Author: JoeO

Powered Paraglider pilot since 2005

#176 Caught in a gust !

Its Better to be on the ground…”Wishing”
This morning started out beautifully calm. When I got out of bed a little before 5am it looked to be the perfect morning for a long flight. Expecting just that, I mixed an extra gallon of AV Gas and headed out to Hampden & Simms. In the beginning it was a steady 1 or 2 mph but after setting up it had increased to 5.
When I started to launched I saw that my heading was dangerously close to clipping a metal fence post but… before I had rolled 20 feet and a long way from the post, a gust blew in and picked me up. I was pulling brake to the level between my shoulder and ear. The wing was barely penetrating. When I eased the brake input, I aaccelerated and climbed to 50 feet where I did a slow roll and landed by the truck. I’m not sure when I started to pull brake, I may have added a little pressure when I noticed the fence post but it’s more probable that I was in the air and was just reacting to the wing.
The wind front continued to build over the next 20 minutes and when I left it was a steady 20 mph. The lesson to be learned is that a trend tends to persist and wishing it will go down…”don’t necessarily make it so”
Equipment Notes:
The Garmin 176-c is dead..I’ve located and purchased a used unit for $260 on E-Bay.
The Fortrex battery is not holding a charge for very long at all.
The new FB battery lost it’s charge so there are doubts that the alternator is charging the battery.

CSYC Race # 2 Summer series

We made up for the disaster of last week and won clean including the Barn Door!
The course was 6 … 3 x2. Crew was John Sieb, Ollie,Stefania, Michella and myself. We had a good start and stayed with the J boats all the way. Even managed to squeeze past a pair of C Fleet boats on the last rounding of 6 with no wind …just our inertia. The big light wind genoa was the trick. Lil Bus got their spinnaker in an hourglass and finished last so I guess they won’t be the boat to beat this series like I thought. Robert & Marsha Kline cleaned everybodys clock on the combined fleet…Good for them! Roy and Mark caught up with me toward the end but I had 50 boat lenghts on em for awhile. Good Race

#175 A Beautiful Sunset Flight ( 3 Flight Day! )

Almost a Full Moon…


Stopped by the lake at 6pm because the wind was blowing too hard to fly. The dingy fleet is going at it but no sing of any on the shore …so I headed out to Simms and Kip. When I got out there I took my time setting up because it was still blowing.. At 7:30 I was ready to go, the wind had come down and was blowing 2 or 3 mph from the south. The wind sock was farther infield than normal and I had set up so that I would be running right at it. I smiled at the image of running into my own sock. I was pretty sure I would be able to avoid it ….if not fly right over it. The air was great! I headed over to the golf course and flew a low power glide down the slope toward the clubhouse. Someday I’m going to fly to a CSYC board meeting !

So I flew for 45 minutes not getting much over 800 feet and not too far from the field. Before I landed I’d tossed the parachute and watched it glide to my stuff bag, taken a few pictures and danced with Marek who showed up late. The landing was a nice floater. Most of the flight was with the trimmers out and I noticed that I flew almost the whole time with both hands on the controls. I’m liking the feel of a little brake pressure especially with the trimmers out.

There was a guy named John waiting when we landed…Guy had never seen PPG before and was blown away. I’ve had people waiting at the LZ before but this guy was certainly the most enthusiastic. I think Marek gave him the flock website which is a good thing because he put me off a little bit. I just want to enjoy the moment. So I let Marek talk while I kited the wing. There was just enough breeze to do a nice reverse for the spectators.

#173 & #174

Smooth Air Morning!

Very light variable winds. Blew the first launch when the wind did a quick 180. The second and third were smooth as glass. I caught some weed in the left wing tip which cause me to turn but with a little yanking on the brake line it shook loose.
I let the trimmers out and immediatly started to get swung and bounced. Pulled trimmers back in and it smoothed out. Whats that about? Probably just the patch I was flying over but I kept the trimmers in for the rest of the two flights. I did a couple of fly by passes on the second flight and called it good.

New Strobe

Now that its warmed up I’ve been flying later and later in the day and really should be using a strobe. But…I only need it when I need it and I hate to have equipment hanging on the rig “just for show”I found a strobe thats priced right ($20) and installs in 10seconds. On my FB cage it can be clipped right into the netting andwith a couple of zip ties it could go just about anywhere. I’ve flownit two hours with no visable wear on the netting.Made by Leland, USCG approved and sold at West Marine its designed tobe attached to life vest with a very clean stainless steel clip. Ituses one “D” cell battery.It is visable for slightly more than a 180 degree arc so to get maximum visability you might want to use one on each side up and down.
Here is the link
http://www.chiefsupply.com/Flashlights/Specialty/60610#features
Photos to follow

172

Huntmaster! light variable breezes at the surface but mixing air and wild swings shortened this flight. Yesterday I switched back to the 150 and after changing the position on the needle jet I find the best setting is where it was despite the color of the plug.
It was nice to launch from pavement and nobody hassled me including the workers on the unfinished house but I sure didn’t like the air. Right after I took off there was some seriously sinking air that I believe came from the nearby lake. The land sloped down toward the lake and before I started to climb out I was probable 5 or 10 feet lower than where I took off. In the air there were lots of cross currents that kept turning the glider in directions I didn’t want to go. I was also a little concerned about landing but had no trouble setting down on the pavement just a little past the truck. So I didn’t stay up long but it was an OK flight.
After landing I went over to the Park and helped out with the balloons. I met Jim Hill who is going to be the assistant safety officer and Gary (?) who owns the Rocky Mountain Balloon Festival. They are having issues with the FAA and others about security during the Democratic convention.

171

The jet was 155 and the motor was bogging down. If felt ok in the driveway but I could tell during lift off that I didn’t have the power. So it’s back to the 150.
First sunset flight in Colorado this year! I didn’t stay up long because of the motor but the air was good. I did one touch and go before calling it quits. I just didn’t feel right with the motor missing.

#170

What a day
Blew first two launches. I was trying to use the prop wash to build a wall and it absolutly wasn’t working for me. The wing came up hard to the left both times and I was unable to react near fast enough to get under it. If I had tried to turn hard enough to follow the wing I would have been 30 degrees …or more…off the wind. On the second muffed launch I managed to do a slow mo tip over. (NO DAMAGE).
Third try I walked the wing back and re-set properly. I went back to giving myself a couple of feet of slack and this time when I started the roll the wing came up easy and I was able to stableize it with just a little brake input.
House Keeping:
1. change jet back to the 155 and see if the plug changes to the right color of brown.
With out bogging down at the top end…
2. install garmin antenna.
Race number 1 of the summer series is going to be my throwout race.
I blew it at the start starting with the B fleet. John Sieb was helm and I don’t think I helped him enough. Very high winds steady from the North gusting to 20+knots. Two boats capsized and the new Freedom 24 went down with one man missing for 20 minutes. It’s resting on it’s keel /dagger board with the top 20 inches of mast above the surface. Everyone is ok and the paramedics delt with the guy who was swimming….So all is well.

#166 to 169

June 30th # 166 Simms ….Short flight very windly aloft

July 1st # 167 Simms …Short flight very windy with mixing air…BUMPY

July 2nd Simms …No Fly Day …Too Windy

July 3rd #168 & 169 Beautiful ! Smooth as butter. Marek and I.

Practiced landing under power and was able to cruise about 1 foot above for as long as there was room to fly.

No issues what so ever

#165 Flying with the Balloons

Ballons fly with us !


Simms 6 am. Shortly after I took off I could see John driving into the field and when I came back 40 minutes later Paul and Marek were setting up. I followed John from above while he cruised the golf courses from about 100 feet. Paul was having a hard time getting up but finally slowed down and made a great launch.
I changed the jet to 150 ,it seems to have corrected the problem and the motor is running up much faster.

On the second flight I watched a balloon fight to land in our field. He wasn’t able to get over to us so he set down in the field to the West and relaunched after a few minutes and landed in the park to the west and a tad bid south. I guess he did that to avoid cutting the fence to get his crew into the first field.