Finger-Lakes-2013

The Skydog Report

Thursday evening September 12, 2013 Patrick O'Donnell and I drive to Hammondsport NY for the weekend. We wake Friday morning to heavy rain and by 3 pm the sky breaks up a little and we decide to try our luck at soaring Hammondsport. Patrick gets off first in a nice light cycle and works his way up above launch and now I get ready to launch by myself. This works out well as the wind is light like 8 mph and I run off and gradually after three passes I am above the ridge by a hundred feet. We both get up to 450 feet above and a cloud moves across in our path and it starts to rain lightly again and Patrick takes off toward the church landing field and I watch him land nicely. Okay so it is still sprinkling and I see another cloud moving in at my level so I work my way up to 300 feet above the ridge and scoot back over the top for a top landing in Rick's field and I have a real nice landing on my wheels. Now I walk back to the van parked at launch and go get Patrick and we come back up and Patrick starts carrying my T-2 over the hill to the launch area so that I might try again but when we reach launch this time the rain starts again so I give up and we go get dried out in the cabin with the wood stove. Patrick had a 26 minute flight and mine was only 13 minutes. Later Friday evening we welcome our new friends Erik and Charlie from back home and get ready for another day.

Saturday morning starts out cloudy again but the forecast says clearing by noon so we get set up and about seven Paraglider pilots show up and they take a few tries at soaring but most land within a half hour but two of them get more than an hour each and a grand above. Jordan Lordanov likely was one of them. New guy, Keawe Wong had a spectacular flight on his paraglider when he gained over a grand and floated around while others were sinking out early. Matt Caladine arrived around 1:30 and showed us how well his new paraglider could do. He was high man. The sun shows up around two o'clock the four of us plus another three from Rochester get our hang gliders to launch and we try again. Erik went first and had a sledder and bent a downtube on landing and then Marc Sanchdev took a sledder and then Messhia went and stayed aloft for 1 hr - 30 minutes. Todd Shennan had a great flight of over an hour and Charlie and I took short flights of 23 minutes and then we came back up and Charlie had a 1 hr - 16 minute flight and I stayed up 1 hour and 38 minutes and we were up to 500 feet ato. Charlie and I had some very close encounters and with the sun getting low it was hard to see the other gliders at times. On my longer flight Patrick offered to let me fly his Sport 2 and it flies really nicely. Charlie landed on top and I landed at the church at the bottom. We all went to the Chinese Bin Bin for supper with Karl and Kartin and Jordan and Lana and it was a buffet feast with great flying talk.

Sunday we met Karl and Katrin at Bristol Mountain and we replaced Erik's downtube that Karin brought and then carried in to launch to find that the wind was pretty light and crossing from the left. Soon Karl took his beautiful paraglider up and had a nice flight about three hundred feet above launch and then Jordan took off for a sledder and then it was my turn. I gave it what I thought was a good run but my right wing stalled and I slid sideways and almost got it straightened out but caught a branch and slowly spun into the trees with a soft landing in the trees. Katrin, Patrick, Erik, Charlie and Karl came to my rescue and we got my T-2 out of the trees and up the face in about 90 minutes. Next Patrick, Katrin, Charlie and Erik all got off the mountain safely and had nice sledders. Thanks to all of you who helped get my glider up that very steep ravine. We all went to dinner close by and headed home. Erik and Charlie had a great first weekend in the Finger Lakes.

The Skydog Report

Wednesday June 19, 2013 we were in the Finger Lakes region of New York and the wind was forecast to be north with a bit of east so we headed to Indian Cliffs. we met Ed Jowett and Bill Vicary in the landing area and loaded our van and went to the top. The three of us set up by one pm and Bill and Ed gave it a try in what appeared to be a good cycle. George Adams had arrived just after us and took off after Ed and Bill. Bill got up to over a thousand feet and Ed got pretty high too but after the cycle stopped the three were forced to land. I elected to wait for shorter lulls between the cycles and as it tuned out we all waited until after six when the breeze stated to fill in. Linda Salamone, Peter Hoy, Jimmy Kolynich and Ron Kiteridge and Matt Calladine all showed up later and we all got off in a nice wonder wind. Bill had left his glider in the landing area so he took a ride with Matt on his Paraglider and had a great flight. Linda got highest at over 2,100 feet on a ridge just a bit to the right of take off that face more into the wind. I had a 1 hour and 38 minute flight and got up to 1,495 feet. The evening wonder wind was sweet but it sure was a long wait for it to turn on.