All you can eat at Morningside

My trip to Morningside ended up solidly in the "Win" column, a big relief after much travel and a "Loss" at Funston three weeks ago.

After being rained out the first of two days, I got 22 flights in on the second. I got to practice dead, cross, and strong wind ramp launches. Ramp launching in a tree gap is noticeably different than launching from a nice, rounded hilltop. The varying conditions allowed me to practice a number of different approaches and landings. Along with my best crosswind launch in my short flying career, I also affected my best crosswind landing, keeping the glider crabbed into the wind and running it out at about a 30 degree angle.

More importantly, I got to spend a lot of time with my Brother, Brad, allowing us to catch up on quite a bit. After flying, I finally saw his nice house in Storrs, where I had not visited in 7 years. All that house cuts into his flying budget, so we brainstormed how to get a university professor rigged for hang gliding on the cheap. If anyone has a Falcon 225 and/or a harness for a 6'1" 220 pounder, let me know.

Morningside Flight Park was a real sleeper hit for me. I was very impressed by the facilities:
- A nice, carpeted hanger to reassemble my shortpacked glider
- Lots of spare parts and equipment (see previous post for why that helped)
- Helpful, friendly staff
- Gatorade for sale! Man, was I thirsty in the 90 degree 90% humidity weather
- ATVs to get you to launch in a couple of minutes
- A slope that is perfect for working your way up in training and is also perfect for flying down in ground effect on final
- Aero tow operations & lessons (which I will do next time)
- Lots of enthusiastic students

Variety is the spice of life. After averaging an hour per flight in California, but only flying once or twice a day, it was a blast to get in almost 2 dozen "Mountain" flights in one day. I know you can get that many at a beach site or at Point of the Mountain or winch towing, all of which I look forward to doing. But, for this trip, getting that many flights in felt like cheating.

Well, it felt like cheating until the next day, when I tried to get outta bed. No matter how easy the ATVs and facilities make it, 22 times of putting the glider on the cart, carrying down the crest of the hill, launching, landing, and taking it back to the cart... adds up.

By about 3 o'clock, the winds had picked up to the point where you needed two wire crew to launch and I was too tired to do so safely. I ended on a 7 minute flight that got me above launch.

The wing went back to Storrs on a ladder and I spent a scant 1:20 the next morning short packing it and the rest of the day playing with my nephews in the pool.

Even Delta was nice to me, only charging me $25 for the wing, making that cost $200 for the round trip... fair enough. And no tubbies crowded my "airspace" on the way back.

Work bit with a vengeance, though, and I stopped by a client's on the way home from LAX and recovered a failed RAID array until two in the morning.

When do I get to fly again? How can I make it back to Morningside this summer?

Open the link and click on Watch in High Quality for the video.

Planes, cables, and automobiles

Needless to say, on a supposedly full flight, I get stuck next to a 350 pound man. Delta's response was something to the effect of "sucks to be you." Ugh. So, for 6 hours, I tried to doze while shifted to the left out into the aisle... getting bumped by the flight attendants and passengers every time. Worst... flight... ever.

Fortunately, it was a straight shot and 6 hours later, I was on the ground in CT with my bro and it's great to be hanging out with him. He's a fun guy and a good big brother to have. I wish he lived closer.

Here's a tip for the shortpack of a Falcon. DO NOT LET ANYONE DISTRACT YOU WHILE DOING IT. The one time I was hurried while dissembling it was when I was putting the battens in a few days after having done most of the packing. My wife was anxious to leave for the gym... and I ended up dropping the kingpost luff line dongle, a 6 inch cable that hangs out of the kingpost to hook the luff lines to. The way the dongle works, it can twist and slip out of the kingpost if there are no other cables in the kingpost to help hold it in. It was in the grass of my backyard as I was in New Hampshire. Profanity ensued this discovery... next time I'm putting it in a ziploc. Fortunately, the helpful guys at Morningside crafted a spare from old parts (shortened one from a previous WW Glider) for me. The cost was some beer. Great guys.

I spent about 4-5 hours reassembling the wing in their great hangar, protected from the rain and the South winds which kept me, along with being too tired, from flying.

After going back to the nearby hotel, which is cheap and clean, showering and taking a cat nap, I walked with my brother to the top of the 450' launch. Morningside is such a nice place... what a great setup.

Today, we fly.

Off to Morningside

My policy of not liking to travel, especially by air, is well founded, though it's going fairly well so far.

Delta cut me a minor break... only charging me oversize ($150) and extra bag ($25) and not overweight (would have been $85) for my glider.

Man, I wish Morningside rented wings... I'da soooo much rather rented, especially since weather there is so fickle. But, the ticket wasn't bad and the trip will be worth it...

Now I am sitting in LAX at the bar... wondering if I am going to pull a Radwhacker. I drove up early to beat the traffic. Dockweiler looked quiet, though a Condor was unfolded, nobody was flying. So, I am drinking a Sam Adams, waiting for the Celtics game to start, watching the birds go by... could be a lot worse.

Security didn't open my glider bag... they just wiped the latches with some kinda of chemical wipe... phew.

Gonna be a long night.

Beats workin'

My Friday blew up, so I went flying.

By 11, I had already been to 3 client sites & the rest of the day was Fubared. My daughter & wife were out for the day, it was too early to drink (barely), and no other work projects were good for a Friday.

I called Rob, the McBus was full, then I got an email: MikeB & Mike Z were driving up at 12:30. I left my driveway at 11:25. I left the gas station on the corner at 11:29. I hit the lot at 12:30, not easy to do in 67 miles of So Cal traffic.

The relief to be above the smog, literal and figurative, held me up for 3 hours and took me to an unexpected 6,800. Crestline, Pine, Crestline, Cloud, Crestline, Pine, Marshall, Crestline, Marshall, the University Flags, Marshall... whack! (ugh) (I need to drill procedures in for landings)



Fun day. Next up: Morningside.

The day I'd been waiting for

I bummed a ride up early to work on a video project (and the SD card needed formatting so the video was corrupted, among other things blah). Thanks Whack.

Marshall was the killing fields as the winds switched from North to East and back and forth. My wing got tipped by the wind when it was on the basetube with the velcro still on the wings. Then, even with a good wireman, I got turtled by a dust devil at the launch point, as winds went from 5 mph East to 15 mph West in a matter of seconds.

Thanks Rob and Dan for the help.

It was worth it.

10 minutes later I was at 8k. It seemed like there was a lot of lift and a lot of suck, so I didn't take my Falcon too far afield, as some did in their new sport 2s (**cough** Dave ** I-15** cough ** cough**). I guess my acrobatics on launch were scary: it took quite a while for everyone to launch after I did.

After 2 1/2 hours, my shoulders were sore, my hands cold, and my day complete.

Here are some pics (all pop):

Bracing for impact


Face down, *** up, that's the way we like to be ****ed.


Here's a view of a wing you don't see often


Decent shot of the wings on Marshall


Look and you can see the wings on Marshall




Lakes and Launch







Tracklog

Big O Flies from the E

Backfilling here. Dave, Owen, and I went out to Elsinore for a late Friday flight in moderate Santa Anas. Owen launched first, Dave second, I third.

Owen had a great flight, Dave and I met Mr. Lee. Mr. Lee Side Rotor, that is. While I was finishing setting up, Dave got spanked down into the bailout below the E. I went ahead and launched and barely made it... and it's only 5:1 from launch. The first portion of the flight was a rodeo ride. I actually looked up to see if my wing was assembled properly. The last third, I skimmed over rooftops, starting at 200' over them down to 50' over the last roof a quarter or third a mile later.

It scared the hell outta me.

But, I landed safely, kissed the ground, was delivered a beer by Spike, and vowed never to launch the E in North winds again.

Here's a video I made of Owen's flight.


Big O Flies from the E from knumbknuts on Vimeo.

Flying with 3 cameras and GPS tracking

The day was pretty murky to begin with (I think I saw Frodo and Sam hiking into San Berdoo), I didn't tweak the saturation on this run of video, and YouTube washed it out a bit more, but...


Camera, Camera, Camera, GPS, Windy Windy Windy from knumbknuts on Vimeo.

Here's my video of the day. Better quality option if you follow the link.

I was experimenting with three cameras. My verdict: it can be done, but it's a pain in the ***, worth doing for the most scenic of sites. The overhead camera records onto to a little portable recorder I got, on which I have to rerender from divx to mpeg to edit, as the divx it records to is too compressed for my edit software and causes it to freeze (Vegas, Pinnacle, & Premier, ugh!).

Having 3 perspectives at once is too much, generally. I like three cameras only for the variety of angles they provide. Two cameras were hi def, one standard, not that you can tell on youtube.

I got some good in air shots of Dave's new Sport 2, Jack holding onto his glider at Crestline, Wisconsin Paul, and one of the Atos boys at Crestline. They look better on the hi def.

This was also a video where I experimented on using my gps track to help tell the tale.

I give myself a B- on it, getting above a C only due to the sheer volume of raw material (I was flying around like a %%(!&! EA-6B Prowler). It's almost too much and the conditions were kinda crappy for vid; it didn't turn out as well as I hoped it would.

As far as the flight itself... holy crap I need a DS glider for days like that. It was w-w-w-windy & gusty. The only reason I was glad I was on a Falcon is I got thrown around by the hand of God a couple of times and was wondering if I'da been tumbled or something on a DS glider. Probably not, but the stability of the Falcon was welcome. But, there were thermals I couldn't follow because they would have taken me back into the trees. I had to leave Crestline while the getting was good.

The landing is amusing. I have to do 3 in a row into that circle, the next one with a right hand approach. I've done two, both just barely reaching it.

Crazy weather week ends with a good flight

After a week of bungling weather forecasts, I was determined to get a flight in on Saturday. Looking at the Skew-T graphs, it looked like the clouds would be above Marshall but the wind would be growing in strength all day. My wiley scheme was to launch early, milk ridge lift, & enjoy the building energy in the air.

Dave, Mike Z and I left the LZ at 11:15 with Fez, a paraglider pilot. Marshall was honking when we got there, though lulls tempted Fez, he wisely waited for a more experienced paraglider pilot.

[tangent]
I recently wrote a letter to the editor of the national mag citing the CSS as an example of a club that's got the HG/PG thing right. (that letter was referenced in this month's mag) What I want to add to that is that HG pilots should love PG pilots... they drive your vehicle back down on blown out days. Thanks Fez!!!!
[/tangent]

Dave launched and hooted and hollered. I had enough electronics on my glider to make an Intruder pilot shake his head, so I was holding up the show. Mike Z, the most altruistic man on earth since Ghandi died, was waiting to help me off. I was testing out a helmet cam (Fail)(Archos sucks). As I was hooking in, snow started to fall. Light, flakey, and quick to melt, it sped up the launch process. I didn't miss any safety items, but I did forget my second layer of jacket. Dohp.

There was some ridge lift, but the only strong lift I found was cloudsuck, which I circled out of and didn't find again. I scratched for 23 minutes (handicapped by a bit of extra bar pressure and terrain separation due to the wet wing) in the hopes of drying out my Falcon.

The windsocks were dead on downwind, boring on base, and doing a &^%$#@~! tango on Final. I remembered some of Rob's instruction on the 80' hill (I'd recommend those Gator runs for anyone, they're fun) and decided to run it out. No swing at the pitch (i.e. flaring). I was taking a base on balls.

I was tempted to go back up, but watching topless glider pilots kiss the ground upon safe arrival killed that notion.

Here's the video. Follow the link and click the high quality option.

Spring forward

This morning, I figured I'd play hooky for a sled ride and some R&D on some camera setups and another project at the LZ.

11:00, I barreled outta OC and made it to the LZ with 15 minutes to spare, and spent 10 of them mollifying a distressed client. phsaw.

Running into a rolling McBus, the cast of characters was light, with Mark Hoffman & Gene (& Liz as a return driver).

Rebardan was already up top with his ATOS (Dan have you landed yet?).... and Dusty ran the McBus off Marshall Road to beat us to the top (okay, we dropped Diane off at the last fork for a hike).

Typical late winter / early spring weekday, I thought. Not so much.

Rob was out having fun, shooting top landings, one of which I got on video (pesky pause button got another). Gene showed his love of Rotorville & buzzed launch like Maverick in a full pattern, time and again. Dusty flew off into the distance and scared the bejeebers outta the locals ("people! they be fallen from dah sky"). Firefighters who showed up at the LZ just to watch said there was a hook and ladder chasing a distressed ultralight through town. Or something.

On that note, if you see a fire engine in the LZ & the lights aren't on, they're just smokin' pork chops, no emergency. I saw it and kept an eye out for the X in the Circle, figuring a paraglider had gotten hammered by some cross winds.

What a fun and different day. I decided not to borrow a jacket from Rob and got high enough to get cold. I brought three cameras out, but forgot something for each, and it was a clear and high day. I didn't pack my bags in my harness and it would have been a great day to explore a little more than I could without them.

I took the Marshall house thermal to about 5,600 and started back toward Crestline. I chickened out, got back on the elevator, and tried again.

"Ruh roh," said Astro, I was pretty sure I was heading into North winds. That pipe-filled U-Turn in the road looked pretty close. I could read "ACME Pipes and Fittings" on the side of one of them. In for a penny, in for a pounding. I was thinking about that bailout LZ and how to store my glider without a strap of velcro while I walked back to the LZ (lesson there). I looked at the Crestline windsock and it was either torn or pointing the wrong way.

Boom! There were two thermal factories there, though, on the spines on each side of the launch. Rob sauntered by and zipped up and away, fun to see him in the air without a student.

At 6800 it was time to explore again. I did a half circle to the front of the Pine spine and fund lift to 7,800. I last saw Gene heading toward Arrowhead and wanted to go that way, but was down to 6200 by Crestline, so I punted back to Marshall for another lap back to Regionals, Billboard, and Pine, nice thermals at each.

Topping out at 8,500 at Pine, I decided to see if I could reach the 215. I got there a bit above 7K & went down it to the golf course. There, I hit the inversion layer and felt like Saddam Hussein falling through the floor and called it a day.

My landing must have been amusing to watch, I thought the ground was a foot or two higher than it was and ran in air for a while, mushed out, and skidded to a stop on my knees.

Didn't care, though.

Rasp/blipmaps look better for tomorrow, though the winds look a little more westerly.

PM me for a link to some quick & dirty video. No torrent crap, high def. With Kyle's help, I got a lot of Gene, some dan & mark, and even a paraglider (Doosty). I got a bit of Rob, but I wish I had gotten more. He's just so relaxed. It's like watching Perry Como fly.

Hope I can play hooky again. My first non-sledder in quite a while has fueled more than my loquaciousness. (ooh big word)



Here's a youtube video of the track (follow link for high quality option):

Big Sur

15 years or so ago, I saw my first hang glider pilots... and they whacked hard.

It was at Big Sur, they were landing in the small, downslope LZ by the stairs to Sand Dollar beach. They both enthralled me and scared me. Since my first tandem, I have been dying to fly Big Sur, so I scheduled the campground 10 months out.

It was well worth it.


Hazzard Boys of Big Sur from knumbknuts on Vimeo.

4 flights, all short but memorable. The first was in a beautiful sunset. The second, I punched through clouds. The third, Dave and I flew wingtip to wingtip in another great sunset. The fourth, more clouds.

The camping was fun, the food good, the beer cold, and most important, the guys on the trip great.

Pilotguy taught me the best lesson I could possibly learn. He flew across the country, rented a car, stood at launch... and waited... for 6 hours. Then he broke down and didn't fly. The glider had some "issues" and he didn't feel right. I loaned him my glider the next morning, but the clouds rolled in while the bacon cooked (and cleared minutes after his departure).

Jeff, you have carte blanche use of that Falcon on a trip to So Cal, in payment for the "cheap" lesson you taught me. I would have launched. You made the right call.


Big Sur Dream Flights from knumbknuts on Vimeo.

I highly recommend the site. My next flight, on my return, was of similar sled ride length... and the only flight I have yet to be disappointed in. It was just too hard to accept 11 minutes over the Inland Empire after similar sled rides over one of my favorite sites on Earth (you can also scuba dive, hike, fish, mountain bike, and surf there).

All pics pop.