I wasn’t there for part of this story, so I can’t vouch for all of it. Dave Childs was, though, so he can chime in and tell me how much I’m exaggerating.

So, sometime after the earth had cooled enough that playing “the floor is lava” was only a game, Kenny, Dave and I were flying Little Mountain.  Little Mountain was right off the freeway, so we’d often get wuffos that saw us flying and doubled back to come and watch.

This day, some wuffos followed us up the road to the top to watch us launch.  Kenny thought it would be funny if they got to see somebody launch “for the first time.”  I was youngest, so I got volunteered for the role.

Dave had recently bought a new Eipper Flexi-Flier, and in those days, Eipper would ship a training manual of eight or ten pages stapled together to help the new customer learn to fly the glider.  I was given this to “study”, and Kenny and Dave helped me set up my glider, loudly giving me advice and encouraging me.  I tried to maintain the attitude of a possibly naïve, but cautiously optimistic student.

It was late afternoon, and the wind had picked up enough to be soarable.  Soarable, at that time and place and with that equipment, was ridge soaring 25 to 50 feet over the top, maybe a little less if it lulled.

Kenny and Dave made sure I was strapped in, helped me over to the launch and threw me off, complete with the training manual in hand.

So I began to fly back and forth, and when I’d come back over launch, Kenny and Dave would shout up helpful information like “Page 8!  Look at Page 8 for your turns!”  Me being a good student, I would obligingly riffle through the manual and attempt to study it a little more during the next pass.

I must not have been a very good student, because they always had something to complain about every time I came by.

Now, I had fully intended to give Dave back his instruction book at the bottom, but fate, or maybe a bad staple, took a hand, and as I came back over launch most of the manual was whipped out of my hand by the wind.  Damn.

On the other hand, this was way too good an opportunity to pass up, so I screamed “Omigod! How do I get down!”

This is the part I can’t vouch for, but Kenny and Dave swore to me that when the manual departed, and I yelled, the wuffos absolutely blanched.

At this point, (so I’m told), Kenny and Dave say something like, “Well, nothing we can do for him now, I guess we’ll go fly.”

And they did.

I wonder from time to time if the wuffo was actually that gullible, and tells a story about how he saw some poor soul fly a hang glider for the first time and couldn’t get down.  If there is, it’s Kenny’s fault.

Whew.  At a loss for words.

I’m sorry to hear it.  Can’t imagine there’s anyone who ever met Juanita who isn’t sorry to hear it.

Alex:

The original scheme , as I recall it, was for PGs to fly the mirror image of the HG approach.

In both approaches, during the middle of the day, there can be significant lift, so by the time you get to where you’d like to make your turn on to base, you’re a high.  So sometimes it would be necessary to fly a small number of figure 8s instead of just a base leg.  On the HG side, one day I had to go out and start the approach over again from a lower altitude twice.

Somehow, in the PG pattern this has morphed into only doing figure 8s in the area defined by the Cross-Country Ranch.  I don’t fly PGs, so I can’t say whether this is easy or hard.  I do think if there was some initial control point upwind and away from the hill that was routinely rounded before going back downwind to do any remaining figure 8s then pilots wouldn’t come in as low over the trees.  I’ve watch Dusty make approaches like this any number of times.

You can fly for 30 minutes after sunset.

You should have a light visible for 3 miles for flying in the half-hour after official sunset, though.

LED strobes are available that would suit.

103.11   Daylight operations.
(a) No person may operate an ultralight vehicle except between the hours of sunrise and sunset.

(b) Notwithstanding paragraph (a) of this section, ultralight vehicles may be operated during the twilight periods 30 minutes before official sunrise and 30 minutes after official sunset or, in Alaska, during the period of civil twilight as defined in the Air Almanac, if:

(1) The vehicle is equipped with an operating anticollision light visible for at least 3 statute miles; and

(2) All operations are conducted in uncontrolled airspace.

Assuming for plausible deniabiltity that they had an anticollision light and were going to be top landing, they had 13 minutes of legal flight available.

We used to fly standard Rogallos off Crestline.  Generally we landed somewhere along Devil’s Canyon Road.  So modern equipment should make it out to AJX no problem.

The briefing I give to H2s is:

If you get lower than the ridge, consider going to the Billboard.  If you’re lower than the houses by the house thermal, definitely go to the Billboard.

Never try to cross directly to Marshall. Marshall is well rounded, so while you won’t hit a well-defined rotor, you will  have sink in the area behind it out to about the middle of the canyon or a little further.  Think of it like a very large, very oddly shaped airfoil: the air wants to stick to the surface, so it goes up on the front side, and down on the back.

So if you don’t clear Marshall, and try to sneak around, you will be in sink the entire way.  There’s a little bit of a venturi wind effect at the end if you’re below the top, too.

Instead, stay as tight along the back ridge as you reasonably/comfortably can.  Even if you don’t climb back there, the air, in general, is going to be going up, and extending your glide.

Go down to the Billboard.  There’s a ridge there that points toward the powerplant.   If you’re at or below  4800 feet, head out to Marshall.

Fly along that ridge parallel to the big tubes.  Generally a little to the left of the big tubes is where I’ve found the best lift.  Bearing in mind that there can be some venturi effect in the mouth of the canyon, when you can clear Last Chance or Regionals, do so.

The bailout isn’t very good, but it’s the closest thing to landable terrain in the canyon.  Figure on a crosswind uphill landing.  There’s a steep dropoff next to the road. It’s fairly flat, though pretty bushy, next to the edge, but it gets steeper and steeper the higher you go.

More advice, I can’t give, because I’ve never landed there, only picked people up.  But I think I’d try to set up diagonally, to try to get some headwind component and a shallower path up the hill.

I think it’s better to leave Crestline a little early and have some altitude to work with when you arrive at Marshall.  Yes, it’s possible to get up from very low in the canyon, but I don’t think the risk is worth the reward.