Pine Mountain Flight Report 7-21-12

[Stan Mordensky]

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

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Stan Mordensky | M.S. Candidate | University of Oregon |
Eugene, OR 97403-1272 | (301)-639-8619 | stan...@uoregon.edu |

[Discover Paragliding!]

Stan,

Two things I would offer an opinion on:

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!)

Hope this helps,

Brad

See you up there,

Brad and Maren
Your 'Couple' of Instructors
www.DiscoverParagliding.com
503-861-2772 (W) 503-440-0733 (c)

[Stan Mordensky]

Brad,

I have similar sentiments on ballast and I'm glad to hear yours. In the end its a trade off between how rough I think the landing could be vs. being blown back. The fact that the other pilots remarked about the conditions being anything but strong means that either cannot fly in slightly stronger conditions than Saturday night or I play with ballast. The winds at launch were peaking around 12-13mph and toughing near 8mph, so the wind was not exceptionally strong or variable.

I should add under those conditions I had no problem maintaining positive ground velocity away from the saddle, so it will probably come down to just avoiding the saddle completely on stronger nights or in the early evening when wind speed is more variable.

I liked your idea for a cross wind landing when the anabatic-catabatic conditions are not certain. It makes a lot of sense and would have worked Saturday night. Fortunately, I had no problem checking the streamers at the mid-launch and LZ on my approach, but I'll keep it all in mind should I find myself without wind indicators.

Thanks for the input Brad,

Stan