Bruce Engen - Italy Valley

Bob Grant - Going Down - Italy Valley

Dan Spiers and Mark Frutiger

Set-Up

A Beautiful Day at Dansville, NY

Chuck

Bob Roth - Take-Off

Scott Wise - Take-Off

Scott Rowe - Take-Off

Stoneybrook Park - Dansville, NY

Ron Letzin

Chuck

Bob Grant - Take-Off

Mark Frutiger

Scott Wise with a Great Run off Mt. Washington (Hammondsport)

Greg Lloyd - Canada - H-Port

Katrin Feeling the Paraglider

Mukrin Sisic Too late for Lift But They do much Better at Indian Cliffs

Bob Grant Flies His Fusion at Mossy Banks Overlooking Bath, New York

Bob Helps Scott on Take-Off

Bob Grant

With the wind being strong in the morning at the Flight Park we decided to try Hammondsport New York a mountain site fifty miles south of Rochester. After hiking near Naples we contacted Scott Wise who lives close to the take off and he was about to try a flight so we drove to take of and assed the wind conditions and decided that we would try a flight although the wind was occasionally gusting to over twenty mph. With my encouragement Scott was first to get off and had a good take-off with the left tip lifting a little more than normal but Scott was soaring so I hurried into my harness and scooted off the west take-off. The wind was strong so we did not get very high like three to five hundred feet above take-off with Scott usually above me as he flies a small Fusion which handles more wind that my larger one. Scott made a trip down to the south end of the ridge where the jail is located and I followed and Scott came back with good height but I had lost lots of lift on my journey back and I was below take off a hundred feet or so but gained to well above take-off quickly. After an hour or so the wind let up a bit and then I was able to get above Scott for the rest of the flight and at one point I used a bubble to get nine hundred and seventy feet above take-off which was the highest that we got to. After a couple of hours Scott decided to land and because the church landing field had been recently ploughed there was not a good landing field to land in so we used the soft ploughed field and Scott beaked in and fifteen minutes later I came in on my wheels and the nose came over fast and slammed into the soft dirt making a huge cloud of dust and covering me with dirt. I think that I should have tried a stand up landing. We both had smooth flights and enjoyed the air very much. After I returned home, I realized that I must have left my sunglasses in the landing area and Scott returned the next day and found them in the grass where I had broken down. Thanks Scott.

Bob Grant and I met at H-Port this afternoon and had a fine time flyin'. While the wind seemed a bit strong and a little westerly, once in the air it was nice. Amazingly smooth, in fact. I was 300 over with my first pass. Can you say "buoyant".

I launched at 6:26 pm and Bob followed about 5 minutes later. We both popped off from the south launch since that favours a more westerly wind. My max alt was a bit more than 1.5k over the LZ, and Bob reported 1.8K over. That was a sweet cycle and very Wonder-like - but then the whole flight could have qualified as wonderish. I took a short out and return to the knoll above the jail and back. I started at 1250 AGL and only lost 200 ft in the process. As I said, buoyant.

Before the end of the flight the wind began to rotate to the north and that may have been when the high cycle was triggered. Most of the time, however we both were between 1K and 1.2K AGL. Now and then the corn field behind launch would release a mild little thermal which didn't hurt at all.

It began to get a little late, so around 8:26 I headed out and ended up landing by the church at 8:31 pm for 2 hrs 5 minutes. Bob came out and touched down maybe 10 - 15 minutes later.

Allen Ahl Landing Approach

Oded, Bob and Scott

Friday May fourth we made another trip to the Finger Lakes and this time our friends Eric and Mary accompanied us. We met Scott Wise at his home in Bath around noon and decided to check out Mossy Banks and found that the wind was crossing and so we decided to hear for Indian Cliffs which is about another forty miles and by the time we collected Scott's glider transport tool we ended up getting to Indian Cliffs around four o'clock and quickly set up after rolling our gliders up the hill on Scott's cart. Just when we were near the top, Mary's dog Tess got into a battle with a porcupine and of coarse had about forty quills in her mouth so Eric and Mary worked on removing the quills. Scott took off first as I am a big chicken and after about five minutes we could see that Scott was well above take-off so I hustled off the hill and found some great thermals taking me to almost 3,700 feet and I stayed up for one hour and thirty five minutes when the lift subsided. Scott stayed up for fifty two minutes and landed with his dog Lobie greeting him in the landing area.

Saturday morning we went for a hike in Hammondsport and called on Scott around noon when we decided to fly at Mossy Banks. Mossy is a shear cliff take-off and so I got my nerve up and was the first off with the help of Oded Kalir who showed up while we were setting up our gliders. It turned out to be a great take-off in a lull between the stronger cycles and immediately I was up to six hundred feet above and soon I was in thermals which eventually took me to 2,020 feet. The wind was sometimes strong and blowing the thermals back quickly and at one point in my flight I had the wires go slack which I did not like and Scott also reported that he had a similar experience on that day. I was having a good time working the thermals and stayed up for three hours and five minutes. I think that Scott said that he stayed up for two hours and Oded had a one hour flight.

Sunday morning we checked with Scott who said that the predicted wind would be too strong so we went for a hike through the gorge at Grimes Glen in Naples and after that we stopped at Harriett Hollister Spencer Park and found Bob Roth and Doug Fen there and we watched as they tried to stay up in a thirty degree left cross wind without success so we headed home and later heard from Mukrin that he flew at Mossy Banks on Sunday as the wind calmed down later in the afternoon. There is a video of Mukrin's flight on our Paragliding webpage. Looks like he had some great lift and landed on top.

Our First weekend In The Finger Lakes 2007

On April 18 th we were watching the weather forecasts and noticed that the coming weekend looked very favourable for flying so we contacted Scott Wise who lives in Bath, NY and asked if he would be available to fly from Friday through Sunday and he replied that yes he would love to get airborne again. We loaded up our gear at six Friday morning and headed for Bath. When we first drove through Bath I noticed that the flag on top of Mossy Banks looked to be blowing in but somewhat from the north so Hammondsport sounded best.  I called Scott and met him at the Hammondsport launch at twelve-thirty. When we arrived and checked wind flow it appeared to be coming straight in at five to ten mph so I set up my Fusion and Scott put up two tell tail streamers. I had my glider set up in about a half hour and was ready to launch so with Maureen and Scott behind each wing wire and the streamers blowing in nicely I made a four step run off the step hill and felt a sinking feeling so pulled in for extra speed and turned right to get around to the more north facing part of the face where I hoped to catch some lift and sure enough there was some lift but not enough to gain altitude so I turned left coming back to where I expected to find lift but nothing so I continued west now below launch about two hundred feet cruising in a bit to close to the trees when I got a soft mushing feeling and before I could pull in enough and  turn right I could hear my left wingtip clicking through the tree branches and within three seconds I spun into the trees to a cushioning stop. Fortunately I was not very high off the ground but the ground was at a sixty degree slope and my feet were barely touching the rocky soil. OK damn, I really screwed up this time so looking around I can see that my Fusion doesn't appear to have any significant damage but now how do I get out of here. With my feet barely touching the ground I try to unhook my carabineers (you say carabineers, well yes I have always used two) But I could not get the hang strap of the either carabineer so I finally gave up on that and unzipped and unbuckled my harness and dropped out of the CG 1000 harness trying to get a foothold against a tree or shrub. Next I unhooked my harness from the glider and try to make my way to the take off area which is more than two hundred feet up the steep slope but after five minutes I gave up on taking my harness up with me as it was to steep and I was not making much headway so I left my harness and used both arms and legs to get to the top so that Maureen would not have gone to the landing area looking for me but to no avail as by the time I got to the top (about twenty minutes) Maureen had left to retrieve me, not knowing that I had landed in the trees and Scott was breaking down his glider thinking that if there was no better lift than I had found that we should pack up and head for Indian Cliffs or Mossy banks which both face northeast or fifty degrees on a compass. Next I asked Scott if he would drive to the landing area and inform Maureen that I had landed in the trees and need help dislodging my glider and so Scott headed down and dropped me off at Rick Parulski's farmhouse where I asked Dick for a rope and a saw to cut the saplings away from my glider and soon Scott, Maureen and I were on a mission to get my Fusion out of there although I had thought that maybe I should leave it there permanently as I was so pissed that I had gotten into this predicament in the first place and I was due for a new glider anyways but with some encouragement from Scott and Maureen we decided to extract my glider and Scott said let's take it down the mountain rather than up as it would be much easier and I had to agree to that one. Amazingly after cutting only four saplings we were able to get the glider folded up and into the bag which took about an hour so Maureen struggled back to the top to take our vehicle down while Scott used the long rope tied to my glider and secured around trees to keep me from sliding to fast down the slope as I guided the glider and harness through the trees to the base of the mountain where we carried it to highway fifty four where Maureen came along shortly after we got there. We loaded up my glider retrieved Scott's car and glider and headed for Mossy Banks and as we arrived we could see two hang glider pilots soaring that beautiful four hundred foot high ridge. We got Scott's Fusion to the take-off and he set up and had a wonderful almost two hour flight with Jamie McGuire and Bob Roth at one of my favourite flying locations. After the pilots packed their gliders Scott, Maureen and I grabbed a bite to eat and we took my Fusion to Scott's home to sew a patch on my Fusion's wingtip which had suffered a eight inch tear in my tree landing and fortunately Scott has a super industrial sewing machine and he did an excellent job of patching my sail and all I had to do was inspect the airframe on Saturday morning before attempting flight again and as it turned out I did not see any damage other than one slightly bent batten which I straightened.

Lesson - Don't fly too close to the trees. Bad Bob!!

Saturday April 21, 2007, "talk about a wonderful day for flying" well it just couldn't have been better. Once I had inspected my glider and set it up at eleven o'clock Mark Andrews was already in the air at Hammondsport and well above take-off so I knew it was good now so I got into my harness and screamed off that hill again and this time there was lots of lift and I climbed to well over three thousand feet in my first thermal and I could see Mark flying his Paraglider in the same air that I was experiencing. As the day progressed the thermals became even better and by noon there were lots of paraglider pilots setting up and getting airborne. A little later on Scott Rowe, Dan Spier, and Bob Roth joined Scott Wise and I along with about ten Paraglider pilots. Although there was not a cloud in the sky the thermals were many and I found them to be smooth although I heard a paraglider pilot saying that he thought it was bumpy but I expect that was closer to the ridge and luckily I did not get down there during my first flight which lasted two hours and twenty minutes and according to my Flytec I topped out at six thousand eight hundred feet above take-off but I was told later by Florian Ghiban that he was at 8,500 feet above the landing area and that I was at about the same level and that may be possible as my number one vario battery died in flight and I switched over to number two so maybe my readings got confused in that transition. After my first flight I landed on top about five hundred feet behind the take-off and rested for an hour and then took off again finding similar conditions and topping out at five thousand and eight hundred feet and I landed this flight at the church landing area where many pilots were gathered. At seven o'clock there were still four or five pilots in the air and getting a thousand over launch so it was soarable from ten-thirty in the morning until seven-thirty in the evening. I did not hear of any cross country flights from Hammondsport on that day but I am sure that the XC pilots in neighbouring areas must have gone for it.

Sunday April 22, 2007 we drove to Dansville NY which is about thirty miles from Bath and when we arrived after a walk though Stoneybrook park Gorge around noon, Florian said that he had talked to Bob Roth who said that Marty was going to tow today so we zoomed off to the Rochester tow park because the wind at Dansville was nil. I had a twenty minute flight from Marty's aerotow along with Doug Allen and Bob Roth so Sunday had few thermals that I could stay with but by four o'clock we noticed that the wind had picked up to about ten mph and we found out later that Florian and Mukrin flew at Dansville after all and had great flights.

The next weekend did not appear to be flyable so we did a kayak trip on Sunday at the Elora Gorge which is about seventy miles from our home in London, Ontario, Canada.