First Time at Joshua Tree Ridge

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Christian
Posts: 238
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 9:32 am
Location: Pacific Palisades

First Time at Joshua Tree Ridge

Post by Christian »

From the Crestline Forum, a "penetrating" Hang 2 tale from George Zelenz:

Today at 2:50pm, I launched the Coyote ( dry ) Lake ridge launch in Joshua Tree for the first time. Flawless launch. Just walked out with level wings, and pitched the nose up ( then in ) until I was moving up and out. Cake.

Turned right and within 30 seconds was over the ridge and still climbing like a fiend. WOO HOO!!!! My first real ridge soaring! A minute or two later I was 1300' over the ridge. At that moment I felt like a sky god, but later I would know what that all meant. Gulp.

I surfed up and back, Mike Lopez was far far below, practically scratching to get above the ridge. At one point I simply parked the glider into the wind, and slowly pushed the bar out. I was climbing the whole time, vario chirping. I eventually found myself skyed out and about a half mile in front of the ridge. Awesome.

Then I decided to fly back to the ridge and find a thermal over the high cone. Sure enough, I cored a sucker there and went up into the very cold air. I only have a Malletech, so I have no idea how high I got. It was nice air for sure. 2.5K over? Just a little bumpy, and that came in spurts.

Now the scary part. I had drifted back past the ridge quite a ways in the thermal. When I tried to exit the core and fly up-wind, my groundspeed was negative. I was drifting backwards. Gulp. I was going down quite fast, and the ridge was getting further way. I'm new, but I knew this was gonna get ugly, so I pulled in a bit past best L/D, but that got me just slowed down going backwards, so I stuffed it. And sank like a rock. Holy crap. I kept playing the game of enough stuff to forward progress. I eventually squeaked past the ridge at 1 mph or so it felt. MAN! The wind had really picked up since I launched! I thought I was gonna die in the rotor.

I crabbed and crawled back over to launch, fighting the whole time to stay in front of the ridge. It was hard work. Diving turns, sloppy turns, these barely got me to within 500' of the ridge. I needed to land before it got any stronger. Pulled in to the hilt, my groundspeed was barely perceptible. I was worried. I eventually got down to an elevator landing. Straight down, no flare, soft as a feather. Static balance was good on the ground after I buried the nose wires.<G>

Took a long time to break down. I'd never been in so much wind. It was insane. I didn't see the build-up coming, but I was flying in conditions WAY over my H2 head. Not good. I somehow made it but I attribute that to luck not skill.

I love the site but it will be awhile before I'm back to fly.

Definitely the hardest hour I've ever flown. My triceps are PUMPED!

George Zelenz
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