Return to the Mountains...

As of Sunday morning, August 21, 2004 was my last mountain flight. That was the day that High Rock claimed my Talon as a sacrifice and I received the dubious honors of making the front page full-color picture of the Sunday August 22 Hagerstown Herald as I hung from the kite-eating tree. I took the rest of 2004 off from flying and resumed my lofty dreams in 2005 as a full-time towhead. As you all know, the Bat-Wing U2 was born this past winter and I’ve really been enjoying the minor step-back in performance, but leaps ahead in enjoyment and controllability.

After two weekends of practice at Highland, I felt I was ready for a return to the mountains. Woodstock was the site of my first ever mountain flight as an H2 so I felt it was appropriate to return to the mountains from that launch site. Suzie had never seen Woodstock so with Joe Gregor and his Falcon, the three of us loaded up into the Jeep. Sunday looked like it would be a perfect day and off we headed out I-66. The butterflies were every bit as big as my first mountain flight and I told Joe that I wanted to stop by the LZ so I could get a visual (and maybe throw-up). In my minds eye, I remembered the LZ being rather small, but as we walked out into the field, I was amazed at how huge it looked. It was clearly twice the size of Highland’s LZ and sloped uphill to boot. With my confidence somewhat boosted, we climbed back into the Jeep and headed up to launch. A few gliders had just launched and everyone was sticking to the cloud filled with large cummies.
We arrived at launch around 1:30 and started to unload and setup. Lots of pilots were on launch & already in the air. Winds were much stronger than we expected for Woodstock but were blowing pretty straight in. I decided to treat today like an H2 day and decided on flying later in the day. There had already been one incident involving foliage & a glider and I was in no mood to add my new glider to that list. I already paid my dues in 2004. I helped wire off a few pilots to get back into the right mindset and watched the elevator ride as they cleared the slot. At this time I didn’t know if I wanted to fly or run screaming from the insanity of jumping off a mountain. Winds picked up considerably after another wave of pilots launched which diminished my resolve to suit up and fly anytime soon. At 4:30, Joe & I were talking about breaking down as the winds continued to blow like freight trains thru the trees. I wasn’t looking forward to a white knuckle flight and figured there were other days to make my return. I even went so far as to offer up my U2 to Joe if he wanted to fly something with a little more performance and I would meet him in the LZ giving me the easy way out. As the clock ticked to 5:00, the winds suddenly started dying down. Gusts evened out and the winds were cycling in around 10mph with the occasional peak around 14mph. Joe Brauch & Joe Gregor both decided to fly and it actually looked to sweet for me not to give it a shot. I wired off Joe B and saw that he had a very uneventful launch and decided it was now or never. I went to suit up while Joe G moved to launch. He had a picture perfect takeoff and radioed back that conditions were very doable. Now I really wanted to throw up.

I climbed into the harness and glider and moved down to launch. Taking my time, I picked up a few times feeling the winds around the glider and checked & rechecked my nose angle. Finally when I had replayed everything in my mind and settled into my old routine, I got the crew ready and picked up. Everything felt balanced and I yelled “Clear.” I pulled the nose low and ran like a bat out of hell and soon was airborne and riding my own elevator up. I had a very successful launch and joined the two Joe’s above the ridge. As reported the air was textured but flyable, typical springtime flying. Joe B reported that it was a bit grumpy above 500 and I agreed as I climbed thru, but it was still very controllable. I made a few passes over launch and soon was 1100 over. I was really enjoying the mountain view that I had missed for the past few years, but then noticed that I was parked in front of the ridge with little forward progress. I pulled on ¼ VG and still hovered comfortably out in front of the ridge but noticed that I was starting to climb at 400fpm. Joe radioed back to launch and Karen reported that winds had ramped up considerably and that it was now blowing like previous times in the day. Joe, in the Falcon, pointed towards the main LZ and I decided that with the sudden change in conditions that I wanted to head out in case strange things were afoot. I pulled on ½ VG then ¾ VG before I started making noticeable progress, but remained climbing at 400fpm. I arrived over the main LZ with 1500 over launch (~2800AGL) and decided that I would head towards the Bridge field to avoid the noticeably turbulent conditions that had been experienced in the main LZ earlier in the day. Climbing in wave, I peaked out at ~3600AGL over the Bridge field. Joe G had landed in the main LZ and his glider was not moving after a visually hard landing. We couldn’t raise him on radio which added to everyone’s stress level including mine knowing that I also had to land in the immediate future. I proceeded out into the valley and found the other side of the wave which allowed me to start losing altitude. I spent 10 minutes spiraling down and had a turbulent ride as I passed thru 1000’. Other pilots had reported wire slaps at that altitude, but I was thankful that I just got rocked around a bit. I rolled final and really had to manhandle the glider and ended up landing about 45 degrees out of the wind as it was pretty switchy at the moment. Thankful to be on the ground in one piece I cleared the field and waited for Joe B to follow. Sirens could be heard in the distance heading to the main LZ and we received initial reports on Joe G’s condition. Joe B landed about 15 minutes after I did with good results as I was able to give him better wind directions that I had received.

All in all, it was a good flight albeit a bit more stressful with the Joe G situation and the increasing winds. It was a beautiful day to be out in the mountains, and it was really nice get back to flying in them. I packed up the glider and Suzie & I joined the group to head to the hospital to check on Joe G. We finally got home around 10:30 which made for a late night and an even earlier morning.