Forum Replies Created
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Awfully quiet!
Throwing up another idea, since I’ve seen a lot of feedback about either sinking the containers into the hill or just overall reducing turbulence. This one makes the shade structure up top completely open – artificial turf under the whole thing which leaves lots of room underneath to breakdown gear or sit. Would probably be a good place for the hang simulators too.
Went with the dugout idea someone brought up – all 4 HG storage containers plus the one up top sunken into the berm at the north end of the parking lot (but not so far back that they interfere with the road at all). Kitchen, table area, fridge, and soda machine moved in there, plus a bunch of shelf space to temporarily store bags & wings. Classroom area (enough for 2 instructors) on the west side of the structure.
Whole thing would be low enough to fly over for east wind approaches and the wind shadow on the shade structure up top should be significantly less – it’s completely open and also doesn’t extend as far to the north as it used to.
One more requested variation: was suggested that the existing kitchen might not be in an ideal position, so this one moves it to the south side of the structure (so definitely more effort/cost involved). This would free up more clearance for HG’s making approaches in East wind conditions.
Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer – I’m definitely not an architect or engineer (JP is an architect and he’s working on a more interesting concept which will likely check a lot more boxes than this one). I just threw this together as a potential “super-conservative” idea (maybe a visual will help with the discussion about it). Something that’s slightly better than what we had, requires minimal new concrete, no additional earth moving, and likely low-cost. Guess is that the wind shadow would be similar or maybe slightly better than the last, since there’s less wall blocking west winds, and the roof has a minimal (1′ front to back) pitch.
Few things based on the feedback so far:
- Yellow rectangle is a safety notice showing the approach and important site guidelines (making it hard to miss when you come up the stairs)
- Classroom area is separated from the chit-chat areas
- Kitchen completely covered
- Shelf and outlets next to the tables to charge electronics
- Artificial turf breakdown area
- Beefy mast to mount the water/laser canons
Time for the daily nag about the approach pattern – this time with visual aids.
Recently received a real-world example involving 2 pilots approaching at the same time. Perfectly illustrates why sticking to the approach pattern (and keeping PG and HG traffic separate) is so important. HG approach in black and PG approach in red:
If the HG didn’t drastically alter his approach (and they mentioned that they were already pushing it to make the LZ with the amount of altitude they had left) – and that assumes that the pilot would have the skills to make such an alteration in their approach – that whole area in the northeast corner of the LZ would have been mid-air central.
Please please please – whatever wing you fly – stick to the approach and keep an eye out for your fellow pilots.
