T-Shirts (Ellenville)

I have several classic shirts that Roger Baker designed for the Southern New York Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association's (SNYHGPA) annual fun meet in Ellenville. Check out Fly High Hang Gliding for more pictures or You Tube for videos.

The front of the shirt has this little emblem.


Here is a picture of another Roger Baker masterpiece done with landscaping. (Picture from Fly High Hang Gliding).

T-Shirts (Highland Aerosports)

Continuing with the dragonfly theme, here is a shirt from Highland Aerosports that shows dragonflies towing a swarm of gliders.

T-Shirts (Quest Air)

Quest Air has some really fun designs. Here is a shirt from several years ago featuring gliders being towed by "dragonflies".

T-Shirts (Wallaby)

I have a large collection of shirts from Wallaby Ranch. I especially like the shirts that feature work done by Lori Sanchez. I'm not sure she did this one but it is one of my favorites.

T-Shirts (Morningside)

Some friends drove to Cape Cod this morning hoping to snag a dune soaring flight before a winter storm blew through. I heard they watched the wind whip the waves and sand and then drove 3 hours back home.

Meanwhile I took pictures of hang gliding t-shirts. Since almost all the shirts I own have hang gliders on them, I have a lot of pictures. I'll start with a recent logo on a shirt from my home site, Morningside Flight Park.

Wings

I think I have coped fairly well being grounded over 7 months but this last weekend was tough. We had a rare flyable weekend in the middle of winter and everyone, except me of course, was flying. It started when Amy and I visited Magic Wings in South Deerfield Massachusetts. Thousands of beautiful butterflies flittered around mocking me for being stuck to the ground like a slug. At least it was warm and humid like a summer day.

Afterwards we headed south to Mount Tom near Holyoke Massachusetts. We arrived in time to chat with Niece and Pat in the LZ while Barry, John, and Piotr slowly fought a strong smooth headwind away from the mountain after nice long flights. John kept us entertained with a deep stall and partial collapse on the way in. Meanwhile it seemed everyone else I knew was flying at Morningside Flight Park, Ellenville, or the Mohawk Trail. I was just getting over missing the January day of the decade when the coastal sites on Cape Cod gave up an endless day of dune soaring on Sunday.

I guess there's not much to do but grit my teeth, read everyone else's blogs, and wait for the arm to heal! (Meanwhile, here are some colorful wings.)

Back on Track

  I came across a sequence of photos of Pete launching at Morningside Flight Park in July where he lifted off the launch dolly unevenly.  It looked spooky for a moment but Pete and Rhett did their dance and got things quickly back under control.

(Reverse) Grapevine Grip

I just finished reading the article Dennis Pagen wrote in the January 2008 issue of "Hang Gliding & Paragliding" where he strongly recommends using the grapevine grip during foot launch and to continue using that grip until it is time to transition to the base bar.  I handle the glider on launch using the grapevine grip but have to admit I transition to the bottle grip as I run.  My hands just seem to naturally rotate around into the bottle grip as I fall lower and lower in the control frame as the glider lifts off.  I'm not sure I could maintain a grapevine grip throughout my run but I plan to give it a try when I get back into the air.

I've included photos of John launching at Ascutney in late June using the reverse grapevine grip.  He maintains the grip much longer than I do and it seems to work fine.

Catching Up

  Although I was grounded last summer and fall, I did bank some karma by driving (with one arm), mentoring, introducing pilots to local flying sites, and helping new pilots with their first mountain flights.  I took lots of photos and videos but never posted them.

 

 I'll start correcting that situation with a picture of Sauntra on his U2 taken at Mount Ascutney in September.