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.
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.
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.
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| Dana assisting me on launch |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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).
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| 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...
Flights: 1 ; Duration: 0:15
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