I had my first mountain launch/flight earlier in the month. Kari Castle took us there but the flight was a sledder, and I still had no real ridge soaring flights. I wanted some guidance before I could fly there on my own. Needless to say, I was really excited when there was a chatter on a local email list about going to West Rutland. I emailed Tom Lanning asking him to be my observer. He agreed.
Tom lives 15 minutes from my place. We met at his house around 8am. Jeff Curtis and Krassi Kaltchev also joined so we all could share a ride. I volunteered to drive.
After all gliders were securely tied to a rack on my truck we set on a three hours drive to Vermont. Over those three hours I got tons of information on ridge soaring and on specifics of that site. Long drive seemed much shorted in a good company.
The road up the mountain is rather rough, a 4x4 truck is definitely a good thing to have for this site. It took about 15-20 minutes to get from the gate to the top. West Rutland is a west facing ridge with the ramp facing south west. To soar there, one usually needs to wait until 2-3pm in the afternoon for the slope to warm up, and for colder air mass in the valley to start pushing air up the ridge.
Since I needed to be observed I had to launch before Tom. Around 3pm wind was coming in nicely straight in, maybe not as strong as other pilots wanted, but it was about to get perfect any moment. I needed to launch first to make it less stressful for myself, even if that meant to have another sledder.
Tom and Jeff helped me out to the launch, and shortly after I was running down the ramp. I didn't get immediately up as I probably turned a bit late (tree landing was still fresh in my mind). I was barely maintaining altitude, but after turning back toward the launch, I felt a flow of air instantly bringing me up another 50 feet, 100 feet, 150. I was going up! That was a great feeling right there! Exhilarating even! As soon as I climbed above launch, I saw a line forming, and gliders started to float away one after another. In 20 minutes, there were plenty of gliders in the air, and I started to feel a bit uneasy. It takes time to get used to other people flying with you. And it was definitely pushing me out of my comfort zone. That is a good thing... That's how we learn, and advance our skills.
After flying for another 15 minutes, I gained 1700 feet. And in another 10 minutes after that, I lost 2000 feet. It was almost like airflow switched instantly off. Everyone was scratching the ridge looking for something to push them up. I wasn't going to do that. Not with my experience, and not with the amount of gliders at my altitude. After I got below launch, I made another pass, and I was still losing altitude. I turned and headed for the main LZ.
Getting High!
Traffic
I arrived to LZ with plenty of altitude. I guess, I could have tried longer at the ridge, but better safe than sorry. My landing was going fine until I had to flare over tall(er) grass. I have never done that before, and even though I knew what I had to do, it didn't work right. Fortunately, I didn't bend anything this time.
In the main LZ
...
My longest flight to date - just under one hour, and I went from 1800' to 3500'. Super cool! :-)
Launch and landings clinic was on 4th of July weekend. 4 days of practice and professional instruction - perfect. When I signed up, I missed that this clinic also included mountains flying. It was a good thing as we would go to West Rutland and that would be the first time for me flying in real mountains, but in the light of my recent mishaps, all I wanted was to concentrate on landings. Also, since Kari flies hang gliders and paragliders (and mostly paragliders now), clinic was bi-wingal. I wasn't quite sure how well that would work out...
Day 1
The first day, after all introductions, the whole group of about 15 people gathered at 250' launch. Kari put a cameraman in the LZ to film our landings, while she was filming our launches.
We started around 10 AM in no wind conditions. A really good run was required to launch properly. My first run immediately revealed plenty of things to work on. I got very good feedback on how to make my launches more consistent, and keep angle of attack under control. I got only 3 launches before a lunch break - it was just too many people, and a lot of waiting. Kari immediately commented on how fast I was flying. "Relax and slow down, you might enjoy it more", she told me later. But I preferred not to, not yet, my tree landing was just a week earlier.
Here is a short video of my second launch off 250 where Kari comments "you are flying like a freaking fighter pilot". I didn't care. The way I figured, fly fast - more control, less things to worry about... for now at least.
Later in the day we started the same routine but from 450' launch. With the launches, the goal was to run all the way to the bottom of the ramp, controlling nose position. I was pretty confident on launches before the clinic, but I was told that I still pop the nose up. Part of the reason was I would always have a jackrabbit start, popping nose slightly in the process, and not running all the way to the bottom of the ramp. Gotta work on that.
Here is my launch off 450. Kari was commenting on my launch so I could review the recording later. Very helpful.
Day 1. Sunset
Day 2
For the second day of clinic, it was decided to go to West Rutland. Somehow, the group that was going there grew twice in size. Quite a few people that weren't in this clinic decided to join West Rutland trip. We got a late start trying to figure out all the logistics and by the time we got to West Rutland, walked LZs and setup - it was around 4PM. The horizon didn't look good at all and we were wondering if a wiser option would be to breakdown and do it some other day, but we stayed and played wait-and-see. An hour in our wait that was the view from launch
Day Two. Rutland is not very friendly today.
And then it started to rain... However, it looked like all this ugliness would blow by in an hour or so. We kept waiting. By 6:30pm sky cleared enough for everyone to start gearing up and getting ready to launch. It was an overcast, no wind and no ridge lift, but flying down seemed like a better deal than driving. Obviously, we had a few people who would take the vehicles down. Mostly non-pilots, but Kari, after watching everyone to launch, drove down, as well. I don't think she was too happy about it.
On my launch, I had a good run but probably kept angle of attack too low as the glider was getting ahead of me slightly. I tripped, recovered, the ramp ended and I floated away. Not the most graceful launch, I guess.
My flight was ok. I decided that in the conditions as they were, there was no reason for me to try anything but fly straight to LZ. I arrived there with at least 800' AGL to spare. I had to make a few circles to lose altitude. Then I didn't place myself correctly for a nice final and to correct that I had to do a rather low figure-8. It's a good thing that Falcon is such a forgiving glider, I had no problem to get wings level and land. Flared too late and landed on my belly with a thump. No landing style points for me.
When everyone was done packing, it started raining again.... Last cars finally arrived when it was already getting dark, we loaded hang gliders and paragliders up and drove back to Morningside.
....
Here is a video from my first mountain launch:
And a couple of photos from that day:
Day Two. West Rutland (photo by Vitaly Pogrebnoy)
Day Two. Leaving West Rutland.
Overall, a long day but yet again a day where I got to try new things and meet new people. Life is good.
Day 3
After all the excitement of mountain flying, we returned back to practicing launches and landings. Again, 250' in the morning and 450' in the evening. I was working on a new technique that Kari suggested, to keep hangstrap tight on launch to minimize nose popping up. I really liked this one, it gave me a better feedback from the glider on launch. It might not work as well with more advanced, heavier gliders, but it worked great on Falcon.
In the evening, Kari was soaring in her paraglider. I haven't even attempted to do that. I left this for another day. Launches and landings were more important to me this time. You see what a little tree landing can do to a man?
I had only 6 launches that day due to increased traffic of hang gliders and paragliders. Conditions were perfect and everyone wanted a piece of that.
Day 4
We followed format of the previous day, but this time Kari was in the LZ, filming our landings and recording her feedback. I only had time for 3 flights.
Here is a video with a couple of landings. The first one from day 1, it was pretty good with a good flare. The second, flare started to fall apart as I tried to concentrate on another element. My conscious brain cannot process 2 things at the same time :-)
Kari wrapped up the clinic with a video review session in the afternoon. We all had a chance to critique each other and see what we needed to work on. This was a very useful exercise as well.
Day 4. Review.
Conclusion
My overall impression of the clinic was very good. It was one of the most useful instruction/lessons I got since I started solo flying. I learned a lot and had fun. Kari was very helpful and approachable. She gave everyone personalized feedback and list of things to improve upon. And tips how to improve certain things. My goal for the clinic was mostly to improve my landings. I didn't think I was needed much for launches, but my launches probably benefited most. Mountain launch was also a great, comfort zone expanding, experience.
The only thing I wish was different, I wish it was a hang gliding only clinic. It would have kept things more focused, I think... Anyway, I highly recommend this clinic. Money well spent.
