Cloud Base addict

Old WWII plane giving a fantastic fly-by during the parade.  4 F-16′s came by shortly after that gave everyone goose-bumps.  Some tears.    Video of the F-16′s here (PS:  Wait for the 2nd plane): http://vimeo.com/13166034

Video landing my Sport2 at Telluride.  Looks like I was landing downwind…%(&#$: http://vimeo.com/13230647

Jason’s kid, Will, will require close supervision with my daughters in the future.  Cute picture, for now.

Airtime in T – 20 minutes…

I like this picture Jason took.  The riding is phenomenal.  There’s a new dnhill trail just built that has amazing features including a jump across a road.

Jason’s new I-phone4 took this picture.  The fireworks display and echo’s around the box canyon were mind-blowing.  A camera fell off the microwave back at the house from the percussive shocks.  Better than a concert.

All the kids got a kick out of seeing me land.  Maddie’s got a great expression here. 

Airtime: 2:10

PS, the weekend before at Lake Granby was worthy of mention… Our favorite Irish family, the O’Connell’s show’ d us a great time on the lake…

Juuuuuuust sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,

A tale of a grateful skip (per),

that started on this ‘party barge’,

yes we had more than a sip.

The Cap’n was mighty sailin man,

the barge a hearty make,

that outran a storm for an hour straight,

till we ran out of lake.

Mary Ann,

The Skipper Too

The wind picked up and pushed our barge,

It took three of our hats,

But then we heard the ker-plunk, plunk

and I think I might have shat.

The next day was awesome too, but sunny and a more traditional day on the lake.  As a pontoon boat aficionado once told me… “The skies are always clear on the nautical mile”. 

Aye Aye.

-Skip

The previous day brought in a much cooler airmass (10 degree temp drop) from a NW cold front push.  I launched at 12:15pm thinking I was late for a chance to make Wyoming and back, but still optimistic.  I left launch relatively low and headed North hoping Galbraith was pushing all that South wind up. 

***Lucas Ridley of http://lucasridley.com/ showed up on launch to see what was up.  He’s a Tennessee hg pilot who has some amazing flying videos… One of my favorites:  http://www.vimeo.com/7593357 *** 

I didn’t like being this low right out of the start gate but after working a weak thermal, it turned on and shot me up in 600fpm to my highest climb of the day (10.8kft).

Boulder had gotten a long soaking rain 12hrs ago and I tried to get as high as possible before jumping across town.  This long glide with a quiet vario was worrisome, but the thermal on the other side of the training hill in N. Boulder put money in the bank again while I watched PG students practice kiting below.  Got to cruise over a metal sailplane and a lime-green helicopter with red/white blades during this glide too. 

The last part of the barogram shows a rewarding save from 400ft that I thought would be the ticket back to the game.  It was good for 1200ft but wasn’t enough to be comfortable crossing the few miles of tiger country ahead so I hung out in a lifty spot with several keep-alive climbs.  Landed just North of the Putre River (near Ted’s Place).  See below:

Just had 22 miles to go until the Wyoming border.  Since the South wind was 14-17mph and it wasn’t turning more East as forecasted, getting back to Lookout was looking bad.  Luckily, Mark D. hopped in my truck and came to get me.  Half the fun of the day was sharing the famous Rio Grande Margaritas with him in Ft. Collins.

-2 thermals didn’t drift with the strong wind at all.  One even seemed to bend into the wind over Galbraith mtn, drifting me back South towards Lookout.  I’ve never seen them insult the wind this badly.  Kinda cool, the mass of these things. 

-Bald Eagle and I got very close on one converging turn over Coal Creek Peak and he then out-climbed me like I was a potato sack.

Wing:  Atos VR

XC:  62 miles

Airtime:  4 hrs

Cloudbase:  Once!

Margaritas:  One

It was a blustery day by Lookout standards.  This history of Lookout Point shows gusts to 25 between 2 and 7pm when I was flying.

My airspeed (bottom chart) indicates > 30mph until the late day smooth flying.  I just didn’t know when the bottom was going to fall out.  After bouncing less than a minute off launch and a rocket ride for the first 200ft, I was flying with my guard up (among other things). 

The clouds were helping except some of them I just fumbled around in punishing sink.  Even when I’d get to one in it’s wispy-infancy.  The sink was stomach turning at times.  With the vigorous base wind and the solid lift, the lee side of these thermals was an unfortunate place to be.  More than a few times, I’d approach a cloud, hoping I got my aim right to connect with it’s lift and would just have a trap door open below me.  I spent a good 2kft just trying to define thermal drift to overcome my floundering of the first 1.5 hours.  I guess it’s like a free roller coaster though. 

On the return trip, I was in marginal lift over Coal Creek peak and a sailplane came smokin by maybe 100ft below me.  He banked hard and hooked a good 600fpm so I jumped in right at his altitude.  He didn’t flinch a bit and I could see him looking up at me through the window.  Pretty cool and I was wondering if it was ex-HG pilot Bob Ferris.  This thermal, and the huge cloud over Ralston Butte got me back to Lookout.  While I was able to out climb the sailplane, his glide performance left me in the dust.  Huge highlight of the otherwise lonely flight.

Great adventure of a day! It took about 2hrs to get to Lyons, and 2 more to get back.

Wing:  Atos VR

Miles:  75ish

Airtime:  5hr 22min

I hope my video/edit convey’s my passion for Hang Gliding.

http://www.nikonfestival.com/blog/2009/12/14/colorado-hang-gliding-to-live/

Below is Rich Crowder’s (www.RICHCROWDER.com) edit/perspective

http://www.nikonfestival.com/blog/2009/12/14/a-day-in-the-clouds-2/

Momma took my key to the piggy bank and swallowed it.  This is plan B… Moving to defcon zero.

Somehow, these puppies are sympathetic…

Zapata 2010 needs to get back on track and some more aggressive Colorado branch WRE attempts could be supported.  But I’ll need help.  Just once, and sometime between Dec. 22 and Jan 13th, I’ll make a plea for a view and hopefully a nice rating.  The highest rated video can win the 25k prize!  If the judges like it best, it could win 100k!

PROCEEDS PLANS:

1. New Icarco 4Fight helmet (smashed other one)

2. Two Yaesu VX-150 radio’s for XC and Zapata

3. Wide angle lens for taking video/photography to the next level.  And wireless remote system

4. HD video camera (dropped mine)

5. Suitable aerobatic glider

6. LOTS of free drinks for pilot friends and a Colorado Branch WRE support division maybe.

Rich Crowder hooked up with us on a few occasions to see what Hang Gliding was all about and to capture his experience via photography.  His work is stunning.  All photos in this write-up are from him.  His blog about the experiences below:

http://richcrowder.blogspot.com/2009/10/cloudbase-chronicles.html

AND:

http://richcrowder.blogspot.com/2009/11/wolcott-hang-gliding.html

One other pre-note:  The latest Moyes Matrix bag doesn’t come with backpack type straps.  The old bags did, but I walked 1200ft down a mountain with one of them, carrying my glider/harness and swore the whole way because the high shoulder straps let the harness backplate dig into my legs.  Mark Windsheimer (http://www.airtimeabove.com/) fixed the problem by sewing up better shoulder straps and a waist belt.  It’s been great for carrying the 100lb Atos when I land deep in no-mans land, or for hiking my flex wing up a 600ft hill once in a while.  I can’t say enough about the craftsmanship.   Since our main local site has a 80ft hike up, this backpack has been priceless.  Get in touch with him and he’ll hook you up.

OK, so, about the LiteSport 4 (149sqft).  I’ve had the pleasure for almost 7 hours and 8 flights.  Keep in mind that my flex wing perspective is limited to king-posted flexies only.  The first 3 LiteSport landings were heavy, but the following 5 have been 2 step, catch her on your shoulders landings.  It’s pretty easy to land, even if my technique is sloppy.

I’m 165lbs and the optimum pilot weight on this glider is exactly 165lbs!

This glider can be tuned a bazillion different ways.  I’m pretty sure it’s close to stock tune.  So you know what I’m biased towards, I’m moving up the Flex wing performance scale for aerobatic aspirations.  If I wasn’t into aero, I’d fly into the sunset on my Sport2, It’s AWESOME!

Handling:

• My initial comparison was that the LiteSport’s happy to bank up more than my Sport2 in light lift while maintaining my climb rate.  Maybe all higher performance wings are like this because of their efficiency and energy retention but it’s somewhat poetic how you can bank up more for half a turn and use a little yaw input to flatten out the other half.  The Sport2 is AWESOME at making the most of flat turns, but it just won’t keep climbing in the light stuff once I bank it up past a point.
• Pitch inputs are more effective than I’m used to.  At 1/4VG, the bar is also more raked out than I’m used to, but at bank angles 30+ degrees, it seems perfectly happy to accept this position.  Maybe it’s because of its energy retention, but I can let/push the bar out during a turn, and it has the energy to tighten the turn without mushing.  It’s awesome.  It’s a different way to fly, and very engaging.
• Stalls: I’ve become very comfortable working sometimes bumpy air very close to the mountain in my Sport2.  I’ve been careful to stay an extra margin away from the hill as I figure out my new boundaries with the LiteSport.  SO, I was flying around 29mph (best glide or better I think) and got a tip stall in a turn from some rowdy air and found the stall/recovery pretty dramatic.  The inside wing stalled and I was slipping/diving, losing about 60ft real fast!  I haven’t stalled it on purpose yet.
• When the air is rowdy I have to remind myself to keep light control inputs.  If the Sport2 is turkey dinner, then this thing feels a bit like my first Thai dish when I get too adventurous.

• The 2nd most stand out thing from my perspective was the energy retention.  Doing some figure eights and sometimes mild wing-overs at 3/4VG I was finding that the gaining altitude part of each was easier to manage.  Seems like I could feel the timing better when I needed to add/reduce roll input so I don’t end up pointing straight up, but I still gain enough altitude to manage speed.  Also, I can do 4 full figure eights in the LiteSport and it feels like I’ve only lost 2/3rds of the altitude my Sport2 would have.  That’s better than a free Chipotle burrito.
• I’ve flown a U2 for a little under 2 hours and I remember enjoying the way that thing would so easily bank up into a thermal.  My dusty memory would say the U2 was a little more responsive than the LiteSport.

Performance

• During my first speed runs, and at full VG and 50mph I noticed a PIO tendency, but it was easily dealt with by changing my ham fists to cornish hen.  I also was able to keep up with Steve on his LiteSpeed 5.  Relative to each glider’s weight ranges, I think he’s a good amount lighter than me on his so my keeping up makes some sense.  But, regardless, that’s quite a feat!  She goes.

Final thoughts

In spite of being the “ideal” weight for the LiteSport 4, I’m torn somewhat because while glide performance and handling are uber important, sink rate still holds priority one at my local site.  This 10yr old LiteSport really held my weight amazingly, but I’m pretty sure the sink rate on the bigger Sport2 was a little better.  Luckily, because of Mark Windsheimer’s generosity, I’ll be able to try a LiteSpeed 4 and maybe even at 4.5 in the future.  If I had to guess, a LiteSpeed 4.5 is going to be my unicorn.  These comparison’s are priceless before making a glider purchase!  Thanks Mark!

—-All ground-based Photography by Rich Crowder—-