This is what will have to do for my 57th birthday flight.
57 Degrees ... 7mph at the surface 20mph at 100 feet. Easy quick launches. Motor off landings.
Crabbed over to the High School and Elementary school. Winds were switching and turned 120 degrees by the time I had landed for the next launch. No set up required for the second launch because the wing came down perfectly to re inflate.
It was one of those nights that just wouldn't settle down.
I got to the field at 5:00 sharp, the wind was blowing 5 MPH from the East. Like yesterday I went to the west end of the field and set up. The launch was clean and I headed off to the South where I encountered some bumpy air. The wing was being pulled to the right and I let it go. I did use some left brake to slowly bring it around but not enough input force the issue. Once on course, I flew to the High School where I could see the football team scrimmaging , it was still kind of bumpy so I turned west toward the reservoir. More bumps and shifty winds. Now mind you.... the sky was clear and it looked like it should be steady winds but it was mixing at all altitudes. So... I turned back to Vance Brand and set up to land. There was a Yellow War Bird coming in at the same time as I so I went around the swoop pond and let him have the right of way.
The second launch was clean. The wing came up and was well overhead before the cart began to move forward. I ran about 10 yards before lift-off and instantly encountered some big lift. The wing was pulled to the right and I allowed it to climb and go over the swoop pond. Even though it looked calm at the surface there was serious thermic air. I was climbing at 300 ft/min at 50 ft AGL. So... I turned back toward the field and set up for landing. It was great I was pulled from one side to the other but still landed right next to the truck.
The third launch was a repeat ... I was bounced up right after lift off and turned back to land. This time the air was really active. I was climbing and then sinking every few seconds. It was like the flight at Titan last year when Dawn thought I was going to crash into the Rush Building. When I was on final at 300 feet my glide slope was perfect except that one minute I was going to overshoot and the next I was way short. It would have been great to see a video because I'm sure I was doing a Yo Yo but it all evened out and I set down by the truck with almost no forward motion. One of the slowest and maybe cleanest landings I can remember.
God, I love this sport!
What a nice Surprise. Dawn and I were planning to go to the CSYC board meeting but after speaking with Bill I decided that it was not a necessity, saving us 2 hours on the road. When I text ed Dawn the news she suggested that we go flying instead. How nice...
So she came home early and we were at the airstrip by 5:30. The wind was brisk from the East which was a good thing. Instead of launching at the East end where the weeds had been snagging my lines, I could move to the west side of the field where there was real grass. I'd launched there before but it was rare. I parked the truck on the North end and walked the wing out to the middle of the field giving me plenty of room to launch and clear the buildings and rotor on the East end. Dawn and I did a radio check and she settled into the truck to get some work done while I played. Nice Lady ....
Nice air except for a ratty layer at 200 feet. I flew over to the High school and doodled around for 30 minutes. The wind was 15 mph from the East. When I dropped down to 100 feet I was able to penetrate much better and made my way back to Vance Brand.
Through the whole thing I hadn't been able to hear Dawn on the radio and was getting pretty frustrated. We had done several radio checks which checked out fine. Eventually I was getting her transmissions but weak. I think the plug into the radio is the problem and will work on it. Some kind of a guard that keeps the plug from being disturbed.
When the air started getting trashy I flew west of the field and practiced touch and gos adjacent to the runway. On one of them I saw a GA lining up for final, I stayed south of the runway and we came in together. VERY COOL.
I arrived later than normal and was in a hurry to get set-up and launched before it got thermal. The field was wet with dew and there was a thick haze to the east. I was frustrated by the tough low weeds that kept hooking my lines during set-up and spent several minutes working to get them ready to fly free during inflation.
It didn't work.... The first launch was aborted when the wing came up high on the right . Probably some lines on the left were snagged. I tried to recover the launch but was wasn't worth the risk.
The second attempt was flawless. I climbed to 1000 feet with smooth air all through the accent. Returning to the field 40 minutes later I encountered some bumps at 400 feet as it was beginning to get thermal.
When I landed I took a wrap on the brakes and had enough flair authority to fly along the surface for several hundred yards under power. Flying such a heavy unit makes this kind of fine control much harder. It will be interesting to try it with the Eden III.
Yesterday was a no fly day. I got to the field at 5 and set up at the west end. The winds were light and I wasn't in a hurry. By the time I had put on my gear the winds had shifted to the north west which would have me launching over the runway. Not a good idea. Rather than drive the trike to the other end of the field I decided to wait and see what was going to happen. The winds continued to shift north and I could see virga forming. So ... I laid down on the wing bag and waited some more. 10 minutes later a wind front came through that would have been horrible, had I been flying. The wind was bouncing between 20 and 30 mph and bouncing between North and West. I quickly bagged the wing and got it in the cab just as a short rain squall came through. Who would have figured? It looked so mild when I arrived.
This morning was beautiful. I set up by the skydiver tent and launched on the apron. I was surprised to see that the wing was slightly wet ... guess I didn't get it bagged as quickly as I thought. It came up slow and wanted to hang back but I stayed on the "A's" and managed to get into the air. It took about twice the distance I had expected but with plenty of room to clear the swoop pond. Nice flight.
Wow ! This was exciting. The first launch was to the East with mild winds. I quickly saw that two of the lines were tangled and so I turned back to the field. No big deal but I didn't want to fly with the wing out of balance. I landed without mishap and noticed that the skydivers had set up an extra tent for spectators.
After clearing the lines I launched 180 degrees from the first flight. Funky winds.
I headed toward the fishing lake and encountered some very turbulent air. The trike was swinging big time and the wing was being pulled hard to the side. I gently eased it around and headed back to the field. It is an often over used term but I felt like a puppet on a string . Bounced to the left and right. Being lifted at over 400 feet per minute and dropped accordingly. I don't have a good reason but I was not freaked out like I have been the last few times that I've been in ratty air. I was swinging but ... ok ... I was hanging under the wing but it was well loaded and even though it wanted to fly in a different direction ... it was flying. Perhaps I'm finally getting a little bump tolerance. When I got back to the field the winds had increased dramatically. they were coming from the west and I was barely penetrating. With the trimmers full out I began to move forward and set up to land by the truck. As I was descending the gust passed and I landed 100 feet beyond my mark.
I waited a few minutes and re set. the second launch was fine but after flying over the windsock I think it was 60 degrees cross wind. The wing did come up high on one side but I was able to bring it overhead with some hard brake input. It was a great flight. Lots of bounce but I was good.
When I landed the second stick of skydivers were landing. It's all good
Perhaps I will expand on this at a later date but suffice to say that I didn't fly. The wing and I couldn't get together on launch until it dived into the prop. The damage was a broken line and a few small tears in the trailing edge on the top right side. I think it fell back ... popped forward and fell back again into the prop wash. The nose wheel came up then down then the rear right wheel lifted enough that I though that I was going over. I killed power steered out of the tip but the prop didn't wind down fast enough and caught the wing. The right axle was bent but the fiberglass struts were not damaged.
I awoke with the star Betelgeuse shining in the bedroom window. Dawn was asleep and i didn't see any way that I was going back to sleep so I packed up and headed out to Vance Brand......Set and ready by 6:15. The first launch was aborted after trying far too long to save it. I even went so far as to reacquire the A's and try to get the wing back overhead. What I think happened is that some lines on the right side got hooked in the weeds causing the wing to come up very high on the left. There was absolutely no breeze and when the wing fell back it was playing "push me pull you" with the prop wash. I do remember seeing the right side collapse forward so it's possible the cart decelerated and the high side overshot. Anyway I launched and headed of to the South East at 150 feet. It was a joy to fly low because i was able to see what was going on below me. People were heading off to work... Kid were leaving for school. At one little "house on the prairie" I roused a bunch of kids who ran out into the front yard to greet me. The Balloons were flying either way too high or playing down low over the neighborhoods, so I decided not to hook up and headed back toward the LZ.
When I returned to Vance Brand there was a wing layed out. I circled and landed. The wing turned out to be a new pilot who was going on his 2nd or 3rd flight with the ppc. Turns out he was a hanger partner with Barney and Craig. Experienced Ultra light pilot but new to Para Flight. Good launch
I turned home.
I arrived at 6:00am and it was still too dark to launch. The air was still and moist and there wasn't a soul moving at the airport. I took my time setting up and took a minute to get familiar with the Go Pro. There were a bunch of geese at the swoop pond and when the took off flapping and honking I took it as clearance to launch.
Sun Rise
This was my 5th morning at Vance brand this week and I was feeling good. Not a blown launch in the last several dozen flights and the Generac was running good.
Yesterday there weren't any balloons but I was hoping they would be flying so I could take some video and I wasn't disappointed. I could see one flying low over the Gunbarrel neighborhood and 3 others inflating at the balloon port. I made a beeline for the flyer who was beginning to ascend. When I was 1000 yards out he was 300 feet above me I powered up and started to circle around him. He must of seen me because he slowed his accent and allowed me to come level with him. We waved and circled for awhile and I turned back to the LZ.
Heading back to the field there were several aircraft up. A Bonanza heading South flew over and a ultralight circled about 100 yards off my wing. The NEK Airborne were dropping 60 skydivers at a time with 3 planes. I loitered to the South of the field until the sky divers were down and landed by the truck.
I hadn't planned to launch again but the ultra lite was doing touch and goes on the dirt strip along the South fence and the air was still good. So I set up and launched. This time I was getting allot of lift and was climbing at 350 ft./min. Climbing to 2000ft AGL I shut down the motor and enjoyed the quiet for 10 minutes. At 500 feet I restarted and landed clean.
While I was packing up a fellow came over and introduced himself. Craig Frank is a PPC and Light sport pilot. He was waiting for the ultralight to land so that he could try it out. There were several PPC guys who were planning to fly later and he invited me to go along with him on his Six Shooter. When the little single seat Quicksliver landed Craig introduced me to Barney. Barney has just just rebuilt the Quicksilver and was planning to fly it to the Fly In in Fort Lupton the next day. He briefed Craig who then climbed in and headed over to the main runway. I chatted with Barney for a bit and watched the skydivers who were finishing their 3 jump of the morning.
After an hour and no sign of Craig I decided to go over to the other side of the airport to see if I could find my ride. It didn't take long to spot them. They had the quicksliver on dollys and were wheeling it into Barney's hanger. I took a minute to figure out what was wrong with the picture but eventually I got it. The wheels were missing and the landing struts were bent. Craig had stalled 5 feet above the runway and pancaked. He felt terrible and had decided to find a way ... somehow.. to repair the plane so that Barney could fly it to the Fly In. Barney is a fixture at Vance Brand and has been the Ultralight guru there for 20 years.
The hanger is filled with Ultralight parts. and more than a couple broken planes. We located some landing struts and determined the nose wheel was repairable. The only thing missing was a set of axles. Barney made a cal and 5 minutes later "Bob showed up. Bob is a retired Mechanical Engineer and collector of small aircraft. He offered to make a set of axles if we would follow him back to his home and work shop.
So off we went, Bob has a wonderful shop complete with all the tools to machine just about whatever was needed. While he worked on the axles I poked around and tried to absorb as much as I could. His son stopped by and the four of us chatted about Bob's aircraft. I was taken by the Hovey Delta Hawk, a tiny little biplane that in another time I would have bought in a heartbeat. Bob offered to sell it to me for $4,000 which shocked me but he was serious. Wow a real airplane for $4,000! Later I thought about it and figured that $4,000 was just the down payment. By the time I got flight instruction and all that would be needed to keep the wonderful little plane it would be closer to $25,000. Well I guy can dream.
Dawn and I planned to drive out to the fly in but the weather didn't cooperate so we stayed home. Sunday was no good because Obama was going to be speaking in Boulder and all but the big commercial flights were grounded.
This was a good one. I arrived at the field 20 minutes before dawn. The launch was clean but the air was very twitchy between 50 and 100 feet. Once above the layer it warmed up and was very smooth. There were no balloons today unlike the last 3 mornings so I explored the south and returned to the field. Not a real long flight but very enjoyable.
Flight #557 was a pleasant surprise. A week ago I posted to the Yahoo forum that I was planning to fly Chatfield on the Sunday morning after the Fagawie Sailboat Race. In the beginning we would race from Sunset till Sunrise but over the years as we have aged, it has been shortened to a sunset till midnight race. Since I was going to get some sleep I thought it would be a good time to schedule a Chatfield flight. It was a disappointment when nobody responded but I figured John Sieb would want to go and even if he didn't, I hadn't flown my old home field in over a year and it was time.
The Fagawie was a floater with little wind at the start eventually dying to zero. Our speed was measured in inches per minute so we decided to abandon the race in favor of getting an extra hour of sleep. At 6:00am the alarm went off and Dawn and I struggled to crawl out of the berth. The air was considerably cooler than the last couple of days and I pulled on long johns to wear under the light pants I' thought would be sufficient. At 7:00am we were pulling out of the Marina and encountered Chris Montes who had made the wrong turn at Roxbourough. He waved and follow us to the field where we saw a big part of the Front Range Flock. John Sieb was getting ready to launch and I counted several others including, Mike Bennett, Ty, Nate, and Marek and amazingly Chip who hadn't flown with us for ages.
The wind was light from the east and so I set up at the west end of the field and waited while Nate cleared the runway. The launch was clean and I quickly turned to fly back over the parking area. Dawn was shooting pictures and so I threw the monkey on a drogue. I'd been promising to do it for months but always seemed to forget.
There were 5 balloons ascending over the west end of the lake so I set course and caught them in a string stretching from North of the corm maze to the south end of the Reservoir.
Except for one, they were climbing fast, so I headed over to take some pictures of the corm maze. This year it is half the normal size and not very elaborate. I expect it's a victim of the budget crunch but they could have been a little more creative in their selection of design. Oh Well.....
On the way back to the south end I encountered a red white and blue balloon close to my altitude we blew by each outer with a wave and I turned around toward the bottom of the lake.
Last nights huge 50 boat raft-up was greatly reduced but still impressive. This is the first year but I'm sure the Annual Mega Raft-Up will be a regular event.
I flew over to the marina and RC Airport before heading back to the LZ. What a great flight! I was back on home turf and the conditions were perfect.
Thanks to everybody for coming to enjoy it with me..
What a beautiful morning to fly with the Balloons!
There was absolutely no breeze at Vance Brand airport this morning. The sky was clear and I could see one lone balloon at altitude off to the south. After launching I noticed there were 3 others at low altitude east of the Boulder Reservoir. I climbed to 500 feet and went to meet them. There was a 10 mph breeze from the north and the Falcon picked up to 40+mph. Smooth air all the way.
I did encounter a small fixed wing GA at the same altitude who was heading right at me. He turned away 1000 yards off my nose. It could have been that he did not see me until I started to bank away giving the wing more visible surface area.
The return was slow and it started to get bumpy when I dropped altitude to get out of the head wind so I climbed back up opting for the smoother air. I cant really call it a cross country because I was only up about 40 minutes but it was 14 miles ... 7 out and 7 back.
This weekend is the Fly In at Bubba's. Have a great time guys ... I cannot make it this year.
I awoke early and decided to go for it. The air was warm and still when I arrived at Vance Brand about 6 am. The first launch was picture perfect. I lined up on the dirt track and launched right down the runway. There was a good strong breeze from the South West above 50 feet. As I was setting up to land I noticed a couple of balloons to the south. So I landed .... gassed ... and set up to reach launch.
This one was a little different. I didn't damp the wing quick enough during the inflation and it folded up in a frontal. I watched it in the mirror as it collapsed and fell behind. I contemplated aborting the take off but I had plenty of room ahead and decided to see if I could save it. I throttled down and rolled along for quite a long distance with half the wing but eventually it inflated and I powered back up. I was rolling over the grass and waiting for my speed to back up until I came adjacent to the swoop pond. Eventually I got off and went to chase the balloons. There were 5 in the air with one playing very close to the ground. Since he was the closest I headed that way and we danced together for a few minutes before I turned back toward the LZ. I aborted the first landing attempt because the wing was oscillating. I think it was the result of a hard turn as I descended through the temperature inversion. Anyway it wasn't settling down and rather than come in swinging I went around again and landed without trouble.
The balloon was landing east of the field so after packing my gear I drove over and said hello. There was an FAA inspector who showed up shortly after I to do a "ramp inspection". The captain was an elderly gent who seemed a bit forgetful and I didn't like the idea of the FAA guy quizzing him. Or me! I said a quick good by and was on my way back to the house.
