The fifth day of the competition showed a great forecast for Whitwell so we loaded up, piled in, and headed over. The winds were strong, but not quite enough for ridge soaring. Ridge soaring is when the wind comes into the cliff face with enough velocity to be deflected upward into a lift band that is strong enough to carry a glider up above the ridge.
 |
| A view from Whitwell launch |
The task committee met on launch and decided that the C pilots should head for Galloway airport, which was about 11.73 miles away. It it was a relatively easy task for those who are good at thermaling. In case you're wondering, I'm not good at thermaling.
We all got set up and our wind dummies (they prefer to be called wind "technicians") started to launch ahead of the competition pilots to give us an idea of what the wind was doing. The first couple of test pilots sank out into Castle field (visible in the picture above), but the next couple managed to stick so our competition pilots lined up for launch.
We were all getting geared up and ready to go when the unthinkable happened: A pilot crashed on launch. It was Keith and he was attempting to launch an Exxtasy. He called "clear", took two tentative steps, then tried to stop, then he started to slide down the cliff. One of the wire crew (a safety team that helps control the glider on the launch ramp) managed to hold onto Keith's right wing as he fell. As the glider picked up speed the free left wing started to fly. The entire glider, pilot included, rotated around the secured right wingtip and the nose of the glider plowed into the cliff just to the right side of the launch. The spectators, dogs and bunnies that were watching launches from the little shelf there dove for cover as the glider slammed into the rocky wall. A second after impact there was an eerily pleasant bonging noise caused by the aluminum keel snapping under tension. Keith and the glider settled on the little, rocky out cropping just a few feet below launch height and half a dozen pilots rushed to secure the wing while Keith unhooked and climbed out of the wreckage, shaken but not really hurt. In the end, the only real damage was to the glider, which suffered the aforementioned broken keel, but even that turned out to be a pretty easy (and blessedly cheap) fix.
Once we got Keith safely settled with a fresh pair of underwear and a cold beer the launches resumed. I was fourth or fifth in line on ramp when my team leader, Ollie, who had launched 10 minutes earlier, called on the radio that he'd found lift just left of the ramp. If Ollie calls you off the ramp you go, so I shouted "PUSH!" as loud as I could. Jeff Nibbler was on launch and chose to back off. The line of pilots before me parted like the Red Sea before Moses and his staff so, within seconds, I was on launch and ready to fly.
"Clear!" I shouted, diving from the cliff's edge with confidence and authority. It was a beautiful launch! My airspeed quickly increased as my wing started flying and I turned left into some light lift, but didn't find anything worth turning in. I continued floating up the ridge in a nice tail wind, turning a couple of times when I thought I found something workable, but slowly sinking and slowly moving further away from the ridge. I turned back to the south and passed Dean Funk. Dean was working the ridge with about as much success as I was having, but his better glider gave him more range than I had. While Dean continued to search I turned out into the valley because I was below the ridge and running out of altitude.
 |
I'm red, Dean is white, JC
is blue (but not 3D) |
While I was on the way out into the valley I hit a pretty good thermal. I turned in it and started going up, which was great. Then Dean saw me and charged in my direction, hoping to take advantage of the lift I'd found. He hooked the thermal I'd found while I flew out of the back of it. Jen caught up and joined Dean in my thermal so I turned back to search for it, but I didn't account for the wind drift and ended up searching too low. I lost more altitude and had to go into the valley and land at the church (the church is our primary landing zone for Whitwell).
Oh well, I had a great landing, broke down, rode up, set up, and launched again. This time there was a wonderful cycle of wind that lifted me up and left, immediately soaring, downwind, above the ridge. I rode this wonderful breeze along the ridge, stupidly passing up on a couple of nice thermal climbing opportunities in my quest for distance. I eventually got close to Star Gap, the first big jump on the ridge run north toward Galloway, and realized that I wasn't going to be able to make it across. I had to turn back upwind and head out into valley to look for thermals and landing zones. I didn't find any thermals, but I did find a landing zone. I call it Cow Town.
|
First flight is the green
line, second flight is the red line |
Cow Town is a nice looking field in the middle of a bunch of other nice looking fields that are pretty close to the geometric center of absolutely nothing. I call it Cow Town because, well, it's full of cows. It might not have been the best place to land, but it was a good, long field, it was into the wind, and I knew I could safely land in it. So that's exactly what I did... With absolutely no thought to how I might get back out again.
The field was large, clear, relatively flat, and free of power lines. It was bisected by a fence and I could clearly see cows grazing on the northwest side of the field while the southeast side was vacant. I'd been told that landing with cows was fine, but should be avoided if it were safely possible to do so. I aimed for the southeast side of the fence - why disturb the cows if I didn't have to, right? Also, from the air it looked like there was a little road leading out from the southeast corner of the field. There wasn't.
The field I landed in was ringed by three things: Trees, a creek, and a barbed wire fence. Did I mention the cows? My landing was a beautiful no stepper and as soon as the glider settled onto my shoulders I marched to the edge of the creek, unhooked, and looked around for some evidence of a gate, road, path or some other means of egress. What I saw was a single, lonely cow staring at me from the other side of the field. Uh oh.
 |
| A hornless bull? |
Now, let me tell you something else I learned about choosing landing fields when cows are involved. A general rule of thumb is that you can safely land with cows, plural, but that a single cow should be avoided no matter how big and pretty the field is. Why? Because a single cow, in its own, lonely field, is probably a bull. Bulls are bad, mmmkay?
I squinted at the thing, big, black, and far away, trying to see if it had horns. I couldn't tell, but it was just standing there staring at me and not charging. I quickly took my harness off of the glider, removed the expensive instruments from my downtube, stuffed them into my helmet, stuffed the helmet into the harness, and tossed the whole bundle across the creek. If the bull charged it might wreck my glider, but me and the rest of my gear would be safely on the other side of the creek trying to scramble over the barbed wire fence.
I looked up again and was surprised to find not one, but six... bulls? No. They were clearly cows and they were coming my way. The fence I'd seen from the air was really just a line of fence posts with no wire between them. I sighed with relief and called Lori, my retrieval driver, and told her that I had no idea where I was or how she was going to get to me, but that I'd text her my coordinates. Verizon rocks, even in the middle of Cow Town, and I was able to load up Google maps and fire off the text message in just a couple of minutes. When I looked up again, I was completely surrounded by cows.
 |
| I fell into a burning ring of... cows. |
I don't know anything about cows. I mean, yeah, I know that they produce milk, meat, and baby cows, but really that's about it. I
think that they are nice animals and I've never heard of anyone being attacked by one, but when I looked up to find myself ringed into the corner of the field by thirty or more half-ton, fly covered animals, all of them staring at me with passionless, black eyes I got a little bit nervous. Was I standing in their favorite place? Were they mad at me? There were baby cows, too... maybe the momma cows would beat me up for scaring the babies. What if they wanted to eat my glider? What if they stampeded me into the dirt for some reason? I did the only thing I could think of: I tried to talk them down.
"Wow," I said, forcing confidence into my voice. Could cows smell fear? I don't know. "You guys sure are pretty. Yep. Big, pretty cows." I walked around to the back of my glider and started pulling out the battens. After a couple of battens I turned around and noticed that the ring of cows seemed to have closed in on me a bit.
"Big, pretty cows," I cooed. "Nice cows, right? Nice cows? I'm a pretty nice guy myself, so I think we'll get along ok as long as you don't try to eat my glider." I pulled more battens. "You don't eat my glider, I won't eat you. Or your babies. Deal?" The main battens were out so I turned to look again and, this time, I was certain that they were closer. Every time I turned my back on them they were moving closer. Like the haunted topiary in Stephen King's "The Shining". I stared at them suspiciously, trying to figure out what they were up to. A forlorn sounding "Mooooooooooo" drifted up from somewhere in the back, lonely and pleading. Nobody answered.
 |
| An annotated, aerial view of Cow Town. |
One of the cows (The "boss" cow? Or maybe it's called the "alpha" cow?), was braver than the others and actually took a step toward me when my back wasn't turned. The thing was so close that I could almost hear the flies buzzing around its face and I think I caught a grassy whiff of its fetid breath. I had to do something or it would be right on top of me - and my wing! The sheer weight of it would certainly be able to crush my glider as if it were made of foil. I picked up my battens, raised them over my head, and shook them as loudly as I could while yelling "Ooga booga booga!" and taking a deliberate step toward the lead cow. Thinking back on it now I wish I'd tried a nice, cowboy-like "Heeeya!!" or something, but nobody was there to see me and "ooga booga" seemed to work just as well because the alpha cow and her herd backed off a few feet.
At some point during my dance with the cows Lori, my retrieval driver, called. She was on a road and as close as Google could get her to me. I couldn't see her and she couldn't see me so I asked her to honk the horn. I could barely hear the flat blatting noise over the oppressive silence of the staring cows, but it was there. "You're close," I told her. "I'm in a field to your south, behind a creek and a line of trees."
"Ok," Lori replied, "I'll try to find a way in."
I was almost done breaking down my glider when I heard Lori's voice calling to me through the trees. I could barely see her through the dense undergrowth as I explained that there was a creek and a fence on this side of the trees and that I didn't see any clear way through. Lori said she'd go have a look and walked away, following the tree line while I continued working.
I had to ooga-booga the cows a few more times while I broke down before they, either bored with me or intimidated by my ferocity, turned their backs on me and ambled back the way they'd come with cat-like indifference. I finished packing up my equipment just as the phone started to ring. It was Lori.
 |
| The other side of the fence. |
"I think I found a way through."
"Follow the cows."
I looked up and saw the cows slowly walking along the treeline about a quarter mile away so I picked up my equipment and followed them. When I got to the place that Lori was talking about, which was just a thinner spot in the trees with a drier bit of creek, I dropped my gear and went to look. Lori was down in the creek bed laying sticks and branches across the trickling water so that I could cross without getting my feet wet.
 |
| Head 'em up and move 'em out. |
With Lori's help, I was able to to feed my glider through a hole in the fence then slide my equipment (and body - farmers really don't like people climbing their fences) through the same hole. With a little careful maneuvering we were able to move the glider through the trees and out into the freshly mown hay field just on the other side. From there it was an easy thing to put the glider onto Ollie's expedition and drive off into the sunset, just like an episode of Rawhide.
Get along, little doggies! Heeeya!!
