Flying possibilities

[Bill Cummings]

Robin and I are going to Mag Rim today.
Tomorrow 2-10-2015 two pilots should be coming down from Colorado headed for Dry Canyon so I’ll keep you posted.

Bob, good luck on your trial today. Hopefully things will be resolved today.

[Bill Cummings]

We are back from Magdalena Rim north west of Las Cruces, NM (USA).

Today Feb. 9, 2015 Robin is 61 and I’m 66 years old so naturally I pulled rank on Robin and ordered him to take a break a third of the 500 yard up hill plod to launch. To make things easier we used a portage cart for my glider and harness bag while Robin’s stuff stayed on the truck. I knew it might be a mistake to let him back talk and disobey orders from a senior pilot but when he said, “You take a break and I’ll keep pulling,” I thought it best to act as though I hadn’t heard him.
I could get all indignant about it when I caught up to him at launch should I ever arrive.

I learned about portage carts while growing up near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northeastern Minnesota.

A portage cart is a device that one uses to scale back the difficulty for transporting heavy loads from an assessment of nearly impossible to an acceptable workload with a rating of extremely miserable. The saying, “Many hands make light work,” doesn’t apply with the use of portage carts but having more people available, in my experience, does inspire more bitching.

We met again at launch and, still on speaking terms, set up my glider. Everything was coming together normally and we only recognized that fact when my radio’s push to talk failed to work.

With a little bit of a delay Robin was able to help me into my harness which is a culmination of the state of the art spaghetti harness.

Today was light, no clouds, it was, Severe Clear, and I could only depend on thermals. Robin had been timing thermals and picked a good one for me to launch into. With about two s turns in front and then standing it on the wingtip I soon was --- oh shoot! I forgot. I’ll have to dig out my Flytec so until then I had gobs of altitude. It was only a 30 minute flight due to the high pressure situation.
Good landing but carrying to the breakdown area a thermal put the nose of the glider on the ground. No damage.
Tomorrow I will drive for the Colorado pilots and Robin.
61 and 66 and we’re still slicing up the air.

[Bill Cummings]

I ended up staying home today but Robin may get time tomorrow morning to post (or maybe tonight after work) about the flying at Dry Canyon Alamogordo New Mexico (USA).

With the free download Snipping Tool I captured two separate history’s of wind speed and direction from both Deming Airport which is generally out in front of our southwest facing Magdalena Rim and also at Las Cruces Airport that is almost straight off to the left of launch.

The yellow marker on the graphs is what the readings were at the time I was flying on the 9th for a half hour. Actually conditions were too light for soaring the rim but with thermal help I was able to get the thirty minute flight.

Deming during Mag flt..JPG (36.78 KiB) Viewed 4561 times

Las Cruces during flight @ Mag.JPG (39.83 KiB) Viewed 4561 times

With a forecast of a little more wind HG soaring should be sustainable.
Thermals yesterday for PG flights during the same time frame ( 1:40 pm to 2:10 pm) may have been too turbulent.

[Nate]

The saying, “Many hands make light work,” doesn’t apply with the use of portage carts but having more people available, in my experience, does inspire more bitching.

That is some sage wisdom there!


Congrats on the flying! I am hoping to soar Mag on my next adventure out west. Hopefully this spring. My only day at the rim was no wind and then, too much wind!

Nate

[Bill Cummings]

Hey Nate,
We are going to get a blow out here today.

Robin was going to come over today so that we could work on installing some weather links on the RGSA/Hawks forum but he’s not feeling up to it. I just hope he hasn’t come down with the Hong Kong Hangnail, or the Botch of Egypt.
I’m pretty sure my immunization record didn’t include those two.

Robin has been sharing computer room time with his wife and daughter. I’m going to call and ask him to pull rank so that we can work remotely on the links.

I’m not sure of the pecking order at the Hastings house so I’m not able to tell you whether or not pulling rank would entail Robin H. saying, “I need the computer now!” Or Robin grabbing the computer room chair and rolling the ranking person away from the keyboard. That’s the only two ways I know of to, “pull rank.”

I’ll remind him to post for the Guadeloupe forecast early if he can.

[RobinHastings]

Dry Canyon, Tuesday, February 10th. Well, February 9th was my birthday (and Bill's) and since it's better to give than to receive, I gave Bill all the airtime for Magdalena Rim that day. I got my gift on February 10th. That morning I met up in the Cox Field LZ in Alamogordo with Jan Zschenderlein (PG), Mike Ellsworth, Shaun Tompkins and John Chavez. The latter 3 fly hang gliders, and Shaun and John are visitors from Denver. John was designated driver. We went up to Dry Canyon launch under cloudless skies and 75 degree temperatures. Jan was first off, in light SW winds, and took advantage of his soaring flight to call down deprecations upon those of us methodically setting up our more structured aircraft. At last all was in readiness. Mike launched at about 1:00 pm. He was soon followed by Shaun, making his first Dry Canyon flight in his Wills Wing Falcon 4. Both had excellent launches and managed to catch some lift down the ridge, despite the high pressure, light thermal conditions. With John on my nose wires I finally ran down the launch ramp at 1:40 pm MST. Like the other guys I found that the thermals were light, and since I had loaned my Litek vario to Shaun, I had to bird brain it. The best lift I found was in front of the West Face, where I went from 6000' MSL to 6500. I also got some lift near the LZ when I ventured over that way, extending my flight a few more minutes. All other pilots were awaiting me there, ready with derisive comments about my alleged landing abilities, but this time I managed to pull off a standup landing in the light southwest breezes, and with some pride sauntered over to the teardown area with my Wills Wing U2. So how did the day finish up? Jan had the flight of the day, easily, in his PG, for about 90 minutes; Mike did 35 minutes or so in his Wills Wing T2C. I had 25 minutes of airtime, and Shaun enjoyed 20 minutes of thermalling in the balmy desert air. Everyone had a a grand time, and we even got to meet the current Mayor of Alamogordo, Susie Galea, who came by briefly to visit with us. All in all, a sweet day in the sun, with good friends, new and old - and unlike Boston today, no snow. You don't get many better birthday presents...
-Robin

[Bob Kuczewski]

A belated Happy Birthday to both you and Bill!!

I'm glad you all had nice flights.   

Like the other guys I found that the thermals were light, and since I had loaned my Litek vario to Shaun, I had to bird brain it.

I've never heard a positive use of the expression "bird brain" before. Very creative Robin!!!     

[Bill Cummings]

Bill, Robin -

That sure was fun in November. I'm always willing to stretch 1 day's work into 3 if I can squeeze flying in

I still want to soar Mag Rim and I am interested in the Transmountain Hwy. I am assuming that the hwy launch really needs some kind of stair, etc to get a glider over?

I wish I could see John's vid of that flight. I wish him the best at the worlds. He is a flying machine!

Not sure what the weather holds in store for President's Day - you might see me at the rim!

Nate

Hey Nate,
Robin has a gymnastic coaching event to attend on Saturday so he might not have the Guadalupe Rim in his plans.
My wife Terry is coming down to Las Cruces from work in Santa Fe NM for the long weekend of Presidents Day.
So for that reason and slowing down with age I have decided not to go to the Guads. The Guads. usually has a good showing of pilots each year.

[Bill Cummings]

RGSA/Hawks,
Below is a Snipping Tool Capture from inside the top FORUM, “RGSA Club Information.”

After clicking there I next clicked on, “RGSA Weather Information,”

Next I clicked on, “Weather Underground Dell City TX (Guadalupe Rim)”

Scrolling down to, “Almanac,” on the left hand side you will see below the word, “Almanac,” the word, “History,” the link below, “History,” Is what I clicked on, “Almanac for (insert current date)” That is where you can select any date in history. The History for wind direction and speed at Dell City, TX which is out in front and south of the Guadalupe Rim is shown below.

Dell City 2-14-15 History.JPG (40.89 KiB) Viewed 4528 times

I hope everyone keeps a good log book so that we can compare the Rim history with the Dell City history.
This looks like sometime after 11am it might have blown out at launch.
Tomorrow Sunday it looks to me too windy after 11am. Up dated direction looks to be SW Sunday.

[Bill Cummings]

If Dell City TX is any indication as to what is happening on Guadalupe Rim I would have to say the pilots there found conditions blown out. I was looking at the forecast last night and it was indicating that it would be good until 11am.

Blown out Sunday.JPG (41.5 KiB) Viewed 4515 times

On the Rim I'm sure it was stronger than at Dell City TX.