fogged out

An ocean of fog between us and the LZ ... dashed hopes, yet probably (I believe others believe that) most beautiful place to not fly on the planet? Don't know how to fit coherently in one story the thick fog, the wispy fog, the rain, the fog drip, the rave, the ravers, the law enforcement, driving at 3 mph, the thunder, the combat zone, the tank, and .... hmm, ask me later. Strange things happen when you don't fly.

 When the fog sits between you and the LZ, you sit and admire that 2000 ft higher ocean.

The shadow of a contrail on the clouds below.

 A beautiful place to be fogged-out nevertheless.

New Chick. New Glider.

Picked up my new Falcon 3 170 last Saturday. Sweet.

Slide Trip report - October 10

Here's another, this time of Slide:

Hull Trip Report - October 3

Here's a video trip report:

Dunlap 9/19

noteworthy
clayble had a flat tire
cleanpants's first wingover

birthday cake, happy one Capt J!

missing parts is an opportunity to show patience
attempted traffic on camera with only marginal success



Log: cleanpants (2 hrs), clayble (1 hr?), cookie girl (twice a sledder), "bubba" (1.5-2 hrs?), Capt J grounded

Team Berkeley

At the Hull fly-in ...... first place was ours!

Cleanpants here, Cookie Girl and I left really early Saturday to participate in the Hull fly-in. Originally, I had planned to go to a workday, but was convinced to have fun instead ;-) Anyway, we arrived bright and early in time to meet with Robert, Azucena, Victoria, and Eric. Charley, a local Sonoma wings pilot, explained all the events and the scoring before we all raced up the hill.

I didn't want to be the first to launch, so when Eric H got up, I decided to get my glider. Robert, Eric, and Cookie girl all had the same idea, so I had to wait a little while to launch. It took a little while, but it started cycling nicely, so Robert launched and went up. Soon Eric launched, then Cookie Girl. Then it was my turn! I was sure I was going to do well, I had been having really good flights at Hull up to this point. I caught the next light cycle after Cookie Girl, picked up and had a great launch (and the judges agreed on this point!). I got away from the hill, expecting to go up....but I didn't! I went to the hairpin, and I saw Cookie Girl and Robert way above me. I found a small bit of lift, circled...and lost altitude! Next, I went to the Red Spot and the same thing happened! I crawled to the house, my last chance to get up, at 4300'. At this point, I thought my day was over- I would go have a nice landing and have fun judging everyone else's landing. I wasn't actually planning on even turning- I was low enough, I didn't want to go any lower. Looking back, I saw dozens of gliders, and they all looked like they were above the peak. I was a little jealous, and sad that my day was about to end so soon. But... I found lift, and I kept going straight, and I found even stronger lift! It was a very wide, strong thermal over the house. I gained enough altitude that I felt confident turning in it- and turn I did. I was soon over 6500' over the house, so I started making my way back up the ridge. On my way, I noticed Cookie Girl over the hair pin, still hundreds (thousand?) of feet above me. Well, I found another thermal behind the hair pin and took it up to 8K or 9K. Now, I had the height to go to the peak of Hull mountain. Once I joined the gaggle above Hull mountain (there must have been at least a dozen gliders up there), I heard Robert call out "Hey Eric, Anthony is here, over the peak" or something like that...all I could think was "yes, I've arrived!"

I spent the next couple of hours above 7K. I went down Windy Ridge a little bit, I explored lift between lower launch and the peak. Over time, the number of gliders in the air dwindled. It's not like I noticed anyone fleeing, it's as if gliders just disappeared when I wasn't looking. Eventually, there were four gliders in the air, me (in my pulse), Robert (in a pretty Sport 2), Ryan (local pilot in a Discus), and Jon J (in a new T2). It seemed all of us were going for the duration prize, desperately trying to stay longer than the rest. But, it gave me an opportunity to compare my flying style to the others up there. I noticed that I tend to circle in very tight circles when I find lift; even flying in the same thermal, I would fly in a circle that was about half the radius other people were flying. I think all four of us stayed at about the same level (modulo flush cycles), but I was luckier sometimes. Later, Robert told me he was getting sick of seeing my undersurface :-P

Eventually, I decided that the other guys deserved to win more than me (I was really hoping for Robert), and I didn't really hold out any hope of placing, so I called it a day the next time I got flushed to 7K. I flew out to the LZ nice and high. Right before I reached the LZ, I took out my streamer to toss, but it came undone as soon as I picked it up! So, I was flying with an open streamer flailing behind me. I collected it, and lost some altitude before dropping it. I thought the streamer would behave like a rock, and I needed to toss it before I flew over the spot, so I tossed it high, about a quarter mile before the spot....and it flew backwards! I missed the spot by at least a mile! Well, that was it, I definitely didn't win duration, I knew Mike K won the altitude, and I lost the streamer drop, there was NO WAY I was going to place in this competition, or so I thought. I planned a nice high approach, but I didn't go far back enough; usually there's a stiff wind coming from the lake, but this day there wasn't. I didn't properly account for this, so I ended up missing the spot by 250ft. I considered doing S-turns to burn altitude when I first went on final (I had alot of altitude), but I decided against it. I had a nice 2-step landing, very satisfied with my flight. Robert came in and had a good landing, but Jon J whacked in the spot (though got it dead-on), and Ryan pulled some crazy maneuvers to get into the spot and broke a downtube (and punctured a leading edge?).

Turns out I had the best landing of the day, and I did pretty well on my launch (Leo only gave 2 perfect scores, and one of them was to me)! Combined with my pretty good duration and altitude was enough to win me the competition!

Dunlap - Pushing my limits, a little...

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!).

Video from Sunday:

premature landing

pilot who does not follow flight plan
gets his friends real worried
scratches real low
lands in the forest
and gets poison oak all over

excuse the genius of my poetry ... they had told us that every 5 years or so someone lands on the knob. *C* (not clayble) evened out the stats this weekend. he was told to soar launch only if above launch, else go left immediately. he proceeded to turn lower and lower and turn not in lift, until he fell in the valley below Boardman Ridge. some of us watched in horror, some with anger, others couldn't watch. he scratched heroically some unknown features for quite some time, and not quite making it to the last knob landed in a clearing, landed not crashed, on the north-east side of it. 4 hours later barry and ryan found him, after taking barry's rover through some terrain spirit and opportunity would be jealous of. *C* had no water, no radio and no long sleeves, but let's stop here ... we got him back that night.

we flew over him on our way down, so we knew he was moving and well. but it took until 8 pm to find him in the forest ...  glider remained in a dry creek bed in a unknown, unmarked location .... and was retrieved only after 7 hours of hiking today, in head-high poison oak in some parts! kudos to barry and ryan for driving and hiking, and especially ryan for hiking with *C* for the glider. 

glad everyone is fine, and hope that the miracle of tecnu and lake water will save them from the pain!

and to leave you pondering, "if a glider lands in the forest, but no one is around to see it, did it really land?"

the pink panther and us

clayble went ultra sporty so i can ride the pink panther. he rocked today and i happily learned to pio!

Log:

50 ft: cookie girl (4 flights); clayble (1);
150 ft: one flight each
300 ft: one flight each
1750: two flights each