Crestline Soaring Society
Serving Hang Gliding and Paragliding in the San Bernardino Mountains
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Pinch Me, I Must Dreaming11/27/09. It blew North during the week and then turned upslope for Friday. What luck. The predictions were for weak lift but you shouldn’t believe everything you read, the opposite was true. That kind of good fortune can be a little disconcerting. I can’t help thinking of Woody Allen in Sleeper where he wakes up from a 200 year coma after a routine operation goes bad and says “I knew something was wrong, I got a parking space right next to the hospital.” Justine and Ryan, a lady and gentleman visiting from Oakland joined us today, both flying Moyes Litespeeds. They launched like pros into the stiff winds at Crestline. If there had been an elevator operator at launch as in the old movies we would have heard only one thing: “Going Up!” I rose straight to 6000 with my nose pointed south the whole time. Then I meandered over to Billboard where I parked motionless over the ground slowly ascending to 6500, the vario sounding like the monotonous pulse on one of those monitors at the hospital. In Woody Allen’s case it droned for 200 years but 10 minutes was all I could take. HGs crabbed the ridge tirelessly a thousand over but for myself half an hour of that utterly laminar rising air gave real meaning to phrase “boring soaring.” I penetrated to Marshall and spent a couple of hours in good old fashioned thermals, you know, where the wings actually get rocked a little and you have to circle to climb. The coldest I saw was 55 degrees, I was glad to be dressed warm. Beautiful clouds and red sky sunset at the end of the day. “Red sky at night, Sailor’s delight!” (I've heard it claimed that old saying has merit. As Leopold Bloom liked to say in Ulysses “Science can explain that.” It was the only part of the book I ever comprehended.) So how come I read a 50% chance of Thunderstorms tomorrow? Well, should you believe everything you read? Mike Z Forums > Pilot Reports Crabbing the ridgeA fun twist on flying, lift was widespread and required flying much faster than trim. Come get some tomorrow and at Elsinore on Sunday! Elevator and Moving SidewalkI too elevatored up to 6000 from Crestline at 13:25 in the US 166. Soon a paraglider had arrived at the ridge. Later I saw him arrive at the LZ driving the car I had ridden up in - odd. As the rotor pushed him down just behind the ridge he'd managed to snag a tree with his wing, so he wasn't hurt. Dot's Right!I may be breaking downtubes at the rate of 32 flight hours per downtube but haven't earned any red dots other than the blood spots on my base tube. AttachmentPerhaps you should name your downtubes, so that you grow more attached to them and develop a subconscious urge to protect them from harm. How about "Lefty" and "Veeger"? Thanks for the report. The Big Red 1That reminds me of a scene from the Big Red 1 with Lee Marvin and Mark Hamill. The squad at the center of the movie is in Italy, I think, and they get a new guy, a "cherry." He's eager and trying to be helpful, they blow him off. He asks why he's getting the cold shoulder and why they don't know his name... Lee Marvin replies that they don't want to know his name because new guys die so fast, they don't want to get attached. He goes to get some water and gets taken out by a mine, his testicle blown off by a bouncing betty... a red dot, if you will.
Invest in AlcoaAre Wills calling him Retirement Fund? I wonder if Jon realizes that hitting the hill on landing is the exact same type of human-to-hill collision his friend experienced fatally at Henson's? It doesn't matter if it's on take off or landing... hitting the hill is hitting the hill, and unfortunately it can be very fatal. high horse?"but I get to fly again another day and won't have to live with guilt and blame if something beyond reasonable and prudent judgment goes awry." Welcome to my thermalThere seems to be no shortage to warming currents below and cool reception above along with a strong lapse rate of judgment. I hope you and I get to climb out and fly far downrange again soon! To the heavens and beyondI'm not trying to bust your balls too hard but....here it is anyway. :) You said. "I have read Mike's article many times and the message I get from it is that we need to question the quality of our judgment even if there was a safe outcome." There is a great little paragraph that might be slipping from the memory banks. Conveniently so I might guess. "We regularly observe our fellow pilots breaking downtubes, which also reinforces our perception that this is "normal." I'm going to go out on a limb here. I'm going to say that if you've broken more than one downtube in the last five years of flying, you're doing something seriously and fundamentally wrong. Either you're flying too hot a glider for your skills, or you're flying in too challenging conditions, or at too difficult a flying site. Of course its just his opinion and we take what we will from it. Maybe 32 flight hours per bar is acceptable, and you should strive for more top landings and sketchier out landings. I just think it sounds like more of that operating at less than 99.9% decision making ability he talks about. Red Dot(s)This incident is marked with the red dots in the dirt. Duly noted safety concernsAt this point, I think Jonathan is aware that many are concerned about his safety, yet he soldiers on. And, by "at this point," I mean at least a half a year ago in my case. So, what is left is to worry about the reputation and continued operation of our site. As far as our site goes, I think the only particularly dangerous part of it is the top of Marshall. Were he to plow in there and break more than a downtube, or bleed out until supply couldn't keep up with demand, the site would have a medevac flight and possibly a slew of newspaper articles on our record. Obviously, this would be a Bad Thing®, but I'm sure the site would survive it (more than I am sure JD would). But, AJX wouldn't be closed, we'd have plenty of online backup for the rest of the hang gliding community to know that we had expressed our concern, and the worst of it would probably be that a few local wuffos might rethink this whole hang gliding thing after reading the article. Even better, the wipeout likely won't be in the LZ, where he might scare children or put people off their lunch... his landings there are actually pretty good. In my opinion, we can't lash Jonny D to a mast, a la Odysseus, to save him from the siren's call of top landing Marshall. We should take a pragmatic response to his flying a new-to-him T2C into Marshall on a very windy day, breaking his wing and bloodying himself. Let's chomp some figurative popcorn and post scores of his wipeouts like Olympic Judges. I give this one a 7.5. Hard to go much higher, seeing how the wing was still flyable after a quick spare part change (J.D., are you going to start packing the downtubes into your harness for convenience?). I suppose we could also get a betting pool of some sort going, but that's pulling the Karma Tiger by the tail a bit too much, even for a shnook like me. P.S. Community concern and feedback is not lost on all. I broke enough metal in the last year to have myself on a remedial training program. I am not even flying Elsinore today because I am too rusty and I only want to fly Crestline or Torrey in my current muscle memory state. Thanks for the peer pressure not to suck! ..."I suppose we could also get a betting pool of some sort going, but that's pulling the Karma Tiger by the tail a bit too much, even for a shnook like me." Well since there is no such thing as karma, I don't see a problem here! I say the pool should be how long before he has to send in the sail for repair. "I am not even flying Elsinore today because I am too rusty and I only want to fly Crestline or Torrey in my current muscle memory state." Probably a wise decision, I'll be posting video in a bit ; ) -Dave |
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Woo hoo Mike !
I spent all day doing dishes and taking out the trash. As Matt Goeniing wrote in the Simpsons ...."Crap Homer."