Landing Out

After my first attempt at Mohawk Trail I wanted to go back and have a much longer flight there. The ridge to the south goes for several miles, and if you can get on top of it, you can fly for hours.

Anyway, Dana Harris posted that he was going to stop by and check Trail on Friday, 07/25/14. I checked forecast and it looked promising - ~12MPH West. Better than last time anyway - a good enough reason to take a day off.

I got to launch site around 1PM. Vitaly Pogrebnoy showed up shortly after. Dana was already there, but didn't want to set up yet. Wind was too light for him. Well, my goals were different for the day - since I already spent time getting there, I'd take a sledder, a practice run, if you will. I set up my glider. Waited a bit to see if conditions would improve. I could see thermals raise up the slope regularly, but they didn't look particularly strong. I decided to give it a try anyway.

Dana helped me with the launch. Wind wasn't strong enough to worry about full wire crew.

Dana assisting me on launch

My launch was uneventful. I picked up what I thought was a good cycle, but it was just too weak. I wasn't going up. I tried to position myself over route 2 below in hopes that I can get thermal lift from it.

First pass. Maintaining.

After 2 passes, I started sliding away from the ridge and thinking about landing preparation... and then I hit a couple of bumps and started working it. Soon after I was at 400' above launch. Lift was there but pretty weak and broken - no time to relax.

Above launch

Vitaly launched when he saw me climbing. I was above him for a few minutes, then I started losing altitude and couldn't get into a consistent lift.

Vitaly joined the fun

I saw Vitaly working his way up, crossing gap to the south and floating away. I tried to do the same, but made a mistake leaving too low. Well, actually, I made a mistake earlier, I didn't try to cross the gap and transition to south ridge while I had altitude to attempt that.

Even though I left low, I had a backup plan. I saw a pretty large field ahead and by my estimated I should have been able to get there with some altitude to spare.

Mistake - leaving too low

By the time I realized that I wasn't going to get up and had to land - my backup plan became the only plan. Now, I just needed to decide which part of the field to use for landing.

I initially hoped to land west (that narrow strip straight ahead in the photo below), as that was most likely wind direction in the valley, but I couldn't tell what the actual wind direction was.

The only LZ option, but which one? Straight ahead, or the closest one?

When I got closer to the field I planned to use, I discovered two problems. First, there was some, what looked like, farm equipment, and second - I had too much altitude for the final glide.

I started to do an S-turn to lose altitude and realized that I forgot to unzip. While I got busy with the zipper, I made a 180 turn and lost too much altitude to go back.

Picking the one straight ahead, but there are some obstacles

At that point I had only one option - to land parallel to the ridge. The ground below looked fine for landing. I picked up speed, got into the ground effect, and flared.

Change of plan. On final, parallel to the ridge.

Instead of raising up in response to my flare, the glider dropped on the ground and put me on my belly. Thank dog for those wheels on the basebar - glider and I were safe on the ground, looking up through patches of grass (photo below).

Belly landing downwind. Gentle enough.

When I got up, I realized I had a slight tailwind when I landed. Not too bad, all things considered. The whole experience was exhilarating and I made a few mistakes... but my first landing out experience went smooth enough. Yay!

...

I texted Dana to let him know I was ok. He offered to pick me up. He wasn't going to fly - there was no chance that day for him to go high and far.

I texted him my location and he brought my truck down. Thank you, Dana!

Soon after I got a text from Vitaly. He landed in one of the main LZs. Apparently, soon after he floated away, following ridge to the south, he lost lift as well and had to land.

I drove Dana back to launch and then picked up Vitaly. All worked out well but, yet again, I wished I had a longer flight. Maybe next time...

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Flights: 1 ; Duration: 0:15

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Expanding The Playground

Westerly winds are prevalent in New England, so most of the foot-launching sites we fly face west. One of the rare east facing sites is Mount Greylock in North Adams, MA. It also happened to be the tallest point in Massachusetts. To fly hang gliders there, one must have at least H3 rating and, with H3, one can only fly under "direct supervision of a qualified USHGA Observer, Examiner, or Advanced Instructor".

So when forecast was calling for an easterly day, and I saw that Tom Lanning was going (he is an observer), I immediately contacted him and asked for help. He was happy to help but didn't really know if he could be an observer due to recent rules change that might not have been reflected on the site. It was Saturday night and I didn't have any clue if I could get anyone else to help me, so I almost abandoned the idea. However, Tom told me to come anyway. He was sure we would figure it out. I was so glad he convinced me to go.

I got up early. I was a bit anxious and didn't sleep well. It was a good thing I got up early though, as I got a text from Tom at 6:30am asking if I wanted to share a ride. I was all for it.

Tom, Peter Judge, and I met at Tom's house around 7:45am. I volunteered to drive. It takes around 2 hours to get to Adams, MA. When we got there, Tom asked me if I wanted to see the bailout LZ. I didn't think it was necessary. I already walked the rest of possible LZs when I flew Mohawk Trail, and I checked a satellite image of the bailout LZ. It was huge. I wouldn't have any problems with it. Plus, if we detoured to look at it, we would be delayed way past afternoon, and I would be more stressed about launching ASAP. There would probably be more traffic in the air, too. So we went directly to the top.

Greylock has a nice road going all the way to the top. Parking at the top costs only $2 for Massachusetts residents. The setup area is wide and grassy, and it is only a very short walk from the parking lot. Overall, it was the best launch site I've seen so far.

After I setup my glider, Tom asked me how comfortable I was with air traffic. I was ok with it, but still preferred to keep it at the minimum, if possible. Especially, as Tom explained, Greylock had a very small ridge, and if you didn't go up right away traffic could get really bad. No reason to delay then - I put my gear on, and carried glider to the launch.

The launch at Greylock is a flat slope kind - a very good run is required in light winds. It is not a big problem for a Falcon though, and I've never had any issues launching from 150' hill at Morningside (similar slope). I waited for a good, straight-in cycle, and ran off.

The launch was pretty easy. I floated away and turned north, positioning myself over the road below, hoping to get some lift. The good thing was - I didn't lose altitude, but I didn't gain it either. I made a few passes in front of launch, and after working hard on staying afloat for about 10 minutes, I slowly started to climb. At some point, I climbed ~300' over the launch, looking down on all the gliders and the monument below me.

Above the launch

The view toward valley was awesome too! It was still overcast and not much hope for thermal lift. I had to keep working with what I've got for a while.

Overlooking the valley (above launch)

In another 10 minutes having the ridge almost to myself, I noticed another glider sitting at launch. The problem was, the best lift was right in front of launch. That's when I made a mistake that put me on the ground. I moved over trying to stay to the side of launch, and give other glider some room. The glider never launched, but I lost altitude and couldn't get it back. Later, I was told that I should have stayed where the best lift was, as if I wasn't climbing, other pilots wouldn't want to launch either. Lesson learned.

Mistake - getting out of the way

I tried to get some lift off rocks below launch, but I found nothing. Very soon I was looking up on this majestic mountain. I made a few circles over the bailout LZ, and caught a few thermal bumps, enough to extend my descent for a minute or two. But landing was coming up fast.

Way too low

Streamer in the LZ was showing slight south-east breeze, so I would have to do base leg over wires going along the road. I didn't want to go too low over the wires, so I just executed Falcon-dive and landed right in the middle of the field. Falcon is really easy to bring down on a short notice.

Landing

My landing was pretty good. And I was really excited to have half an hour flight. My first flight from a much higher mountain than I ever launched before. It was awesome. I liked every minute of it, and could not wait to go back. The best flying site all around.

The rest of the day I spent retrieving my truck and waiting for Tom and Peter to return from the sky. Tom surprised me by landing just an hour later (he wrote about it here - "Traffic"). And Peter landed in the main LZ a few hours later.

When everyone has landed, a bunch of pilots went to Freight Yard Restaurant in North Adams. We shared the war stories over food and drinks. Nice conclusion to a great day of flying.

Photo courtesy of JJ Cote

Till next easterly day!

Flights: 1; Duration: 0:30

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JJ wrote about this day here -> Quite a fine sledder