Our first attempt at the Finger Lakes Spring 2008

Skydog Report - April 16th - 19th

Wednesday April 16, 2008 we drove the 4 hours to Dansville New York where we met Bob Roth and Carl Parsiegla and later Scott Wise showed up and then Linda Salamone and Mark Frutiger zoomed in to try to soar the elusive thermals. When we first arrived around noon the wind was coming into launch at about ten MPH and so Bob Roth and I carried our T-2s into launch and set up and Carl brought his paraglider to launch and while Bob and I were setting up Carl took off and quickly dove to the landing area as the wind had lightened up considerably. Scott Wise was next to launch and Scott made a few passes and slowly sunk out and landed close to the soccer field in a ploughed field. Bob Roth was next and he followed Scott’s lead as I waited hoping that the wonder winds would kick in. By five o’clock Mark and Linda tried their luck but no success as they both slowly descended and then Carl tried his paraglider again and he did get above take off and made a few turns but after about ten minutes Carl was flushed and I decided to break my glider down rather than trying to run off the shallow slope at Dansville. It was nice seeing all the pilots for the first time in 2008.

Thursday morning after checking with Bob Roth we decided to try Bristol Mountain as the forecast wind was for south westerly’s turning to North West by evening. Bob and Carl met us in the landing area and we proceeded to the top where we found that the road was closed due to wet conditions so we walked in with Carl and Bob and their paragliders. My wife Maureen carried my 25 pound harness most of the way in and when we arrived at launch the wind was coming in at 8 MPH so Bob and Carl offered to carry my glider in from the road a half hour walk much of which was up hill and I carried a few other parts and after meeting a wonderful new neighbour, Mark Michaud who has purchase seventy acres just north of launch and Mark offered to carry my glider on his fur wheeler so Bob and Carl were saved the heavy carry in. Sure enough by the time we got my glider in the wind had diminished and was coming about 20 degrees from the left so we waited and Bob tried to launch his paraglider about five times with no success and finally I decided to run my T-2 off the hill and by this time the wind was coming from the north west and I made a great launch and turned right and toward a bowl that gave me about 100 feet of lift above launch but as I passed over the launch I soon found that there was no lift to the left of launch and by the time I made it back to the lifting bowl I was much to low to use the lift so I headed for the parking lot landing area at Bristol Ski Lodge and made a perfect landing on my wheels as usual. Within a few minutes Bob Roth got off the mountain and quickly made his way to the parking lot. Carl soon followed and managed to hang in my lifting bowl for about ten minutes and then cruised out to the Bristol parking lot. Our second day was not too exciting and fortunately the weather was really nice with high temps near 75 degrees F.

Friday OK so the wind is finally coming in at our favourite site (Hammondsport) and first thing in the morning Mukrim and his two friends, Evo and his brother Alex from Bulgaria were set up on launch at 10:30 and Mukrim Sisic rushes of the west take off and climbs rapidly to over one thousand feet and later gets as high as three thousand feet while the wind becomes more from the west making take off for me not a pleasant option and Evo and Alex try a couple of flights sinking out while Mukrim soars high above getting thermals way out in the valley Around five o’clock the wind switches to the right of launch and I pick a straight cycle and blast off and make a few passes and then lose the lift and am forced to the church landing area. Doug Stoner made a late flight landing at the Church and we all had a few stories to tell and Mukrim was certainly the star performer for the day.

Saturday morning we wake to the sound of wind and we realize that Mukrim and his paraglider friends have left at 8 AM for Italy Valley so by 9 we are on the road chasing them. When we arrive at Italy Valley launch we see that Mukrim, Evo and Alex are all soaring well above launch at 10 AM so of coarse I am in a flap trying to hurry my T-2 into flying condition. Well I blasted of at 1030 and wow was it ever nice getting into some soaring air with my paragliding friends. AS we were flying the wind began to pick up and was somewhat textured and I would give it a Rasty report of 7 out of ten for bumpy but my T-2 handled it very nicely and the Para gliders were marking the thermals for me and finally I caught a good one and zoomed up past all of them and followed it back to the tip of Canandaigua Lake and then I was at 4,745 feet and the view was spectacular. I flew around for a while and noticed that the three paragliders had landed so I cruised to the ridge and then the valley and finally was getting down to 500 feet above launch and I decided to land on top about 1,000 feet behind launch and I had a good landing and walked my T-2 half way to launch and Maureen and I took Flash the amazing wiener dog for a walk through the Hi-Tor glen and that was beautiful. Around four PM we returned and I took off again while many other plots waited for the wind to drop off and this time I only flew for twenty minutes after making a bad decision flying to far to the east and loosing the lift and quickly I landed in the old landing area. Shortly after Mukrum joined me there as he also could not penetrate the westerly winds. While we were breaking down we saw a fairly new pilot (Chuck) take off and he seamed to be in a wonder wind about four thousand feet above take off and after abut a half hour Chuck landed way to close behind launch but got lucky with his landing and survived unscathed. The rotor is usually nasty right there. OK so after being persistent I finally got two hours of airtime in our last day in the Finger Lakes for this session. We will be back again real soon. Keep Posted.

SKYDOG - Bob Grant

Mukrim Sisic Report-

Yesterday at Italy V. was good too (2500ft max above), I will not brag about airtime-- this time had two flights. First flight was great, second one turn out to be adrenaline overdose -not fun.

However during the first flight I had experienced a couple extraordinary things:
 First one; just imagine doing everything to core thermal to the left, hard left brake... etc and wing starts doing right turn. Turn with high banking angle-pendulum and almost going into spiral to the right and up heading close to  full 360. Like flying the dust devil?

  Second one; I was in extraordinary bullet thermal that brought me 1300 ft. difference up in no time, it felt like reversed movie of very very fast and tight spiral but with much lower banking angle . There were  strong thermals around during the flight all the time (strong wind and thermals) but this one was just totally another dimension. I wish I had vario. I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the area of 20s/m. Since I didn't measure it should be taken as very subjective observation.

   H.port, day before, was totally different than Italy V. in the nature of thermals, and wind. They gave me nice play above 3,500 ft above the ridge, repeatedly and I could go anywhere without fighting the wind , I mean wind was very light and switching in direction. Same day I flew Mossy at the end of the day, wind was cross from E which made launch hard otherwise easy glass off.

 Good company of people there was just as nice as flying.

              krug Mukrim