Cloud Base addict

(Amazing picture above by Sam the aerial photographer)  Saturday was epic at Lookout!

Went all over the place, but my goal of Boulder had to get put aside after a couple low saves over this quarry and ultimately, a lack of sack.

Below picture is Fred working above Lookout Launch.  I think Sam had almost a 5 hour flight!  My video quit by the time I was around other pilots in the air.  Leif and I did courtesy sacrifices early in the day so everyone could get all the airtime they wanted.  But we got back up to launch again and the sacrifices were adequate.

After giving up on Boulder, I tucked tail back towards Lookout but got sidetracked by a cloud line out East.  That made a first time flight over both table mesa’s and East of the Coors plant.  Then back to launch and a group of us cruised South to Heritage square and back. 

Above, another keeper of a photo from Sam.  Finally, airtime….

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Then, Sunday was happening at the Aerotow Park.  I was moving slow today, but made it out there in time to scarf down some brat’s and reinstall my modified tail section.  JY helped install a new aluminum roller wheel for the slider thing which is nice.  The winglet still doesn’t go all the way down when I let the flap cable all the way off but I’ll call Jim Lamb to see if there’s anything else I can do.  Maybe the bungee is weak or something.  Maybe I should just get a VRQT like JY’s (below)

Poetry in motion.

Tim thermaled with JY and Alex, but he climbs too fast!  “one of these things is not like the others, one of these just doesn’t belong”…  I got to watch this craziness as I blazed over to partake…  You can see half of JY’s wing at the top in the above picture.

Above, Alex and I are talking about the 8kft TCA from 7999…. in the best thermal so far that day…  He didn’t have a radio but I could hear him just fine.

We left the thermal and goofed around some. 

After this, we headed NW to get out from under the TCA and JY found another good one out there.  Craig offered to chase and JY and I worked our way West around the TCA. 

Through smokey fire thermals and one enormous cow poo thermal off a processing plant, we made it past Greeley, then Longmont, and finally to Lyons!  Getting some team flying experience with him is going to help a bunch when we try to tag team the world record (410 miles) in Zapata.  I fly pretty slow, and him FAST, and I think somewhere in the middle is the answer.  It was a top 3 flight so far this year because of the teamwork involved.

By Lyons, Jim was in a weak thermal over a lake and I was in a weak one over the Longmont airport.  He went on glide to make the foothills and it didn’t work out.  I started to do the same thing and it turned out that I met the stronger part of my thermal on the way and got up enough to make the foothills where I could bank up to 10k-ish before turning south.  A Cu-Nim was over the divide and it’s mushroom got blown out to shade my path.  I found another few weak thermals trying to connect the clouds.  It was a problem solving kinda flight here b/c I could choose to fly over the foothills and associated ridge lift and thermal triggers, or under the clouds forming East of the hills.  I chose the flats because I was high enough to give the clouds the authority and because the extra distance from the drifting Cu-Nim made sense.  The storm eventually cut me off by the South end of Boulder and I had to land.  HUGE thanks to Craig for chasing us around the state!  What a great day!

Weekend Flights:  3

Airtime:  3 hours Saturday, 3:45 hours Sunday

XC Miles:  20 miles Saturday, 60 miles Sunday

Brats:  2

Here she is.  Pictures galore.  As an unemployed dude, it’s time to start cleaning out my extra’s.  I had gotten a new Matrix Race for the WRE this summer so it’s time to offload.  This MR(Manfred Ruhmer) Tenax set the Rigid Wing Declared distance world record (7 hour flight) with me.  It’s a very comfy harness. 

I’m 5′11″ tall, 165 lbs.  I’m sure it can fit a couple inches shorter and easily someone several inches taller since I put in a couple inches of padding on the plastic thing you stand on while laying prone.

That blue neoprene was put there when we were trying to protect the “boys”.  But, when I started flying with it instead of just experimenting in the garage, the “boys” weren’t getting pinched.  So it was a non-issue. 

I lifted up the removable boot cover here so you can see what shape the harness is in.  There’s no real scuffing, and definitely no holes.  The cover that’s lifted up has holes.  That’s how it came to me so I’ve kept duct tape on top of the cover to make sure the harness didn’t get scuffed from walking around.  I took off the duct tape for these pictures.

The angle-dangle is set by this little friction device.  You just kinda move yourself to what angle you want and it sticks.  It helps if you lift your shoulders or legs to unweight this rope, but not really necessary.  It’s pretty cool.

Above shows the truck tow and aerotow loops.  I’m holding open the camelback pouch, and the plastic boot thing is in view.  It’s great for storage of harness bags and glider pads/bags.

Zipper works great.  Never blows out, except once when I didn’t start it right.  The main slider, which is a rope, is in good shape.  I haven’t changed it since I got it a year or so ago.  I have changed that little angle-dangle rope a couple times.  It’s good to keep an eye on it where it connects into the backplate. 

I’ve been flying with a BIG parachute in it b/c my Atos weighs 100 pounds.  So I know a Quantum 330 (with kevlar bridle) fits in it.

Not looking to make any money on this, just want a fair price.  It’s been a good harness and it needs to keep getting in the air.  Got it for $500, I’ll sell it for $280.  I’m afraid I don’t have a bag or carabiner to go with this.  Comment on the blog here, or give me a ring at 303-513-0998 and we’ll get’r'dun.

BJ Herring

These guys were like house cats in the Wolcott LZ, curious and super friendly.  Amazing animals. 

I had a quick flight in overly strong lift.  So much that I ran from it, which was out of character.  Getting conservative I guess.  After the skies filled in with gust fronts everywhere we looked, Fred and I finished burgers and went back up.  Wolcott delivered by drying out and stablizing in spite of everything (just like always).  Got a half hour.

Lookout has been wet but the cold fronts have made things work.  Yesterday, I broke down the ATOS in rain and hail as a tornado touched down in N. Denver (but it was good before I was ready).  Today was forecasted to overdevelop later, but to still have tornado potential. 

The big scary stuff didn’t happen till after dinner.  It was super scratchy/nice for hours and hours and hours….

Above, Jan.  Below, Casey.

Above, my Chris Price Cocoon made from climbing ropes!  Balled up for the first time in a cocoon and was amazed at how much more speed I can get, just starting from level flight. 

The usual yet covert launch buzz usually ends when I’m pulled in as far as possible, but with this whole balling up thing, I could get the extra 10 feet down to mess up Kiernan’s hair. 

So, today had 4 flights for me.  One LZ landing, one fairly normal top landing, and 2 new toplandings in NNE wind. 

How do you land in N, NNE, NE wind?  I tried it from the standard approach, coming in behind launch and trying to hit the hill back there but that’s making me land directly downwind and it’s way lifty back there since it’s creating ridge lift.  Overshot that.  Then I tried an approach up the launch face, but with more of a NW direction instead of straight up launch in a West direction.  But I overshot that too, partly because it’s pretty tight in there between the “M” and the hill.  So it’s not big enough to hit with safe speed.

So, 3’s a charm.  I needed to fly straight into the PG launch and forget about trying to face “into the wind”.  Just aim at the hill and keep lots of speed and flare.  So, that worked out pretty darn good.  The next time, I did the same thing but was anticipating just aiming at the steep grassy hill (crows nest) to land on.  I ended up a skosch low and just flared to land right smack dab in the middle of the PG launch.  Somehow, my feet barely got under me, but they slid out too far and I kinda caught myself with my dairy-air.  For 5 seconds I thought I broke my tailbone off in the mountain, but all is good, with a mother of a bruise.

Airtime:  2 hrs

Flights:  4

Toplandings:  3

Afterthought:     One cloud dropped out early in the day and made a couple rumbles of thunder.  It was isolated and nothing else looked bad.  Fortunately, something above (inversion I think) was keeping the moisture from pluming up into super cells.  A little bit of sun today would come out and then everything would lift a little stronger and cloud up the entire sky and slow the sun enough to keep the lower atmosphere under boiling and at a perfect simmer.  Cloudbase dropped to Lookout Mtn tower height 3 times during the day.  I landed a couple times just because I couldn’t tell if a couple clouds were blowing up, but they kept their manners and I’d launch again.  So, the early morning cold front potentially had some delayed pulses that we saw later, or something way north around Boulder could have dropped out.  It was between N and E and between 4 and 11mph I’d guess all day.  Went home b/c I was too hungry to fly more and it just seemed like rain would be coming eventually.

Got to go Aerotowing at Farm Flight with Jim Yocom and Tim Collard!  Couple cool experiences/lessons today. 

After the kids’ soccer game, I bolted 1hour NE to Farm flight.  On the way I saw 3 PG’s low over Bandimere and we chatted a bit on the radio.  The over-development started earlier on the front range and they were getting to the end of the day by noon.  Luckily, way out east, we had about 6 more hours before OD would mess with us. 

There was a perfect East wind for launching most of the day while I set up late. JY already had 45 minutes airtime and was cooking up brats and helping others fly.  A couple dust devils cut JT and Dan R. tows short.  Seemed like good soaring.  I got my butt launched finally and Tim took me straight upwind for a couple miles (great tow ).  I floundered for a bit, but eventually got something that I reluctantly had to leave at the 8kft ceiling for DIA airspace.  Then cruised straight for the edge of that airspace so I could get higher.  RIGHT on the edge of it, I got a solid a 400fpm to almost 10k and started playing. I was trying to make a line with some upwind clouds and penetrate to them.  I had a sweet 3 mile glide that I thought was a lift line, but in retrospect, I think it was mostly the Atos’ fantastic sink rate.  Anyway, I made it to a line of weak clouds that were lifting and one even formed above me.  I was sure one was dying that I went under anyway, but it was still lifting.  Clouds are an interesting mystery.

Got tanked up around 6.5 miles upwind and decided a good goal would be to make it 10 miles upwind before I turned back.  So I left from 10.3kft and hoped for the best.  I didn’t really get ANY lift after this and managed a 14 mile glide somehow! 

On the long downwind glide, the 6030 predicted I’d make it to the tow field with 1500ft to spare, but I had 300, barely.  From how low I felt as I started the 10 mile push, I didn’t think I could venture South to get under a nice set of clouds and still make it.  So, I made as straight of a line as possible.  Check that baby out above!  Checking the polars revealed way too rosy figures of:

-118fpm @ 22mph

-374fpm @ 52mph. 

Not sure how I got those in there.  So, the new one’s will be:

-138 @ 23   MFG recommends -135fpm @ 23mph

-394 @ 41   MFG recommends -400fpm @ 42mph

At least they’ll be closer.  I was surprisingly close to those figures which would be remarkable.  I’ll go out early and do some morning air polar tests sometime in the near future.

**Lesson of the day: Take some time before launching to ask for the launch crew to run a wing and explain how to do it.  I didn’t today, and the slight cross wind caused me to bounce out of position on the cart waaaay before I had safe flying speed.  With my glider unseated in the dolly, but accelerating, all I could think to do was fly the glider sideways and hold onto the flopping dolly until I had more speed.  It worked.  Another lesson is to hold the dolly tighter to my basetube by choking up on the dolly tubes.  That way, it’ll be harder to get it unseated!  Averted disaster, learned a lesson, all is well. 

Airtime:  1:25

Miles:  25.2

Flights:  1