Friday, May 29, 2009

Memorial Day Weekend - Hyner View, PA

Having a true gem like Hyner View, PA within 4 hours from me in VA was such a treat. The club has 5 fly-ins each year on the holiday long-weekends and last year I attended 3 of them. Everyone camps in the LZ and flys all day long. It's an absolute blast and there's plenty of other things to do when it's not flyable including river rafting, swimming, kayaking, biking, hiking, and fossil hunting on the cliff faces. Gazillion year old teeth are commonly found. Accordingly, I joined the club and Olivia and I plan to attend all of the fly-ins this year. The only problem is that I'm in Charlotte, NC for the time being and that's over 9 hours from Hyner. Not to mention she's in New York City for now.... Long story short, we ended up with something else to do in VA so I split the trip over two days, 6 and 4 hours. We got there Thursday afternoon and it was too South to fly so we just set up camp and got dinner. Nice evening around the campfire with the early Hyner crew. Friday morning was light and clear and I got a short flight in nice smooth air. We decided to head back up for another quick flight before lunch. After I was set up, a couple pilots launched, found a thermal and got up around 3K over pretty quickly, and of course the scramble for launch followed. Unfortunately the pilots who launched right after them struggled and sank out due to a nasty looking cell that shut everything down. The first two pilots came down and landed to avoid it and we had to wait for the cloud to pass through. Fortunately it didn't rain or anything and the sun came back out. We waited for it to heat back up (I was on the ramp since before the clouds moved in) but it was already after 4 at that point. After awhile I just chose a decent cycle because I felt bad making everyone wait around for possible heating and I had another short flight. Saturday was decked over and South but later in the day there were some very short windows. If you wanted to launch, you had to take a lull but they were only lasting 10 seconds at most. So lots of us set up but the later it got, the shorter the lulls got. Eventually I broke down up top. We had a real nice evening relaxing around the campfire with good friends. Sunday morning brought the first possibility for a cloud dive and I was up top by 7:15am so as not to miss it. It was the first time I had witnessed what seemed to be the mountain breathing. It was trickling over the back at a couple mph but then it would start to come in straight at a couple mph. And whenever the wind would come in, the clouds would slosh up on launch and wash out the set up area. Then the winds would switch again and clear out the set up area. It was very cool. When the clouds finally began to break up, the wind was light out of the North and we all got off. Olivia's friend got to do her first tandem, a semi-cloud dive, and had a blast. Unfortunately, they had to drive back to Manhattan and I had to drive back to Charlotte so we ran out of time and Olivia did not get to fly. But we all had a lot of fun. Hyner is well worth it even if you don't sky out. I was not disappointed. I'll see yous on July 4th.
http://www.vimeo.com/4837582

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Mother's Day at Woodstock

I had just made it home Saturday night from New York and I checked the CHGPA forum out of habit. Woodstock was the call for Sunday and it looked good, real good. So I decided, what the hey, and got up early Sunday, planning to meet John M in the LZ around 1:00. I arrived to find Tony already there with new H-2 Greg arriving shortly afterward. Hugh also made it to the LZ and was looking for a ride up. Greg was meeting Matthew so John, Hugh, Tony, and I all drove up in John's truck. I set up and watched a few benign launches though the conditions were strong and gusty. However, there were very nice cycles to launch in and no gusts were too strong. I decided to launch in a lull because the strong lift cycles were plentiful and there would still likely be the elevator waiting at the edge of the slot. I had a nice launch and, just as I thought, hit the elevator just when I cleared the trees. I turned right which, in hindsight, was probably wrong. The reason I turned right is that the LZ is off and down to the right so if I get hammered by sink, I'm on the way to safety. But given the wind being quite cross from the West (left), I probably should have turned left. The reason is that the fingers of the mountain, which extend perpendicular to the NW facing ridge (and particularly the finger that is just off to the left of launch), can create rotors on strong Westerly days. It's best to get up and well over the ridge before you get caught in one of these rotors. I got a little bit knocked around when I was low and I think it was due to the rotor off the finger. I almost sank out right away, I was down to 300' below launch. I was turning to head out and land when my vario started beeping. So I kept turning and kept going up. I got a little closer to the ridge and the lift got stronger. Pretty soon I was 1,800' over launch, flying in very active air. It was strong lift, strong sink, turbulence, smooth air, it was all over the place. But overall, still a fun flight. It wasn't scary at any point. The wind velocity at altitude was just about all my glider could take, and still go forward. I'm really starting to itch for some more performance. I flew around for a little over an hour before deciding to land. On the way out from the ridge, I hit lift and more lift. But then when I got over the field, I started getting drilled. Granted, I was 1,500' over the LZ so it was no big deal but it was serious sink. I made it through it and flew up wind for a bit. I started my downwind from far away and very high. When I got to the edge of the field I felt like I was still too high so I made a couple turns and bled off a little more altitude. I entered my pattern and nailed it for a nice, no-step landing. It was a great ending to a great flight. I'm happy that I got fly in some more challenging conditions. It's the best way to really expand my flying envelope. Video -
http://www.vimeo.com/4602024