Identity Crisis

Today started much like yesterday. Early yesterday evening the sky cleared, allowing temperatures to plummet overnight, but by morning there was a solid cloud deck in place. Like yesterday we could see a line of blue in the distance, holding the promise of clearing later on. Unlike yesterday, however, the winds were very light. The clouds were drifting from the north, and the wind talker on the mountain was reporting light northwest winds. No one was very anxious to rush up the mountain, since unlike yesterday it wouldn’t be ridge soarable. The blue line to the south started advancing northward in spite of the north wind, and by mid-morning it was right on top of us. This was enough to generate motivation to go up the hill. In a few minutes we had the basher loaded with 4 hang gliders, 14 pilots and a trailer full of gear.

Today I was the first hang glider to launch. Two or three paragliders had launched ahead of me, with disappointing results. Often when the lift is small and broken paragliders have the advantage, but today the lift was unreliable, and you had to be ready to move as soon as you lost it. The wind was cross and stronger than expected, and that added to the challenge. The better glide and penetration of my hang glider gave me enough extra search space to be a distinct advantage, and I was able to stay above the paragliders. Even at that, I got low a couple of times chasing the finicky lift around the low hills in front. Finally I got one solid reliable climb that took me to over 5000ft. Meanwhile I watched many gliders launch and bomb out. Peter launched his hang glider and made a bee-line for the bomb-out, never turning once. Another hang glider launched and spent some time exploring in the low hills and didn’t even make it to the main bomb-out. Several paragliders were quickly on the ground. From my vantage point high above launch it almost seemed surreal.

There were many more pilots here today, since most people are on vacation the week between Christmas and New Years. As I flew over the northeast launch I could see several high performance hang gliders set up, so I was hoping for some more company to fly with. My general plan was to try and fly upwind to the north, and return downwind for an out-and-back flight. I decided to go ahead and start north to explore the lift and wait for the others to get in the air. Soon I saw Helmut launch and start working lift in the gap to the south of launch. Before long he was joined by another glider. I should have returned to join them, but I felt I was in a great position, and pressed on further north. The further north I got the weaker it got, and rather than landing after a short flight I decided to turn around. I almost didn’t make it back to Godfrey’s, but I got a light climb about 300ft off the deck that soon had me back above 5000ft. I continued south to Manilla, then turned around and headed back upwind to Godfrey’s. By this time I had decided I wasn’t going to go anywhere, so I just played around losing altitude before landing. I felt it was a nice flight – 2 hours in the air and a 20 mile triangle on what appeared to be a marginal day.

Later in the evening I learned that several of the pilots had flown a downwind dog leg task. Further south the lift got better and better, and a couple of pilots made it over 100 miles. Helmut completed two legs of a triangle for 60 miles. I felt like an idiot for wasting a good cross country day. I could come up with a thousand excuses for why I flew the flight I did, but the truth is I blew it. I was quite happy with my ability to get in the air and stay in the air, but my strategic decision making is not up to par. It’s something I have struggled with for the last year or so as I have seen my flying skills take me beyond the casual pilot level, yet my overall performance still fall short of the “big boys” league. This is probably the main reason I have chosen to compete. Organized cross country competition eliminates many of the challenging distractions like choosing a task or worrying about retrieve. In addition there are many other very good pilots trying to fly the exact same task. While the top pilots will be flying the comps as a race, I will be focused on trying to complete the tasks, but I will have many other pilots to measure my performance against and to learn from. So rather than beating myself up for not flying the best flight I could have yesterday, I am going to try and focus on honing the skills that will help me get the most out of the upcoming competitions.

Get the Google Earth file here

See the flight in the HOLC here