flightblog@wonderwinds

Yeah yeah: in the woods (assuming aforementioned bear lives in the woods) but specifically I've learned a bear shits on the trail to launch at Nantac. I finally had a good flight, made even better given that it almost didn't happen.

Nantac is east of Globe and way off the pavement. Indian land, so where we land is limited by rules with a $160 fine for those who break the rules. Despite leaving the house at 0530 we got up there a little bit later than Rick would have liked, and it was blowing like hot snot on launch. Launch is tricky to say the least. Almost completely undeveloped, getting from the setup area to the ramp is a process in itself. I figured with the hike to the ramp and the way-high winds and my totally rusty skills I wasn't even gonna set up. Spike and Randy and Rick and Allen set up without issue. Spike and Randy got off, but Rick and Allen thought better of it and tore down. Then the coolest thing happened: it backed off and didn't switch to cross. So I set up.

By the time I got to the ramp a bit of cross had set in so it took forever to get something in that felt good. I was also having a hell of a time feeling control of the glider when it was in straight. Finally moving a step down the ramp helped with the control and it came in straight with a nice velocity, so I cleared and launched. The bit on the ramp went okay and I launched into lift, then it went to shit. Instead of flying the glider through the lift I tried to kick in. Once again I forgot to drop the string off my fingers, and this time I decided to look at it. Changing focus from launching to looking was coupled with lightening up my pull-in-ness so I popped the nose. I dropped the string and kicked in, and basically almost stalled it right off the ramp. The swooping recovery put me way close to the mountain but it was all in a straight line and I got lucky and didn't pound in.

Anyway away I go. Still getting feedback that I'm flying too fast, I figured I'd finally use the airspeed indicator to get an idea of how fast I was flying. I'm pretty sure I was flying fast because I needed it to get good control, which is the thing I've always noticed: when nearing trim it felt like the glider was flying me more than the other way around. Anyway a couple of hundred over was easy, and there was plenty of lift to be found. Working it just didn't feel good though, and I never did get a full turn in lift. Still I managed to move down the ridge without losing much altitude and finally identified the truck. I had plenty of altitude with regard to gliding to it, so I tried something different: a little bit more VG.

Holy shit the handling cleaned right up! So I tried thermaling a bit. Not totally centered on first pass, and kinda lumbering about the sky. Still, made it to 8K (about a thousand over). And started getting a bit better at coordinating turns and generally flying. So I kept working it. 9K finally showed up and it started getting really easy to go up. 10K and it started being chilly. I was above the top area at the time and pretty much inline with the over-the-back LZ but since this is a new site to me and pretty much a skill restoration flight I didn't really consider going there. Then 11K was in easy reach so I figured hit it then go find the truck again. 11,100 MSL was pretty much my max, and there was no down to be found. None. I stuffed the bar and got a bit of down happening. Glanced at the airspeed indicator: almost on 45mph. My slowest was probably 25 which I found rather nice after adding the bit of VG. Anyway a bit of down would eventually work so I kept the bar at my waist and waited. And noticed I was actually doing 200 up for half a minute or so. er... wow.

Well finally I got deep in shadows and found a nice long streak of down. 10K went away, then 9K, then the sun came back. Lots of up all over again, but down was strong when I found it so I let thermals send me away and "cored the sink" which technically can't be done but whatever. Around 7K it was normal flying again. I was no longer cold but my shoulders ached and I sure would have liked to have some water. So I kept working down until I had a rather nice landing even if it was about 100 feet short of where I wanted to be.

Then I watched as my glider flipped completely over. Twice. A truckload of Indians acting all official wanted to see my permit so I left it standing quartered into the wind, but the wind was shifting enough that it got under the glider and turned it ... then lifted it enough to flip it. Once on it's king post it flipped again (first full circle complete.) By this time I was thinking "fuck the permit" and running for the glider. It did another complete flip as I was heading towards it, then started the third as I grabbed it. Much easier to let it go over a third time than to try to stop it, so technically it did 3 complete 360s before stopping but the third was more or less under my control.

Bent the outermost battens completely and almost perfectly symmetrically so they need replacing. Saw a minor tear in the sail when folding it up so I need some red adhesive dacron. That should be easy to get online but I gotta go take a shower and go to work again, so the dacron will have to wait another day.

Flight was this past saturday. Left the house at 5:30am, got just under an hour in the air, got home at 9pm. 350 miles round trip, roughly 12.7:1 glide to the LZ. Nantac is a totally awesome HG site!

http://ahga.org/azxc08.php

An all-year contest more or less. It'll end at the end of the Labor Day Fly-In at Mingus. XC and out-and-back flights rack up points, and points turn into chances to win a vario. 30 bucks to register, and registration gets you a custom event tee shirt. All flights from any site in Arizona count.

I did the code D

First real flight of the year. For an Arizona pilot, that is embarrassing. :redface: Oh well eh? A couple of weeks ago I got a scooter tow flight from Greg Berger on a Falcon225 in a small breeze with tiny little thermals happening. Didn't try to do anything with them though. Just wanted to launch and land. Holy crap what a nerve wracker it was to do that little flight too. All sorts of rusty. Uncomfortable. Not Current.

So anyway I had the chance to fly this weekend. So I did. I had a driver (thanks Lori - you rock!) and a mission to bring a glider from Phoenix up to Mingus area, so my plan was to transfer the glider along the highway then haul up to The Craters and take a flight or two. Maybe even soar a wee bit if possible. As it turns out Kris (the owner of the glider I was transporting) was up on Mingus and pretty much wasn't gonna meet me to make the transfer. He told me there were 15 gliders set up on Mingus and it looked like it was gonna work all day up there. Hmmm... Well we had just stopped for a bit to eat, and Mingus is generally a morning site, but I figured we'd head up there and see how it looked. I knew I would be there late, but so what: could always drop off the glider and head up to The Craters after that. Plus if it was looking really good I'd set up because Mingus is a beautiful launch to fly from.

Got up on top really late. Saw one pilot (who shall remain nameless) standing on launch in what seemed to me to be an awesome and long cycle. Hmmm... I decided to set up and drop off the glider in camp. After I dropped off the glider in camp the pilot had hucked off and was doing pretty good, so I started setting up. All through the time I was doing that, and I always was slow at building a glider, it would die off then cycle in again really nice. Hooray! When I had my harness on put on my helmet it decided to blow down. WTF? :confused: About that time some of the people who flew that morning were back up on top and started giving me shit for needing a better plan.

Christ on a stick working 12 hours a NIGHT 3 or 4 nights a week does NOT lend itself to flying. Especially when Sunday is always one of the nights I work. No one seems to get that. People ask what days I have off. Jeezus I have EVERY DAY off. It's the nights I don't have off. Ask a day worker "what nights do you have off" then tell them how they can do something that'll take all night...

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What a pathetic turn of events for the ushga! After failing to secure ushpa.org when it was obviously their agenda to change the name of the org, they couldn't find a way to bully the asshole who snarfed it up into turning it over. Instead they bought ushpa dot aero, and renamed their faggoty little magazine after the shiny new domain name.

Did we, the paying membership who happens to be the only recipients of this faggoty little magazine, have a say in the renaming? No. Of course not. It's "marketing" so who gives a fuck what those of us who pay have to say. Much like the current contest for a new logo. We, as members, had an opportunity to submit a logo. We also get to vote, but the ushga doesn't give a fuck about what we say. Check out this little gem from the main page at ushga.org:

The logo contest survey isn't an official vote for the best image by the membership, but it does offer a vehicle through which the Logo Contest Jury gets feedback from the membership. The Logo Contest Jury will take that feedback into consideration when making their decisions. After February 21, the last day for the Membership Survey, the Jury will deliberate and submit their choices to the Board for an official adoption vote in March.

In other words:

When we don't like what you suckers say you like we'll do what we want to do. Fuck you.

Sadly, they're all assholes. Anyone seriously interested in replaced the ushga with a national org that cares more about free flight than their own fetid existence is welcome to contact me. I'll throw a shit-ton of money at the project without blinking an eye. The annual dues I now pay, on the other hand, are subject to serious deliberation about the value I get for my money. At this point all I get is "nothing" so ...

A bit of a pitch would be nice, but wouldn't a paved ramp be totally cool?

Link: http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635212369,00.html

Completely irresponsible asshole! This dumbass thinks creating a public hazard is "publicity". Smooth move, cuz now the city of Draper is considering rules about hang gliding and paragliding.

Allred said the incident has city officials considering an ordinance to specifically address the issue of paragliding and hang-gliding in the community.

Note that "DickWad" Dell Schanze wasn't flying a hang glider or a paraglider. Note that ANY hang glider or paraglider pilot who finds himself or herself low over an interstate is making peace with their God - not thinking of all the cool publicity. Note that an adult would accept that their actions had extremely negative impacts and would apologize and accept their fate. Note that "FuckMonkey" Dell Schanze seems to think they're out to get him and he's right and they're wrong.

"All they're saying is, 'We hate Dell Schanze,' " he said. "How is it a public nuisance attracting attention? I think people with a half a brain cell know you can't charge that. Is there any logic to it? No."

Schanze questioned how flying his paraglider near I-15 was different from a "person riding a horse with a pink shirt and lights" next to I-15 or police cars with their red and blue lights on that have pulled over other vehicles.

"I'll accept the charge if they charge every one of their officers and charge everyone walking down the sidewalk," he said.

Hey Dell Schanze: when you can't spot the asshole in the group it's because YOU'RE THE ASSHOLE! I wish you would do the world two simple favors, though I doubt you've ever done anything for anyone other than your pathetic excuse for a self: die, and rot.

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Damn. We - the free flight community - bust our asses to not piss off the groundlings, and this faggit decides scaring the fuck out of them is 'publicity'. We drive for hours to get to remote sites where we can do our thing without adversely impacting the general population, though most folk dig on seeing us when we happen to be close to them. The thing is we're NOT close to them when they're driving at 75mph on the interstate grid.

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POWERED flight should be regulated, and POWERED PARAGLIDERS should be HEAVILY regulated. DickWad Dell Schanze happens to be an extreme example of what goes wrong when you give idiots easy access to the air. Dell Schanze: you're a dooshbag.

Firstly, went up to do some towing with Greg last weekend and get a lesson for Jason. I played the role of "nice guy who helps", but didn't mess with Jason's lessons at all. He did good based on feedback from Greg and Marshall, but don't tell him that! He's going to get married this weekend, so no lesson for him. Foolish choice if you ask me, but then again I'm not young and in love. blech. Anyway Mark was there too. He's a very advanced student who should be looking at his rating(s) very soon. Jake is a pretty good student pilot who flew my Eagle, and Gene is a brand new student who learned that flight doesn't just magically happen. Marshall is an instructor apprentice, and Greg is the resident instructor up that way.

So I got three tows at the end of the day. Nice soft air to play in, and no need to break it down and haul it up a mountain or hill again. Cool, but not the point today.

Memorial Day at Dry Canyon got canceled due to weather. Specifically, no weather for so long that the Forest Service closed the forest due to the risk of fire. Once before they let the club have their fly-in, but not this year. Too bad, but maybe everything works out in the end. As it turns out, my new glider STILL isn't here. Greg supposedly went out to Wills Wing to pick it up yesterday (Friday) but I'll believe it when I see it. About a week ago Greg told me that Wills told him they took another look at the glider to make sure everything was hunkydory and realized they didn't include my tail fin. Vertical stabilizer if you're into multisyllabic words. Fuckers! The U2 doesn't come with one but I wanted it because BC says he'll never fly a glider without it. I might not use it, but I might and can't if I don't have it available. Anyway they threw a new keel in and added my fin for me. Plain white so I can decorate it as I see fit.

Bottom line is I'll be seeing my glider for the first time on the day I was going to travel back to Alamogordo for Memorial Day at Dry Canyon. That'd suck as I don't really want to get to know it when I'm busy taking their site XC record from them. Now it seems I'll be flying at Mingus instead, which works out just as well I guess. XC from Mingus isn't as friendly as XC from Dry, but I'll have quite a few flying sites to take the new ship to, so all is well.

Oh and get ready for the First Annual Labor Day at Mingus Mountain Fun Fly-In. Last year's 30th anniversary at Mingus gave some of us the idea to make an annual event of it, so some might see this as the second annual, but given that this one will be completely different than last year I'm okay with calling it the First Annual.

That's all folks!

Finally! Some airtime for good old Ed - woohoo!!! Mingus last Saturday. The somethingth of April I guess. Went north Thursday afternoon hoping to fly The Aubries on Friday and Mingus on Saturday but only Mingus worked out. Nice launch, short flight, shitty landing: story of my life lately. On the plus side I managed to get into the cocoon without too much difficulty so that's a good thing. Wicked strong day. Didn't have much in the way of expectations, so I was sort of surprised by "business as usual in Arizona". Anyway I intentionally left the hill early because it was more rock n roll than I was into.

Took Jason with me too. He's a guy I work with and is bored all the time so he agreed to be my driver. He's got a background in general aviation and we've talked quite a bit about it at work, so it was cool for him to finally see how it's done. He was impressed enough to have his first lesson after work yesterday. Basic stuff - build it, ground handling unhooked and hooked, then take it down and pack it up. Did pretty good. Allowed his nose to pop once. When we talked about it he said he knew he did it and how the glider suddenly felt way different and how it was difficult to get it back under his control. Good day!

So now it's time to pack the truck for another overnight at Mingus. Gonna fly tomorrow if all goes well. Gonna be more prepared for some rock n roll air too so if it's on I won't chicken out. There's clouds with bases up there, so what the fuck am I doing heading for an LZ?

Pictures from Jason's camera to follow but I don't know when.

Link: http://wonderwinds.com/rackblog.php

A long time ago I decided to start collecting hang gliding racks. Everybody does it in a different way and everyone new to the life needs to figure out there own way, so I figured why not archive how other people have done it? Anyway I've not been travelling much lately and without a digital camera the racks I come across fade into the mist like most of life's experiences, but I finally brought my old html pages up to date by including them in this blog engine.

Ta Da!

Rackblog: a place to see images of racks, a place to submit your own rack to the archives, and a place to promote the person that did your rack for you.