The Scott Wise Report

Friday, June 3, 2011

Well, a whole lot of pilots had a good time flying yesterday at H-Port. Among the pilots present were Canadians Bob Grant and Patrick O'Donnell, Bill Vickery, Jeff Ingersoll, Jim Kolynich, Ed Jowett, Myself, Moritz Wagner and Matt Calladine. The wind was a bit on the high side around the noon time frame, but gung-ho Bill V decided to go for it (not sure of his launch time). He was considering a possible XC flight. I got up to launch around 3:30 pm and Bill was still in the air at the time - not too high though. Within about half an hour of arriving it seemed that Bill had gotten flushed to the church LZ. But he had gotten pretty high earlier in his flight, and upon arriving back up top from the LZ reported that the air, while a bit swift, hadn't been particularly rough or rowdy. Around 5 pm a number of already set up pilots, began seeing conditions that looked comfortable. Bob Grant volunteered to go first. He took off and got above launch pretty quickly. But the lift did look a bit variable. This became evident when Moritz, launching next, failed to gain anything after launch and had a short flight to the church LZ. But it seemed like Moritz may have been the victim of bad timing since Bob G, also losing some altitude at this time, regained to over launch and continued to soar and thermal and gain out. As I recall, Ed Jowett was the next to launch, then it was my turn. I launched at 5:49 pm. The wind was still a bit breezy, but not too bad. One thing is for sure, the upper launch needs a good trim. I turned right after launch as that seemed to be where Bob and Ed were circling and gaining. In deed, there was some good lift in the bowl to the north of launch. And that was the case on multiple occasions during my flight. As I flew, one after another of the rest of the pilots launched and joined our squadron. It would be nice to hear about their flights. As for me, I landed at 6:29 with 40 minutes air time. My max altitude was 3,629 ft MSL (2,529 above valley level and 1,779 ATO). Just before deciding to land a cycle had dropped me to just above my cut off point for shooting a top landing so I decided to take her down. The top LZ has just been very roughly ploughed and thankfully I had a powder puff stand up landing among the large over turned clods of dirt and turf. Walking the glider off the field was a harder work out than flying! Ed Jowett had preceded me into the LZ and next in after me was Jim K, then Patrick O, and then Bob G. Patrick could have used a bit more speed and/or a firmer flair, as he kind of belly flopped on landing. As far as I know, Jeff Ingersoll and Bill Vickery were the last HG pilots remaining in the air and were (minimal) ridge soaring for a good long while after many of us landed. I think, however, that they had to land in the valley as a result. Finally, Matt C launched his PG at the end of the day and himself soared the ridge for a nice while. So 9 pilots showed up and got some air time. Nearly everyone got to fly as long as they wanted. Good day!

S C Wise