So, about that whole experience the second time around.... It actually was plenty of fun despite all the rain we got, and all the light/challenging days. I also was worrying how I would handle the whole thing going there alone (long drive and all that), but it wasn't that bad. The trip back was harder because I left in the evening, but having living quarters in the back of my truck helped. I pulled over to a rest area and got a few hours of sleep...
As to the cross-country flying/learning... it was tough. I didn't get to complete a task, but I definitely felt more confident in decision making process. Not that I made perfect decisions, or executed them well, but repetition helps. Overall, the whole week was an exercise in how to survive on a light scratchy day. And, as Randy Brown told me - that is cross-country flying - surviving in the light conditions. People who have that skill - fly far and they fly when everyone else is on the ground. I have seen people do that. I watched them skying out while I was sitting in the LZ. Epic conditions are not guaranteed.
Of course, comparing to the last year, this time we got a nice day of ridge soaring. I really enjoyed it. As I get more confident with the glider and flying in general - more and more, I like flying with other pilots, sharing the experience.
It is too early to say what is going to happen next year, but at this moment, I want to get back to TTT. It is a fun place to fly and learn. It's great to meet new people and see people I've met before.
... A fun fact -- we named our team 'Thermal Thugs'... later when we were talking, we found out that we could have a much better name - everyone on the team was 47 years old. Nice coincidence, huh? Despite our team's flying results - we had fun together.
I hope to be back next year. Oh, and I want to hit ECC next year as well. Do I have enough vacation days for all that?
Once more mother nature decided differently from the forecast. Morning met us with more cirrus clouds.
That meant - not enough heat for a strong thermal day. Sigh. It looked like I, yet again, wouldn't get much as far as cross country training was concerned. Another day of learning how to "survive" on a marginal day.
A task for the day was set just to fly over a couple of markers in front of launch and then spotland in the main lz. Second marker required some thermaling.
I launched at 2pm. Initially, I wanted to go close to the ridge on the right, where I saw birds earlier. By the time I got my turn to launch, nothing was to the right, no thermal markers. People were circling a couple of miles west, so I went in that general direction. I hit a few hot spots, tried to turn in them. Even gained a few feet. But it didn't really work. I moved on and arrived over LZ at 800 feet. Hit a small thermal and worked with it at full VG for 5 minutes. Gained 300 feet. And then the thermal was gone. I landed a couple of minutes later.
Total airtime - 12 minutes. The day was done, the competition was done. I am heading home tonight so I can have better rest before returning back to work. There will be a band playing tonight at Henson's, but I'd rather get home earlier.
I took a bunch of pictures. I will post them later. Gotta conclude this write up with some video too... maybe...
But thermal forecast for the day wasn't too optimistic. The day was going to be light, more suitable for paragliders. But one can hope...
Task for the day was set to fly to Galloway airstrip. For C-pilots (me) just fly there, for B return back to the main LZ, and for As to make that trip twice.
Galloway is about 5 miles away, should be easy enough. Launch window was set from 11am to 5pm.
Pilots meeting
After pilots meeting where Ollie pointed out possible bailout fields, and the way the day was going to progress (from his experience), our team decided to launch later in the day, when sun had a chance to work its magic. But we were still monitoring progress of paragliders and brave hang glider pilots that launched early.
A few paraglidets were able to get 1000' above, and a couple of hang gliders managed to join them. Everyone was struggling, climbing very slowly.
Struggling paragliders
Many pilots landed in the main LZ. I didn't have enough confidence to work these conditions, so I was definitely waiting for something better.
At some point all launches got delayed due to a couple of paragliders colliding above the forest 300 yards back of the ridge line. They were maybe 200 or 300 feet above the trees and barely had enough time to throw their reserves. Amazingly, no one got injured, or got stuck in the trees. Both pilots flew again later in the day.
Around 1pm, Ollie decided that conditions were as good as they were going to get, and his whole team launched. Only Ollie was able to get out and fly away. He didn't complete A-task though, when he came back after the first pass, he landed.
Ollie in a weak climb with a paraglider
Our team kept waiting. Conditions didn't improve. High cirrostratus clouds were not letting enough heat to get through, and all that moisture from earlier rains was hanging in the air. Oh, well.
Our strategy changed to glide as far as we could and land out, potentially making some points. We should have checked the rules about minimum distance first...
I launched first and tried to hug ridge to the south, but quickly abandoned that idea. All lift I was getting wasn't possible to turn in. I glided out into the valley and was getting 100 ft/min down for a few minutes. I tried to turn a couple more times, but result was the same.
I got to a long mowed strip at aprox 400' AGL. Ollie told us before that this property owner was friendly to hang gliging, and owned an airplane (thus the mowed strip). It seemed like the safest option to land. I made two 360 turns to check if there was drift, made a final turn and saw my teammate, David, landing in the other direction, already low. I had enough altitude to make an adjustment, and then I accelerated toward the ground so I would not go too long. There was no wind on the ground, and I landed well.
In my new LZ
My new LZ
The property owner came out on his ATV to greet us. He was very friendly, and was really happy to help us.
Properly owner and my teammate David
His dog was also super friendly and was happy to be petted.
Overall, long day with a lot of waiting and not a lot of flying. My time in the air - 8 minutes 20 seconds. But we made a decision as a team and executed it as well as we could. I don't think we made any points - distance aprox 3 miles, minimum required for kingposted, double surface hang glider was 3.5 miles. Oh well... We had fun nevertheless.
Reviewing forecast in the morning showed that there was a possibility of ridge soaring in the afternoon. No sun; overcast, but wind velocity around 10mph and pretty much straight in at Henson's ramp.
Meanwhile, the morning looked pretty gloomy, with wind blowing from the south.
Grey day - route 111
Grey day - Sequatchie Valley
Cloudbase never got high, but by 3pm there was enough sun peeking out occasionally that we could see weak thermals rolling through. Wind was cycling between 45 degrees cross, and straight in. Velocity was nowhere close enough to soar, though.
A couple of hangliders launched, and we all watched them taking long glides into the valley without losing much altitude. Eventually, one of them lost the lift and landed, but the other one found a weak climb and went back to ridge height. Not long after that he had to land as well. Not very inspiring. I decided to wait until I saw something more substantial.
Around 4pm, paragliders started launching. They maintained at the ridge level for a while, and then started to climb toward grey looking cloud.
My initial thought was to wait until that grey cloud rolled passed us, but it looked like the cloud was generating enough lift, so maybe even a hang glider could stay up. Decisions, decisions. I was getting a bit anxious, worrying about my soaring performance, about decision i had to make, asking myself why the hell i needed all this stress.
That convinced me it was time to launch. Anxiety is not that unusual, especially at a new site, in unfamiliar environment. I can work through this.
I put my harness on, hooked in, got the hang check, and walked to the ramp.
The launch went without an issue. I turned south and immediately started to climb, not very fast, but I was going consistently up. After a couple of passes, I established comfortably above the ridge. This was a nice feeling, my anxiety was gone. It was replaced by joy of flying. Amazing how it works...
In the next thirty minutes the ridge was full of paragliders and hang gliders. I was 600' above the ridge and traffic wasn't an issue at that point.
North of the launch, I made it to 3100' MSL, and was touching the cloud. I tried to use that altitude to go down the ridge to the south and attempt to cross the gap. By the time I got there, I lost most of what I gained, and didn't risk the crossing. The day was working, but it was pretty light.
I spent more than an hour flying along the ridge, with occasional glides into the valley and back. When I was losing altitude, the traffic became dense, and I had to dodge gliders a few times. Soon, I got bored with all that and went out to land. It took me another 10 minutes to decent. The air was still going up.
My approach was good, but flare timing was off again. This time, I flared too early. I made sure I was flying at trim, light touch and all that, but when I started to flare, the glider came up quite a bit. Anyway, no whack, nothing is broken, so I guess it was a good landing.
Overall, awesome day. I got 1 hour 18 minutes in the air. After three days of no flying - it was great. I'll take it.
Didn't rain in the morning, but low cloudbase, overcast. Wind from south didn't help either. Later in the day, when cloudbase got higher, rain storms started to roll through.
I want to tell you that forecast was completely wrong, and I soared for the first time in Sequatchie Valley... alas it wasn't exactly the case.
Yes, forecast was wrong. It didn't rain at Whitwell, it wasn't 100% overcast, but soaring part... that didn't happen.
The morning started from reviewing the weather for the day, and forming the teams. The weather forecast improved dramatically, but we were still in high pressure atea and even with sun out, it was very hazy. No wind, and thermals would be most likely weak. But we were going to fly!
Since I was team-less this year, I was semi randomly assigned to a team. Fred Kaemerer, ATOS pilot from Colorado, was assigned as A-pilot for the team. Other pilots were David Johnson, flying Captain America color scheme WW Sport 2, and Rich Elder, a Fitz pilot. We didn't put much effort into naming our team and simply called it "Thermal Thugs".
With all that improved forecast, the task for the day was set :
C-pilots - Whitwell->Wagner field
B-pilots - Whitwell->Wagner->Galloway
A-pilots - Whitwell->Wagner->Galloway->Wagner->Galloway
So after that was done, we all drove to Whitwell launch. Fred drove his truck with all our gliders, and I drove mine as a backup vehicle that we left at the church LZ.
After a chilly morning, launch site was amazingly hot. I was getting hopeful that day might turn out very good. Paragliders were climbing
And the skies were looking pretty good too
So after pilots meeting, and Ollie giving us a few words of wisdom
we all started running off the cliff.
I launched behind Fred and tried to follow him. In retrospect, I should have gone into a different direction to cover more ground, but I did not. Fred was turning really close to the ridge, milking whatever lift was there. I tried to do the same but that felt very uncomfortable being that close to him and the ridge, so I flown away from the ridge toward castle LZ. I hit a few pockets of lift, but turning in them proved to be a losing proposition. I got more sink than lift on each circle.
In 7 minutes I was landing into the cow shit filled LZ. I was lucky enough to miss all the smelly spots. And my flying for the day was done. As well as for many other pilots. All pilots in my team landed in the castle lz with me. No points. Not that I care about points or anything.
Another day is tomorrow. It is going to be a tough week.
The drive to Tennessee was uneventful. I am glad I went early in the morning - much easier to drive without falling asleep. It took me 16.5 hours with 3 refueling stops and 30 minutes at a dinner.
New weather cover for my glider was handy, too. Drove through some very heavy downpour.
Rain
It was dark when I arrived. Valley below looked mysterious. And forest was very loud :-)
...
Forecast for the next week does not look promising. Rain and overcast. Overcast and rain.
It rained today in the morning. When the rain stopped, I could go to Whitwell, but with the skies like this - it would be a sledder.
Sequatchie Valley from Henson's Gap
I didn't go. Team Challenge starts tomorrow and there is a slight chance we could fly. We'll see... One day at a time.
Last year, I went to Tennessee Tree Toppers for their annual Team Challenge cross country competition/boot camp. I mentioned it here -> Critical Mass. The whole experience was interesting and fun, but as far as flying, and cross-country flying was concerned... it wasn't much. The conditions were so light th at I simply couldn't fly anywhere but down. That left some void, unresolved business. The TTT area is beautiful, and I really want to fly there, not just taste it a bit.
Anyway, I decided to go this year as well. The "problem" is - no one else from New England is going. Well, it would be more fun to have a good company on the way down, but it is what it is... I am going anyway. Tomorrow will be a long day - 1000 miles drive. I am packed and ready to roll early morning. Wish me luck. I hope the weather will cooperate... this time.
After 3 years of flying, landings are still something I am not 100% sure about. While I practice - I land ok. When I land after a long flight - it's still rather a stressful thing. By now, I know what I need to do, but on landings things happen very fast, and there is no slowing down, or going for another pass. Add that to a decision process - wind direction, LZ conditions, and altitude for final approach... yes, still pretty stressful. So when I saw email about Mitch Shipley hosting Surface Tow/Landing Clinic at Morningside, I was first to sign up. I heard a lot of good things about that clinic from many people. Plus, trying another method of getting off the ground should also be fun. 3 days of practice - perfect! And some aerotowing after morning session could be a bonus too.
Winch
Mitch designed and built his own static towing system. It is an electric one, and it works amazingly well. Here is a short video of how the whole operation looks:
I learned to fly from aerotow, so the process of learning to static tow went really quick. On my third tow, I had all the differences between aerotow and static tow under control. I relaxed, and experimented how high I could get from this setup. Of course, it all depended on how long the runway/line was, but I could tow high enough to make a couple of 360 turns, or a nice DBF approach for landing. I really liked that electric winch contraption. It would be interesting to see it working with a much longer runway. I could probably get a nice soaring flight then.
Landings
Mitch had another pilot (Kevin) helping him with the operation. He was on the other side of the runway, filming our landings, and driving us back to the starting line. (Thanks Kevin!)
Then, later in the afternoon, Mitch was reviewing with us all videos, and critiquing our landing technique. That way we all could see what needed to be changed/improved. The next day we worked on those things, and then reviewed our flights again. From practice perspective, this was super helpful.
I forgot to mention that clinic's goal was to work on a no-stepper kind of landings. Those are nice to have in case you are landing in a small field, or a field with uneven ground, where running it out might not be an option.
I often do run out my landings, so for me it was invaluable practice. I don't think I got the technique down by the end of the clinic, but I know what I need to work on. And as usual, the main thing is to be relaxed enough to feel what glider is doing... and "fly the flare". Here is one of my best landings... still needs some work:
Soaring
We were done with the video reviews around noon. That left the best part of the day open.
On Friday afternoon there was not much going on in the sky, but I wanted to fly anyway, and I hoped I might find something going up. That didn't happen. I logged 2 flights, 20 minutes each. My landings were not great - I was still consistently late to flare. On the first landing I also turned on final very low, aborted the turn and landed about 45 degrees to the runway, in the middle of unmowed field. I saved my late flare my punching it hard, that swung me under the glider in the last second, and all was well. That one would be hard to run out for sure. Phew!
Ilya Rivkin got almost an hour flight that day, showing what patience can do on a marginal day. It is interesting how we encourage each other to get better even if not intentionally. I saw Ilya soaring, and I went for a second flight. I wanted to find that magic, I wanted to get better at finding it, too. Maybe some other day...
...
A Saturday afternoon was slightly better. I got one 20 minutes sledder, and then the second flight was almost an hour. The sky looked pretty good, but thermals were small and not easy to center in. It was a challenging, tiring, but a fun exercise.
In the evening that day, David Park went for his first "pro-tow". I was so enthusiastic about pro-towing for the last 2 weeks, and that convinced Ilya and Dave to try pro-towing also. Ilya already was pro-towing in midday conditions a few times, and he loved it. We all were wondering why didn't we switch earlier.
Dave handled his first pro-tow like, well, a pro. You should have seen the "after glow" when he landed... I know the feeling - you worry if you can do something, but when you finally do it - it's actually "easy" because all your previous training kicks in. Anyway, nice conclusion to a nice day.
David P. First protow
...
Sunday forecast was marginal, with 80% cloud cover and a low cloudbase. But wind had plenty of East in it, and that little Morningside valley usually works well on the days like these... for aerotow that is.
In the afternoon the sky started to look pretty good despite the earlier forecast. A lot of cummies everywhere. but east wind was creating some problems for takeoffs and landings. At times, rotor created by the hill was strong enough...
By 2pm, winds calmed down a bit, and there were cycles of no wind at all. I saw Ilya getting ready for a tow, so I started to get my glider ready as well. Flying with others is always more fun than having the whole sky to yourself.
I got ready first, so I went for it. I had to wait a minute or two for winds to die down (it was tailing for a bit) and up we went. The tow got rather bumpy when we started to hit strong thermals at 1K' up. But all went well.
I pinned off around 3K AGL and found me a strong thermal right away. It took me all the way to the cloudbase at 5200' MSL. I was hoping for a day like that, and it finally was here! I looked West. Cummies were forming a street I could probably use it for a cross country flight. Might not get far, but...
Getting to the cloudbase
at the cloudbase
...
But... I wanted to wait for Ilya, as he should have been right behind me. I boated around the clouds for a few minutes and noticed no activity at the airstrip. Hm... I also noticed, that in my exploration of the clouds (and trying to avoid being sucked into them) I drifted a couple of miles downwind. Well, should I go alone? I didn't feel like it, so I decided to get back over airstip to see if anyone else would launch. I figured, that I could find another thermal while flying upwind.
15 minutes later, I found myself not far from Morningside, but at 900' AGL. Sigh... I was almost in landing mode now. I had a 40 minutes flight by that point, not too bad.
Getting low...
And then... I felt a few bumps. Turn, turn, turn!.... The thermal was small, but it had some bite. I worked patiently with it, gained 1000 feet, and the thermal was gone. At least now I had a better fighting chance. I was at 2000' AGL. I went back to where I found that thermal before, and it was there again! Now I entered it a bit higher than before, and thermal was stronger too. Instant vario reading was showing 1000 ft/min in some parts of it. This time I didn't lose it. It took me all the way back to the cloudbase.
Of course, now I was downwind again, but close to my LZ, and much, much higher. And yet, all the people on the ground, undoubtedly observing my good fortune, didn't move into a starting position. What was going on there? I wish we had radio this time.
Since their reasons were unknown to me, I decided just to play with the clouds, and not go anywhere this time. I took a 3 miles glide west to cummies on the other side of the Morningside hill. This way I positioned myself upwind, drifting toward my LZ.
I got to my target around 2400 MSL, found a weak, small thermal, and started playing with it, just like I did before. And it paid off again. As I was getting higher, the thermal was becoming stronger and wider... all the way to the cloudbase... again. I was right above the airstrip and yet, again, no one was launching.
This was getting boring, so I started doing wingovers, and gliding in different directions, losing altitude. When I got to 2500 MSL, I finally saw Ilya ready to launch. I spent hour and a half waiting for this, so I scrambled to find myself a thermal. I needed to recharge.
I found me a thermal, and then I was observing Ilya for a few minutes. He was shopping around for good lift, but it didn't look like he could find it right away. He even got under me at some point, but too low, he didn't get the same thing I was having. Meanwhile I was at the cloudbase again. And that is when my good plan to wait for Ilya and fly together fell apart.
While I got distracted by avoiding clouds and thinking where to position myself, I got back to 2500' MSL and only then noticed that Ilya was at the cloudbase, but on the other side of the valley. No problem, I thought. I'll get there in no time. Gliding downwind, after all, should be faster. I went to recharge... and all I could get to was 3700' MSL. There was no way I could glide where Ilya was circling from that altitude. I fought that battle for another 35 minutes, but all thermals I could find were topping out at 3700' MSL. And that was it. A little distraction, and all plans fell apart.
But I couldn't complain really. I landed after 2 hours and 33 minutes in the air. I was hungry, tired, and happy. This was my longest thermal flight so far, beating my previous personal best by 10 minutes. Thanks to David Baxter for explaining his thermal hacking method. I had plenty of opportunity to try it out on this flight, and make it work. I also had a somewhat low save. It felt great. It felt very satisfying.
