Sylmar Hang Gliding Association

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23VzP1AbfS0[/youtube]
Fellow HG pilot, Alan took me up Saturday in his recently acquired Grob 103, twin aerobatic sailplane from the Lake Elsinore Soaring Club. http://www.soarelsinore.org/

We got a late start but got in nearly 3 hours at Elsinore and covered a 27-mile wide area. I got to practice some stick and rudder flying which I really enjoyed. The last time I flew in a sailplane was 1974. Hopefully, I'll get in some more time in the Grob as I wait for my ankle to heal.
Enjoy!
Jonathan

That looks like fun!
I didn't know you broke your ankle?
Sorry to hear that.
This looks like a nice way to get over the pain and suffering.
I saw 9k at one point in the video - how high did you actually get?
Happy recovering!

M@rkus wrote:That looks like fun!
I didn't know you broke your ankle?
Sorry to hear that.
This looks like a nice way to get over the pain and suffering.
I saw 9k at one point in the video - how high did you actually get?
Happy recovering!

Hi Markus,
I got a lucky break w/ my ankle fracture: http://www.crestlinesoaring.org/forum/2 ... ment-13464

My friend Alan, got this 2-place sailplane 6 weeks ago and I have been promising to join him for the past four years so the timing was good. We topped out at 9500' a few times on this flight and went to 10,600' last Saturday. I made a more detailed video of the later flight where we landed out and needed a tow back to the gliderport. We had a great time.
Here are some frame stills: http://imageevent.com/aero92/20120929

My ankle hasn't kept me completely down. I reached 11,450' on Monday flying a Falcon for a 23-mile triangle then landed on the wheels.


When I complete the final edit of the second sailplane video, I'll post it here.

Cheers,
Jonathan

When I broke my arm....

I found the sailplane community healthily populated with "broken hang gliders" as they call it.

Those things glide like crazy, they are super fast too. But it's just not the same. The best analogy I came up was this: It's like having sex with a condom on. Sure it's fun, but it's just not everything you want. Thermaling is much better. Go out, fly a sailplane. The range will impress you, the feeling of flight with disappoint you.

One cool thing was to soar the waves off the san gaberials. It was fun to be 11k working each wave. After working Baden-Powell I hiked it a week later to find someone working the same wave.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE4dIcTYpMU[/youtube]

Oh one other thing I found....

There was a debate in the LZ about the source of the high speed HG noise. Most thought it was wire noise, and that wings make no noise. However, experienced by me and not clearly detected by the cell phone video, clean sail planes roar like jet aircraft at high speeds.

One of the first or second passes on the mountain top it was pretty loud. On the last an lowest pass he put up spoilers to fly by low and giving me a "peace symbol" in the canopy.