Day Two - My First XC Flight

The second day of my first hang gliding competition starts with coffee, of course, then some breakfast and a pilot's meeting in which we discuss the conditions and results of the day before.  If you remember, a lot of pilots (myself included... twice) sank out and had sledders (a short ride to the ground).  Sledders suck.

Well, today the newer pilots learned a lot about why that happened.  Yesterday Monday was a high-pressure day with good thermals up high, but down low they were broken, snaking little bubbles of lift that require aggressive, tight turns to stay in.  I turned to Dean Funk (http://blog.ihanglide.com/), a great competitive pilot and a heck of a nice guy for more advice and he actually showed me some videos of himself thermalling.  It helped tremendously.

25+ hang gliders waiting to fly.

My task for the day was to fly to Galloway airport, about five miles southwest of launch.  The pundits on ramp were telling us that the conditions were similar to the day before (punchy, little bumps down low) so  I  reminded myself to turn tighter when I found lift, hooked into my glider, and got into line.

 And waited.  And waited..  And waited...

Somebody was sitting on the ramp, waiting for the perfect time to launch!  We call people who sit on the ramp and wait for a sign of guaranteed lift a "launch potato".  There is never a perfect time to launch and, as it often happens, conditions started to deteriorate while we waited.  I was sixth or seventh in line, sweating like an ice-cold beer on a hot, humid day, and waiting.  Hang waiting.

It was something like 40 minutes of waiting, with some of the people in line shouting out things like "GO ALREADY!" and "IT AINT GETTIN' ANY BETTER!" before Jeff Nibbler, who was right behind me in line, shouted out the magic word:  "PUSH!"  When a pilot in line calls a push the pilot on the ramp has 30 seconds to either launch or back off.  The pilot on ramp backed off and the five or six gliders in line ahead of me moved out of the way.

It was my option to either move to the ramp and launch within 30 seconds or move aside and let Jeff through.   Having noticed the wind direction turning tail (a bad thing) I decided to take my chances.

I walked onto the ramp, looked around and saw nothing that gave me much hope of a long flight, and launched.  Great launch, straight out into smooth, buoyant air.  I drifted to the right, not having made much a flight plan, aiming toward the highway when I felt my glider lurch in turbulence and my vario started beeping.

"Turn," I told myself, throwing my weight left and pushing out into the lift.  Beep-beep-beep!  I was going up!  I kept turning in the lift, much harder than I thought I had to, and I rocketed up over launch.  As I made turn after turn I saw other pilots piling off the ramp, heading right for me.  The thermal I'd found quickly turned into a gaggle of seven or eight gliders, all going up.   I climbed to about 4,200 feet MSL then turned toward Galloway, or so I thought.

Rather than making a b-line for Galloway, I kept left, along the ridge, riding sinky air all the way out to Tavern.  I realized that I was off course and turned right to cross the valley, but by the time I got to the mile-wide band of trees between myself and my target I'd gotten too low to safely make it across.  Rather than take chances with the trees I turned back and headed for some nice fields that I'd seen on my way across the valley.

As I got closer to the fields I realized that they had horses in them.  Horses themselves aren't bad, but landing near horses can be.  Horses are scared of hang gliders and, when spooked, can hurt themselves by running into fences or injuring their legs.  Nobody wants to be responsible for something like that, so I scanned my backup field.  More horses.  Not a problem!  The Sequatchie Valley is rotten with great landing fields.

Safe and happy!

I spotted another likely candidate that was clear of fences and animals and well within reach, so I headed that way.   It was long, narrow, into the wind, with a road and power lines running up the northwest side.  Perfect!  I arrived above the field with four or five hundred feet to spare, circled a couple of times to verify wind direction, and then set up for a base turn above the big, expensive looking house at the end of the field.  I swooped low over the house and came into ground effect to discover that I was going down hill!  Landing down hill can be difficult because the ground is falling away from you as your glider is falling toward the Earth.  This makes it difficult to slow the glider down enough to land it safely.  

The downhill slope ended about halfway through the field and turned into a slight uphill, falling away to the right significantly.  I was able to keep my wing level and turn/yaw slightly into the hill as I flared to keep my left wingtip from dragging for a nice landing.  The homeowner came out to say hi and offer me the use of their phone and Laurie Pignatelli, my recovery driver showed up almost immediately with a smile and a beer in her hand.

Up, up and away!

What a great introduction to cross country!

I ended up about 1.6 miles short of my goal, but I scored 135 (I think) points anyway, and it was an amazing experience.