I was considering different options for a weekend - looking at Mohawk Trail, or maybe towing. Trail didn't look promising - too light and too cross from the north. North direction could be great for Burke Mountain in Vermont. Jon Atwood, president of MA hang gliding/paragliding club, posted that he was going to Burke, and I wanted to join him. A new site to fly!
Jon stopped by my house around 7am. We loaded my glider on Jon's truck and got on the road. No one else expressed interest going to Burke, so it was only two of us. A few paraglider pilots were going to join us there. Jon flies both wings - hang gliders and paragliders.
Drive to Burke is pretty easy (I-495 to I-93, and I-93 almost all the way there), but it is long - 3 hours. Carpooling definitely helps to save gas, and to make trip more fun.
When we got there, Burke site director, AJ, gave us an intro. We walked the LZ (you can see a video of LZ below). The LZ was going to be a challenge for sure. It was on a slope, with prevailing winds blowing uphill. Since landing downhill is never a good idea, the landing would have to be either crosswind or downwind/uphill. On a falcon, I could have tried to land crosswind, but there were a few obstacles - like a wooden walkway, and uneven ground. The best way would be not to land there at all. Get some altitude, and land elsewhere... if I could get enough altitude.
The launch is located between two ski lifts. It is a short, but a rather steep walk from the road. When we got to the launch, clouds above us were massive, indicating some serious thermal activity. Probably not something we wanted to launch in. Wind was pretty strong, too. So we decided to wait. I definitely wasn't going to risk it with rough conditions at unfamiliar site.
Around 3pm winds started to get manageable, but I still felt it was a bit strong for a Falcon. Another pilot (Art, I think) on a Sport 2, launched around 3:30pm. He went straight up. We could see him parking his glider above our heads. He could penetrate upwind, if he wanted to, but it felt a bit too much for me.
After 4pm winds started to get pretty light and I decided to launch. I didn't get any surprises on launch. All went really well. But I immediately discovered that I picked a wrong time to launch. I had a blue hole (no clouds) above me. No thermal lift, and ridge lift was pretty light. I managed to stay afloat for 15 minutes but very soon sank below the launch and had to head out to land. So that nasty LZ was my destination now.
I didn't want to deal with uneven ground and obstacles, so I decided to try downwind/uphill landing. All was going OK until I decided to flare.... apparently there was a somewhat flat spot on that slope and my flare happened right there. Glider got pushed forward, I went through the frame with enough force to completely break one of the downtubes. I would be in a better shape if I didn't flare at all. Dammit!
Jon landed his Falcon soon after me. He probably could have flown longer, but he wanted to fly his paraglider that day as well. Jon chose to land crosswind (you can see his landing in the video) and it worked great. No dropped gliders, no broken downtubes.
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To add insult to injury, all paragliders that launched 30 minutes after me, went all the way to the cloudbase - 6000 feet MSL. The blue hole I launched into disappeared, and a nice set of cummies came along providing everyone with a nice evening lift to the top. Oh well...
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Overall, not a bad day, though. I got a chance to fly a new site, got to experience a different kind of landing zone. It was all good. Thanks to Jon for taking me there!
Will I go to Burke again? Sure, if conditions are right, I might. But it would be rather low on my priority list. Somehow, I wasn't particularly fond of that site, and not only because I broke a downtube there. Long drive, challenging LZ (if you don't go up), awkward launch site, small ridge... I think, for me, there are better places to fly. If I lived not too far from Burke - it would be a pretty good site, though.
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| Poster at the ski lodge (created by Ilya Rivkin) |
Flights: 1; Duration: 0:17
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