Flying possibilities

[Bill Cummings]

RGSA/Hawks,
I've looked at Launch Code, Artesia, Alamogordo, Las Cruces, and Deming.
I've decided not to fly Sunday myself but good luck with conditions. They look safe but not to my liking.

[RobinHastings]

Sunday, April 19th. Bill should have been there! The conditions weren't epic, but they turned out pretty well. Mike Ellsworth, Steve Ford and I went to the La Luz northwest launch, with my daughter Keighley for our driver. Steve, down from Denver for a job at Holloman AFB, launched first in his Falcon 195, about 3:40 pm MDT. He soared a few minutes near the launch, then went out towards the LZ but found nothing he could work on the way. He made a good, northwest approach and a fine landing after about 10 minutes in the air. I was next, at 3:55. I launched well, quickly got a thermal just to the left of launch, and rode it up to 9000 ft MSL (3000 over launch). I was glad to have the altitude, as I drifted southward and then headed for the Cox Field landing zone we use from Dry Canyon launch. I had 30 minutes of airtime and a reasonably good landing in no-wind conditions. Mike launched last, and rode his thermal up to 13,000 ft MSL. He could have stayed up a long time, but he spotted White Sands dusting up, and decided to bring it in for a good touchdown at Cox Field before the gust front reached us. It was grand having a day with two exemplary pilots, and my family. We got everyone packed up and leaving by 6:00 pm - a very nice spring time day in Southern New Mexico. Don't forget the Dry Canyon Fly-In over Memorial Day Weekend next month!
-Robin
PS - Yesterday, Mike Ellsworth launched Dry Canyon at 11:45. He had rough air and went negative a couple of times, but got up to 10,000 ft (3000 over launch) and flew almost an hour. I decided not to fly, at 12:30 or so - Mike reported rough air up there. Steve had his left wing lift at the launch ramp, and had an impact to the right of launch, taking out a downtube but no other damage.

[Bill Cummings]

Robin the updated forecast for Mag Rim is looking too strong and too cross.
Your call I'll drive.

[Bill Cummings]

The forecasted winds look good tomorrow for Deming and Las Cruces on launch code.
So much so that I will even load up my glider tomorrow rather than just volunteer for driving only.
Robin will launch first since I did last time we were out. It blew out before we could return to launch at Mag., Rim . So Robin-- good luck you‘re first up!

[Bob Kuczewski]

Have Fun, and look out for each other!!!

[RobinHastings]

Thanks, Bob. That's how we stay alive out here.

Nancy and I are hoping to see you in early June. Will you be around San Diego then?
-Robin

[RobinHastings]

With Bill Cummings for my driver, I went out to Magdalena Rim today. Weather was clear, with some cumulus popping up, and winds were pretty calm, out of the southwest. Lots of thermals, though. I launched at 2:10 pm MDT in my Airborne Blade, into a fine thermal cycle. I shot right up, 50-100 feet in the first few seconds, and managed to stay above launch height for the rest of the flight. There was lift right over launch, and I quickly reached 6000 ft MSL (500 over launch height). Then I explored along the ridge. There was lift to be found, but also some rough air, and I went negative a couple of times. I finally found a good, smooth thermal just east of the end of the ridge, and rode it up from 5500 ft to 7500 ft MSL. I got over the top of Bell Mountain, a little north of our landing zones, and for a brief moment had visions of long XC flights - after all, I could SEE the town of Hatch, about 10 miles north. Alas, I lost that thermal and quickly began to sink. Bill arrived with the truck about the time I reached 500 ft AGL. He reported that the winds were calm. I went for the boulder-laden Rectangle LZ, but did not gauge my height very well; I veered off, fearing to overshoot into the road, power poles, and various other landing zone dragons. That wasn't such a great idea either, and I had a half landing, half crash into the brush about 100 yards east of the Rectangle. 25 minutes of airtime. No damage to the glider, amazingly, but my vario flew off of its mount. Bill was there within a minute or two, and together we got the Blade torn down and loaded up by 3:00 pm or so. Driving out is when we found the flat tire, apparently slashed in moment of madness by some irritated rock. It took all of our ingenuity, but we got the spare on at last, and were on our way home by 4:00 pm. Subway sandwiches were engulfed on the way, and we were home at last by 5:00. Not a bad day for airtime, really. Now I'm looking to Sunday afternoon at Dry Canyon, hopefully with Bill and Mike and Steve Ford. Keep in touch if you want to join us!
-Robin

[Bill Cummings]

What a day today was today ---(that really doesn’t make sense does it.)
Anyway, -- Steve Ford was down from up north to fly with us. Robin Hastings picked me up and next we gathered up our driver Finis Miller.
At the landing zone we found Mike Ellsworth, Steve, Matt Hayes, which was Lee Boone’s driver and getting a late start we made it up to launch.
There were signs of verga (oops I must have spelled that incorrectly since spell checker just underlined it in red.)
You know that kind of rain that doesn’t make it to the ground because it evaporates first. The word sounds like Vergah (There spell checker went again.) Moving on --- Steve launched first. Mike second, Me, (Bill) third, Lee fourth.
Shortly after launch I rocked up into a tight turn to see what was going on above and I could see Vergi (that didn’t work either) - and seeing Mike getting totally flushed out of the air I decided to just go to the LZ to land. With all of the dry desert air being super cooled due to the Verrga (darn it) the possible downbursts concerned me immensely. Nobody was up over an hour but collectively we were.
I got 14 minutes, Steve around 50 to 55 minutes, Mike 18? Minutes and Lee ---Oh gees --- maybe 15 minutes Mike I can‘t remember. Lee said his Ecstasy (sp?) was only getting 3/1 glide. So the sink was really bad.
Robin helped all of us launch but the verga (damn it) was too close and he had to bag it and drag it.
We all ate at the Chinese Restaurant ($85.00) and Robin and I were back in Las Cruces after dark. I’ll try and post a picture shortly.

[Bill Cummings]

I have not been able to get this ---- Toshiba to work with my camera lately --but I'm working on it.
anyway---
I think there will be little flying done here in the desert southwest due to the wind.
(My apologies, I should get with the times and say south and west like all the weather people do.)

So (and in getting with the times I’ve noticed that just about everyone starts out a sentence with the word, “So,” now days. ----
So about five days ago my Hang Gliding magazine arrived and while slogging through it looking for something to catch my interest I again fell prey to my mild dyslexia (some say severe).

So I’m constantly misreading things in the newspaper like, “The President Rapes Congress.” Or --- “Drivers with poor depth conception,” (Effective fertileness).

So, I got to oh -- about page 46 when I stumbled across the word “grasp” and flew into a rage and threw the magazine at the fireplace.

I get a lot of exercise here jumping to conclusions and flying off of the handle.

The words, “grasp,” “cling, “hand,” and, “ultra-light,” used in reference to my thirty seven plus years in the sport of HANG GLIDING runs the risk of me reflexively backhanding the perpetrator. Someone stepping on a burning flag might draw the same reflexive reaction.

This all came to a head some three or four years ago when a newbe linked me to a “KNOW-IT-ALLS” article drawing a comparison between HANG GLIDING and paragliding.
In the linked article the idiot know-it-all continued to refer to cling gliders and also carelessly interchanged that phrase with, “grasp gliders,” and han(D) gliders.
In a calm and measured manner as I could muster I told the newbe pilot that those of us on the inside will smile and give a knowing wink at each other when we hear a FAA gumshoe refer to a hang glider as an ultra-light.
I should talk to my GP. I don’t think my medication is working any more.

[Bill Cummings]

Bottle to throttle time is the subject of the day.
It’s windy this weekend so I’ve been watching reruns of the Manny Pacquiao vs Mayweather boxing fight on Show Time. As is the norm on windy weekends I’ve crawled into the E J Brandy botttle and and pulled the cork in behind mee.

This despicable situation that I find myself in reminds me of drunken birds not following the bottle to throttle rules set forth by the FAA.

Don’t you find it unacceptable that birds can fly past a do not trespass sign and not get into trouble like we humans do? I mean -- come on -- what state of reality do we need to subscribe to-to exempt ourselves or comply with these stupin no victim rules?

When I was living in Minnnesotta we had a Mountain Ash Tree that in the fall had red berries that would ferment on the tree. The Cedar Waxwing birds on their way from Canada would drop in at our place and get totally wasted on the fermenting Mountain Ash Berries. It was hilarious to watch them stagger around in my garage on the bow of my boat trying not to tip over sideways by bracing themselves with their spread wings. You could walk right up close to them and ask them if they had been drinking and they weren’t even able to answer.
Talk about wasted. There was bird diarrhea all over the front of my boat and out in front of it on my driveway under the tree.

So just ask yourself if birds can fly drunk and people can’t are the people in authority really in control of the situation or WHAT?