Linda Salamone's Blog

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Saturday, August 18 2007
Hammondsport
I had to pick up Adam from the bus- 2 weeks of being kidless flew by- so I knew I couldn't get to the hill before 2 or 3pm. Mark was feeling pressure to get work on the house done, so I went alone, feeling bit guilty. But the coming week didn't look so great and I was all rested up from my five hour flight the week before and I needed some air. When I first looked at the mountain there was no one in the air. A bad sign, but at least I knew I wasn't missing anything! The big fat clouds that prevailed in the sky all day were drying up fast and there were pilots packing up after short flights in the LZ. Up top things looked bleak. No wind at launch at first (and it had been really windy all morning) but as I set up, it started coming in a bit. All the clouds had disappeared, but one by one they began forming again while I stuffed battens. Rick, Lon, Marc, Ed, Bob, Karl, Dan, Ryan, Andrew, Scott, Sean.... who am I forgetting? Well Fred showed up later but I never saw him except in the air. Good crowd! Plus there were other PGs who flew later but I don't know who all six were. So Marc launches first, Lon and then Rick, I think, then me, and I go straight up, and then everyone else seemed to pile off. I hooked one pretty quick and stayed with it to 4K, Rick pimping from below the whole way. I saw Lon go to land but then he was climbing over the church, so I headed out to pimp off him in the valley a little. I took a run to the north but saw that it was dead up there and dying everywhere else EXCEPT where Rick was. Marc had gone to land on top a while ago, but was circling over that field for 15 minutes or so, and when Rick cracked a decent turn behind the church I was right there above him in a flash to help him core it. He seemed to be having trouble however, with either thermalling -or maybe he was just having a tough time with his racy Eagle. He kept reversing his turns and flailing about. Poor guy never did seem to get the hang of it. But I tried to show him how right til he gave up and went to top land. Now there were no more hangies in the air but me, and Fred was just above the ridge at launch. I burned off some alitude to get over to him and decided against risking a church landing, went to the top field (damn LIFTY again) and had about 1000 feet to lose. I had my landing all lined up, looking good, then flared a little too high and threw it away to save my back. Whack. Ah well, my back survived. Breaking down fast to get home, not much time for socializing, I skipped Jim's party to get home(sorry I missed it!). Still feeling a bit guilty on the way home, a shrimp cocktail and gourmet salad for Mark assuaged it some. He got a ton of drywall up, and even mudded a bunch.
The flight was fun, high and cold, and way worth the trip. Seeing Lon having a great flight was awesome. A second appearance by the reclusive Marc this season was cool. The PGers later in the light wonder was good. Seeing more hang gliders than paragliders all day was cool. And it seemed like I got there at the right time. In fact, it really wasn't any good until......
Airtime: 1:06
Alt over launch: 4330'

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

First thing Meesha does is find the bog. Bad dog!!


Soaking it all off- good dog!



Chilling after 5 hours of flying.





Emily took this one at the end of the big flying day.


Bob "Skydog" Grant- proud owner of a new T2.


Maureen Grant- awesome lady.




Lots of gliders- look at that FLAT tow field!!!! Tracy and Lisa's front yard.


Monday, August 13, 2007

Friday, August 10, 2007
Cloud 9 Webberville, Michigan
Took a couple short flights today, sink was abundant in between weakfish thermals. But nice to get the lay of the land for tomorrow’s festivities. Mark spanked me today for sure and had a great almost spot landing. I beaked a bit…
Flights: 2
Airtime: 30 min each??
Alt2: 3400’

Saturday, August 11, 2007
Cloud 9 Webberville, Michigan
Saturday started off very stable, and since realizing later is better when you don’t have a huge lake a few miles away, or a sea breeze that shuts things down, we were very patient getting ready to fly. Bob Grant launched in his brand new distinctive T2, and another pilot went before me. I had a too-smooth tow behind Lisa, and she let me off way to the south. I went further south looking for any bump, thinking for sure it was a few seconds away, and so when I turned around to the tow field, I was way beyond a glide away. Uh-oh, bonehead move for sure! I got the VG on, got low and less draggy, and made a run back. Definitely NOT gonna make it. I told Mark he may have to come get me a field or two away, and then I had one little beep a few kilometers away. I kept the VG full on and started turning. 60fpm back to 1800’ before it died, but I had the field on glide and saw Bob turning at the NW corner so I headed over. Gee, ME pimping off Skydog for a change!!! I hit a piece of his lift at 500’ over the field and finally got the best part of it at 400’. Around 80fpm now, but it got better after half an hour when the inversion broke and then Bob and I started getting high. Little clouds formed too and we got right up near them. Still no one else was launching and I wondered why. Mark had had a weak-link break and wasn’t on the radio so I didn’t know what was up. But I flew all over the place at around 4K and the lift was really nice. Soon more gliders got in the air and Mark had been tying them up but then he got in line. There must have been 20 gliders in the air and at one point I was thermalling with a kingpost, a rigid, and a sailplane just above 4 grand and looking at the scuzz layer all around us. I saw a bunch of white helium balloons at one point, and thought about trying to catch them- but they were sinking so I abandoned that idea. I wasn’t so sure I had the “Best Bikini” award locked up so I figured now I had to go for duration. My highest alt2 was 4850’ but I knew someone had probably beaten that. And I was sooooo cold (since I was wearing just a bikini on top) that trying to get higher was killing me. After 3 hours my back hurt from shivering. After 4 hours I had goosebumps on my goosebumps. So I tried to stay around 2-3K and warm up. It worked and Mark and I flew together for a while. I watched him land and make a perfect one on the spot, saving himself 10 bucks for the day. When I landed after about 5 hours, I made the spot but slid in and touched the nose. Ah well. I was beat. There were still a couple gliders in the air and I had to wait to see how long they were up. There was a catered dinner- mostly meat but lots of delicious sides- and then we did the awards. Mark got best spot and I got duration- but not bikini so I am glad I sacrificed my hips and back for duration….
Cloud 9 is awesome- it is a model of what flight parks should be like. You feel like a welcomed guest, and part of a great community of pilots who all respect their hosts, Lisa and Tracy. There is a surprising lack of “don’t”s posted all over the place, and just common sense rules apply. The tow field is amazingly flat, the clubhouse and showers are clean, and every effort is made to get pilots into the air safely. What a great place. They definitely have set the standard!

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Sunday 8/5/07
Italy Valley
Not as many people showed up today. Gary was mowing the launch with Louis. Karl and Katrin and Andrew showed up. Me and Ron got set up and I launched first. I went to the east and got a nice one to 1500' over. Louis asks on the radio if I am at 1500'. How does he do that? I waited til Ron launched and then waited some more for him to get high. But then I got low and had to pimp off him. I got up again and went way south to find a bird turning when I saw that Ron was headed to land. I got to 3500' over in this one and decided to leave. The landing options are less than great here so I figured I'd head to Bristol where I knew it would be coming from the south in the valley there. But I made it across Canandaigua Lake and not much further. I tried to grow balls fast enough to slip into the Bristol Valley, but the ,acl of landing options kept me pinned to Rte 12 for a while and then I just picked the last good field and landed. A few locals stopped and the landowner came out and everyone was really friendly. I saw the clouds form over me after I was packing up and wished I had had more patience. But it was better than the ratty flights they were getting at the flight park so I picked the right place to go, and got a little XC in as well. Ron was right on top of things and picked me up just as I was finishing breaking down. A frozen slushy, home by 5:15... can't beat that!
Flights: 1
Duration: 1:10
Alt over launch: 3600'

Saturday 8/4/07
Flew H-port. It was windier than we expected so we didn't rush to launch. Finally a few brave souls did. My launch was great, thank you. But the flight sucked for a while. I was getting beat up and I didn't like the air much. Below launch was even worse. I found a decent thermal at one point with Dan pimping off me as usual. Then me, him and Phil Brown climbed to 4K over- Phil and Dan getting 3 or 400' higher than me. I was trying to stay in the friendliest piece of air I could find. When that petered out I saw that Mark had launched and asked if it was any better on the ridge. Nope, he said it was less than friendly so I decided to top land. I beaked in a bit in the tall weeds, but not too shabby in the crappy rotor. Andrew had already landed and Phil was right behind. There were like 20 pilots at H-port today. It was pretty nice to see that many people flying. When I broke down, it was getting nicer and Armin took me for a tandem PG flight. I had to grab the windsock on the lower launch as we launched. It was funny to grab it and move it aside on our way by- Armin knew nothing about it as he reverse launched. In the air I had just taken the controls and was doing turns when I saw Andrew pile into the lower launch. I called Phil on my cell phone, who was getting ready to launch the upper one (funny what you can do in a PG) and asked him to check on Andrew. He called back and said he was okay and that everything was under control. Good thing he didn't launch because I saw the upper windsock do a complete 360 and blow straight down the slot as it had done on the lower one after Andrew had launched. Me and Armin made a quick descent and had a typical PG landing. So unlike the hang gliders!!!!
Dinner at the Tavern (awesome) and just a great day flying and socializing.
Flights: 2 one HG one PG
Duration: 1:04 and like 45 minutes?
Alt over launch: 4150' and ??? like 2K??

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Tuesday, July 31, 2007
We had to really stick it out on Tuesday- it was dead as a doornail when we got up top. Scott said the flag at Mossy was blowing straight in when he went by but I set up my glider atop H-port hoping the forecast that I saw when I left work would materialize. PGs launched and sledded. Not a good sign. Scott left. Not a good sign. I went to retrieve everyone and we fit 6 people and all their HG/PG gear in the Subaru. No small feat! The PGs were trying to launch the lower slot when we got back up since now there was some wind. It was getting late- I had been here for a couple of hours. Alone at the upper launch, a cycle came through that I couldn't resist so off I went. It was solid though, and I got 50' over for a bit. Then I flew over the lower launch so they could see I was up. Fred the PG launched and we duked it out a bit. Not a lot of room for us both, but then it got good. I got a climb that proved worthy of some serious cranking up and got to 3000' over. Then the whole valley was my playground and I went up to the lake and hung out near the town there. Cruising around without losing much altitude and watching the bunch of gliders hang out over Mt Washington. What a blast. After 90 minutes I thought about landing but I didn't want to let this one PGer get the best of me. Whoever it was, he was the only one close to my altitude at 1700' over, and doing really well. Finally it looked like this huge wonderwind was going to shut down and I watched Bob go land on top. I followed and beaked my glider in pretty good in the tall weeds. But it didn't dampen how great that flight felt. Bare arms, no gloves- comfy even up high.... I asked Bob who the yellow and red PG was- some new hotshot? No.... .Karl Link! Kicking butt!
So.... just under 2 hours. 3K over, not really any miles but a nice cruise around the valley.


 
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