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By Jeff O'Brien on
6/29/2010 10:45 AM
Demo Daze - Point of the Mountain, Utah
Yes - it was a GREAT time. Pearson rolled up from the LA basin - an escape from the Chocolate Factory - trailer filled with at least one of each size and model of Wills Wing glider.
GOOD TIMES!!! - Ryan Voight three days after shoulder surgery. He was on the scene socializing. Speedy return to wellness man.
I rolled in around 1am Thursday night, slept at launch, and was up around 5.40am. John Linberg, right on schedule showed up with his brother Guy and began furiously setting up / striding to launch to check conditions. I think he was in the air by 6am!!! As I've said before - The Point is magic! Where in the world can you fly in the loveliest are before dawn, get 90 minutes in, and still make a 9am work schedule?
Katherine Phillips preparing to launch.
I set up and had a great session. PG traffic was light for most of the morning and soon there were only a dozen or more HG's in the air. It's been a long time since there has been such heavy HG traffic and it was a pleasure weaving around.
My brother-in-law, Matt came out. I've been talking HG to him for around a decade, and he's never been up. It was high time. Craig Chamberlain and Dan McManus graciously lent me gear to take Matt up. It was a special experience for both of us. Not amazing conditions, but he got a great feel for the flying.
Conditions turned from mild to wild quickly, and despite being able to get 800ft. or so over, we all landed and broke down. Lunched with the crew and had the afternoon to myself.
Greg Billow about to party on the latest T2C 144.
Conditions never materialized in the evening, and I hung out with Pearson and Dave Gibson at Dave's house. (Thanks man!) Listened to them talk shop over a couple of bottles of wine. With combined decades and decades of experience between the two, it's 90% listen and 10% talk. The story teller gets all the glory, but surely most of my experiences have been trumped by my table company. I enjoyed the conversation fully.
Dave Gibson about to launch Pearson's plaything. More on her later...
I headed back to the south side to sleep in case there was a dawn session to be had. The moon with cirrus was overwhelming and the dog and I stayed up for a couple of hours enjoying it. He and I have had a great spring together. Laid down just after 1 - woke to cranking north winds at 5.30 - back to sleep.
Caught up with my sister in law up at Sundance after poaching a Hampton Inn continental (shhh...) Essential to see her and she's got an EPIC space in the basement of a place. Below is the view through the trees ten feet out her door. Kozmo and I would run to Stuart Falls (pictured) a bit later.
Out the back door.
Ran with the dog up to Stuart Falls. The trail was packed, but the iPod kept me insulated. I pulled him the last bit on the hot hike, he marinated in the cold runoff, then pulled me back to the parking lot.
On the run a bit later.
I headed back to the North side, where strong winds had pilots setting up. I felt a bit off all morning, and decided to stay ground bound for the evening and support the team instead. A lot of demos were setup and everyone had their fill by sunset. The thermic afternoon made landings challenging, and there were a couple of broken tubes, but no bruised or broken bodies. We concluded the evening around 10pm in the twilight.
Greg Billow launching the T2C 144.
After a look at the weather, it seemed like the south side wouldn't be on the next morning, so I made the decision to split town a few hours early. Family would be in town, and I'd score bonus points if I made a BBQ Sunday evening. The full moon and a lot of caffeine deposited me home around 5am. "Yoga in the Park" at 9am prolonged the weekend buzz. It was the perfect weekend, even without incessant flying.
The Salt Lake valley has a vibrant flying community, excellent sites, and great amenities at The Point. BIRDMAN ACADEMY and WINGS OVER WASATCH handle your training needs, and Wills Wing supplies. HUGE thanks to the locals, out-of-towners, and Wills Wing for making it a great weekend!
Airtime: 2:30. Flights: 10. Matt Tandem.
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By Jeff O'Brien on
6/23/2010 7:07 AM
Dr. Batman (Adam West) and a bro (brew as they call em' in ZA) flew over the World Cup Stadium between games the other day and made a POST I've noticed more interest than ever in soccer lately in the US. I hope Cape Town has received only beneficial publicity from the event.
Adam took in a game with 65,000 other fans and there's much more in his blog post, so head on over and check it out.
http://hgrsa.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the report Adam!
Photo by Adam West
Photo by Adam West
Exactly how to run out a landing without a flare
Dave Aldridge compiled a test video recently. Check in around 56 seconds where Peter Swanson (Wills Wing final assembly and test pilot) performs a no flare, run out landing. Notice right before he's about to flare the glider is upset in a slight turn. Rather than flaring, he tries to correct until the last moment and takes a few strides. Thanks for the video Dave.
VIDEO HERE
GH1(3) Hack Test from David Aldrich on Vimeo.
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By Zac 'Zippy' Majors on
6/20/2010 10:50 PM
It's always fun to try to capture our sport on film. We know it's beautiful and cool, but how do we share it best? Get lots of angles, so guys like Aaron Swepston made mounts like this one. Of course, it seems we're always re-inventing the wheel, but at least he's happy to share what he knows.
Here's a video I shot to see how it behaves (thanks Marge for the use of the GoPro). I believe it will be a much better platform for still photos.
I know of at least two friends who've recently built dangle mounts, only to have them fail under load. Well I haven't loaded mine up yet, but I'm going to add some lead on the next flight. I want to see if gets any more stable or hangs more beneath me.
I think tying the PG line to the XB / LE junction would help laterally, but then you need another line part way out that connects to the BT to pull it in.
I wonder if adding some weight at the attachment points on each side would reduce the twisting?
Any thoughts on aerodynamic stabilization? I don't want to add much drag and have it end up farther behind though. I'm also not a modeler, so fashioning a wing to put it in seems difficult.
Hope you enjoyed this. Keep in mind that there are some safety issues involved with this kind of mount; or any flying with a camera for that matter. The most dangerous piece of sporting equipment is the camera!
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By Zac 'Zippy' Majors on
6/15/2010 9:46 PM
This weekend Sylmar Hang Gliding Association had its annual Spring Air Festival. Expecting Friday traffic around LA, I was pleasantly surprised to make it to the Flight Park in under an hour and half from Santa Barbara. On Friday a few cars headed up to the Kagel launch.Sylmar has an outstanding group of local pilots and has turned out several National Team members such as, Phil Bloom, Ron Weiner, and Chris Smith. Several of the locals were kind enough to show me around, Rob Burgis, Jeff Chipman, Jonathan Deitch, and Phil Bloom took me on a tour to the east. We quickly raced past Lance’s and over to Big Tujunga. A little under 4000’ I led the charge across to little Lukins. This is a little lower than they would normally cross, but there were clouds forming and it had been pretty easy so far. There are LZs in the Big T, but as I dove over a few spines I soon noticed that the landing options had gotten a bit sparse, to say the least. I was slow in noticing the drastic wind direction switch which was causing it to quite turbulent. I tucked tail and ran back downwind toward a school with a football field. I couldn’t see any of the guys I was flying with, and was hoping they were doing better than my situation. I was down to 300agl when I found 100fpm up which quickly improved and got me high enough to cross the wash where I found everyone climbing back up. We started heading back towards home and could see a small fire had started on the side of Lance’s ridge at the top of a gun club.
By the time we were crossing over, there were helicopters coming in to drop retardant. We passed through without disturbing their operations and once back to launch headed out to West Towers to complete the introduction. Landing at their club owned LZ is very civilized and inviting. After the flight a group went out for Thai food to complete the day. Phil and Kathy Bloom were kind enough to put me up overnight so we could do it all again Saturday.
The next morning, Mike Meier arrived with the trailer full of Wills Wing’s entire lineup of gliders. Joe Greblo, Mike and I were lining up demo flights and briefing pilots on what to expect. In my spare moments Chippy downloaded my waypoints and we put in the competition route. I helped a few people with their Flytec instruments (Make a new route, copy to competition route by pressing McCready, then use McCready again to set the start parameters). Our task was several laps around the local area, with the hope of a high completion percentage. On launch Mike and I helped pilots with pre-flights and adjusting hang heights. Mike pointed out I was about to miss the start, so I launched 12 minutes before the first clock at 2pm. I raced towards start, but figured I wouldn’t have time to get good position. The guys seemed OK with not having perfect position, and taking the first clock, because there were leading points. I drove down course line looking for the next climb and went a bit farther than the rest of the gaggle, at first they were out-climbing me, but then mine turned into 600up and I topped out while they raced under me. From there I took a line under clouds that seemed farther out then they were running and that gave me a big jump getting to the second turn point.
From there on I used all the other pilots in the air as markers and didn’t slow up, because I have too much respect for those guys to give them any second chances.
| # |
Id |
Name |
|
Nat |
Glider |
Sponsor |
SS |
ES |
Time |
km/h |
Dist. |
Dist.
Points |
Lead.
Points |
Time
Points |
Arr.
Pos
Points |
Total |
| 1 |
4 |
Zac Majors |
M |
USA |
Wills Wing T2C |
|
14:00:00 |
14:53:54 |
00:53:54 |
40,9 |
36,78 |
302,4 |
90,4 |
361,4 |
64,5 |
819 |
| 2 |
3 |
Rob Burgis |
M |
USA |
Moyes Litespeed RS 4 |
|
14:00:00 |
15:05:03 |
01:05:03 |
33,9 |
36,78 |
302,4 |
55,6 |
239,4 |
48,8 |
646 |
| 3 |
5 |
Phil Bloom |
M |
USA |
Moyes Litespeed RS 3.5 |
|
14:00:00 |
15:05:05 |
01:05:05 |
33,9 |
36,78 |
302,4 |
54,5 |
239,2 |
36,7 |
633 |
| 4 |
1 |
Jeff Chipman |
M |
USA |
Moyes Litespeed S4 |
|
14:00:00 |
15:05:50 |
01:05:50 |
33,5 |
36,78 |
302,4 |
55,6 |
233,8 |
27,7 |
620 |
| 5 |
6 |
Ron Wiener |
M |
USA |
Moyes Litespeed RS 3.5 |
|
14:20:00 |
15:25:12 |
01:05:12 |
33,8 |
36,78 |
302,4 |
7,4 |
238,3 |
14,7 |
563 |
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After the competition I flew a lovely tandem flight with Alice from Carpentaria.
Lynn and Jeff hosted a nice award ceremony and a local artist David fashioned a beautiful glass trophy that I was lucky enough to take home. There was plenty of liquid refreshment, and fun characters to share the rest of the beautiful evening which included a bonfire.
Sunday, Mike and I were continuing the demo flights, the thermals weren’t going as high or as strong, but fun none the less. The Sylmar club is a great group that you should definitely visit if you’re in SoCal. I said my goodbyes and headed off to Andy Jackson Airpark where I would fly great tandems on Monday and Tuesday from Crestline.
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By Dustin Martin on
6/15/2010 11:08 PM
Didn't quite make it due to the daily storm line convergence but got some cool shots. Went there anyway by car and it is the nicest beach I've seen in Florida. This is over Groveland heading northeast:
The route is tight and interesting weaving under and between some class b and c, some bombing ranges then a very tight final glide to the beach wedged between New Smyrna airspace and the space shuttle restricted area.
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By Jeff O'Brien on
6/14/2010 8:52 AM
Congratulations to all the participants of the East Coast Championships and Highland Aerosports for hosting the event.
Special kudos to #1 Larry Bunner and #2 Tom Lanning for their top placings on Wills Wing T2C 144's. Well done boys. Looking forward to the upcoming writeup of the event.
Also:
Check this comprehensive link out. Videos and tips on building an origami hang glider.
LINK HERE
the link: http://sciencetoymaker.org/hangGlider/index.htm
I tried this same concept some time ago with a faster flying paper airplane. This design looks slower and easier to control. As soon as I get some time, I've got to try it. If you do, let us know how it goes.
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