Reasoning

      This crazy flying journey began almost 19 years ago now. When I started my training I was watched very closely by everyone around me because I was so young. A lot of it was with skepticism. Most disregarded me, assuming I wouldn't last long. A rare few took the role of mentoring. I grew up in an incredible era at Morningside where my mentors were National and World comp pilots, and I was so lucky to have that. Every day of flying came with some type of lesson or guidance and helped shape me into the pilot that I am now.
      Every pilot goes through an evolution at their own pace and in their own order. I got my H2 and first mountain flights, learned to ridge soar, got my aerotow rating, learned how to thermal, joined my first competition, got my H3, got my H4 but never received it on paper the next spring and stopped flying not long after due to adulthood.
     After the 2001 Regionals and placing 3rd I was hooked and wanted to be a comp pilot. Not long after making that declaration, I crashed and dislocated my shoulder. Flying became a lot scarier to me and I became overly conservative. Some would call that positive, and I agree but only to a certain point. The crash stemmed from an error on my part while playing with a single surface after being in my UltraSport the entire prior season: I misjudged the crappy glide/penetration and didn't make the LZ. So now whenever I flew I would panic if I didn't have the LZ almost underneath me no matter what glider I was in. I was leaving lift and bailing early to come in to land fearing I wouldn't make it. Not necessarily a bad thing, being that it's a safe practice, but if you're going for distance and competitions it's crippling.
      I had a good year in 2016 with multiple XC journeys and soaring flights galore. I had a hat-trick XC streak from Ascutney to Morningside 3 for 3 and in addition to that I was informed that I set a new female XC record for the region. My shoulder surgery that fall changed everything, I didn't trust my body. 2017 was my recovery season, until I crashed and hurt myself again. Then 2018 turned into recovery season: Part 2 for both physical and mental. I'm still not sure how things were processed in my brain, but it went downhill as the year went by and I still don't know why. I did my first comp in 18 years down in Florida and placed fairly well (not top 10 like I wanted, but 13th is close enough I guess). Once back in New England for spring conditions I began to get nervous. I flew here and there, but only when it was benign conditions and dead calm. Nothing happened that should've caused my mind to revert back to my 2001-2005 flying mindset, yet there it was. I was leaving thermals with Max and Ilya to get back directly over the park because in my mind I wasn't going to make the field. Which, in hindsight, was ridiculous. Half of the time we were at 6,000'+ and Morningside wasn't more than a few miles away, but in my head I wasn't going to penetrate back upwind and land short - an issue stemming from my old crash. I wanted to go XC, but wasn't really towing up in conditions that would allow me to do so. I wouldn't get on the cart if the leaves were rustling at all.
     It came to a head when I ended up having a breakdown in the taxiway. I was all set up to go, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. The conditions weren't crazy, just a typical mid-day thermally tow. I had done a few hundred of these by now. Everything came down on me and I was questioning what I was doing. I bawled my eyes out to Stacy and finally just blurted out 'I feel like I'm going to die every time I fly.' and didn't realize until that moment that it had become that bad, and it was unfounded. There was no reason for it. Yes hang gliding is dangerous to a point, but the risks are mitigated with experience and proficiency. Both of which I have plenty of. I have only had two bad crashes in the course of 12 total seasons which is impressive considering the flying and XC I've accomplished. Both were pilot error and preventable. Then as soon as that hit me, it went away and I was back to normal a month later. I was up on trashy days scratching for thermals and flying with Max and Ilya again like it never happened.. In hindsight I think it was just a self preservation thing kicking in.
    I recently had an urge to join the Nationals. It only took a week and I've snapped out of it. I've taken a step back and before I decide to enter another comp I want to make sure the 'have fun' and 'win' battle is far more balanced out. I had fun at the Green Swamp this past spring but it was stressful and I only placed 13th, granted it was out of about 50 pilots... but I still feel like I failed and I'm still hard on myself about it.
    I've competed my entire life since childhood because I'm the youngest out of 3. It's a blessing and a curse that's pushed me to accomplish a lot of things. I've competed snowboarding, weightlifting, motorcycle racing.. but it makes me never satisfied with being decent, I have always tried to be the best and it has honestly taken away from the overall experience of the things I've done.


    
I need to set my sights back to two things that I had already started working on:

• I want to extend my XC record
• I want to land on the beach. 

Hampton Beach is an almost-impossible 100 mile task, and the tiny amount of pilots that have accomplished this feat over the last few decades is a glaring tribute to the difficulty. Being the first female to fly to the coast would be the icing on the cake, and doing it in a kingposted glider will definitely make it interesting, but not impossible. It's been done in worse gliders from the past. Here's the list of the only pilots who have made it to the beach..


VHGA Sand Men:

1. Nelson Howe
2. Randy Adams
3. Teddy Hasenfus
4. Jon Szarek
5. Steve Arndt
6. Richie Laport
7. Timmy Donovan
8. Jeff Bernard
9. John Arrison
10. Dennis Cavagnro
11. Tom Lanning
12. Greg Hanlon
13. Tim Hoopes
14. Dan McGonagle
15. Randy Brown

Those goals, to me, are a lot more reasonable. I'm only competing with myself (and Ilya and Max a little bit.. :)  But these goals will hopefully be lower key, take the stress off, and help me enjoy the journey a little more.

The Pressure..

This past weekend was a H pressure party. I shouldn't complain with the way this season has panned out though. At least it wasn't raining for once..


The system caused a blue hole as predicted. We ended up with storms developing off to the West over Rutland, about 30 miles away. Ilya and Max took tows up but weren't able to find anything worth writing home about. I hopped in line anyway to take my sledder like a man. Caci had gone up before me and was working something off to the NE of the park, the only game in town it seemed. I towed up, found nothing off to the West, and made a dash for the terrain over the park near where he was. Nick flew past me and was on his way to land, it seemed it was shutting down and I was bumming for being just a few minutes too late.


I was down to about 400' over the hill when I caught a puff of zero - I'll take it. I started circling and it started getting a little better, up to about 50fpm. I was trying to stay as flat as possible but trying to turn tight enough to keep in it. Then a hawk out climbing me about 100' to the East caught my eye. I adjusted to where he was and got into 200fpm.. Thank you, bird! He and I shared the thermal and as we climbed out we got into 500fpm! We were then joined by a turkey vulture shortly before the thermal ended up crapping out on us. With the feathered assist I ended up gaining about 1,300' and came in to have a perfect landing. Always a plus!


Sunday was a repeat day. H pressure, predicted to be blue, light winds. Ilya and I dissected the weather predictions and set on a 3pm launch time to be when there would be lift, if there was any at all. Clouds ended up forming all around us, they looked decent but tattered and I was worried it was just from moisture from the night before rather than actual lift. We got on the carts, Ilya, myself, and Jeff and I made a comment about feeling like we were too early. Ilya would later agree that we should've waited.

Takeoff with hubby assist (Photo by Max Kotchouro)

We ended up back on the ground while Jeff remained up so we went for relights, mine being later than Ilya's. As I was towing up noticed they were getting low. I got dropped NE of the park and made a dash for a cloud that was about 500 higher than me, there was absolutely nothing under or near it. Time to hunt.. Jeff was still scratching low near Calavant Hill so I headed that way and found a scrappy 0-50fpm. I began working it.. but he was getting bigger. I clover leafed around to see where his core was and found 600fpm down all around.. I stayed with what I had. He never got all the way up to me and went off to land. I was getting low again so I headed for more terrain over Morningside. I was over the hill and again had a 0-50fpm that I started working. I managed to scratch out a 33 minute flight from it. This weekend was a test of patience and thermal-sniffing, which is good to have once in awhile.

Mt.Washington

The tallest mountain in the northeast and the bucket-list flying site for many pilots.



We made the call late Thursday evening to give it a go. The cloud cover was a concern and the direction was supposed to swing East to straight South after 12pm but it was either attempt to fly The Beast or sit at work all day. A no brainer.


Ilya and I drove up together from my house and met the gang at the base at 9am. 5 HG pilots, 4 PG pilots, and 3 drivers. It was still early, but conditions on the ground were calm as could be - just like last year. We did an LZ walk and planted a streamer, then ventured up the 8 mile road to the summit.

It wasn't looking too promising. There was a blanket of clouds as far as we could see, as predicted. I was setting up anyways. Ladies first! I called dibs to run off since I didn't launch last year, Ilya was going second. Gottling and Curtis had the second round (there's only room for two gliders at a time in the setup area) and Arrison was using a parking lot and different launch area a few hundred feet down the auto road from us along with the PG pilots.

Mt.Washington 'setup area' - the only place where there's no boulders. (Photo by Sam Washburn)

Ilya and I were set up on the slope and ready to go around 11am, but we couldn't launch yet. The valley was completely socked in. You can't see the LZ on a clear day from the launch area, but flying through a cloud blanket over this terrain wasn't on the menu. We saw some pockets of clearing and just when we were talking about getting ready to go we ended up seeing Eric and Lanning launch their PGs. I radioed to Tom asking if the clouds were across the entire valley- they weren't. Once you flew out a bit you could see to the LZ on the other side. Good enough for me! My harness was already hooked into the glider so I climbed in, swung it around, and waited for an East cycle. I was surprisingly calm considering what I was about to do. Bill and Ilya were on my wings and Curtis on my keel. It felt like he was pushing forward on me but he wasn't touching the glider at all. The mountain is known to blow over the back when the sun heats it up, not good. I felt a breeze in my face, wings level.. LATERRRR! And I was off..

 The air was buttery smooth. I had a quick burble in front of launch but it was punchy and I didn't have the gonads to turn that close to the boulder fields so I ventured out along the ridge towards the LZ. The view was incredible, it looks like another planet up there. Once I started heading up the ridge towards the landing area there was a cliff that dropped away with a waterfall and then it's nothing but trees and wilderness. It's deceiving, it seemed like a 12:1 glide and I started getting nervous, so I pulled VG and got as small as I could.

As Tom stated, the clouds ended and revealed the landing area. I ended up coming in at a couple thousand feet over -way higher than I expected- so I puttered around for a bit and did a few turns in what I perceived to be lift using the horizon as a gauge since my 6030 batteries died on launch. My headset wasn't working so I decided to forego comms, and in doing so I was blissfully ignorant of Tom trying to radio what was happening on the ground until I took a good look at the visitor center flags and the surface of the pond -it was cranking. Not at all like last year's L&V conditions. I had some idea that it would be interesting, and I was proven correct.


It was a roller coaster from about 1,500' all the way to the deck. But not the 'woohoo hands up!' roller coaster.. more like 'I just puked cotton candy and got shat on by a seagull'. I was flying as fast as I could and was still getting chucked. I wrestled it down into my S turns, got turned downwind, fought it back upwind onto final into the slot. It was trashy and there was a cycle ripping off when I was coming in, not much I could do about it except ride the bull. I slack lined half a dozen times, the last one so hard it flipped my visor and vario down but as soon as I came into ground effect it stopped. Wait for it.. wait for it.. BAM! Perfect no stepper! WOOHOO! I was pretty damn proud of myself. That was the most challenging landing I've had to fight through - I now fully appreciate why that is a H4/P4 site.


I wrestled it over to the breakdown area where Tom and Eric were packing their PGs up. Ilya was coming in to right behind me and luckily had his radio on so Tom gave him a heads up on the conditions. He fought through the crap and had an excellent landing with Gallagher right behind him in his PG. Then Arrison, Curtis, and Bill bringing up the rear not long after that. Everyone handled the conditions like a bunch of old pros.

Ilya and Gallagher on the ground. Happy boys!

Lanning and Eric packing it in.

It was then crispy high fives all around followed by yummy food and great convos in Gorham, NH.
Almost a year to the day from the 2017 trip, but I flew her this time!




His and Hers at the base of The Beast.

Back in the saddle

This weekend I was finally able to shake my flying demons that I've had since last year. I was trying to heal and feel out my new shoulder the whole season of '17 and had the setback of my crash and re-injuring it to the point where it needs surgery yet again. I had the pressure of the competition to get me in the air at the Green Swamp and I honestly didn't give flying a second thought because.. Florida. But returning to New England in Spring conditions unsettled me and I began questioning everything I have been working for and why I was still flying. The people I spoke with who have twice the time under a wing as me told me that every pilot goes through this phase at one time or another in their flying career which made me feel a little better about it. Injuries and surgeries are humbling reminders that we don't bounce when we hit the ground. And my crash at Yamaska in '17 was eye opening at how wrong shit can go even when landing in what should be a routine field in routine conditions.

The FunMobile

This weekend was turning out to be H pressure, low wind speed, and HOT. Almost one of those times where it's actually too hot to fly and we all migrate to the local swimming hole instead.. almost.

I set up Friday afternoon and waited around until after 6pm when it started to glass off. Ilya went up and had a decent flight, landed, and said he assumed I wasn't going to go up. I had replaced my second-ever dented downtube without an adult present and it wasn't until this weekend I realized it was nagging in the back of my mind whether I'd done it properly. I asked Ilya to look, he confirmed it was fine, and I was totally liberated. I threw my harness on without a second thought and went for a tow. It was glassed off with some lift still burbling off the hill and zero wind on the ground. I had no worries, I towed up sans vario and comms, got a 25 minute flight, and had a perfect landing in no wind. I felt 50% better.

Saturday was a repeat, but earlier in the day. I towed up, flew around, and landed next to the rings in the LZ across the street. My initial intention was land next to the taxiway but that plan was thwarted when I hit heavy sink and saw a car coming  down the road that was going to be intersecting uncomfortably close to where I was going to be rounding out. Things happen, flight plans change. It resulted in a no-step landing next to the rings despite the last minute evasive maneuver back towards the park. I was 75% there..

Sunday was the day. Ilya and I spent the morning as ground crew and moral support for Max while he tried to fine tune his Combat landings, and while doing so I began seeing Cues forming over Ascutney and drifting our direction. It was only about 10 in the morning, so that was promising. XC Skies was predicting a late day (4-5pm) but after we helped Max I told Ilya I was going to set up and pointed out the clouds, so he did the same.


Combat Max and Ilya

Around noon they were over us. Ilya launched around 1:30pm and stuck, he was working some broken lift and getting up over the SE end of the park. I tromped my ass out onto the runway after, and it was the calmest I've been pre-flight since before surgery. I laid in the cart and BOOM, tailwind. After a few minutes it still hadn't switched back, so I walked back to the taxiway and stated I was going to wait it out. Within moments of my harness coming off it went back to North again and full grump mode hit. Max had bagged the Combat and set his Sport 2 up, so he hopped on the cart and towed up. Not one to be outdone, I got back on the cart.. again. It stayed North for me this time.


Nick - tow pilot extraordinaire

Nick had dropped Max off over the river to the West and he went on glide all the way back to the park without hitting a single pluff. I waited for him to land, then I launched. I got dropped off over the factories and I spent about 10 minutes working a sad little 0-10fpm to maintain while Ilya was over the hill cranking in stronger lift. I scratched up and hung around 2,700' and decided to head his way since nothing seemed to be building in my area. It paid off, I got into a scrappy 150fpm over Morningside that required being up on the wingtip to stay in but turned into 4-500fpm up to 4,700ft. Max had a relight and came over to join and, as Max always does, quickly out climbed me and joined Ilya about 1k over me. Asel towed up and climbed up with us. The little whipper snapper even got above me for a minute!

I was content. I was aggressive, cranking and banking, sniffing out thermals, leaving and finding new climbs and had absolutely zero worries about any aspect of the flight - I was back 100%.

Thermaling with Ilya

After 1:20 of flying I decided I had enough and flew over the valley to land. I anticipated lift over the cornfield and turned onto final further back than normal. I caught the tail end of the corn lifting off and ended up about 100' short but it was a perfect no-step landing. Ilya had the flight of the day with 4 hours and 22 minutes! I got to fly with my boys again, it was a good day.

Happy girl!

Taj MaHen - Complete

I wasn't able to go flying this weekend due to my duties of being on call for work. A lot got done this weekend- located my septic buried 5' down and nowhere near where the as-builts showed (thanks prior homeowners), trenched about 100 linear feet for new drainage around/under my house, removed an 80 year old red oak stump in my back yard, and finished the coop. FINALLY.
6 weeks. It's taken that long for me to complete this chicken coop, which is probably 5 weeks more than any sane person would've probably spent on it. But I'm meticulous, and I don't want my girls living in a slum.

The exterior is completed, including the eaves being boxed (not pictured). Aside from trimming the flappy tar paper on the roof, it's done.

They also have their new fortress pen so I can let them out to play with peace of mind.

The girls and I are happy. For different reasons I'm sure. They get to go outside and play, I get to not work on this freakin coop every single day after work anymore.

Hopefully the posts to follow will be less poultry and more pilot.

The Taj MaHen

My little nuggets are growing up fast. It's been about a month since I began making their coop, and I'm happy to say that, aside from the vinyl siding and outdoor pen, it's done!

 

I framed out each wall individually and carried them out to the base in the backyard to install. Amazingly, everything fit.
I then notched and installed the 2x6 rafters and put the tar roll and tin on the roof first first to protect from rain.



 

With Ilya's help, we installed the 6x3' back window so the girls can have tons of natural light and see the sunrises. He insulated the coop while I hammered the boards on the outside and even built the entire nest box since I was at a loss on how to do so. We then tyveked the coop to weatherproof it.

 

Hubby's insulation and nest box

 

(The metal roof sticking out was just a temporary shelter for Ilya so he could work on the nest box since it had started raining..)

I spent another week ply wooding the inside walls, installing 1/2" metal mesh to the inside of the windows and vent to keep predators out, installed the perches and chicken walk, and put the lip and divider on the nest box.

 

Then, on 6/7... the big day came. EVICTION TIME!!!

The girls are about 4 weeks old now, and they had quickly outgrown their little brooding box. They were starting to squabble with each other more and more, the tension was palpable. 

They got bucket-rides out to their little outside pen, and they probably thought this was just another ride to the pen for recess.. Little did they know this was their last bucket ride to adulthood.. or chickenhood.

Bucket O' Nuggets

 

Their unleashing into the new coop was met with much flapping around and rejoicing. They spent a good half hour exploring everything and are much happier now. And momma is too, it took me an hour to clean the dust and fuzzies out of the porch, and it'll probably smell like a barnyard for another couple of weeks.. Totally worth it.

Freedom!

Something Fowl

See what I did there?

The flying season is off to a shit start already. The rain is hitting on the weekends right on schedule, just like 2017. So in lieu of flying, I decided to play farmer.

 Bandit

Box o' nuggets

I've had chickens since I was 5 years old and moved into my new home last fall, sans chickens.. I need poultry in my life. So after most of the big projects were done, I decided it was time for a fun project instead. So I went out and bought 10 one-day-old nuggets and am in the process of building them a grand coop. I began with a piece of 4x8 plywood that dad had at his house and framed out the floor with 16OC 2x6s..



..I then added R-23 Roxul insulation to the floor for toasty toes and will cover over with 1/4" chicken wire to keep predators from chewing through. Roxul is easy to work with and mold resistant, a tad more expensive but totally worth it.

I have rough-sketched up the grand master plan which I have changed to be an 8' front wall to 7' back wall, metal roof, insulated door, nest boxes, 5x3ft back window and large front window so the girls will have plenty of light, a heating element, and fully insulated with Roxul to combat the Maine winters. 

 

Now between working a full time job, running 3-4 days per week, working out, and taking private pilot lessons again I just need to find the time to start picking away at the structure before the babies grow up in the next 6 weeks..

Ye Olde Coop

 

 

Flying is Flying

My job definitely doesn't suck.

My daily activities are usually ground-based. I work for TransCanada Pipelines. The short version of the job description is that I do valve maintenance, excavation investigations, and pipeline patrol and I keep people from striking the 1,300psi natural gas pipe and blowing themselves up. I've always been a mechanic/engineer so it suits me perfectly.

Once or twice per year though I am lucky enough to be able to join our patrol pilots and fly along the 200 miles of pipeline. My chauffer this week was Dan Sayewich, a 37 year helo veteran and overall radical dude. Our ride for the day was TransCanada's brand-spankin'-new, 3 month old Airbus H125.


Airbus H125 and pilot Dan during fuel-up: Berlin, NH

"Don't touch stuff.."

I was picked up in Colebrook, NH and we ran the gauntlet from the Canadian Border down to Portland, ME and back.

The patrol objective: look for excavation activity near the pipeline and see where we need to do brush cutting for 2018. Exciting, right? Okay, maybe not. But I had an excuse to commit aviation.

All of this only took about 3 hours, and we skimmed along just over the tree tops so we could get a close look at everything. When we would spot anything near the pipeline Dan would crank it into a wingover.. er.. a rotorover. It's neat looking straight down at the ground out the side window. Being in the air stationary, backwards, sideways, and spinning is strange when you've been flying fixed wing your entire life.

Snow capped Mt.Washington

We flew through the White Mountains and got to see Mt.Washington in all her glory. Freezing and snow capped.

We also flew over Mt.Success in Berlin, NH and found the 1950s wreckage of a DC3 that crashed into the side of the mountain while on approach to Berlin Airport where we were fueling up. It was November 30th and the visibility was poor with snow showers, they crashed right at the summit at 3,440ft. Of the 7 on board- two died and the pilot was seriously injured but they were able to stay warm and hang on until rescuers were able to locate them on December 2nd and airlift them off the mountain.


DC3 Fuselage wreckage on top of Mt.Success

You can read more about the crash here

Hang gliding season is only a couple of weeks away now. And after spending a day in the air, albeit in an egg-beater, I'm JONESING.

Green Swamp Final

 It’s Sunday, the Green Swamp Sport Klassic is over and our bodies are feeling it today.

We had the first day of the comp turn out to be awesome but the following three days were blown out. I remained in 13^th place.

Thursday, they held Task 2. It was a questionable day with low TOL and high winds. I was extremely apprehensive about flying and under normal conditions I wouldn’t even get my glider off the truck. I was set up, but my glider stayed right next to the camper under the trees on the tie down. Anyone who has flown with me knows how much of a weenie I am when it comes to flying in high winds. It’s not fun when you’re hooking in below minimum weight, turning my glider is like trying to turn the Titanic. Myself and about 20 other pilots took a ‘DNF’ and 0 points for the day, which I was totally fine with. It bumped me down to 19^th place, but the points awarded that day were peanuts anyways due to the amount of people who didn’t fly or go anywhere if they did.

 

Morningside South

 

Task 3 was Task 1: Part 2. Another Southern flight to tag the rotary waypoint then East to Wallaby. I was flying today, the winds had calmed down but it was a totally blue day with another 3,500 TOL. (Not much when you’re used to New England’s 10,000ft Springtime ceilings. I just wanted one day at goal, but it was going to be tough. Our mentor was Dave Lopez on his T2C. The teams had also been whittled down and the A-Team now only consisted of Max, Ilya, and myself. Dana and Asel got split onto a new team since we had a couple more mentors.

We all towed up and Ilya and Max caught the first train out in a large gaggle, and it wasn’t until we were in the air that we realized our mentor’s PTT keyed on and none of us were able to communicate. The drift was strong and I was only around 1,600ft. I didn’t want to risk leaving and sinking. At least if you make it back to Quest you can get a re-light and try again. So, I bobbled around, climbed out with the second group, and gave chase. We had issues with our gaggle though, nobody up top wanted to push out front. So, a few times in a row I was the schmuck that topped out and lead out to hunt around along with another guy in a red Sport2 with white racing stripes. We fanned out and hunted around and it worked for a decent distance. I started catching up to Max and Ilya, I could see the red and green dots about a mile ahead. I got over the same field that I had landed in on the first Task (the attack-cows), and there’s only a couple of landing options. I was low and needed to get higher to make the jump over the trees to the next decent field near the road. Landing in Bronson’s ranch was not an option to me. Unless you like having your life threatened by ranch hands and hiking 100+lbs of gear for hours through pastures. There is no access into the acres of cow fields. I lost my climb and was getting low, about 1,000ft. A guy named Chris had landed there a few moments before in a Sting, and I didn’t want to deck it. I struggled on the tree line down to about 300ft, vultures came out and started circling but by the time I got over to them I was about 150ft up and the drift would’ve taken me over the trees. It wasn’t worth it and I landed… in the same damn field. It was windy and I ended up having a two-step moon-walk landing. At least I was familiar with the terrain and cows at that point. They didn’t even venture over the hill to look at me this time. Ilya and Max landed not long after I did, a little further down the course.

Breaking down in Bronson's field

 

Distance: 21.34 km
Time: 1h 31m
Place: 13th

 

Task 4 – The last day. The wind had switched 180º for the day and we had a new task, so everyone was amped to go North instead of South. New terrain! It was another blue day but the TOL was predicted around 5,000. Our mentor for the day was Pete Lehmann, and he ended up being a super cool dude. We were the last team to launch so we got into the later part of the day, but it worked out because the ceiling had lifted a bit and we had what Lanning calls ‘confetti’ (other pilots) on the course to help mark the thermals out We had been first every day of the comp. Our mentor launched first, then myself, Ilya, and Max. Again, we had issues with comms. We couldn’t hear Ilya or our mentor, so Max and I were the only two that could communicate and we ended up being split up. I caught a climb out with a gaggle, topped out and was being attacked by an immature bald eagle at the top of the stack along with another poor dude in a red and yellow Gecko. I saw him rolling with the claws out about 100ft away from me so I beat feet and went on glide towards the north. And I got HAMMERED. It was a slow, sad descent. I had spoken to another pilot, Rich, before the flight and he mentioned that there were aluminum chicken coops off to the NW that were really good thermal generators. Remembering that, I made a dash for them and got there at 1,000ft. And thankfully, the advice and chickens paid off. I had a 3,000ft climb out and was back up over 4,000ft. I left and went back on course. The first turnpoint was 34.9 km to Colman, and goal was 62.5km from start.

I was reading off my distance from the cylinder back and forth with Max, 22k.. 17k.. 10k.. and I finally heard the happiest beeps ever from the 6030, I had tagged the waypoint. But I was  now down around 2,000ft and needed a climb out. I saw a glider below that had landed in the dirt of the mines and I didn't care to give them any company. So, very slowly, I had clawed my way back up and it cost me time. Max ended up catching up from a couple of miles behind and blowing right past me while I was circling trying to get back up. Ilya was not far behind me either, I could see him the next gaggle back but he said he never spotted me. My mentor was climbing with me, and afterwards said he caught a climb not even 500ft from where I was and was about 2k over me while I was struggling. I lost him and thought he had left, I didn’t even see him above and we had no communication. Damn.

I ventured off alone, and went on glide up the highway and over the retirement city, The Villages. There’s golf courses mixed in there but I wasn’t keen on shooting into one of those when there were larger fields off to the West, and not very far off course. I was only 18k from goal. I flew over a few downed gliders here and there, one was behind a Lowes in a large field that I ended up getting stuck and circling over. I kept saying aloud ‘I am NOT landing with you'. The mantra worked and I got back up and moved on. But the day was getting late. Max was way ahead of me, Ilya had caught up and was about a mile to the East of me over the villages and neither of us realized it. He was with Zac Majors and Ken and they got better climbs over that way, he landed a couple miles further up the course than I did. I could see goal in the distance, I was on glide and getting low though. I picked out a small field with no fence and an access area. I scratched down to about 300ft, but the last tiny 20fpm of lift wasn’t big enough to get a full turn into. I accepted my fate and ended my flight with a perfect no-step landing. I was quickly followed by Matt Pruitt, who was tailing me.

It was the longest duration flight I’ve had since my shoulder surgery, and it was sore but it held up a lot better than I thought. I got to thermal around that day with Zac Majors, Christian Ciech, Mick, and Pete Lehmann too. So, it was a pretty incredible day.

Distance: 44.42 km
Time: 2h 30m
Place: 11^th

 

A-Team 3D flight track - Doarama

Max made goal
Ilya got 48.91km  
Bill Gottling had a personal best of 42.46 km
Nick finally got out of the field in his T2C and put some miles in
Asel had his second-ever XC
And poor Dana didn’t fly. His rental glider was a total disaster and he was grounded all week.

 

A-Team final results out of 54 competitors-

Max: 1^st place
Ilya: 9^th place
Crystal: 13^th place (1st women's)

GSSK Day 1

Well, we finally made it to Florida!

We got slammed the day we were supposed to leave with 18" of heavy, white, cold, disgusting snow and single digit temperatures. Two days and about 24 hours of driving, and we made it to Quest!

10 hours of shoveling and heat gunning, finally leaving..

The first day we were there we all decided to take a tow up and do some flying- after no airtime for 5 months. I took the first tow up in front of Ilya and Max, got about 40 minutes of thermaling, my shoulder had enough and I landed. Max and Ilya got about 1:20+ a piece. It was a fun day. I only took that one flight and decided to give my shoulder a break before the first task.

Day 1 of the GSSK 2018 was a 39.8km task South down 33 x-wind to the first turnpoint, then  to goal at Wallaby. Our team mentor was Christian Ciech, and he's a hard man to keep up with. Even in a kingposted Orbiter. We lined up to launch - Christian, Ilya, Max, Crystal, and Asel. Dana wasn't able to fly due to issues with his rental U2.

Left line - Day 1



Ilya on tow, Task 1

Ilya and Christian got to base fairly quickly, Max and Asel weren't able to stay up and went back for re-lights. I got down around 1,000ft and the scratching was well underway. My biggest motivation: not landing in mid-day conditions in a field in front of 100+ people. If you've ever seen an albatross land, that's about what I look like when it's buoyant..

A turkey vulture saved my skin and marked a thermal for me. It went from about 150fpm and turned into a consistent 900fpm all the way to 3,700ft and past several other competitors. Christian and Ilya began their run to the South for the first turn point, and I gave chase and ended up catching up with them a short time later. We were battling a strong cross wind. Early on we were watching people landing left and right. About 10km into it we ended up passing Bill Gottling, flew with him for awhile, and moved on. He said he stopped to do a bit more climbing in a thermal and by the time he decided to continue on course we were gone and he couldn't find another climb after.



Task 1 - Crystal and Ilya

We had thermals here and there. It was strange, with some lift being scratchy and others being bullets. About 20km into it we were getting blown downwind and off the course. Christian was a ways ahead of and a bit above Ilya and I and we were on our own at that point and down to about 2,600ft. We weren't finding anything, and ended up leaving a scrappy 50fpm thermal to head upwind for stronger lift near where our mentor was. By the time we got there, it was gone. We went back for the lift we flew through, and that was gone. Then the flush began. We scratched and hunted, and hoped for a trigger off the highway or fields underneath us but nothing lifted off for us. A short time later we were on the ground. We landed in a cow field near a gate and road. From the air we only saw about a half dozen cows, as we were walking towards the highway and gate I looked back to the hill and there was about 50 cows... RUNNING down the hill towards us. Visions of Tom Lanning's encounter with them licking and trampling his glider were flashing. I radioed to Ilya and we made a run for the road. We got out of our harnesses and threw those and our fully assembled gliders over the fence before they could get to us and trample our gear. It was like the walking dead, but with beef..

As we were breaking down, I looked up and saw about a half dozen gliders flying over using the thermal that we and the cow stampede had probably triggered off. And amongst them was Max in his green machine flying over us. He could see our big shimmering tears from 3,500ft. He ended up catching up with Christian and making goal. The only Sport 2 to do so that day!

It was a fun time, good experience. And the best things of that day were I got my mid-day tow, mid-day landing, and XC flight in (haven't since 2016). My shoulder also held out a lot better than anticipated, the glides in between the thermals helped give it a break.

Total time in the air 1:10

Distance: 21.86km

Tied for 13th place with Ilya, and the furthest non-goal Sport2s for this task.
Task 1 Results

Task 2 has been called off due to thunderstorms and high winds..

The A-Team

We're all counting down the days - the Green Swamp is coming and the teams have been chosen! Morningside Flight Park proudly introduces...

THE A-TEAM

Ilya Rivkin
 as John 'Hannibal' Smith, team leader whose flight plans tend to be unorthodox but incredibly effective.

Crystal Wolfe 
as Templeton 'Faceman' Peck, the smooth-talking con woman who serves as the team's appropriator of aircrafts and weapons.

 

Max Kotchouro
 as H.M. "Howlin' Mad" Murdock, veteran declared insane but can fly any kind of aircraft he touches with extreme precision.

 

 

Mike Asel 
as B.A. Baracus: the team's strong man, glider mechanic, and Sergeant First Class.

Dana Harris

as... the stunt dude

___________________________

And on separate teams :

Nick Caci
as Colonel Lynch, Commander of Fort Bragg from which the A-Team escaped, and who has been in constant pursuit of them.

Bill Gottling
as Decker, the second Colonel who has also tried to catch the team unsuccessfully.

Bwuahaha! Now lets get out there and have some fun!