realized that one foot was really sore from being in a bad position the whole flight. It was sore enough that I knew I couldn't put much pressure on it. Anyway, I came in to ground effect, had a medium-flare and was all set to run when my foot gave out from under me and I slid in on my knees. Thankfully, Victoria carried my glider to the tear-down area while I limped along. 5 minutes later I was all better. Such was the end of my 2.5 hour flight (longest to date!).
I saw an ad for an interesting glider for sale in LA, so I decided to take a roadtrip and check it out. The glider was a LiteSport 5. My impression of the glider was that it would be a little harder to fly than what I was used to (a pulse 11m), and that I would be a little light on it, but not too bad. Anyway, I drove down to Sylmar flying park, just outside of LA (that was a 6+ hour drive- solo!). I soon met a couple of the local pilots hiding in the shade. After introducing myself, Irwin and Larry gave me a very comprehensive introduction to the LZ; given how restricted the LZ is, I was very appreciative of all their pointers! Anyway, my timing was perfect because a truck was going up to the Kagel mountain launch half an hour after I arrived. I put my Pulse on the truck and drove up with 5 other pilots. On launch, one very nice pilot (I want to say his name was Arthur, but my memory is playing tricks on me) gave me a good intro to the launch and told me where the best lift was. I launched and had a very turbulent half-hour flight. I only got a hundred feet or so above launch and it was hard to stay up. But that seemed to be the order of the day; apparently Kagel is better in the fall and spring. Landing however, was a breeze; with the right approach, it's a very pleasant place to land.
After landing, I had the pleasure of meeting Joe Greblo. He's a great guy and I from what I can tell, a terrific instructor. He also took on the unenviable task of talking sense into me. He eventually convinced me that I was biting off more than I could chew with this new glider. So, instead of trying out the new glider the next day, I took another flight on my Pulse. This was a shorter flight, but I still had fun. Though the previous night, I had camped near a "shortcut" into LA; I was woken up at 3am by speeding semis going down the abandoned road I found.
Anyway, I decided to break up the drive back into smaller chunks, so I drove to Dunlap for the evening. The next day, I launched Dunlap and had my best flight there to date. I launched at about 2pm or so and in no time, I was up to 7000'. I tried making my way to Delilah, but I turned back about half way there because I found tons of sink. Got back to 7K and tagged Suntaag before going back to launch. By this time, the launch bowl was very turbulent. I had already had a good flight, so I decided to call it a day and land. I keep forgetting that I need to have a really strong flare at Dunlap- I came in on my wheels (I thought I was past that!). Anyway, that was my LA adventure.
Right now, I am not capable of coherent thought, so I'm not going to try to give an accurate description of what happened at Dunlap these past couple of days. In short, I had four flights and after each one, I swore that that one was my single best flight to date.
I discovered that I like to hang out by launch. I got to see a number of people launch under me and some stayed with me and soared beyond me, and some left me behind and tried their luck further down the ridge. In any case, I had alot of fun flying with people I knew.
One vivid memory I had of my second flight was this: I was near the end of my flight after failing to find lift on the ridge behind last chance, so I thought I would do a couple of turns above last chance before going in for a landing. Well, one 360 was followed by dozen others, and soon Helmet Girl caught up with me and started turning below me. There we were, I was about 30' or so above her and we were turning in the same thermal. Soon a topless glider came and all three of us were in very close proximity trying to stay aloft in the same thermal. After a while, we all came down at the same time! I think we were all at the same altitude at one point as we each went into a landing pattern. Three safe landings later, I was all smiles.
Of course, the flight I remember best is my last flight. This flight was epic, by my standards! Helmet Girl and Leon launched before me, and they were already high before I launched. In fact, I never could quite catch up to Helmet Girl, although I almost got as high as Leon. Then, despite being higher than me, both Leon and Helmet Girl went down the ridge. I decided to play in the lift they were in, but I got completely flushed out. I continued on my flight plan, leaving the launch area about 200' below the ramp. Talking to Daniel afterwards, he tells me this is completely fine, but at the time, I felt stupid for letting myself get so low!
So, there I am, flying along the road lower than I've even gone before, and I notice that I'm slowly creeping upwards. I start flying closer to the ridge and pretty soon, I'm almost at ridge height again. I see Leon ahead of me, flying above the switchbacks, and since he was much higher than me, I was very tempted to go join him. But I reasoned that since I gained altitude flying south on the ridge, I figured I would also gain going north, so I did a 180 and flew towards launch again. This was the right choice to make! I got back to launch area at ramp level just in time to see Victoria on launch. I maintained for quite a while, and I got to see Victoria launch and make her way down the ridge. After playing around for a long time, I started finding stronger lift. So, I pulled some tight circles, and I started going up. And up. And more up. Pretty soon, Barry, who was still on launch watching everyone, was nothing more than a small white speck on the ramp; I was at least 1000' above launch and probably closer to 1500'. At the time, my mind was completely absorbed by two things: 1) find lift, circle, find lift, circle, circle, etc. 2) zipper's not working! my harness is getting really uncomfortable. These two thoughts were the only two things in my head until I looked up...and saw MOUNTAINS!!!
I had never seen such a beautiful view. I lost all track of where I was and could only concentrate on the view. I started making slow circles, I wasn't trying to stay in lift, I only wanted to have a 360 panoramic view of the whole area. I can't put into words how beautiful the view was, so I'm not going to even try. It was amazing.
After a while, my harness was putting too much pressure on my hip bones; too much to ignore, so I left the nice area above launch and made my way down the ridge. About this time, I figured out a way to partially zip, which made the situation a little better. I made my way to the LZ, but I was way too high, so I decided to have another adventure. I went back to the ridge behind last chance...but I didn't have enough altitude to go over the ridge, so I flew along side it until I was only ~50ft-100ft above the ground. I went back to the LZ and had a safe, though ugly, landing. I'm very proud of two things I did in this flight: I got back to launch despite being completely flushed out and I got over 1000' above launch for the first time.
Cleanpants - speck in the sky.
Log: a blur of flights by Mike L, helmet girl, boy wonder, cleanpants and cookie girl (4 each?)
A big crew headed out to Dunlap for Memorial Day weekend. Second time there for cookiegirl and me; third for cleanpants. After a bit of coordinating Friday, three cars headed out with 8 pilots, one instructor's very patient wife and their two kids. Three more pilots arrived Saturday.
Conditions were sweet all weekend. Four pilots went up for an early run around 1030 Saturday morning, myself included, as this was only my second flight at Dunlap. I launched third expecting a buoyant sledder and instead had my first and longest (and amazing!) soaring flight. I got a couple of bumps along the ridge on my way out and headed for last chance ridge, already starting to think about an approach. Much to my surprise, I was going up the whole way out! I made a few passes back and forth in front of the ridge before feeling high enough to start turning and then spent about 20 minutes playing around. It was exhilarating - hard to describe - to know that I was up and could stay up. It was pretty smooth lift, not too strong, and I didn't quite make it back to launch height. For as long as the sky was working though, it was where I wanted to be.
My arms were growing a little tired and I wanted to make sure I was ready to make a good approach, so I gave the ridge a few last turns and headed over to the LZ. A few more turns to put me at the right altitude, a left handed box, and a slightly off flare put me (and a wingtip..) on the ground and a big grin on my face. 35 minutes overall, we think..
Cookiegirl and cleanpants managed to squeeze in three flights each on Saturday, since they were ready to go back up as soon as I landed from my first flight. I got one more in later Saturday. I was eager for more of my morning's flight, and I think I got pretty close to a half hour. Cookiegirl shared the pattern with another glider on one flight, which was a little exciting, but he made a quick turn and dive while she went up the runway. It all worked out, but her tights did get a little grassy - since she was flying in a miniskirt. We agreed that sharing the air will become more manageable as we progress.
S'mores and wine by the fire Saturday night, and one flight for everyone on Sunday. All workable lift, and the more experienced pilots stayed up for a few hours.
It's soaring season!
Log: boy wonder (3 flights, 40 mins! first soaring flight!); cleanpants (4 flights); cookie girl (4 flights, first miniskirt flying; and first traffic experience); Mike L aka karaoke star (2 flights, 1st mountain flight!, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygwCpDhAwik); thomas (4 flights, most soarable)
By cleanpants: There I was- resting in the morning hours of the day on a soft tuft of grass and enjoying the warm rays coming from the sun. The previous day, I had, with Helmet Girl and Cookie Girl, a couple of sled rides from the ramp at Dunlap. Both were uneventful flights with good landings. Now, I was falling in and out of sleep. Listening to the soft sounds of nature all around me. Completely content, I watched as sunbeams dance on...
HONK HONK
I think I lost my hat when the glider truck honked at me to get up. With Ryan's help, I was up at launch in no time. Helmet Girl got off first and had a nice launch. I launched about 10 minutes later. Ryan coached me until I was inline with the LZ, coaching me over my new PTT system and helping me to hook a thermal. Anyway, knowing Helmet Girl was still in the air, I looked around, but couldn't find her. I decided to cross the gap and get to the ridge behind last chance. Then- I saw her; about 500 feet ahead of me and about 50 feet down! She had made much better use of the lift than I had, so if I had continued straight, I may have come up to her at her level or below! I decided to do passes higher up on the ridge while she 360'ed above Last Chance. She couldn't stay up over there and soon landed. I, on the other hand, managed to maintain for a little bit. And then, I started to go up!
Doing passes on the ridge, I managed to creep up to launch height (4 times according to Cookie Girl). Once I realized that I could stay up, I started venturing out a little bit and I started making a mental map of the lift along the ridge (medium lift above those rocks...stronger lift above that knob...on and off lift above the house...strong thermal just off the ridge...etc.). After a while, my arms became very tired, and I was confronted by a terrible dilemma. Only recently, I had horribly overshot the spot because my arms were so tired, I couldn't dive. But with the site turning on, I knew that the LZ was going to be ripping thermals left and right with the newly cut grass. So...do I land now into a bumpy LZ while I'm only a little bit tired or wait until things calm down and land while I'm alot tired? I decided to keep flying...I realized that I'm more prone now and that I'm using slightly different muscles flying versus landing.
Anyway, I kept exploring around the ridge, but I played around too much. I eventually got below the ridge. I tried to get back up unsuccessfully, so I went to the LZ. Like I thought, there were fairly strong thermals above the LZ and I managed to maintain for a while. Eventually, I got low enough that I started my box approach, but I lost alot of altitude turning into final. Now, instead of worrying about overshooting, I was worried about making the LZ at all! I would have been fine, except for a solitary tree in the middle of the strip! I maintained best glide until I was past the tree (missing it by 10-20 feet!) at which point I started to dive. I didn't get much speed from diving...but I managed to keep my wings level. Once I was a couple of feet above the ground, I tried to round out, but my glider kept going down. The wheels caught the ground (but they didn't turn), and I wacked. Helmet Girl came and helped me carry my glider...but I forgot to go on the radio and tell everyone I was okay! I caused needless worry. I won't make that combination of mistakes again!
By cookie girl (or camera girl nowadays?): Dunlap Take Two was my Take One or Leave It :-o) First mountain experience, and as such a mixture of exciting, scary, unforgettable, nervous, happy, you name it. I only have one thing to say really, perpetrated by something I just read in the hang gliding magazine. A guy who learned to fly in college describes his first mountain experience. He's sitting at launch, doubting himself creatively "Was I really about to run off a mountain with a giant kite strapped to my back?" My thoughts were a lot simpler than that - "Really Gergana? Really?"
Forecast: Calm northwest winds, chance of rain/snow friday and sunday. In other words: bring your spacesuit because it's gonna be f***ing freezing.
4 students, two pilots and one instructor headed out to Dunlap, which was to be the site of our first mountain flight.
The plan was to get early morning flights and possibly a late afternoon flights to avoid strong and unpredictable winds (which Dunlap is known for) so we made plans to get up early.
Saturday morning we met up with Connie Locke, who owns the launch ramp, and later Dan Fleming, who owns the LZ. Now usually there is a lot of politics involved with flying sites, but this situation was pretty much the most complicated one I'd encountered so far, so I won't go into it more than that. Anyway, as we had signed our waivers (*cough*) and paid our annual fees, we were set to go, about an hour behind schedule.
Winds were coming pretty much straight up the ramp as we had set up, and so we watched our wind dummy do a pretty sledride down the mountain before we launched ourselves. I was second to launch, and had an amazing flight, even though I was distracted towards the end after the previous pilot to launch made an unfortunate 'connection' with a tree in the LZ.
I will probably be hunted down if I go into details, but I will say that both tree and pilot not only survived the encounter, but are doing fine, and that amnesia is arguably the most hilarious consequence of headtrauma, ever.
Finished the day off with the 'Pinehurst experience' which included prime rib, pool and first-class jukebox DJs.
And, for those pilots who did not launch Saturday, Sunday morning was beautiful and clear with calm winds for launching the ramp (though we had to wait through some crosswinds from the south), and everyone got a flight in.
Flight log: two flights (one much better than the other) and all in all a great weekend.
Woke up monday morning with a mean hangover and a Hot Topic-esque skull tattoo on my chest. Oh, and pics are one the way, left my camera in Big Mama. You will have to settle for this one (the glamorous crew sporting fake tattoos and duct-taped plastic shotguns at Pizza Hut in Medesto) as you wait.
