1. Ballast. Not really my favorite thing, especially in the early years
of flying. If for no other reason, if you do land hard, you have that
much more weight and inertia to splat you into the ground unforgivingly.
2. Catabatic flows. Quite often when evening flying, you may encounter a
the chance of a catabatic flow. Most often, even though you might not
know the exact direction of the wind, there are likely two primary
directions that it might be coming from. Up the hill, or down the hill.
Also frequently, these two 'opposites' might be less than 180 degrees
opposite and you can simply plot your final to split the difference
between the two wind directions. (Pine would be heading up the road
towards the mountain more or less.) If there is time and altitude, you
can alter your course more into the actual wind direction before
landing. A 90 degree cross wind landing is really only a zero wind
landing with a bit of sideways drift. If the sideways drift is strong
enough to be a problem, figuring out the wind direction should have
already been easy. Risking a zero wind landing with a bit of drift, is
(almost) always better that risking a downwind landing, or a quick 180
on final. Don't forget about the possibilities of using an asymmetric
flare. (Area B is an excellent place to practice that to the extreme!)
> I headed out Saturday afternoon for Pine Mountain. Arriving there
> around 4 gave me time to relax from the long ride and rest in the
> shade. Around 6pm, Ray gave me a ride to the glass-off launch. There I
> met both of DAR's Tims and several others. Bill was the first to
> launch and got an extended sledder. I launched at 7pm after several
> other locals were already in the air giving very positive condition
> reports. The air was a mostly smooth with the remnants of some
> thermals popping the wing every now and again, but nothing I hadn't
> flown in before. Eventually, the air went completely smooth and I
> found myself several hundred feet above the first bench. I followed
> another glider toward the Pine Mountain peak to try to bench up past
> the summit. The glider I was following lost altitude ahead of me and
> got a little too close to the ground and trees for my taste especially
> in air that was new to me, so I turned into the wind to work the ridge
> and gain some altitude before working any deeper into the mountain. I
> then realized I wasn't moving forward or backward. I was in front of
> the saddle that had been mentioned to me during the site introduction.
> Everyone said conditions were too light to be concerned about the
> venturi effect on that evening, but nonetheless my heart rate
> increased a little. I slowly applied more and more speed bar, checking
> the wing for signs of collapse - none (Yay SIV clinic for giving me
> that knowledge and confidence). At full bar I was making a little
> headway, but I had no intent on staying around for conditions to
> possibly change and send me over the back, so I crabbed toward forward
> toward the east like had been advised if I found myself in just such a
> situation. When I felt like I was clear of the saddle with comfortable
> ground speed I relaxed. Turning around I saw that I had gained
> ~800-1000ft and was now above the summit (I fly sans vario and GPS).
> It was great. I spent the rest of the evening exploring the north side
> of Pine Mountain, though it t took me an hour before I could muster
> the courage to work my way back toward the summit giving the saddle a
> wide margin every on each future pass.
> I watched countless wing-overs and spirals from my harness and did a
> few spirals myself. The lift was so consistent and abundant that
> little altitude was lost. As the sun set behind the Sisters the others
> began to land and I figured I should do as they do since this was my
> first real Pine Mountain glass-off and there may be conditions unknown
> to me approaching. I found myself doing several 360s, banked turns,
> and a whole lot of big ears to get down. Everyone was packing up on
> the peat gravel, so I landed uneventfully in the middle of the parking
> lot. Even in the twilight, the LZ had some ups and downs on approach.
> In the future, I will probably add some ballast to my harness to give
> myself a bit more penetrating power. None of the other pilots said
> they had trouble with the venturi effect at the saddle like I did that
> night. I also stay up a little longer, weather permitting. Thinking I
> should follow the locals down, I found out they landed because they
> wanted to. There was still another 30 min of good air time. I asked
> what to do if the air went catabatic before landing. They informed me
> to reverse approach and land toward the mountain. Makes sense.
> Awesome night. Got to fly with a different crew and make new friends.
> I hope to head out there again sometime in the next week.
> Stan
> --
> Stan Mordensky | M.S. Candidate | University of Oregon |
> Eugene, OR 97403-1272 | (301)-639-8619 | stanl...@uoregon.edu
> <mailto:stanl...@uoregon.edu> |
