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“Instead, if I bring a pilot out there they have to find and pay an instructor multiple hundreds of dollars to observe their flying skills that they have already proven to the instructor who gave them their P2.”
These are just my personal opinions (and maybe I’m wrong), but we have to try to protect our site from unnecessary accidents, and one way to do that is to have our professional local pilot instructors assess a new pilot’s skills. This is not the easiest site to fly and is rated a P3 site for good reason.
Most people are not aware of this, but some instructors elsewhere sign people off with a P2 before those pilots are ready for it, or they sign them off after a bunch of simple training hill flights, or they come from a site that doesn’t have the kind of topography and punchy desert thermals that we have here at AJX. I’ve seen a bunch of visiting P2’s come through over the few years that I’ve been coming to SB, that could barely kite & barely launch themselves off the hill, and the last thing we need is for them to come to our site and get wrecked. After witnessing their kiting and launching skills, many of them could use more training, but they’ve got their P2’s from elsewhere and think they’re set.
I understand the hardship of additional cost of a new site sign-off after having spent thousands of dollars on lessons and gear somewhere else, but their lives and our site are worth the cost. Local instructors need to be paid for their time (they have their own insurance costs to cover), and our site needs to be protected from inexperienced, potentially dangerous pilots. We can’t have them show up and fly without them at least getting a thorough briefing from a highly experienced local pilot first.
Yes, this mentor program sounds interesting, but how do we vet the mentors? Can just any instructor or let’s say P3/P4 pilot come to our site and mentor their students/friends there? I’m sorry to say it, but there are some bad instructors and bad P3/P4 pilots with bad habits out there. At least we know that our local instructors have years of experience flying our site, they have insurance coverage, and they have something to lose if our site gets shut down due to too many accidents. As good as they are at their jobs and as hard as they try to keep their students safe, incidents still happen, so what chance does a freshly minted P2 from a less thermic, less mountainous, less populated site have to stay safe?
Long story short, I wouldn’t want the site rating to change. This place can get crazy no matter what time of year it is. Our local instructors know what skills it takes to fly here, and seeing as their careers depend on it, they can be trusted more than someone who has nothing to lose, to assess these skills properly.
Mike V. posting under Richard Viveros = Me confused. 😅
The figure 8 approach is meant to keep you away from all these obstacles you mentioned. You’ll get it eventually, and like I keep saying, the approach is not written in stone. First and foremost, the goal is always to avoid other pilots in the air with you, power lines, the trees, the shade structure and still have a safe, uneventful landing on the grass (or even the overshoot parking lot below the training hill, if that’s what you have to do).
If you make absolutely certain that you’re not getting into anyone’s way while landing, it’s not a big deal if you don’t land near the PG cone. The problem is that many say they ARE looking, and somehow still end up cutting off another pilot as they are making their final approach. That’s why IMO it’s safer to just stay on the PG side, because even if you don’t see an HG coming in to land, you’re on your own side, likely out of his/her way.
If you fly out in front of the house and trees a little bit, then slowly start turning between the white fence and somewhere before the hang glider training hill, you’ll slowly lose enough altitude to then make your final approach to the grass. If you’re landing earlier in the day, yeah, you’ll still get some lift as you’re landing (that’s why flying and landing in the early summer afternoon can be so dicey), but usually that becomes a non-issue in late afternoon at sunset.
Streamers are an idea, but to be honest, I’ve seen P3 pilots crash into each other and they wouldn’t have had streamers. It’s a good idea to stay away from other pilots at all times, no matter what their ratings are. I just assume none of the pilots see me, and I fly away from people. You want my thermal that bad? Take it, it’s not worth fighting over.
The only people I will fly closer to are those that I agreed to fly with that day. We both know each other, we know we’ll get a little closer, but even then I’ll steer away if they get too close for comfort.
Nice pics! Super sad about the fire. Looks like a nuclear explosion.
Those “morning” flights are not so morning past 9:30- 10:00AM on these hot days. 😄 Great practice for sketchy everything. 😂 That’s why I decided to pass on it this time.
Good job on staying up for as long as you did! You’re always getting nice, long flights.
I flew from Crestline in the early evening and just ridge-soared and practicing some things here and there. I then top-crash…uhh..I mean…landed, and went home. 😆 Was nice not to have to drive back up the mountain! 🤘
Oh no! Poor Jeff! ☹️😞 So sorry to hear he got hurt. Wishing him a very speedy recovery. ❤️
Thanks John! I asked Stephen and Dan for advice before putting the diagram together. I made changes to it a few times before we finally posted it online, and Jordan helped me refine it by bringing the figure 8’s closer to the grass so that people aren’t losing altitude low over the house.
Stephen taught me how to fly and I watch him teaching new people all the time. He’s always asking us to make our turns between the house and the white fence, so that we don’t stray too far toward the hang glider approach, or into the power lines located just past the white fence. I don’t always get the turns perfect, nobody is expected to do that, but I definitely do my best to make my turn before the hang glider hill so that there’s no risk of collision.
Just out of curiosity, how often do you fly at AJX and what pattern would you suggest we use for PGs that (in your opinion) would be safer to use with power lines, trees, houses & hang gliders present? Did you watch the video of Stephen’s tandem landing using the approximate pattern? We’re not doing figure 8’s low over the ground. We do them high up, and then bring it in to the grass when we’re about as high as the pine tree that’s by the house.
We’re all open to better ideas, but this has been working out just fine for most of us even with traffic. It’s not very often that we have more than two people coming in to land at about the same time. It’s quite rare and has only happened to me once or twice at the end of the day. When it did, we saw each other, we gave each other room and landed without problems using the figure 8’s. If we don’t have a preferred pattern, how do we all stay predictable to other pilots?
The good news is that the BOD is working on a video that will demonstrate & explain both the HG and PG approach. Hopefully that will help new and visiting pilots better understand why we do what we do at AJX.
Jana, I found your comments to be dismissive at best. We have a medical crisis in this country, in this state and in this county. Wear the damn mask. Stay away from me. Get smart and don’t be stupid carrying covid to others. You may feel young and healthy but you do not know if you are a spreader.
I think it’s clear from my post that we want people to be considerate of others and wear their masks when necessary:
We definitely would like for everyone to be considerate of others, so yes, please bring a mask even if you think you’re healthy, keep a safe distance from other people when at the LZ, wear your mask when close to others, try not to touch your face and wash those hands. No need to take preventable risks.
It’s also important that if someone feels their health is at high risk, to do what they can to avoid contact with other people. As much as we’d like, we can’t always trust others to do the right thing. Unfortunately we’re not always there to police the LZ, we’re all just volunteers, so if you’re out there and see somebody putting others at risk, please remind them nicely to wear their mask.
Personally I bring my mask to the LZ and I try to wear it when I’m close to others, but I also don’t spend much time at the LZ. I go up to launch, I fly, I land, I pack my gear and try to leave fairly shortly thereafter if I can. Let’s all try to minimize our chances of getting sick, and/or infecting others by taking the necessary precautions.
I’ve noticed that a few of the older high-risk pilots are staying home and not flying at all. Luckily this is an outdoor activity that (outside of getting a ride up the mountain) is pretty solitary. I believe that anyone taking the Sandy van shuttle up to launch is required to wear a face-mask. She won’t let you ride otherwise, and she’s also limiting the number of people in her van.
It doesn’t seem too difficult to keep a safe distance from other people on the grass, or especially if taking one’s own car up to launch. We have soap and water on site, so washing one’s hands frequently shouldn’t be a problem either.
We definitely would like for everyone to be considerate of others, so yes, please bring a mask even if you think you’re healthy, keep a safe distance from other people when at the LZ, wear your mask when close to others, try not to touch your face and wash those hands. No need to take preventable risks.
I’m so jealous of their perfect launch site. If only we could do something like that on Marshall. -Dreaming-
I think I was thrown off by the relatively small 8’s in the diagram. In Stephen’s great looking approach, he goes east almost to the training hill, expanding the area covered by almost 50%. In Jana’s description, she mentions going west to the white fence.
The 8s look small in the diagram, but actually cover a pretty good area. I’m usually able to stay within it when making my approach. People don’t need to be making perfect 8s, or turn precisely at the edge of the house, just as long as they’re away from the hang glider training hill and approach. I didn’t want to expand the 8s in the diagram, because I didn’t want people to think it’s OK to expand yet more over the HG training hill. There’s a little bit of wiggle room on that side. The other side has power lines, so when low, I wouldn’t recommend going farther beyond the white fence.
As long as PGs are not flying over the HG training hill and landing on the grass at the base of it, they should be OK. It should be looked at as a ‘guide’ more than a written-in-stone rule. Besides, does nobody else think it’s fun to be able to hit, or at least get close to the PG cone to practice their spot-landings? 😄 That seems a bit tough to do from the HG approach.
Here’s an approximate example of what the figure 8 PG approach looks like from the ground. This is Stephen landing with a tandem:
Sometimes as I come into the pattern still up high, I go past the white fence if I’m a safe distance above the power lines, and sometimes I go a little bit past the house while making my turn if I don’t see anyone coming in to land. It’s not always perfect, but I mostly try to keep it between the white fence and house, in front of all the obstacles. I usually make my final approach from the house to the cone (if nobody is in the way), and I try to be as low as the big pine tree, sometimes a few feet lower, before I head toward the grass. That gets me close to the PG cone pretty much every time, with a good flare and soft landing.
This approach pattern is not going to work for everyone ALL the time, but if you watch the wind socks as you approach (when they’re not pointing at each other) and you’re not landing in the middle of a hot day when dust devils are common, this approach pattern will work great and isn’t a risk of you dying if you use it. It’s the only one I’ve been using since I’ve started flying a PG, and I’ve never had an issue with it. I’m out of the way of hang gliders, I’ve not landed into a dust devil (thus far), and haven’t seen anyone else do so yet with my own eyes.
Besides, dust devils don’t just stick to the parking lot area, they’re on the grass too, they just don’t have any dust to pick up to make themselves visible. I’ve seen them go all the way over to the hang glider side. You’re not much safer from them over there, but now you just might get in the way of a hang glider.
Unless you’re great at looking around and making sure no hang gliders are coming in at the same time as you, landing in the hang glider pattern as a PG is asking for problems. There’s a major conflict of speed. HGs are a lot faster than we are, and we can’t get out of their way fast enough. We’ve had way too many of these in the last few months. That’s why the approach pattern keeps coming up. If some of these PGs were good at keeping an eye out, we could easily share the same pattern, but they’re not. They prove it over and over again.
In case you haven’t heard, Owen set a new world record. Read about it here.
Don’t know if you saw mine, but I have the Ozone light-weight clip version (vs. zipper). It makes my packing life 100% easier, keeps the glider neat when stowed away, and opening it up on launch is no problem. I think the zippers are more prone to break, more expensive, plus there’s the added danger of accidentally getting the glider caught in the zipper. 😓
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