Categories: Trike Talk, Training / Learning to Fly a Trike, Safety, Hang Gliders, Weather
Hostman started this great group- Member's Life Stories.
I told him I wished I had some great stories like his, but didn't think I did. I did have some TIWTGTD (There I Was Thought I Was Going To Die) Hang Glider stories though. He said, you should write them ... so here's one.
Some back ground to the story. Hang Gliders and sailplanes typically use two basic kinds of lift
Now sometimes, convergence lift happens. I consider it kind of like ridge lift though, because what is happening is one air mass is meeting another and being diverted up. At Cayucos, the sea breeze would come in every day- we needed about 14 mph wind to minimally soar, but we'd fly in winds up to 40+ (you'd want a glider that could fly faster than 40 in those conditions). Sometimes, the sea breeze would meet a mass of warm air on land that would "block" the wind from coming in. We called this condition "the block" locally, but everyone else called it convergence. It would see "blocked" when we would get the wind prediction as high (enough) drive up be coast and see all the flags straight out, see the white caps on the water, but drive up to launch (about 3/4 a mile inland) and have barely any wind in our faces. Sometimes the front of the block would be a mile or so West, out over the water-- the ocean to the west of that would be whipped, and to the east of the line would be calm. Now, just as with any ridge lift, the front side of the ridge may have up going air, but the back side has nasty rotor-- like water flowing over a rock, the front side jets up, but the backside is all turbulent white water-- nasty, mean, potentially very dangerous. But, we wanted to get to the front & soar, so sometimes, if the front of the block was close to the beach, we'd fly through the lee side rotor-- if we predicted it right it wasn't too bad. Sometimes it scared the hell out of you (me-- TIWTIGTD doing unwanted aerobatics and going down fast over the beachside houses, power lines and Pacific Coast Hwy (1) or PCH)). HERE's a movie I made after I got to the front of the block on a day where before I got to the front TIWTIWGTD. No one else was in the movie with me, because I was the wind dummy that day-- the test pilot. Everyone was set up on launch, and someone had to go first. I was "air horny" and went for it-- scared the shit out of everyone on launch, who later could only drool as I flew the convergence magic carpet. I was young .... I was naive ... I wasn't crazy though and I certainly didn't always volunteer to wind dummy. I've learned. The older guys (my mentor Bill was in his 70's at this time), would set up slowly and just happen not to be ready to go first. ;) Most days though, it was standard ridge soaring and everyone knew it was good, and we hurried to get in the air.
Here's my Mentor and good friend Bill Hartwick:
OK, so what about dew point? When did I learn my lesson with dew point? Well, I had been taking some pilot lessons in a Cessna around that time, and I asked my instructor why do they report Dew Point in the ATIS info. He said, "I don't know." (now, maybe he didn't understand my question, because he was also an airline pilot ..., anyway, his answer didn't help me. I had to learn it on my own). On this particular day, the wind was predicted to be good, so we made a bunch of phone calls and we gathered on top of launch at Cayucos to asses the conditions. The wind was pretty stiff offshore-- about 18mph. The temperature was cool. A mist layer was pressed against the ridge where we were at launch. Looking down at about a 45° angle toward the houses, I could see them pretty well (the warmer ground cleared the fog so I could see adequately through that "tunnel." I thought that when I looked straight ahead, because there was nothing to see in that direction (just sky & maybe ocean), I didn't realize that I was looking into relatively dense "Mist."
I'll let you read my log book entry from that day (I kept it on an Excel file, so I had to upload a screenshot below.
After I got out of my initial trouble off launch, the flight became magical-- just enough of a challenge at first to make it a tease and fun, then becoming more fun. I was able to jump the valley to the North this time, rare, go over the cool hilltop golf course a man made for him self, then climb the face of a cloud and follow it further North, High up over the reservoir dam. At this point, I was looking down on the little beachside town of Cayucos thinking how it felt like Peter Pan to be floating above the tiny inhabitants.
I was nearly 2000' over (launch was about 700') and about 400' over the town was a thin patchwork "quilt" of clouds. I don't know the name of that cloud condition, but have you ever noticed that sometimes the clouds form little squares like biscuits rising in a pan, reaching out to touch each other. These clouds were thin, square and nearly touching each other on all four sides, with a slight band of clear at their edges. It looked like a little see through quilt laid over the town. Very cool. I had my GPS turned on, but didn't have it set right-- It was a magical flight up until that point. I knew where I was, so the screen was zoomed way out- very soon I would have wished I had it zoomed in to nearly street level detail ....
The quilted thin patchwork of clouds was actually indicating that day that the dew point and the ambient temperature were only one or so degrees apart. I had soared for nearly 95 minutes, and as the evening grew closer, and the temperature fell, it was almost like a great god blew his breath onto a cold window. Things were changing VERY rapidly.
Here is my log book notation from that day: