Alltrikes

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 background to the story.  Hang Gliders and sailplanes typically use two basic kinds of lift

1. Ridge Lift: wind blows into a cliff or mountain face and is diverted upward, giving a lift band, defined along the edge of the cliff.  Often this occurs at beach sites, where sweet laminar air, undisturbed over miles of beaches, hits vertical seaside cliffs.  Classic would be Torrey Pines (near San Diego) (where my jaw dropped as a kid first seeing HGs in the 70s), or Ft Funston (near San Francisco (in fact it's in several of Henry's SF movies).  Ridge soaring is sometimes called "ridge boring"- because where you can fly is defined by the ridge, and you can go back and forth, back and forth--  though it's very fun.  Cayucos is a beach ridge site I flew many, many times.  It's actually more fun than typical ridges because the shape is complex, with valleys to go up and/or "jump" across (typically the venturi up them is strong and sink is horrific), and Morro Rock ("the rock") to the south beckoning you to try and fly to it--  a rare treat, only in certain conditions.
2. Thermal Lift:  My favorite because you can hop from thermal to thermal for miles.  The record was held for many years at 438 miles by my friend Mike Barber, and only recently surpassed by an Ozzie.  columns of rising air lift toward clouds (though in dry California, there may not be clouds marking the way).  A pilot just needs to hunt out those thermals and circle up like a hawk, sometimes rising at 1-2000 feet per minute, often scratching at 40 ft per minute (given that the glider's sink rate is around 200' per minute, you're really in lifting air of 240'/m).  da Vinci's saying of once you have tasted flight, you will always look skyward wishing to be there again, is very true from hang gliding.  Once you recognized a "cloud street" a row of developed cumulous clouds snaking out to infinity, you will be like a surfer seeing the perfect wave break.  Knowing that if you could just get under that row, you could fly forever.  It's a tease and very addictive.

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 calls it convergence.  To us, the sea breeze would seem "blocked" when the wind prediction would be high (enough) wind, we'd drive up the coast 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, but to the East of the block 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 hopefully a "blue water" (non-turbulen up jet), 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 purposefully 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 this 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. There was tactics even in how fast you set up.  HG is a very intriguing sport.

Here's my Mentor and good friend Bill Hartwick:

OK, so what about dew point?  When did I learn my lesson about 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 to the group and we gathered on top of launch at Cayucos to assess the conditions.  The onshore sea breeze out on the water was moderately stiff -- about 18mph.  The temperature was cool.  The wind on launch was light and a mist layer was pressed against the ridge where we stood, trying to suss it out.  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 I couldn't see much 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--  I knew where I was, so the GPS screen was zoomed way out-  very soon I would have wished I had it zoomed in to nearly street level detail,  It was a magical flight up until that point ....

The quilted thin patchwork of clouds was actually indicating that day that the dew point and the ambient temperature were only a few 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 (click on this embedded photo.  when the larger photo comes up, click on it again to enlarge it once more (all photos on this site work that way):

Below is a photo of a small convergence cloud forming over Cayucos beach (blue line), and Morro Rock with it's top obscured to the Left of the photo.  Photo was from beach level.  It formed after I landed that day-- man, I was looking skyward wishing I was on the front side.  The movie I uploaded above did not have a convergence cloud marking the "block" but the same phenomenon was occurring that day-- an invisible magic carpet on the front side-- air dragons on the back.

One day, we all flew the block, and drug our finger tips in the mist back and forth on the front side.  Wow, magical !!!

In Australia, they have a REAL SERIOUS convergence cloud.  It's called the "MORNING GLORY."  It sets up regularly, and has serial waves behind it.  Wave lift can be very powerful, lifting sailplanes to record heights (over 20,000 feet- maybe up to 30K if I remember right).  In front of each wave is lift, and behind each is serious sink.  They are not unlike stacked lenticular clouds, forming off the lift and rebound of wind striking a mass and moving upward.  So, again, I think of convergenge and wave lift much like ridge soaring.  The lee side of a ridge can have horrendous sink and turbulence (read "Exploring the Monster" about the military experimenting with wave lift in the Sierras).

HERE's a movie of a Hang Glider flying the Morning Glory in Australia.  They were towed up into the front of the wave, likely by a trike.  It looks beautiful and easy, but is very serious and huge conditions.  Jonny Durand describes it like surfing a Tsunami.