My first tandem flight in 1988 was on a mountain in Southern Calif called Kagel. I started flying hang glider solo in 1990. Since then hang gliding has been my primary interest.
Showing posts with label Issaquah hang gliding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Issaquah hang gliding. Show all posts
Tiger was good on Thursday. I flew for 2.5 hrs with two hangs (Alfredo, Travis) and about six paragliders. Michael was nice enough to let us follow his shuttle to launch (6.2 miles). We left the LZ at 12 and I drove down Alfredo's rig. I'd hiked up and launch around 3pm. Unlike the forecast said, there wasn't a strong north, but thermic with really light north wind cycles. It was either very light north or almost zero wind at the LZ for most of the day. The top of the thermals was about 800 ft above launch.
Aug 19th, 2016 Friday
Dog Mtn report:
A lot of decision making on where to go; Saddle, Black Mtn, Tiger Mtn or Dog?? We voted for Dog because is closer although the forecast called for East winds at Glenoma (wrong direction) with 90+ degree. It turns out that Alfredo, Larry, Travis and I had great flights at Dog. The east wind was starting to lighten around 1:30pm. I took off from the north launch on the 1st flight (at 3pm) and west launch on the 2nd flight (at 5:30pm). It was pretty much dead calm at launch and with really light thermal cycles at the LZ. Both flights combined was almost 3 hrs of air times. The 2nd flight was much better, topped out 1200 ft above launch over the microwave towers. Larry went further east and I think he got 2k above launch. Travis went to Elk with his Falcon and made it further west to the Cliff. Hopefully, he will share more about his adventure. Another fun day at Dog.
Aug 20th Saturday
Supposedly,l was going to either Rampart or Black Mtn today. But something came up so l came home last night.
Day 1 (Friday) Sept 25th
I arrived Baldy LZ around 1:40pm and found the skies overcast with few light sprinkles on and off. The wind was really light (0-2mph ) at the LZ coming from NW. The paragliders headed up to launch around 4pm when the sun came out with light wind blowing at 10-15 mph at launch (5 mph at the LZ) , so they got about 1.5 hours of ridge soarable window. One of the Baldy rule is that no 2WD vehicles are allow on the road;
Unfortunately, no sightings of 4WD rigs with hang rack was available to take my glider to launch, so I missed flying for the day. Spent my evening hiking up to launch.
Day 2 (Saturday) Sept 26th
Rampart 3 hrs flight
3 hrs flight/ 4,500 AGL/ 7,000 MSL
Already blowing 10-15mph at Baldy LZ in the morning at 8:00am Probably 25+ mph at launch. So went to Rampart to meet up with other hang pilots and turn out it was an amazing day at Rampart for sure. Five lucky hangs (Tim C, Stas, Bryan, Chris (from Taxas) and myself) got hours of a magic air time. I launched first at 1:15pm and flew for 3 hours. It was quite easy to climbed over 2,000 ft above launch and also easy trip to the big Rampart wall and across the valley. Thermals were really smooth and climbed up to cloud ceiling fast. I didn't feel any rotors during the landing approach and everyone had a soft landing on the carrier deck.
Day 3 (Sunday) Sept 27th
Rampart 2 hrs flight
It was light with clear skies. 8 hangs (Kurt, Gary, Aaron, Stas, Travis, Eric O, Alfredo and myself) and few bags flew. I flew for two hours.
Day 4 (Monday) Sept 28th
3 flights at Cliffside
I had 3 flights at Cliffside yesterday with Ray B, Enrique, John C, Mark R, Steve F and a few paragliders. All 3 flights launched off from the PG upper launch and it was soarable as well . The conditions were fairly strong when we arrived around 11:30am, so we thought it was going to be an easy soaring day.
Unfortunately, when we were set to launch an hour later, the winds lightened up, although still soarable along the ridge above Highway 14 with narrow lift band; we just couldn't get too high for the first flight. The highest I got was on the 3rd flight which was about 300ft above (almost 900ft AGL) around 5:30pm. On my second flight, I tried to top land at a cross wind on the uphill slope, however my approach was terrible, which ended with me slamming into the ground instead of landing (or you can say crash landing or BIG WHACK).I unhooked and checked to see if everything was okay after the crash, as well as checking to see if I broke any bones. Fortunately, everything turned out okay so I re-launched again shorty. At this time, the lift band had expanded and thermals were starting to get better which made the soaring much easier than earlier. I got higher and higher, but also felt the throbbing of my left shin from the BIG whack earlier. So even though conditions had improved, I've decided to best head out and land. I made it to the LZ by the river with plenty of attitude and had a soft landing on an uninjured right foot. My Gopro was off on my second flight so I didn't captured the crash landing, but Ray saw it so maybe he can fill in with more details. By the time we finished packing, it was getting close to sunset and Ray still skyed out with a couple of paragliders. He landed right before sunset. We had dinner at Hood River "Crazy Pepper" with Mark , Enrique and our driver Justin.
Only two hangs (Travis and myself) flew Tiger today. We and most of the paras had an extended sledder. It was almost zero wind conditions at launch and also no wind at the landing. Nice to flight Tiger again and I ran up to launch in a hot humid weather. Anyway, I'm here for the Tiger party tomorrow so I will fly Tiger again even a sledder conditions. Not sure about where to go on Sunday yet. Maybe Dog, Rampart , Tiger again.... Etc.
Sept 12, 2015 Tiger Mountain Fantastic Fly-In Festival
The 2015 Fantastic costumes festival turned out really good. There were about 50 paragliders flying at one time and only 9 hang gliders including myself, Tim Cayward, Travis, Glenn, Steve Alford, Rob, Kerie, Aaron and Bryan. The soarable condition turned on around 3:00pm and we all soared. I flew for 2 hrs on the second flight and hooked up with a few thermals that topped out 1000 ft above launch. I had two flights and total of almost 3 hrs of air time. As you can see from the video the whole sky was filled with paragliders.
Sept 13, 2015 Dog Mountain (Glenoma, Wash)
It was really windy and gusty (20-25mph) at launch the whole day. I had two flight that combine 3 hrs of air time. Aaron R, Eric O and myself flew till sunset.
On Sept 12
I captured this incident on Sat (Tiger Mt Fantastic Fly In) around 3:30pm. It looked as if two paragliders were launching at the same time ; one got tangled with another glider and was dragged down to the bottom of the launch. I'm not sure exactly what happened. I heard that the pilot was okay, however his glider got toasted.
