Quick first impressions of my new (used) Sport 2

I've read a lot of "Sport 2 vs U2" articles, but not as many about the transition from the Falcon 3 to the Sport 2.

The two, as I should have expected, are almost different types of aircraft. While the fundamentals are the same (shift your weight, pull in, push out, etc.), the way each feels is remarkably different from the other. What kept going through my mind as I flew yesterday was: "This wing is slicker."

In most ways, that slicker was better. The Sport 2 cut through the air more easily and quickly than the Falcon. It was quieter, smoother, and faster. But, the slickness worked against me in one way: it was harder to stay in thermals. I felt like I was sliding out of thermals that I may have stayed in with the Falcon. I compensated for this by focusing on pushing out and going more slowly and that seemed to help, but the telltale wingtip bumps and feedback though the control frame were dampened.


Spaghetti Junction on a Sport 2

As far as the quality of the specific wing, the guy I bought it from took good care of it. It's seen a lot of sun, thanks to the East Coast flying style that has the wings unfolded longer than they are out here. But, the wing is quite clean the the sail in good shape. D by D pointed at some stitching on the wingtip and commented that the stitches will not be that clean again. Time to fight the West Coast dirt, which Wills Wing considers to be a greater threat to the longevity of their wings.

The weather yesterday was odd. It was light and mildly bouyant, ideal paraglider weather. I only got over 5k once but was able to cross the ridge quite a bit without losing any altitude. It was almost a perfect day to try out a new wing. While I'd have loved to get to 8 or 10 K, I'll take the gentle thermals and easy conditions.

My approach and landing were better than my first flight on a Sport 2. This time, I was relaxed on approach and only made the mistake of flaring too late, as I was a bit preoccupied by facing into the West winds. I was in a wind shadow and was expecting more slowing from the wind... that was blocked by the gazebo. I was a little low and flared right at the end of the window, my right knee sliding across the grass like I was sliding into second with an almost-stand-up double.

Fun times, I am glad I bought the wing and am looking forward to more time in the air.

Buying & transporting a Sport 2 across the USA

How-to details first, commentary second, here's how you do it:

1. Call Sonotube, 888-SON-TUBE (766-8823), and ask them for local distributors.
2. Call the distributors, ask them where the nearest retailer they supply is.
3. Call the nearest retailer (prob a lumber type place) and ask them to get a quote for a 16" x 12' concrete form tube from Sonotube.
4. Place the order, get the tube.
5. While picking it up, buy a couple 20 gallon rubbermade trash cans for the ends. Also buy a large roll (or two) of bubble wrap and tape of your choice for attaching the ends to the tube.
6. Stop at a thrift store and get a couple of blankets on the way home. Maybe 3 or 4.

Edit: Another option is corrugated irrigation pipe, see this post by Jonathan "NMERider" Dietsch.

7. Short pack the wing per the instructions and Jeff O'Brien's packing tips .
8. Bubble wrap each end and twice in the middle, enough to expand the wing to the diameter of the tube.
9. Pad the cans and put 'em on (the wing will stick out a little each end).
10. Tape the snot outta it.
11. Call Pilot Air, get a quote for shipping an "Event Tent" **cough**cough** from your nearest location to the recipient's nearest location. The words "hang" and "glider" will probably kill the deal. Tell them you are a business.
12. Drop off, watch it through tracking.
13. Other guy gets a call when it arrives, picks it up.
14. Ta-da.

Big thanks to my brother Brad for shipping my new (used) Sport 2 out to me.



Above are pics of the end result of Brad's handiwork (tape missing from back end).

The garbage cans were brilliant. They lifted the tube enough for forklifts to get under the pipe. They had handles. They flexed if you dropped the tube on them. Perfect.

As for the costs:

- I found the wing on the ozreport classifieds for $2k.
- Tube was $80
- Misc supplies were $82
- Shipping was $128
- Extra gas driving to the airport $30

So, the wing was about $2320. I also asked Rob (my dealer) to inspect it as needed and replace the side wires. Let's say that takes it to $2500-$2600. A new Sport 2 from said dealer is $3,775 (man, am I lucky for yet another reason to have chosen flytandem.com back when I was surfing for web sites about hang gliding lessons). Plus tax takes it to $4067. So, I saved about $1,500.

So, was it worth it? Yes, but only for one reason: I probably will only fly this wing a couple of seasons. Maybe only one.

I am too heavy for the Sport 2 155 by about 20 lbs. But, I want to learn to fly double surface wings on it, not the U2 160, which is a better fit for my lard-200-pounds-before-putting-gear-on ass. I intend to lose the 20 lbs to fit into the wing and the rotor vulto harness I found for $450. Even then, though, the u2 may be better for me.

Everything went very well and I had a dedicated brother on the other end handling things for me. I got a great deal. I think I am going to quit while I am ahead. It was a fair bit of monkey business and everything went great. I can't imagine the hassle of a forklift through my wing or something like that. There are hassles for buying locally, too. Sport 2s, used, are hard to find in So Cal, with so many students popping outta Crestline & Kagel.

I'm going to go back to buying new from now on. The savings on the wing are not worth the lesser life span left in it and the hassles to get it. Glad it worked for this time, though.

Rob Kells & Andy Jackson Memorial Fly-In Videos

Fun day, buncha landings and some fun aero in these vids...

Andy Jackson / Rob Kells Memorial Fly In Part 1 from knumbknuts on Vimeo.

Andy Jackson / Rob Kells Memorial Fly In Part 2 from knumbknuts on Vimeo.

Blackhawk Down

Yesterday, I harshly reminded myself about the importance of good headwork during all parts of flight, but especially during launch and landing. Rare is the pilot who has more mishaps launching than landing... I'm that guy. I blew a launch and trashed my wing, with a broken downtube, bent batten, & a torn sail (at least).

I made bad decisions on launch at Blackhawk, let a wingtip and a nose get high, tried to straighten the wings instead of just tamping everything down, got picked up and thrown to the side. Once I was in the air, I leaned toward the ground to get my aircraft and me outta the sky before I picked up any velocity. I can't imagine how I could have saved that, once I was in the air, and I am glad I didn't try... I would have just picked up more energy for the eventual impact. Wings not level, nose high, and not communicating well with the wireman led to me walking away very luckily uninjured except a slight dent in the pocketbook and another in my pride.

Driving down the hill, fixing a flat, driving around collecting pilots scattered all over the base of the hill, I had time to reflect a bit on the fiasco. Here are some thoughts:

1. Headwork, headwork, headwork, especially at a new site, is needed in all parts of the task, for that part of the task.

2. Blackhawk, on a day that is not straight in (yesterday was SE), is a lot like Elsinore in the summer. You have to hit the window or drive down. We got rotored pretty good, after watching the big dogs circle up to 11K.

3. Going to Blackhawk for your first cross country attempt is like trying to pop your cherry with Madonna. Sure, it may be exciting, but the memories are more likely to be unpleasant and you may just end up with a permanent medical condition. I'd say it's a hang 4 site, but that doesn't even put it into proper perspective. It's Blackhawk... ratings don't cover what I think is needed to fly there.

4. The next time I fly there:
-it will be when I have at least a Sport 2, if not topless, wing.
-the wind will have to be North
-I will not only scope out a bail out, I'll clear out the brush in it and plant a flag. This will take hours, but will be well worth the effort.
-I will not be bashful about asking another pilot for help and being one of the middle guys off the hill, not one of the first or, in this case, second to last.
-The weather forecast will have to have the risk be worth the potential reward

5. I have a new policy for new sites that are not known entities: I want to drive for someone there first, before flying there. That's almost a must for Blackhawk. It would have been good policy for Upper/Lower Parma at Santa Barbara.

6. Next time, I'm following Dave, where he goes, and after he goes. That seems to work well for me. He went to the Owens and nailed a 61 mile flight. He's a natural.

I am really fortunate not to have hurt myself. I'm also fortunate to have Rob back at the LZ, with his truck waiting to take my torn up wing back to the shop for his expert care. Talking with him yesterday was like one of those Kung Fu "But, Master!" conversations. Maybe I should go to the guy with the green eyes before trying out some new karate chops.

I've heard it asked: "Why do you want to go anywhere when you've got Crestline/Marshall/AJ as your home site?" Err... variety? Today, I feel like Hugh Grant after he got busted with Devine.

Best flight yet

Best Day Yet... from knumbknuts on Vimeo.

If more days were like today, I probably wouldn't have a job... or a house... or a wife... or a car....

I was anxious to get up the hill, so I ditched my clients early and Hoffbrow, DbyD, & I barreled up the hill around noon. Beautiful marshmallows were coming over from Cuco to the Cajon pass. As I launched there, were dotting the ridge.

Popped to 7700 over launch.

Glided to halfway between Pine and Sugarpine, got nervous, turned to go out front, caught a real drifter that I bailed out of at 7800 because I didn't want to go to Vegas.

Got just past Sugarpine and turned my po', slow Falcon around, fearing the Venturi effect.

Back to Pine, I saw Dave as a speck way above me and caught another one to 7,500 and bailed out for the same reason, but soon caught a fatty to 9,300. A jet went overhead, so I kept my eyes on the desert.

Sure enough, here comes Alaska Airlines. Not too close, but closer than I'd prefer.

Bunny hopped the clouds East... chased one back to Rimforest, then the cloud disappeared and I got nervous. My vario showed 4:1 to AJ, so I pointed that direction and got drilled. Kyle was working Baylis Park and the exchange and thermals there popped me high enough to skip right past Billboard to Pine (barely). Not much shaking there, I figured the marine layer had taken the day, so I started working back to the LZ. right over it, I caught a punchy one from 4k to 8.5K, with notable turbulence a couple of times as I punched through mild inversions... or something.

A final tag of the 215 and a due West landing into smooth winds and my furthest, highest, & longest flight was over.

I am amazed that our club doesn't have 10,000 members... there are only about 6,000 hang glider pilots in the country.  This is so much fun.

Chortle.... got an article published in the USHPA monthly mag.

Getting an article published in the USHPA magazine is not particularly difficult, but it is fun, nonetheless. The only hard part is: I'm a n00b with little to write about. The organization only has about 10,000 members, so it's basically like a university-sized publication, but I respect those members greatly and hope the article is enjoyable and interesting.

This particular article is about short packing a Falcon 3. I can't reproduce it here, but it does point to a walk through I did:

http://www.johnwright.com/hanggliding/shortpack/

A better than average day.

The inversion lifted a bit, got to 6,500 a bunch, tagged Pine 3 times, flew until I didn't want to fly.

Fun times with Rebardan, Dave A., Owen.

Tracklog links to larger version:

Press covers the Andy Jackson Airpark and development nearby.

The Andy Jackson Airpark, a world class LZ and home to the Crestline Soaring Society (and testbed for Wills Wing), is being threatened by neighboring development and a developer who has blown us off for years in our effort to come to a mutually agreeable solution.

The story in the San Bernardino Sun is here:
http://www.sbsun.com/search/ci_10294244?IADID

Find out about writing letters of support here:
http://www.crestlinesoaring.org/andy_jackson_airpark_needs_your_help

I'm happy with the quotes attributed to me. It's refreshing for a journo to get it right and it's fun to be in the paper.

Rented a Sport 2

This post is aimed at either "wuffos" (people who are not hang glider pilots) or other new pilots who haven't flown double surface wings. I figure pilots more experienced than I would, obviously, already have their own opinion on the topic.

In the world of hang gliding, there are 4 basic classes of wings:
- Beginner
- Intermediate/Advanced (kingposted)
- Topless
- Rigid

The wing I've been flying for the last year and two thirds and 112 mountain solos has been a beginner wing, the Wills Wing Falcon 3 195 (3 is the version, 195 refers to the square footage of the sail). The other term for this class of wing is "single surface." These wings have, for the most part, one surface to their airfoil.

Intermediate/Advanced wings have two surfaces. They have a top surface similar to the single surface wing, but their bottom is also covered to significant amounts by another surface. This allows for cleaner, faster airflow. Less drag means the wing can go faster and will go further in static conditions than a single surface wing.

Intermediate/Advanced wings also have a "VG" (variable geometry) system that allows the wing's shape to change in flight. A "full on VG" means the wing will glide better, faster and more efficiently, in a straight line, but will be more difficult to turn. It also lends to a more pronounced stall at a slightly higher speed.

The Wills Wing Sport 2 175 (20 square feet larger than the one I flew Friday)

Friday, for my second flight, I rented a Wills Wing Sport 2, an intermediate level wing. It is well known for having a very good combination of improved performance with still fairly easy handling.

Boy, did I notice the speed. That thing really zips around compared to the Falcon.

When I am in the Falcon, I am either putting along fairly slowly at around 24 mph. It pretty much feels like I have one speed. If I pull in to gain speed, I feel more like I am going down than anything. Things get pretty loud and the ground starts rushing up to me.

The upside of that lower speed is that the Falcon handles very well and crisply at its lower speeds. If I fly into a thermal at "trim" (that optimal speed), it is easy to turn the wing and stay in the thermal, for two reasons. The first reason is that the wing turns more easily than double surface wings at the same speeds. The second reason is that I'm not going very fast, so it takes a while to get through the thermal.

In the Sport 2, I felt the wind more, but heard it less. The wing really felt smooth and fast. It turned easily, but I felt like I would have to put more effort into putting it on a wing and coring a thermal. The difference between it and the Falcon felt like the difference between changing direction while running vs. changing direction while on a bicycle. With the Falcon, if I felt a thermal, I feel like I can just "crank it" into a turn. I didn't really try, but it doesn't quite feel like it would be more difficult to do that in a Sport 2, in accordance with what I've heard.

The only hard part of the flight was my approach, where I thought like a Falcon pilot and just buried the control bar to get speed up. Well, the Sport 2 speeds up in a hurry and so I turned to downwind a bit late and low. I also lost a lot of altitude in the turn, due to the bar being buried. I think I was even oscillating due to speed and poor control (this is called PIO for Pilot Induced Oscillations). I eased back on the control bar, turned a bit too low straight to the LZ, cutting the corner but heading right into the wind (somewhat by plan), got the wings level, thought I should flare, hesitated and mushed it in on my knees. Grass stains on my pants were the only dinger to pilot or wing... I'll take it.

I wanted to rent the Sport 2 for a number of reasons:
1. To see what it was like to fly a double surface wing
2. To see if I had the chops to fly an intermediate wing
3. To help my planning for buying the next wing, in both timeframe and type.

Here are my intial reactions:
1. It's a lot of fun. It's fast, smooth, clean. I felt like I was almost on a completely different kind of wing. It was really nice not to lose so much altitude going places. I got to just crank on the VG and zoom across to a spot that I wouldn't have reached in a Falcon.

2. I give myself a passing grade on the flight as a whole. Good launch (near as I could tell), good control in air, poor approach, adequate save on landing.

3. I need to lose weight and try again (I was a bit heavy on this one) on the Sport 2 155. I am better fit, weight-wise, for the next one up the ladder, the U2 160. I think I am going to have to rent the Sport 2 enough times to get familiar with it, if Rob has one available, then try to get a U2 rental or demo to see what the difference is. The U2 has slightly better performance but is more significantly difficult to fly, according to Wills Wing.

I need more time to answer all those questions adequately.

In sum, it was fun to fly, I am going to set aside the whole question for now, try to lose some weight, hopefully fitting into my sleeker harness, get used to that, and try again. Hopefully, that won't be too far off.

Whatever the case, I will always want a Falcon in the quiver. It's tough to beat how easy it is to fly.

Here's a chart of the various wing type "polars." Basically, the shallower the curve, the better the wing performance. That'd be the Falcon there on the bottom. The wings between it and the Sport 2 are older wings. According to this, at 30 miles per hour in static air, the Sport 2 would only be descending about 215 feet per minute. At that speed, a Falcon would be dropping like a rock, 400 feet per minute.

Another new site

You know you are in Southern California when traffic is a major consideration of where you fly when you live equidistant to two sites. Because going up through the middle of LA is the only thing that is worse than going out the 91 to San Berdoo, I had never flown Kagel in the year and a half I've been flying.

Today, I finally got to Kagel/Sylmar, though I had to game the traffic like Steve Martin in "LA Story" to get up there by noon. I didn't pull out of the driveway until 10:40. It's 77 miles the way I went, 64 at the shortest. I made it in an hour 10.

I am glad I went today and I look forward to getting some mileage out of my 90 day visitor membership. Variety is the spice of life and Kagel has it for me.

The inversion layer kept me on the first ridge, but there were some thermals to work there and I got to get a little oil on my technique, which was a bit rusty after one thermalling flight in the last month (at Dunlap).

I was glad I was not there on a crowded day, as I felt my way around the ridge, I only had one ATOS to keep track of.

The LZ at Kagel is an interesting one. The grass is a Hang 4 spot, as they are concerned about lesser pilots overshooting into the the storage containers and picnic benches. That left me in the wash, a long, narrow riverbed with some spots nicer than others. A long, fast DBF got me right where I wanted to be with plenty of speed. Turns out, though, I nipped the edge of the "Sylmar Triangle." The wash has some funky geometry to its geology and I encountered the lowest wind shadow I've ever felt. I was maybe 15 feet off the ground with good speed and hands on the downtubes, rounding out, when suddenly I was 5 feet off with not so much speed.

"Flare!" I thought to myself, thinking possibly ballooning would be a better risk to take than flying into the ground. My timing was actually pretty good, but my wings were not very level and I couldn't give it a full flare.

I didn't whack, though, and I recovered it pretty well, so I am giving myself a passing grade on my landing... based on the new site, the well known "triangle," my perfect approach, and my good save.

I am not letting myself buy a new wing until, among other things (like having money), I have landed my Falcon well 30 straight times. By well I mean I can not do anything that would disqualify me from a spot landing contest or anything unsafe. That was my 6th such landing and 28th out of the last 29.

Fun day, nice people, great site... though working afterward took some of the sheen off it.