Quick Trip

Amy and I drove north to Mount Ascutney after spending part of the Independence Day holiday weekend around home.  Pilots were gathering at the base of the mountain when we arrived.  Since Amy could drive a vehicle back down, we loaded our car and headed up.  The hike out didn't get any shorter over the winter, but I arrived first and got my choice of setup spots.

We rigged, talked, explored the old southwest launch, and Jake held a short "introduction to the mountain" class for pilots with little or no experience flying Ascutney.

It made sense to wait until the thermals were robust and well formed.  However there was a counter push to launch early since the winds were forecasted to become westerly and a west wind is not desirable for launching.

Time to launch?

Nick moved to launch first but backed down after Jake convinced him he might end up with a sledder.  About an hour later Nick moved back to launch.  Jon followed and both got up.  I was next in line.  Although soaring, both had dipped their wings to the west on their way off launch.  Since this was my first foot launch of the year, I wanted a breeze that was mostly blowing in, not the strong cross being offered.  After 10 minutes I backed down.  Mike went up and launched a few minutes later.  Jake and Jeff quickly launched after him.  I moved back to launch, found good conditions and ran off into a climb with a good clean launch.  I was glad I waited.

I had one short climb over the mountain and followed Jeff and Jake to the west under a line of clouds.  We gave up after finding nothing and returned to the mountain.

I found a reasonable climb and was joined by Dave and Jon for awhile.  They returned to the front as I continued to climb to a newly forming wispy.  I thought about re-joining the gang out front, but when I saw them all banging around ridge height, I decided to leave and search elsewhere.

They hazy sky didn't look good and guess what?  It wasn't!  I found bits and pieces of lift but nothing that would entice me to head off for a long XC.  I quickly decided to head to Morningside and show the gang my new glider that included a Morningside logo.

I had a mostly smooth glide over and a sweet spot landing on the runway.

Photo by Amy Lanning

About an hour later Jake came cruising in, followed by Ilya, Jeff B, Jon A, Peter C, and probably a couple more.  The hero of the day was Dave P who had his first XC from Ascutney to Morningside.  Congratulations!

Ilya, Dave P, and Dave B

I wish the flight was much longer, both in distance and time, but it was still nice foot launching and flying at a green mountain again.

Here is a short video of the flight,

Max wrote about his flight on his blog.  Here is another perspective on the day,

Flights: 1, Duration: 0:35, Distance: 9.6 miles

Summer Solstice

I was excited about Saturday all week.  Not just because the best part of the cross-country season was fading away and not just because I would be grounded for a week or two as I visited family and not just because everyone else was excited.  No, I was excited because the forecast looked great for a change.

I reviewed a course on Friday evening that Randy Brown planned to fly from Hang Glide New England in central Massachusetts to Chatham out on the cape.  Randy invited me to join him the next morning but I was already drafted into a crew going to Mount Ascutney in Vermont.  Oh, they also had a driver.

Jeff Curtis, Peter Judge, and Lee Minardi showed up bright and early at my place Saturday morning.  Lee decided to fly at Morningside instead of the mountain and decided to drive up on his own to avoid the long XC retrieve.  Two other pilots, John Beckley and JJ Cote wanted to carpool as well, but it was now too late to add them in.  Poor John had to drive north by himself, but since JJ was sort-of on the way, Lee left to pick him up while the rest drove north in my car.

We were near an exit for Hang Glide New England when Jon Szarek called.  He wanted to know if we were still going flying.  Uh?  Jon said the latest forecast predicted serious cloud cover, maybe enough to shut down thermal production.  We pulled over and re-evaluated our decision.  Jeff was full-in for Ascutney.  Peter and I weighed the options, including the fact we had Robin lined up to drive retrieve.  We finally decided that the strength of the sun on the longest day of the year should produce thermals, even if clouds shaded the ground.

We picked up Robin and JJ at Morningside.  JJ loaded on knowing that I promised John a ride to the top; meaning he might have to unload at the base of the mountain.  As feared, everyone else had driven up by the time we arrived, leaving one too many pilots for my car.  We discussed draping JJ over the hood of the car like a bagged deer but luckily Peter Cassidy showed up and offered John a ride to the top.

We caught up with Robin, who I hadn't seen in a long time, on the drive up.  The setup area was buzzing with pilots, hikers, and, it turned out, another old friend I hadn't seen in a long time; Ann Morin and her son Keith.

Keith and Ann Morin

JJ Cote

PK and Jeff Bernard

Jeff Curtis

John Arrison

John Beckley

My socializing was interrupted by another call from Jon.  He wanted to know if we saw any blue upwind to the northwest.  "Well, a tiny bit", I answered.  Jon said it was totally decked over at Morningside and there was virtually no wind on the surface.  "Luckily for us", I told him, "we might have enough wind to keep us up".

John Arrison launched first and climbed to the top of the mountain.  That was enough to get the lemmings moving.  With Ann and Robin's help the entire lot was soon in the air.  (Thank-you Ann and Robin for all the help!)

Jake Pierce (Photo by Keith Morin)

Jeff Bernard (Photo by Keith Morin)

Me (Photo by Keith Morin)

Peter Judge (Photo by Keith Morin)

JJ Cote (Photo by Keith Morin)

Ilya Rivkin (Photo by Keith Morin)

It was easy to stay up in the mellow air, but difficult to get high.  Even if we did get high, the nearly complete absence of sunshine on the ground downwind made XC seem pointless.

Launch

Me and JJ (Photo by Keith Morin)

The clouds slowly thinned, spots of sunshine broke through, and we started finding real climbs.  Soon it was going up almost everywhere and most of us played at cloudbase.

I crossed the river and tried to formulate my next move.  The forecast predicted moderate northwest winds but our drift indicated a "healthy" north wind.  I looked south and saw nothing but a smothering deck of mid-level clouds with no cumulus below them.  The track to the east looked doable, but flying that direction in a north wind would be difficult on a good day, let alone a marginal one.  Unsure what to do, I just started orbiting in anything that wasn't going down waiting for the universe to show me the way.

I hung on with John B, Jake Piece, and Ilya Rivkin north of Morningside.  As before, the clouds smothered their lifeblood and soon started to thin.  Jake and Ilya landed and I was low before another pulse of thermals kicked off weak climbs.  I drifted south of Morningside but slowly got back up as I approached Charlestown.  At that point, I gave up going XC for the day.  It was a premature decision, but I just wasn't "feeling it".  I felt like a fool when I flew upwind from Charlestown back to Morningside and climbed the entire way.  Sigh.

I flew around Morningside as the day continued to pulse, cycling from complete overdevelopment, to broken sunshine, to renewed thermals, and once again back to complete overdevelopment.

I was climbing in an especially good cycle with a couple visiting pilots that towed from Morningside when I heard Peter J was leaving the mountain low and Jeff, JJ, and Peter C were landing out front.  I flew upwind and met Peter near cloudbase over Morningside.  I played some more before gliding off my altitude and prepared to land.  Once again, John B and I were coming in to land at the same time. I wanted to avoid forcing one of us to land in the tall grass so I burned off my altitude and landed quickly.  Unfortunately, I didn't notice there was no wind on the surface and didn't flare as strong as I should have.  No problem, but I didn't get any style points.  ;-)

I regretted giving up on the day.  Although the climbs were weak and sparse during the down-cycles, the wind was strong enough that I could have drifted down the river for a nice early summer sightseeing trip.  No one went far, but I think the potential was there.  Still it was good to be in the air and a good way to start the summer.

Jeff, Peter C, Peter J, PK, John B, and I stopped for dinner at Ramunto's where we ran into Dennis Cavagnaro.  We talked flying until the food and drink was gone.

Here is a video from the flight,

By the way, Randy did go to Hang Glide New England and flew most of the course we talked about the previous evening.  Congratulations Randy!

Flights: 1, Duration: 2:35, Distance: 9.6 miles

Sneaking Around

Amy and I dragged our new Aliner hard-sided popup camper north for a weekend at Morningside Flight Park Friday evening.  We arrived in time to join Rob and most of the staff for dinner overlooking the falls at the Common Man restaurant.

Distance-starved XC pilots were making plans first thing Saturday morning for Mount Ascutney.  I had to find another crew to hang out with since I was still flying the Falcon while waiting for a couple T2C parts.  I agreed to help Ilya "formally introduce" Max to Mount Ascutney and potentially wait for an evening flight if the winds were too strong.  The vultures didn't wait long; even before I left the parking lot, Jeff and Peter "stole" Amy to drive retrieve for them.  ;-)

The first order of business was showing Max the LZs on the other side of the mountain.  Unfortunately, the trip was longer than normal since we had to venture up into the hills on dirt roads to bypass a closed bridge in Brownsville.  After showing Max the "main LZ", "Africa", and "Kansas" we returned to the base to find a large crew ready to drive up.  It was then we found out from the site director Jake, that for a variety of reasons, there would be no introductory flights that day.  Although disappointed, Max still volunteered to drive Ilya and I to the top even when it wasn't necessary.  Once we unloaded, Max drove back to Morningside to aero-tow while Ilya and I hiked into launch.

The usual crew were there, including Art, Doug, Ilya, JJ, Jake, Jeff B, Jeff C, John A, Peter J, PK, Stacy, Ross, Ryan, Todd, and possibly others I now forget.

The sky looked great; painted with white fluffy cummies.  However, at times a blue hole would open directly upwind.  Jeff C, the first to launch, took off into such a blue hole and valiantly fought his way to the LZ.  Jeff's performance kept everyone firmly planted on the ground until John and I noticed the blue hole filling with clouds.  We decided to go.  John was up front and I was near the back.  Somehow a line of 6 pilots magically appeared between John and I.  Sigh.  Pilots launched and stayed up.  The line was moving relatively quickly until it was time for the pilots directly in front me to launch.  The wind and thermals started blowing across launch, only offering rare tiny windows of safe conditions.  Meanwhile, the pilots already in the air were climbing out to cloudbase in strong climbs.  Double sigh.  The pilot in front of me, Todd, finally had enough and backed off launch.  Once I replaced him on the rock, I quickly found out what he was struggling with.  I spent time on launch myself before finding a usable 5-second window of opportunity to launch.

LZ (square field in center, wind is from the right upper-right)

Remember the blue holes?  While waiting in line, another blue hole had opened and I launched right into it.  Just like Jeff, I was losing my battle with gravity.  I even radioed Amy and Jeff I would see them soon in the LZ.  It was time to get to the LZ when I stumbled into a climb that was just strong enough to maintain a safe glide slope to the LZ.  I slowly climbed to launch height, postponed the pickup in the LZ, and started flying with Doug, the only pilot that didn't leave the mountain for parts unknown.

One thermal was coherent enough to lift me near 4300 feet (1300m) but still short of the customary 5000 feet (1520m) we use as a guide for safely flying over the rotor downwind of the mountain and reach good LZs.  I plowed my way back upwind and bounced around at ridge height as more pilots ran into the air.  There were enough small thermals for all of us to stay near launch height but nothing strong enough to reach escape altitude before being blown to far downwind.

The Falcon is an easy glider to handle and land, so I was tempted to leave low and take my chances with "Mr Rotor" and the small LZs on the backside of the mountain.  A climb curling off the southwest spine gave me enough altitude to give it a try.  Maybe I could "sneak around" the lee-side and if not, at least I was going to have an adventure!

I was surprised to see Ilya stay with the same climb, starting his first XC flight from Ascutney.  I was even more surprised to see Stacy leaving below us.  I peaked at 4000 feet msl (1220m) over a mountain that is 3200 feet (975m) high in a 14 mph (22.5 km/h) wind.  I quickly sank into a mild rotor and was making a direct line to a field when I found a lee-side thermal at 2500 feet (762m).  Ilya joined me in the climb as I watched Stacy make a good approach and landing in the field below us.

Ilya (left) and Stacy (lower center)

Ilya and I climbed and floated away from the mountain and topped out about half way to Morningside.

Ilya

While Ilya headed directly towards Morningside, I flew upwind to another small cloud and then due south towards a nice line of clouds that lead into the forest with little landing options.  Should I go for that line of clouds and hopefully float at cloud base over the forest?  If I missed the clouds I would be landing on the "wrong" side of the river for retrieve.  I debated quite awhile before turning due west to land at Morningside and celebrate Ilya's "rite of passage".

Should I run that street?

I watched Max break a weak link on tow as I glided through trashy air above him.  I landed short of Randy as he was getting ready to tow.  He eventually made his way under that tempting line of clouds and later told me the thermals creating that line were weak and broken.  Even with his better glide, he returned to the river valley instead of facing the forest.  It seems I made the right decision to land at Morningside.

Randy getting ready to go

Meanwhile Amy dropped Jeff at the base so he could fetch Peter J who landed about 20 miles (32 km) to the south.  Amy then drove back around to the LZ to pick up JJ, Ross, Doug, and others before returning to pick up Stacy and then driving to the top of the mountain.  A couple pilots hiked in to help the last pilot, ARt, launch.

A flight from Mount Ascutney to Morningside is traditionally the first XC flight for New England pilots.  This rite of passage is celebrated by a long-standing tradition of tossing the pilot into the pond.  Ilya was a good sport and a large crowd was on hand to celebrate his accomplishment.  Well done!

Ilya

Although the day looked great, no one went far.  Max's day continued offering challenges as he broke yet another weak link on his next flight.  Amy and I  ensured his day ended well by treating him to drinks and dinner at Ramunto's with Peter, Stacy, and Ross.  After dinner I returned to Morningside and Camp Rob for an evening of shenanigans around the campfire.

Here is video from that flight,

Ilya also posted an article about his flight.  Morningside posted a video of the ceremonial dunking on their Facebook page.  JJ also wrote about his day.

Flights: 1, Duration: 1:37, Distance: 9.6 miles