Flight from Hurricane to South East of Page, 134 miles

A place to stretch the truth a little...
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chadness
Posts: 193
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 10:19 am
Location: Simi Valley, CA

Flight from Hurricane to South East of Page, 134 miles

Post by chadness »

Another great trip to Hurricane with adventures and great flights for all.

I am looking forward to hearing about everybody's adventures and flights but here is mine. The group was: Ken, Dana, Igor, Mike/Kathy/Aly, Katherine, Dave, Greg/Nurit, Chad/Andrea. Plus some Arizona pilots. We also ran into Powerline Mike and Ilona and Danny Black/Lia on the ridge.

The quick summary of my bigger flight: Launched at 3:00 pm local time from Hurricane Ridge, landed about 14 miles South East of Page, AZ, flight time was 5 hours, max altitude was 14,846', straight line distance from launch to landing was 115 miles, distance with three turn points (as calculated by FlyChart) was 134.8 miles, and distance traveled (MapSource) was 200+ miles of amazing scenery to include Little Creek and Gooseberry Mesa, Zion National Park from the South, the Canaan Mountain buttes including the Smithsonian, Kanab, the Vermillion Cliffs, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Lake Powell, Glen Canyon Dam and the Kaibito Plateau. Light winds and relatively weak lift for the desert in July made it prudent to work little bumps and glide downwind slowly. With the really late start it's amazing it turned into a good XC flight.

I have put pictures and details on my personal web site. To get to the Hurricane Report, click on the "Exposes" box on the left, then click on the Hurricane Expose in the main window:

http://www.chadness.k2free.com/

Also Andrea and I got in a glassy tandem over the back. Hopefully we will hear more about Greg's flight to Page, AZ and the other XC flights as well as neat ones to the river. What a great group.

Cheers,
Chad
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JD
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Joined: Fri Apr 25, 2008 11:05 am

Post by JD »

MAZEL TOV! & Belated Happy Birthday! Great write-up and presentation on your website too. May I humbly suggest that you post your igc file to Leonardo database on Paragliding forum so other may benefit and enjoy your great adventure? You can add a link back to your website too. http://www.paraglidingforum.com/modules ... st_flights
Leonardo also does the best rendering into Google Earth format of any site on the web.

Now, I'm looking forward to hearing about Greg's flight and all the others.
Cheers,
Jonathan
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gregangsten
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Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2005 11:22 am
Location: Westchester

Every dog has his day

Post by gregangsten »

After almost sinking out on the Hurricane ridge in a down cycle, everything went my way on that flight. Got to Colo.City under clouds and eventually got over 16K at the Cane Fields road, plenty to get across the high country. Another thermal along the way got me back over 16 drifting over Kanab at cloudbase. Went on a smooth, bumpless 20 minute glide down the road into the blue, unzipped where the ground gets high again and while looking for a good spot to land, finally got another one. Regular thermals all the way down the road from there on. Between the altitudes and seeing the lake in the distance I got pretty giddy thinking I might actually pull it off. Ended up crossing the lake and Glen Canyon Dam in style at 8K, going up. Landed at the Page airport (because that's what the guy in the magazine article did) after 3 1/2 hours. -Also, since it was Chad's birthday, I thought I should give him a gift, land and let him go over me to get the flight of the day.
At the airport, my wife had to chase down the guy with the keys who was in his car and going home and talk him into letting me out. He showed up in a golf cart with her and said they would have my truck there in a minute, gave her the pass code and she got in to get me. Raising Margaritas together in Page that evening was the perfect ending.

I had wanted to fly Echo Cliffs, south of Page, but after talking to the AZ pilots I found I would have to do it bandito style, since the red tape with the Navajos made it prohibitive. Did drive through there on the way back though and started thinking that maybe I should just consider the old Pulse an expendable glider, fly anyway and let them confiscate it if they caught up to me. But then I realized I needed an old knee-hanger too and let the feeling pass.
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JD
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Joined: Fri Apr 25, 2008 11:05 am

Re: Every dog has his day

Post by JD »

gregangsten wrote:...........Also, since it was Chad's birthday, I thought I should give him a gift, land and let him go over me to get the flight of the day............
What a gentleman! Another great flight. Any photos? Thanks for the report, Greg. Cheers, Jonathan
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chadness
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Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 10:19 am
Location: Simi Valley, CA

Post by chadness »

bah. If you buy that I got a bridge to sell ya...

Gotta give credit to Greg and Nurit for three reasons: we had similar (big) flights, he had the dream to make it Lake Powell and it was contageous, and hearing him talk about Kanab and Page was very motivating while I was stuck in Colorado City trying to get up;)

Anyway, I did upload the flight to the leonardo site. Pretty cool, just fed it the *.igc file and it does all the nice plots.

http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/228542

Cheers
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JD
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Joined: Fri Apr 25, 2008 11:05 am

Post by JD »

chadness wrote:.........I did upload the flight to the leonardo site. Pretty cool, just fed it the *.igc file and it does all the nice plots...........
Thanks for the upload, your Chadliness. You can also add a link back to this thread so that readers can get full details. It will also hold multiple photos as well. I wish more pilots would use it.
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