Giggling in a gaggle of gliding grinning goons

April 26-27

BAPA Dunlap fly-in and cross-country co-op

Back to Dunlap for this weekend's fly-in with a cross-country (xc) intro thrown in. Thanks to Susan Kent, this fly-in was to have a no-stress intro to xc flying by there being a simple task (a course marked in the sky via GPS waypoints). Mihir and I decided to go on saturday morning with the usual drill of getting up at 4am and leaving the house by 5:15am. Arrived at the school parking lot at 9:15am and met up with the 30 or so folks who were turning up. After arranging for rides up, paying the registration fees, we headed up to launch. Unfortunately, I had been unable to get signed off for a P3 but Wally had given Susan a "verbal" about my flying skills. Whatever he said must have been ok since noone bothered me about it or tried to put additional restrictions!

The launch has been improved tremendously after last weekends work party. After the hang-glider ramp launch is fixed, 3-4 wings can layout in parallel at a time. The launch is really nice now.

Dunlap launch (4600 MSL)

We had a pilots meeting at 11am, led by Tom Moock and Susan. The task was a "simple" one; launch, go to a point to the left of launch before the ridge sort of "turns" back, come back past launch to a point to the right of launch before a big gap begins (i.e, the gap that leads to Delailah's lookout I think), and then head across the valley to an old turkey farm, and then goal at the school LZ. Ann and Kurt pointed out another official LZ between the farm and the school.

The 2 LZs and turkey farm as seen from launch

Gliders

People started launching around 11:20; I launched around 11:45 or so. Most of the lift was to the right of launch so that's where I headed too. This was my first experience with flying in a "gaggle" of multiple pilots. I would find 3-4 four pilots in a thermal and join them, and we would all circle, but at different speeds, banks, radii, and rates of ascent. I was certainly spooked by some "close" calls with other wings since we all seemed pretty close to each other. Of-course there are rules to follow like turning in the same direction as others, and giving right of way to lower gliders. At one point, I even got waked by another glider as he sped past; I could hear the turbulence hit my wing and cause it to jump around a bit. Mihir came so close at one point that I thought he was fooling around too much; I had to bank off to the left to avoid him. Later he would ask me why I was so close to him and not giving him right of way! He said he could very clearly see the bottom of my harness! Susan would also tell me later that I was being a bit aggressive and barging into thermals, whereas from my point of view it seemed like the other way! Anyway, it was a lot of fun although quite a bit of work to stay in these thermals today.

Me getting geared up (courtesy Wayne Clingingsmith)

People who got high, including me, topped out at 6000 feet. I could see a watery haze there and had clouds formed, it seemed that's where they would have formed. There was a particular trigger in front of Sequoia highlands (where we were staying for the night) that generated a great 1000 FPM that I could reliably ride up to 6k which I did several times. Even though the thermal would take me over the top of the mountain towards the back, there were no penetration issues today since the prevailing winds were quite mild. It was pretty wild to see the shadows of several wings circling on the ground. In one of these strong ones, I had a partial collapse since the noise of the wing fluttering was rather loud. But since it's an Arcus, it was brief and did nothing to scare me. The view to north, behind the launch from 600 feet is spectacular. Kings canyon national park is over there, and I could see a panoramic view of a beautiful snow-covered mountain range. Too bad it couldn't be photographed.

Gliders above launch

Gliders above launch (courtesy Mihir Lala)

However, I could never muster up desire to leave these lift areas and try to do the waypoints. Since there are no bailout LZs anywhere near launch, and since the school is a 4.5-1 glide away, I didn't want to sink out and have a shorter flight. My mental bailout altitude was 500 below launch, but I managed to stay above launch most of the time.

This was a "right hand" day, and near the ridge, everyone was supposed to turn to the right in thermals. A few that I found first I would turn to the left, but the majority were right-handed. This took a toll after an hour of almost constantly turning: my right hand became numb, cramped, and went to sleep. Given that I couldn't find time to take any video (with my brand new 1080P Aiptek) or photos since the flying required full concentration, I began to think of gliding across the valley. Besides, there was more than 400 fpm sink everwhere if you were not going up. So this really required a lot of work to constantly stay up, which was confirmed by everyone later.

Sunset glass-off (courtesy Mihir Lala or me)

The glide across the valley was mostly sink, although I did hit a few mellow 50-100fpm thermals that gained me a few hundred feet. I first headed towards the official LZ since that's slightly closer, and then corrected towards the school once I had a lot of altitude. I was probably at the school with 500-600 above so started my S-turns, fully thinking that if I hit a boomer, I would ride it back to the top, cramped arm or not. But no boomers, only weak little ones that would peter out quickly. I landed bang in the middle of the field very well. One hour and twenty minutes! Yeehaa, probably my longest thermal flight!

Mihir landed about 10 minutes later, as did most people.

(Courtesy Mihir Lala or me)

Went back up with Scott H. and then hung around in the A-frame cabin that Frank had rented and wanted to share with as many as possible. Went to the rec room and hung out there a bit, exchanging stories. At 5pm, walked back to launch to see if a glass-off was in the making. Initially it seemed unlikely, and the launch conditions were also a bit strong. However, slowly, almost everyone launched again, and a few who went back to the house thermals to the right found themselves in a semi-glass-off later. Both Mihir and I were tired, I had a headache, and the arm was still cramped and felt a bit lazy, although after seeing the glass off we really wished we had also flown. Perhaps it would have been a perfect time to take pictures since one could stay up without much effort. Oh well, another time! We sat around and took pictures, and I shot a few with Mihir's camera as well (hence the double credit for those!)

Gliders and hills (courtesy Mihir Lala or me)

A-frame cabin, Sequoia Highlands, right next to launch!

Went back to the cabin, took a shower, made the rice for dinner and went over to the rec room for the BAPA-sponsored dinner. Main entree was the vegetarian chili for me, along with appetizers like the hummus dip and salsa. Found that Paul had draped his glider over a tree in the evening, although he landed on the ground; this caused Kim and Andy to be late for the dinner since they helped Paul get it down, and more importantly, deprived us of the onions and cheese for the chili.

BAPA dinner (courtesy Wayne Clingingsmith)

Breakfast table

After a great "pilot's breakfast" in the morning (French toast, potatoes, pastries, OJ, coffee), and a bagged lunch, we headed off to launch, dropped off the gliders and drove the car down to the LZ. Just barely managed to find a ride back up (8 of us in Craig's SUV), and were up at launch by 10:30. Same drill as yesterday. I launched around 11:20 after a few misfires, but couldn't sit in my harness properly for what seemed like an eternity. When I was finally seated, found that my chest harness was pushed up and the radio antenna was in my face. Couldn't do anything about it since I was already 400 below launch. Scratched around a bit and finally hooked a strong one (but only 500-600 FPM) that took me back to launch, and then found another one that topped out at about 5300. Couldn't get higher than that today.

Got tired of doing the same thing as yesterday, and decided to try making that first waypoint. I think I did, but without a GPS, I can't really tell. On my way back, went over to a sunlit side of a spine and found a thermal there to take me back to about 5k. At this point I should have committed and come back to launch, worked the same spine as earlier, and made the second waypoint. But my arms were cramping up again, and that antenna in my face was getting on my nerves. So decided to gun it across the valley again, had a few saves over the LZ, but nothing spectacular.

On the way across tried some video but very frenzied and hectic since the sink alarm on the vario would keep going off. Came with plenty of altitude but got spooked on the final descent over the buildings and decided to just land in the school soccer field behind the baseball field this time. 35 minute flight, would have been nicer if the chest harness had been strapped in correctly. Mihir landed later, and he had an hour+ flight again. Mihir outflew me both days this time, but I'll get him next time!

Soccer field where I landed.

My cheese sandwich had almost turned into a grilled cheese sandwich since the cheese had melted in the hot car. Found that Paul, Ann and others were all landing in the hang-gliding LZ quite merrily, since they, being USHPA officers, have some privelege? The sods like us have to land in this far nastier LZ! Oh well, good practice.

After checking in with Susan, we headed back to the bay area and were home by 6pm.

Glider through tree (courtesy Mihir Lala or me)