TC-2015 - Day 6

Sun was finally out.

Sunny Friday

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.