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.
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| Getting High! |
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| 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.
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| In the main LZ |
My longest flight to date - just under one hour, and I went from 1800' to 3500'. Super cool! :-)
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