Magdalena Rim NW of Las Cruces NM (USA)

[RobinHastings]

January 6, 2018. The first good flying of this brand-new year! A good omen, we can only hope. Not to say, thought, that it was perfect. Strong winds kept Wyatt Lines from setting up, and yours truly never took his glider off the truck. But otherwise, the day went pretty well. High temperatures around 55 degrees, I'd guess, and winds out of the southwest and west/southwest, 18 to 25 at launch. Lee Boone came up from El Paso (bringing his PPG wing) and our good friends Andy Balk and Brian Reindl, from the SSA, came south with their Wills Wing U2 hang gliders. I guided the latter two to the launch, assisted ably by Lukas Baumer, who is staying with us in Las Cruces for the next three months. (His dad Martin used to fly F4 Phantoms for the Luftwaffe - and hang gliders at Dry Canyon on his own time.) Andy and Brian launched at 2:15 and at 2:30, resepectively, and Lee launched around 2:45 pm, MST. They all had good soaring flights, getting 500 feet or more above launch and plenty of airtime. Andy had almost two hours in the air, Brian around 1 hour and 45 minutes. Lee had close to an hour, too, but the strengthening winds impelled him to respect the laws of physics and put it down before Nature slapped it down. After everyone had packed up and then retrieved their vehicles, we finally left the Arroyo LZ, and headed back to Las Cruces. There Lukas, I and my wife Nancy were treated like royalty by our visitors, and hosted to a good Thai meal in a Mesilla restaurant. Great food and company! In the Time of the Great Freeze over most of the country, it's grand to have a flying day as nice as this one.
-Robin

[Bill Cummings]

Magdalena Rim (Matt’s Mountain.)
Tuesday May 15, 2018,
Robin picked me up at 08:20 and we headed for Mag., Rim.
When we arrived at the fence Robin noticed that the wind was coming from the WSW so we decided to walk up empty handed to see what the situation was at launch.

At times it was straight in and tempting but the wind would die out and then cross from the right.
The 4pm forecast had indicated west wind at our SW facing site.
With only two of us there hoping for the best we were short handed so the blame falls totally on the non attending pilots. (Bunch of Slackers.)
On the next outing we will go with a bigger group. That should guarantee more hopefulness.

[Bill Cummings]

Yo Pilots,
DC set aside a baby stroller that was destined for a yard sale and gave it to me.
After much R&D (Rip off and Duplicate) I converted the stroller into a HG Transport Cart. (Portage Cart.)
The nice thing about using the stroller to do this was that with a little care the thing will still fold into a
smaller size that will easily fit into a car.
Here is what we started out with:

Copy of Stroller.JPG (37.14 KiB) Viewed 6884 times

And here is the finished transport cart video.
https://youtu.be/91X1NKa3wn8

[RobinHastings]

Very nice tutorial, Bill. We need to try it out this week!
-Robin

[RobinHastings]

Monday, June 4, 2018:
Well, we did try it out this week. Bill's new glider cart worked better than my big one ever did, and was also lighter and much more portable. We got to the Mag Rim fence about 12:30 (left my house in Las Cruces at 11:30) rolled the glider to the launch in about 7 or 8 minutes, and had the glider all set up by 2:00 pm. A couple of guys came up to spectate - they'd seen us and the glider going by - and they were very helpful (and impressed, says Bill) when I finally launched. Conditions today were clear, and the winds were light south/southwest. I finally took off at 2:25. I was able to work some good thermal lift right around the launch site. Bill was trying to tell me something ("Hey, get in closer - the lift is right over launch!") but I couldn't quite hear it; I got up anyway, about 50 ft over. Then I headed down the ridge, and found the thermal of the day right by the highest point on the ridge. It took me up to 6300 ft MSL, about 800 over launch height. Not bad air, though I did go negative for a moment. I lost that thermal, though, and didn't find another in time, so I set up a good landing approach into the Arroyo LZ. I got popped up just before I landed, which worked out well as I kept my speed up and descended smoothly like an elevator. I had about 15 minutes in the air. Good launch, good flight, good landing - and good company, too! A mighty fine day, all in all. (And we even had some rain last night!)
-Robin

[Bill Cummings]

Monday, June 4, 2018:
Well, we did try it out this week. Bill's new glider cart worked better than my big one ever did, and was also lighter and much more portable. We got to the Mag Rim fence about 12:30 (left my house in Las Cruces at 11:30) rolled the glider to the launch in about 7 or 8 minutes, and had the glider all set up by 2:00 pm. A couple of guys came up to spectate - they'd seen us and the glider going by - and they were very helpful (and impressed, says Bill) when I finally launched. Conditions today were clear, and the winds were light south/southwest. I finally took off at 2:25. I was able to work some good thermal lift right around the launch site. Bill was trying to tell me something ("Hey, get in closer - the lift is right over launch!") but I couldn't quite hear it; I got up anyway, about 50 ft over. Then I headed down the ridge, and found the thermal of the day right by the highest point on the ridge. It took me up to 6300 ft MSL, about 800 over launch height. Not bad air, though I did go negative for a moment. I lost that thermal, though, and didn't find another in time, so I set up a good landing approach into the Arroyo LZ. I got popped up just before I landed, which worked out well as I kept my speed up and descended smoothly like an elevator. I had about 15 minutes in the air. Good launch, good flight, good landing - and good company, too! A mighty fine day, all in all. (And we even had some rain last night!)
-Robin

https://youtu.be/bu73sNOPQyA

[RobinHastings]

Thanks so much, Bill! It's been a long time since I've relived a flight via GoPro. You did a great job on this video. I'm so glad that you are fully recovered now!
-Robin

[RobinHastings]

Monday, June 18, 2018:
Bill Cummings called me about 10:00 am, and said, "Let's go to the Rim! I'll drive." So, by 2:00 I was launching my U2-160 there, into an excellent soaring wind. Except, I didn't soar. Winds were southwest, the skies were clear - oh. That's it - high pressure today. We had a fine rainstorm on Saturday, but now we're back to sunny summer, and the thermals just weren't working. I made a couple of passes, got below the launch, headed out, and found a thermal. I worked it to the height of the rim, ready to sky out and go cross country and be famous and be rich and... it just quit. Ehhh. I went out to the LZ in sink, had to go around the mound, made a turn scary close to the ground, then had to skim the hill on the east before I straightened out and had a perfect landing. Whew! All that for 7 minutes of airtime. Well, it could have been worse. We learn something new about this site every time we fly it. And it was a lovely day, not too hot, and in good company. Maybe a better chance tomorrow.
-Robin

[Bill Cummings]

Monday, June 18, 2018:
Bill Cummings called me about 10:00 am, and said, "Let's go to the Rim! I'll drive." So, by 2:00 I was launching my U2-160 there, into an excellent soaring wind. Except, I didn't soar. Winds were southwest, the skies were clear - oh. That's it - high pressure today. We had a fine rainstorm on Saturday, but now we're back to sunny summer, and the thermals just weren't working. I made a couple of passes, got below the launch, headed out, and found a thermal. I worked it to the height of the rim, ready to sky out and go cross country and be famous and be rich and... it just quit. Ehhh. I went out to the LZ in sink, had to go around the mound, made a turn scary close to the ground, then had to skim the hill on the east before I straightened out and had a perfect landing. Whew! All that for 7 minutes of airtime. Well, it could have been worse. We learn something new about this site every time we fly it. And it was a lovely day, not too hot, and in good company. Maybe a better chance tomorrow.
-Robin

https://youtu.be/37ezgRYAikU

LZ June 18 2018.JPG (32.96 KiB) Viewed 6752 times

[RobinHastings]

Wow! It's scary the second time through, too. I don't know what happened in that last minute, but I'm sure glad I got past it.
-Robin