DbyD’s Summer O fun update #2
Before the summer started I had a few goals in mind to work towards. I am happy to report that I have so far accomplished 2 of those goals.
The first goal I would like to share is that I have successfully done my first mountain top landing. Marshall Peak is a great place for PGs to top land and HGs can land there as well, but it is considered to be quite difficult. This is something I have wanted to do for a long time, but I was careful and took my time as I know a bad top landing would be, well um, bad. Flying over Marshall is looks pretty easy, but looks can be deceiving.
One night, about a month ago, after flying a bunch of us went out for Pizza. While eating somehow the topic of top landing Marshall came up and Rob was describing in detail how it’s done. You come in cross wind, kind of behind the peak, and dive at the side of the mountain. It is a pretty steep slope back there so you have to round out aggressively and climb along the steep part of the hill. The ideal landing place is where it starts to flatten out, but before the top of the hill. You don’t want to over shoot.
To add to the difficulty of landing up there, Marshall is also quite thermally so you need to pick your landing time carefully. For the past month or so, towards the end of a flight I would fly over Marshall, look and plan the approach. I felt the conditions and tried to visualize how the approach might go. I have also observed Rob and another pilot top landing while I was setting up on Marshall. Another reason to wait for the right time was that I wanted to make sure there were people up there so that if I broke something, like a downtube, I could get a ride back down. It would suck big time to be up there and not be able to fly down.
There were a few times in the past couple of weeks where it was looking good, but I decided not to try it, mostly because the little man in my head had doubts. Well last Saturday was the day. I was over an hour into the flight, it was after 4pm, there were people on Marshall, Rob was making another trip up there later in the evening, and conditions were nice and smooth. It was pretty crowded up there with PGs so I had extra motivation to not overshoot. I did just like Rob described, dove hard at the hill, rounded out and flared at the top for a nice, smooth, few step landing. It was pretty exciting and as I was walking my wing up to the tie-downs, I shouted “I’m Alive!” I spent about an hour letting my excitement come down, lounging, and chatting with the PG pilots. At about 5:30 Rob shows up with a truck load of pilots and there were surprised to see me. Rob walks over to inspect my wing for signs of a whack, but there were none.
It was pretty exciting and I am glad that I was able to pull it off successfully, but I don’t think that is something I want to do every day. It can get pretty crazy up there and I have heard many stories about top landings gone badly.
The second goal: on Monday I logged my 250th flight, completing the last requirement I needed for Hang 4, so I am now an Advanced pilot. I am hopping there is a fall trip to Yosemite and I will have to get down to Torrey sometime. Who want to join me down there? SG? Jspin? Jason? BobK…. Oh wait … I’m actually not in much of a rush to go down there. I want to fly there on a weekday when it’s blowing like 18+ so it’s a sure thing and there is not much traffic. I am also not too excited about getting harassed but according to Brad that is a fantasy so I should be all good! /sarcasm.
…oh and the consecutive flying days continues. I’m up to 29 days now. Unfortunately I am going to Vegas next weekend so the streak will have to end
.::summer statistics::.
Flights - 42 + 7 bunny hill (Since June 26th)
Hours – 44.6
Top Landings – 1
…oh and I finally got my GPS hooked up. He is yesterday’s track, most of it anyways; the battery died some time toward the end of the flight.
The first goal I would like to share is that I have successfully done my first mountain top landing. Marshall Peak is a great place for PGs to top land and HGs can land there as well, but it is considered to be quite difficult. This is something I have wanted to do for a long time, but I was careful and took my time as I know a bad top landing would be, well um, bad. Flying over Marshall is looks pretty easy, but looks can be deceiving.
One night, about a month ago, after flying a bunch of us went out for Pizza. While eating somehow the topic of top landing Marshall came up and Rob was describing in detail how it’s done. You come in cross wind, kind of behind the peak, and dive at the side of the mountain. It is a pretty steep slope back there so you have to round out aggressively and climb along the steep part of the hill. The ideal landing place is where it starts to flatten out, but before the top of the hill. You don’t want to over shoot.
To add to the difficulty of landing up there, Marshall is also quite thermally so you need to pick your landing time carefully. For the past month or so, towards the end of a flight I would fly over Marshall, look and plan the approach. I felt the conditions and tried to visualize how the approach might go. I have also observed Rob and another pilot top landing while I was setting up on Marshall. Another reason to wait for the right time was that I wanted to make sure there were people up there so that if I broke something, like a downtube, I could get a ride back down. It would suck big time to be up there and not be able to fly down.
There were a few times in the past couple of weeks where it was looking good, but I decided not to try it, mostly because the little man in my head had doubts. Well last Saturday was the day. I was over an hour into the flight, it was after 4pm, there were people on Marshall, Rob was making another trip up there later in the evening, and conditions were nice and smooth. It was pretty crowded up there with PGs so I had extra motivation to not overshoot. I did just like Rob described, dove hard at the hill, rounded out and flared at the top for a nice, smooth, few step landing. It was pretty exciting and as I was walking my wing up to the tie-downs, I shouted “I’m Alive!” I spent about an hour letting my excitement come down, lounging, and chatting with the PG pilots. At about 5:30 Rob shows up with a truck load of pilots and there were surprised to see me. Rob walks over to inspect my wing for signs of a whack, but there were none.
It was pretty exciting and I am glad that I was able to pull it off successfully, but I don’t think that is something I want to do every day. It can get pretty crazy up there and I have heard many stories about top landings gone badly.
The second goal: on Monday I logged my 250th flight, completing the last requirement I needed for Hang 4, so I am now an Advanced pilot. I am hopping there is a fall trip to Yosemite and I will have to get down to Torrey sometime. Who want to join me down there? SG? Jspin? Jason? BobK…. Oh wait … I’m actually not in much of a rush to go down there. I want to fly there on a weekday when it’s blowing like 18+ so it’s a sure thing and there is not much traffic. I am also not too excited about getting harassed but according to Brad that is a fantasy so I should be all good! /sarcasm.
…oh and the consecutive flying days continues. I’m up to 29 days now. Unfortunately I am going to Vegas next weekend so the streak will have to end
.::summer statistics::.
Flights - 42 + 7 bunny hill (Since June 26th)
Hours – 44.6
Top Landings – 1
…oh and I finally got my GPS hooked up. He is yesterday’s track, most of it anyways; the battery died some time toward the end of the flight.
posted by David Aldrich at
11:24 AM
