I flew Garlock on saturday; it was my first XC attempt. Also, probably the most fun I've had flying, even with the uh, 'landing'. What follows is a description of it and the unfortunate decisions I made for your general amusement and perhaps enlightenment
The Plan
My hope was that if there were going to be 2 gaggles of gliders trying
for XC I might be able to slot in with the slower ones with my moyes
sonic. I realized there was no way I would be able to stick around
with a VG-on t2c though.
The flight
After launching it took a while for me to get high enough to be comfortable going anywhere. By the time I got high up, the majority of other gliders were either way down the ridge or had already landed, although I did core up to 8400 with someone else over launch (not sure who this was!). In any case, my 'stay with the gaggle' plan wasn't exactly working.
Finally high enough (8400), I ventured across valley #1 (I really wanted to make an XC flight and stay away from the bailout which looked tiny
anyway!). I hit 600-1000 ft/min down sink in the valley but shot into
600ft/min up on the other side and climbed back above 6500ft on the
opposite side. The wind was a southeast direction so
all the thermals were drifting back the direction of the XC target.
They were also floating back over the ridge which is.......sometimes
less than excellent. I proceeded down this ridge to the next valley
and saw a couple gliders either already on the ground or about to be,
at the abandoned airstrip. I crossed the valley here as well and
nearly got flushed to join them but pushed to the ridge on the other
side and entered a powerful thermal back above 7k (had to fight with
the turbulence for a while though!). I had the abandoned airstrip in
my pocket but wanted to push further.
This is where I figured i had a choice to make: follow the road (and
land if necessary), follow the ridge to the radar dome and then go
somewhere (which I could not see a good lz for), or turn around and
land in the airstrip. I really wanted to push forward but the radar
dome looked treacherous so I followed moreso the road. By the time I
got to 35.449903,-117.675719 it was clear I probably wouldn't make it
to another thermal trigger across the valley (I was at ~6.5k but had
to deal with pockets of nasty sink). So I started looking for an LZ
across the 395. I spotted a "t" of dirt roads just adjacent to 395
that looked good in many respects. 35.457203,-117.65354 It had a
wide enough distance between bushes to handle a glider near the t (not
completely untrue but......we shall see), the northwest/southeast axis
of the road which paralleled the 395 would face the prevailing SE/SSE
wind direction (again, not untrue but not really true either, I would
find out), it looked long enough (not really true), it looked close to
the 395 (that was at least true) and it looked flat (totally untrue).
I committed and started doing 360s around the makeshift LZ. As I got
lower, and past the point of no return, I started to notice dangerous
signs. First, the air was getting bumpy, so it felt that i was on the
lee side of a hill or a ridge. I wasn't sure if this would continue
to the surface but i felt too low to make a change to my plan in any
case. There was a wider spot to the north but I didn't want to land
far from the road (in case something bad happened), and I think it
looked like there were obstacles there as well. In any case, i was
losing altitude quickly. This continued to the surface, although
interspersed with pockets of lift.
As I got closer (a few turns from final) I also noticed metal poles
(or poles that looked metallic, anyway) on either side of the 't' on
the main road I would be landing in. This cut the good part of my lz
to practically zero; I would have to extend my final such that I would
not come into ground effect until I had passed the poles (assuming I
land facing southeast). This also meant I would likely run out of
wide enough lz rather quickly. Furthermore, the air was not laminar
but was still a turbulent mess. So, in my mind i am imagining things
like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1UIWrkswvA
and also like this
http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lso6d ... o1_250.gif
In any case, I come down final fast. Really fast. REALLLLLLLYYY
fast. I'd rather not fight through turbulence slow. And I enter
ground effect and level out past the poles. Not too shabby, but damn
I am going fast. I finally realize I might be in rotor, or rather,
the downwind section of a rotor (ie, sink + downwind). In any case, I
initialized my handy if-then landing conditional:
1) If my wings are level and my feet are below me, then land on my feet.
2) If either of the conditions above are not met, become deeply
religious, tuck hands and arms in close, and enjoy the ride.
I stuck with option 1 until my left wing became closer to the ground
and then started mating with some shrubs (tall ones...) on the left
side of the road. As the left wheel on my control bar got closer to
the ground i switched from option 1 to option 2, although i do not
recall becoming an evangelical. The glider yawed left 90 degrees very
quickly(left wheel hit and started turning as the right wing swung
around) and came to a stop, while my head and helmet proceeded forward
to make an uppercase L out of the right downtube which, until
recently, had been a lowercase l. Very sad regarding the downtube, I
never though that turning on caps lock would be an expensive hang
gliding issue
. Otherwise, nothing bad happened (that i knowof.....) for which i am rather lucky. Examining what had happened, I
realized that the road actually significantly sloped downward in the
direction i was landing before hitting a low, then sloping upward to a
hill that was shooting lots of rotor into my lz from the prevailing
wind. However, I could not make out these features from the air.
Needless to say, do not try landing here! Whether or not i unbalanced
the wing or it unbalanced from wind or debris i am not sure.
Lessons:
XC is actually fun!
Keep up with the gaggle. If you don't, landing in a good LZ (where
there are other pilots) is a better choice than dicking around on your
own.
Use real LZs! Don't be greedy.
perhaps most importantly for this case:
Walk your LZs! Or at least know where the good ones are. (I should have simply driven on saturday and flown sunday)
Hope it was an entertaining read and perhaps even educational.
Michael Lichterman
