Flying 9-30-08

I arrived at the LZ around 3:30 pm to find excited pilots. They had launched Crestline earlier and it was epic. Everyone was getting 10,000 ft or more.

I rode up with Rob on the 4:00 ride to Marshall. It was blowing down at Crestline but Marshall was flyable. As I was setting up I started to feel light gusts from the north. The windsock was still blowing in so I set up fast. The walk down to launch was nasty. I got turned around from winds in almost all directions and spotted at least one small dust devil. It was pretty amazing that I didn't get turtled as I was expecting it at least a few times. When I finally got to launch I found a pretty steady WSW wind, which is a bit cross. I waited for a lull and ran my ass off. I didn't want to get turtled on launch and I knew if I waited to long that was a real possibility.

Once airborne my experience changed completely. It was smooth and buoyant, like it usually after 5 pm. The house thermal wasn't really working so I headed west and found a light smooth thermal just to the north east of the 750. Little would I know that this thermal would eventually get me to 12,000 ft! Check out the drift inthis thermal:



It started out with very little drift. Then as I got to about 5000 ft it started to drift with a southeast wind, which switched to east at I got to 6000 ft. As I got up to 7000 ft it started to drift with a north wind. It was very light, maybe 200 fpm, but it was consistent. I was able to fly real slow and make smooth flat turns. It quit at about 9800 ft and I decided to just fly east and keep my distance from the mountain. With those wind directions, who knows what was going on down there.

I didn't get far though before finding another thermal. This one got me to 12,000 ft before I decided to bail out of it, mostly due to cold. It was like 90 degrees on Marshall and I would have never expected to get that high, that late in the day, so all I had on was my UnderArmour shirt and bike gloves. Way under dressed! It was 46 degrees up there! I could have kept climbing, right up into the could base, which I suspect was about 13,500 - 14,000 ft. I was freezing cold, so I flew out in front of the cloud and cored some sink, down to 10,000 ft which felt warm compared to where I was.

As I was climbing through 8000 ft I had a closer than comfortable encounter with a SouthWest 737. I imagined the pilot saying "...and for those of you sitting on the right side of the airplane you will see a Hang Glider enthusiast enjoying the fall air." The airplane was maybe 100 ft below and a quarter mile from me. Later in the flight, as I was descending back through 8000 ft a UPS jet flew be me, about the same proximity. I decided to fly a bit east and get the hell out of there.

1 hour 10 minutes. New site altitude personal best, 12,000 ft. First and second time getting close to airliners.

More Lap Flying

Launched Marshall about 3:30 pm today with more lap flying in mind. The house thermal was punchy and inconsistent but it eventually got me back to Crestline. Then on over to the Billboard to thermal up and get over to Pine. First lap took 29 minuted, second took 26 minutes.

Over all a pretty nice day. Got to fly with Bruce on his Swift (he just bought it.)

1 hour 10 minutes, 6500 ft max altitude.

New Video: Crestline AM

Here is the video from an early morning flight from Crestline July 23, 2008.


Hang Gliding, Crestline AM from David Aldrich on Vimeo.

Another Nice day

Better than average day. Launched Crestline a little after 2 pm and climbed up right away at the billboard to 7500 ft. Flew east to the turn out and made a few passes before climbing up to 8000. I didn't go to much further east as it was pretty sinky and windy. Got another nice climb back up to 8000 at Pine and flew west to Sugarpine hopping to pick up another one, but it was pretty quiet there. Back over to the billboard for a climb back up to 8000 and a trip back to the turn out. I wasn't able to really find anything over there so I decided to check out the PG guys on Marshall and call it a day.

1 hour and 40 minutes of pretty nice flying. Kim, visiting pilot Bruce, Mark Hoffman and myself out enjoying the day. Tomorrow is suppose to be better.



Today was my last official flight of summer (how I define summer anyways.) Since I spent the last 6 years in college, summers to me started the 2nd week in June and ended the last Wednesday in September.


Summer (June 26 - September 24) Statistics:

*Number of Flights - 85 + 7 bunny hill
*Hours - 102.6
*Consecutive Days Flown - 36


Summer Goals:

*Get H4 rating - Completed August 4th
*Top Land Marshall - August 2nd
*Get a First Real XC Flight - 61 Miles in the Owens valley, September 13th
*Launch "The 750" and Get Up - kind of. I got 200 ft over launch and a 12 minute flight
*Build a Cool camera Boom and Take Some Pics - yup and yup


Other Notable Things:

*Got to meet and fly with Jeff O'Brian
*Got to meet and fly with noman and DayDreamer from up north
*Both of the CSS fly-in events were the best ever. The memorial fly-in was especially great (both the flying and socializing)
*Got a personal best out and back flight the day of the memorial fly-in
*Got 2nd place in the spot landing competition

A Nice Surprise

We are pretty much at the end of the summer flying season. That means north winds and less of a chance of getting some flying in. Yesterday it blew down at Crestline and was very hazy at Marshall. I didn't fly, drove for Kim instead and he only got a sledder. Today it was blowing in good and it was much more clear.

I launched Crestline at 2pm sharp and climbed to 700 ft over launch right away. I made a couple of trips to Pine but found it really trashy. I got the sink fest at Pine again and had to come out over Regionals pretty low. I was able to work back up level with Marshall but was not having much fun with the turbulence. At about 50 minutes into the flight I found myself at about 1000 ft agl over the 750 thinking of calling it a day and landing. It was then that I found a nice smooth thermal that got eventually got me back up high enough to go to Crestline.

I saw Kim high over the Billboard so I decided to go over there instead. About 5 seconds later I found another bubble, this one got me up to 7500 ft and I changed course for the turn out. Eventually got back up to 7000 ft over there but I decided not to go further east. Instead I went back over to Pine for the third time and got up to 7900 ft over there. I decided to try for the Cajon pass, but only got to a little past Sugarpine and I chickened out. There was a pretty strong east wind over there and I didn't want to get to low and have to work my way back upwind.

2 hour flight. The first hour it was really turbulent with small thermals. The second hour was filled with smooth, strong lift and smooth conditions in between. To bad there were only three of us out to enjoy it (Kim, Wisconsin Paul and myself.)

Summer ends on Thursday...

Flying Laps 9-21-08

Today was a cool, sunny soarable day with many visiting pilots. I decided to see how many laps (Marshall - Crestline - Pine) I could do. I was shooting for three but ended up getting four.

I launched Marshall early about 1 pm and had to make a few passes at the hill before figuring out how the house thermal was going to act today. After a couple of minutes I found a cycle that was behaving itself enough to get me back to Crestline for the first time. The Billboard was really acting the fool today. I would get up a few hundred, then dumped back below the ridge. Had to really scratch and be patient for a nice cycle. Pine provided the day's best heights, 6200. It was pretty cold up there, must be fall...

I was back out front of cloud on my way to Marshall to complete (what I thought was) my third and final circuit, when I found the best thermal of the day. It wasn't really strong, 200 - 400 fpm, but it was large and smooth. It even attracted Rob on the Tandem and it got us both back to Crestline. I decided that this thermal was nice enough to warrant an attempt at a fourth lap.

Crestline wasn't really doing anything but sink and I found myself scratching low at the Billboard, 4500ish. It took several minutes, but I was able to get back up to 5800 and made the final glide to Pine. Made one more pass at Marshall to complete my fourth lap and dove in to the LZ. 2 hours 30 minutes air time. Lots of work today, wore me out good.

Later that evening two pilots got their first mountain solo flights. It's always fun to see the expression on their faces and remember my first time. It just keeps getting better and better.

Walt's Point Panorama

I forgot that I had taken pictures for a Walt's Point Panorama. Here is the result:

Flying in The Owens Valley

My first flight in the Owens could not have worked out any better. There was plenty of lift, conditions were smooth and I was able to fly my goal: 60 miles from Walt’s Point to Bishop.

With all of the SoCal pilots deciding to take advantage of local conditions, I drove up to Lone Pine by myself to meet up with the Vegas crew. I’ve never been up highway 395 before but found it to be just about what I had pictured: a big desert. Here is a shot of the Honda-Mobile taken about 6 miles from the middle of nowhere:



There are long stretches of 395 that are like the cliché Hollywood two lane rode that extends as far as you can see:



Doug from Vegas (E-team nickname RadWhacker) was an excellent tour guide and was a super help in getting us (Me and Tony) Owens virgins good flights. We got up to launch (Walt’s Pont) around 9:30 and started setting up and watching the conditions. There were 4 hang glider pilots and 2 paraglider pilots:




As we were finishing setting up, ten more hang pilots and about a dozen para pilots showed up:



The big crowd was a bit crazy, especially because there is not much room up there, but lots of pilots meant lots of people to follow and show you the next thermal.

I waited for all the PG pilots to launch and watched a few of the hang guys launch before I went. Everyone was climbing out on the ridge just to the north of launch so that’s where I headed. There was no time wasted, as soon as I arrived at the ridge I was in the thermal and climbing at 1000 fpm. At that rate it didn’t take long to break my previous altitude record of 10,100 ft. I was climbing past that point about 2 minutes into the flight. Doug was in the thermal with me as we both toped it out at 13,900 ft and headed north. From then on it was pretty much just matter of flying from one spine to the next, stopping to work a thermal if needed. I saw a maximum altitude of 14,100 ft.

Just about every spine was generating a thermal too. It was reliable enough that if one thermal was not really working well, or was too trashy, you could just fly to the next one. I remember skipping several thermals because they were just not feeling right.

It took maybe 30 minutes to reach Mt. Whitney, which stands out well against all the other peaks.

My goal for this flight was Bishop, 60 miles north of Walt’s Point. For most of the flight I was thinking that wasn’t really going to be possible. I would have been happy getting just a few miles north of Lone Pine. However every time I needed a thermal to stay in the game I found one. I never dropped below 11,000 ft until the end of the flight when I was on my way out on glide to Bishop.

It’s hard to describe the size and beauty of the Owens Valley. The place is hyped up by pilots like it’s the Meca of Hang Gliding. Well the hype is true, the place is simply amazing. I really lucked out with conditions too. The Owens is notorious for super strong thermals and some of the worst turbulence of anywhere. I didn’t get any of that. There wasn’t any turbulence that we don’t experience out here at Crestline on a typical summer day.


Towards the end of the flight I had Bishop in sight but was starting to sink out. I managed to find a big area of 800 fpm sink that had me looking for LZs about 5 miles short of Bishop. It was at this point that my fingers started to get numb, like when your foot falls asleep. This felt like a good time to land but I found another thermal that got me up maybe 500 ft and feeling good about getting to goal. That last little thermal was just what the doctor ordered and I had the south fields of Bishop on glide.

I had a few choices for LZs and decided on a field just on the south east corner of the golf course. I was able to see the flags on the greens and after studying those for 30 seconds or so decided they were hanging limp, no wind. I setup for a south approach and came in with plenty of speed, rounded out, a bit late on the flare, needed 2 or 3 steeps but my legs decided not to carry any weight. I ended up with a belly/wheels landing in the dirt, 61 miles from where I launched. I was hot, exhausted and excited. All that thermalling at high altitudes with no O2 really wore on me but I made my goal. Not bad for a first real cross country flight!

My Bishop LZ (there were fewer and smaller bushes where I landed):



I didn’t get any in air pictures. With all the other equipment to worry about (radio, headset, gps, water, extra clothing) it would have been just over whelming. I wanted to just concentrate on flying and doing so safely. I did take a few pictures up at launch though:













More pictures and larger versions on my Flickr Page.

I couldn’t have asked for a better flight. I got exactly what I wanted. I only wish that the SoCal crew had gone up with me. Flying is super fun, but its super-duper fun with your flying buddies around. I did get to hang out and fly with the Vegas guys, Doug, Ron, Roger and David. It was fun guys, let’s do it again!

Pictures From Friday

Finally up

Flickr Uploadr can be a pain in the ass.

I took all of these with my camera boom and new remote shutter button.

I think this is the best:



more on my Flickr page

Kells Memorial Commentary

Today I came across this post by Davis Straub of The Oz Report:

http://ozreport.com/1220628760

In this article Davis expresses his disapproval of the Memorial service for Rob Kells. While I agree almost with everything Davis said, I can't help but feel that the timing is somewhat unfortunate. It seems inappropriate to use the death of Rob and the memorial as a time to express one's own beliefs. His post has evolved into a religious debate in the Oz Forums.

I find this comment rather odd:

"There was an aspect of the service that did not sit well with this atheist." - Davis

Well what would you expect from a memorial service held in a Christian Church? As a strong atheist myself, I too would not sit to comfortably at any religious service. However using this time and situation to express disgust with religion only serves to further polarize the atheist community and further atheist stereotypes.

I chose not to attend the memorial service, both because I am an atheist and the forecast was looking good. We all morn, celebrate and show respect in our own way. And what better way to show respect for a man that dedicated his life to Hang Gliding, than to go flying? Heck you could even throw in some religious symbolism: thermalling, getting higher and higher towards heaven, closer to Rob than ever. ;) I know if it was I who died, I would want everyone out flying, especially with the 12k forecast!

"When will these merchants of death stop selling these lies and deceptions to vulnerable people? This denigration of life and celebration of death. Such monsters. False promises of an eternal life thereafter. Such hogwash." - Davis

I couldn't agree more and with the fly in being a memorial gathering I was anticipating certain religious elements. However out of respect for Rob's family and those that knew him (I only had the chance to speak with him once) I decided ahead of time to put aside my own convictions and simply be respectful of the wishes of others.

I have been introduced to Davis twice, once a year ago at Santa Barbara and at the fly in, but have not had the chance to chat with him. Davis, you seem like a good guy and I hope I get a chance to chat (and fly) with you some day.

The Fly in was a huge success and, I think, the prefect way to morn, celebrate and show respect for Rob Kells.


....

I did not know Rob personally, but they way others have spoken of him is inspiring and it makes me want to be like him. I have started to become genuinely excited about others getting a chance to fly. I like to see the maximum number of pilots get to fly the maximum number of times possible. A couple of times I have been able to drive for a few pilots so they could all get to fly. We have such a beautiful mountain that it hurts me to see day light go to waste with no one flying. Life is short and finite, and I can't think of a better way to spend a day than flying. If it all came to an end tomorrow, at least we got to fly today.

Subway...

I thought it might be funny to eat a Subway Sandwich while flying and take a bunch of pictures...



...yup it was funny!

Saturday 9-06-08 Memorial Fly-in

This year's Memorial Fly-in was special in so many ways. There was great flying, a record crowd and I set a new personal best for distance flown.

A few days ago I decided on a goal for myself on the next big air day. Rim of the World High School to the east, and the last peak west into the Cajon pass. I have been into the pass before, but never that far east. I made my goal on this flight.

We (John Wright, RebarDan, Kyle and myself) arrived at launch around 12. The forecast was favorable, but we all wanted to get off the hill early, before the inversion set in. We were the first 4 HG pilots on launch and were in the air just as the next group was arriving. It was nice to set up and launch early to avoid the crowd on launch later:



We all launched a bit too early. The thermals were kind of weak and were not going very high. I would get to around 6000 at the billboard. I looked at pine a few times, but no one was getting up over there and I figured it would be flush city over there. So I spent about 30 minutes soaring over Crestline, waiting for the billboard to "turn-on."

It did turn on. Rebar (on his ATOS) and I worked it together to about 6000 when Rebar gets on the radio: "Hey one more turn and I'm out of here" he said. Just like he said, he made one more turn and started east for the turn out. From my previous experiments with heading east I knew that I needed more than 6000 ft to get there. I stayed in the thermal with a PG pilot and we got up to about 7300, enough to get over the the turn out.

I arrived there at about 6400 and jumped right in the thermal. As I was climbing through 7000, I again hear Rebar on the radio: "I'm at 9 thousand 9 hundred.... Oh I'll wait for ya." I thanked him but told him to just go on ahead. There was no way I was going to keep up with him on the ATOS. I got up to about 8300 and kept on going east. I tried to get to Strawberry Peak, but had to turn back. It wasn't long before I found another thermal. I got back up to 8000 and went east again. Soon I would find another thermal, this one got me to almost 10,000 ft just 1 mile west of Strawberry. I went to my east goal for the day, Rim of the World High School and got there with about 8500 ft to get back with. Got a cool picture of Lake Arrowhead:



Getting back wasn't much of an issue. There were thermals popping off all over the ridge and not much head wind. I flew all the way back west to the billboard. I needed a 800 feet or so to get over to Pine flats and I got it. There was now a lot of traffic in the air and I had to keep my head on a swivel. I thermaled with a topless glider, a single surface, and a PG.

I made it over to Pine and found the thermal right away. The last time I flew from Pine into the Cajon Pass I was at 9000 over Pine. All I got this day was 6800. Just as I was topping out in the thermal I heard an airplane engine that scared the shit out of me. I got an eye on it, a few thousand feet over me, heading north into the desert. It was a P-51 Mustang! How cool? Last week I got to share the sky with F-18s, today a P-51! Awesome!

6800 feet wouldn't be enough to get to the Cajon Pass and back, so I decided to just go as far west as I could and try to get lucky. Well I was lucky, found a thermal before I got to SugarPine that got me back over 7000. I kept on going west. I got 2 more thermals that kept me up around 7000 and I made my goal.

Getting back was a bit scary. I was over the last peak before the 15 freeway at around 6800 ft. The last time I was over there I was at 8500. I remember that it took around 2000 ft to get back to Pine Flats, so at the rate I was going I would be back at Pine at about 4800, which would be plenty to thermal back up, or just head on out to the LZ. I was again lucky and found just enough lift on the way back to keep me on a comfortable glide and I arrived back at Pine with about 5500 ft.

At this time I was 2 hours 30 minuted into the flight, was tired and out was water. I dove down to the LZ and landed before most of the traffic.



A great time socializing in the LZ after flying. I haven't been around that many HG people since Wallaby. It was really great.







More pictures on my Flickr Page soon.

EDIT: Picture Finally up: CLICKY CLICK

Remote Camera Shutter

I have succeeded in building a remote camera shutter for my Canon PowerShot SD850 digital still camera. I had to build one because there exists no such accessory, at least not one that is officially supported by Canon. You have to buy a DSLR camera to get a feature like remote shutter.

This remote shutter mod is made possible by some custom open source firmware, called CHDK, that is available for most Canon digital cameras. See this page for more information:

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Supercharge_Your_Camera_with_Open-Source_CHDK_Firmware#Play_Around

I have used this in the past to do unlimited interval shooting. I set an interval, say 10 seconds, and the camera takes a picture every 10 seconds until the battery dies, the memory card is full, or I tell it to stop. This has provided me with some pretty good pictures, but its not as good as being able to take the picture I want, when I want.

See this thread in the CHDK forums for information on building the remote shutter:

http://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php/topic,294.105.html

Here is the simplest circuit:



And here is my first prototype:



I originally tried to power it with the 3V lithium battery suggested, but found that it did not provide enough voltage to trigger the shutter. I switched to the 3 AAA batteries seen in the image. That provides 4.5V to the usb port on the camera. It triggers the shutter every time. I also made a long USB cable (just cut a short cable in half and soldered extensions onto it.) and attached the camera to my Camera Boom. The button and camera couldn't have worked better and I am super pleased with the results. I do plan to build a more durable version and try to "stealth" the button a little better. In many of the pictures you can see my hand on the button and it looks a bit unnatural. Here is a few of the pictures I took today:







I will have the rest on my Flickr Page some time in the next few days.

EDIT: Pictures online here

Best. Flying. Day. EVER!?!!!?!!

Today was like those big air days we had last year around this time, except without those nasty thunderstorms and gust fronts. I saw 9000 several times and it was easy to climb past 8000. Lift was everywhere.

I saw 9000 around Jobs Peak in a thermal that felt like it was going to drift me back over Lake Silverwood. I had a great view of the lake from there and could also see Gregory and Arrowhead in the distance.

Made it east to Strawberry peak before chickening out and turning back. But I would soon find another thermal that would get me to 8000+ and drift back over Strawberry. I didn't want to venture too far because of strong (20mph+) winds aloft.

It was cold up at 9000 but not too cold (59 degrees-ish) and super clear. You could see for miles into the desert. There was just 5 HG pilots out today and no PG (although it was probably too strong/windy for them anyway.) John Wright, Mark Hoffman, Kyle, Wisconsin Paul and myself. Kind of sad to see so few enjoying such a great day.

I had the video camera rolling for much of the flight. Will get some still frames up soon (hopefully)

I got my 3rd 3 hour flight. Although this one was mostly all spent in the strong conditions. I landed due to fatigue and week bladder. Quite warn out, even as I type this up.

Dave

A Clear September 1st

Rode up to Marshall on the 11:45 McBus. It was soarable when we arrived, but I took my time setting up as it seemed everyone was only getting about 300 ft over launch. I was also testing out a new camera/microphone set-up so that took a few minutes to get going. I probably didn't launch until 1:30 but my timing couldn't have been better. Just like yesterday and immediately found the house thermal. It wasn't as strong as yesterday, but it got me to about 5400 and back to Crestline. Got to somewhere around 6000 over Billboard and made my way to pine. It only took me about 20 minutes to complete the Marshall-Crestline-Pine circuit.

I made it back and forth from Pine and Billboard a couple of times and got into the Billboard thermal with Owen. We climbed together through 6000. I was getting ready to ditch the thermal but Owen kept circling so I stayed with him. We both topped out at 6900 and I followed him east. I got out over the turn-out and tried to make it to Arrowhead peak but got a little nervous and turned for the towers before making it all the way there.

1 hour 41 minutes was plenty today, especially after flying 3 hours yesterday, 2.5 hours the day before that and 2 hours the day before that.

another very nice day. Lets do it again tomorrow!