Decisions

Like poor kids on their first trip to the candy store with money, we couldn't decide where to fly on our first day without rain in weeks. Lee, Rodger, and I loaded onto Rodger's car at my place and at least decided to head north instead of west or south. The wind would be westerly at the 4 remaining launches; cross wind at 3 of them. I had a mild preference for West Rutland and the chance for a long flight to the east but Lee and Rodger didn't like the drive so that was out. That still left Ascutney, towing with Mount Rhett (at Morningside), and the small 450 foot hill at Morningside. Lee wanted to do some XC from Ascutney and Rodger just wanted the best place to launch and soar. I excused myself from the discussion since any choice was OK with me. No one wanted to "decide" so we keep taking roads that wouldn't rule out any choice. Sheeze. We finally found ourselves at Morningside where it was blowing nicely from the northwest. Even though Jeff N urged us to stay, Rodger "threw in" with Lee and off we went to Ascutney.

We met up with Dennis, Greg, Jeff, Sue, and Sawyer at the parking lot on top before hiking in. Apparently Jake arrived much earlier and was already at launch. Well, actually we was probably already in the air because I passed Judy hiking out as I was dragging my gear in. Its reassuring to arrive at launch with someone already soaring; time to rig!

Greg didn't want Sue and Sawyer spending the day picking up pilots around New England, so his offer of a ride back was tempered with the condition I land with him or along the way there or back. It was a nice offer and so I decided to stick with Greg for the day.

I let Jeff launch first to avoid moving gliders and then walked to launch. Sue and Lee did wire duty as I struggled to keep the glider level on the rock. Thanks! Thermals were rolling in unevenly. The right wing was buffeted by thermal gusts rushing up the ravine to the right, while the left wing was affected by thermal gusts rolling over the western spine. I finally decided to launch into a lull instead a thermal. Ah, much easier.

I slowly climbed in weak crossing ridge lift until I found a good climb up over the back. Greg and Jeff headed back out front so I fought the urge to run and also returned. We kept gliding out front and connected with another good climb that I took to cloud base. I was ready to go, but Jeff and Greg headed back. Uh? I found out later that Jeff was waiting to leave with Jake, Greg was waiting on Jeff, and I of course I was waiting on Greg! The only problem was the sky was drying up and no one was finding a climb. I slipped into cautious mode and held on to any lift I could find.

Someone came on the radio and announced that Lee had just blown launch. Crap! A quick check showed Lee was above the main cliff but below and to the left of launch. A few tense moments passed before Sue got on the radio and announced she was talking with Lee, he was basically OK but thought he might have a broken arm, and was stuck in his glider unable to reach the ground. Damn. I immediately started sizing up my options. Rodger had a ranger drive his car down to the entrance of the park on the back side of the mountain. I thought the rotor was too strong to land on the lee side, but I could land to the south and run or hitch a ride to the base. However, it would be a least 45 minutes before I could get to Lee. As I was making my plans, Jake announced he was going to land out front and encouraged pilots to join him. Moments later Sue got back on the radio and said that Lee was out of the glider and walking to launch. A very good sign. Jake said he would call the park rangers and the local emergency crew to let them know the "glider in the trees" was being handled and that they shouldn't respond. As the pilots in the air discussed what to do next, Sue came back on the radio and said that Lee wasn't sure if his arm was broken but she would drive him to the hospital to have it checked out. Lee came on the radio and said he was fine and encouraged everyone to go fly. Jake instead encouraged pilots to land and help remove the glider as soon as possible to avoid bad publicity and false alarms being called into the local emergency departments. I was torn between landing to help out and heading off downwind into the best looking sky I've seen so far this year. The days are very long this time of the year and assumed the pilots (maybe me) that landed short could easily get the glider before sunset. I also knew we would probably need the tree extraction kit from Morningside since our kit at launch had been stolen or tossed over the cliff. Long story made short, I followed Jeff, Greg, and Rodger as they left the mountain. Probably not one of my better decisions and it bothered me for the rest of the day.

I followed Greg and Jeff to the north of Green Mountain as I watched Rodger cruise the ridge much lower than us. I watched Rodger fly over the Newport airport before getting a climb and heading towards Lake Sunapee. He eventually had to fly back upwind to land after not climbing high enough to cross the lake. Bummer. Meanwhile Greg, Jeff, and I found a good climb to the north and decided to head crosswind to the south to a sweet flat-bottomed cloud west of Mount Sunapee. I beamed to cloud base as Greg and Jeff searched below in vain. Jeff headed towards Bradford along the lee side of a ridge line and was properly punished while Greg and I had a kinder glide to west. I was much higher and in front of Greg so I proceeded south to explore some clouds over Bradford while I waited for him to climb up as Jeff announced he just landed to the northwest. My curiosity got the better of me as I got down to 1200 feet before finding a very slow climb out.

While I was climbing out I heard Lee decided to drive himself to the airport and Sue was now driving retrieve. However she couldn't find Rodger! Rodger had broke down and hitched back to the mountain to fetch Lee's glider. Him, Dennis, and John were at the mountain before 4pm, easily early enough to fetch Lee's glider. However Jake and a few guys from Morningside were coming down the mountain with Lee's glider when they arrived. Jake estimated the retrieval took about an hour.

Once I clawed my way back up I shifted into race mode to catch up with Greg who was a couple climbs ahead of me. I caught up with him near Concord but had much more altitude so I slowed down and slipped back into sightseeing mode. We jumped to the LZ oasis in the sea of trees known as the Deerfield fairgrounds.



Greg was much lower than I was so I took some pictures and played around at base. I watched a line of flat bottom clouds form and dissipate as Greg valiantly searched for a climb under a mass of clouds that was smothering thermal development. I could see the coast line and knew I could reach it if I left right then but we were going to do this together so I waited.

As the line of sweet clouds faded I realized that it just wasn't a few clouds that were dying, the entire day was winding down.

I finally told Greg I was going to move on and would land near the highway. I was shocked when Greg started to go on glide. He said it probably wasn't his smartest flying decision but he was "moving on". Yikes. I had a bird's eye-view of his long low glide over trees and lakes. At least he had a swamp as a bail-out. I felt much much better and started planning a route cross-wind when he finally reached a small field. However, he didn't stop! He continued his knuckle-dragging glide across another leafy expanse. Forget that glide to a good cloud, I've got to see how this turns out! He must have used his anti-gravity belt because he somehow made it to a nice large field and had a good landing. Whew.

I was now low and out of reach of the clouds I needed to make a long cross-wind glide to get to the nice part of the coast. I found a weak drifting climb off a shopping center that allowed me to float downwind where I was trapped with no more LZs. I came back upwind to a hay field in Stratham NH where I landed a couple years ago behind a strip mall, bled off my remaining altitude, had a long bumpy final, flared above the grass, settled down, and nearly lost the horizon in the chest high grass. It was a long struggle walking my glider cross wind through the entangling grass and squishy ground to the poison-ivy covered embankment along "Frying Pane Lane".

Jeff, who left his truck close to where he landed, picked up Greg and I and shuttled us part-way back to Rodger, Lee, Sue, and Sawyer. We talked about the day's events; good and bad. Lee was walking around, and aside from a swollen arm seemed fine. His glider was already at Morningside ready for repairs to the flying wires, a batten or two, and maybe a leading edge. The hero of the day by far was Sue, who handled a stressful situation with calm and grace. Even Sawyer played a part providing radio relay. Eventually we swapped gliders and headed our separate ways.

This was the longest flight I've had since I busted by arm. I flew 4:40, much longer than the 2 hour flights I had in Maryland at the East Coast Championship The straight distance flown was 83.7 miles.