Crestline Soaring Society

...cut 'n pasted from my blog at hanggliding.org....

My trip to Morningside ended up solidly in the "Win" column, a big relief after much travel... and a "Loss" at Funston three weeks ago.

After being rained out the first of two days, I got 22 flights in on the second. I got to practice dead, cross, and strong wind ramp launches. Ramp launching in a tree gap is noticeably different than launching from a nice, rounded hilltop. The varying conditions allowed me to practice a number of different approaches and landings. Along with my best crosswind launch in my short flying career, I also managed my best crosswind landing, keeping the glider crabbed into the wind and running it out at an angle.

More importantly, I got to spend a lot of time with my brother, Brad, allowing us to catch up on quite a bit. After flying, I finally saw his nice house in Storrs, where I had not visited in 7 years. All that house cuts into his flying budget, so we brainstormed how to get a university professor rigged for hang gliding on the cheap. If anyone has a Falcon 225 and/or a harness for a 6'1" 220 pounder, let me know.

Morningside Flight Park was a real sleeper hit for me. I was very impressed by the facilities:
- A nice, carpeted hanger to reassemble my shortpacked glider
- Lots of spare parts and equipment (I dropped the kingpost dongle for the luff lines when I was short packing the glider)
- Helpful, friendly staff
- Gatorade for sale! Man, was I thirsty in the 90 degree 90% humidity weather
- ATVs to get you to launch in a couple of minutes
- A slope that is perfect for working your way up in training and is also perfect for flying down in ground effect on final
- Aero tow operations & lessons (which I will do next time)
- Lots of enthusiastic students

Variety is the spice of life. After averaging an hour per flight in California, but only flying once or twice a day, it was a blast to get in almost 2 dozen flights in one day. I know you can get that many at a beach site or at Point of the Mountain or winch towing, all of which I look forward to doing. But, for this trip, getting that many flights in felt like cheating.

Well, it felt like cheating until the next day, when I tried to get outta bed. No matter how easy the ATVs and facilities make it, 22 times of putting the glider on the cart, carrying down the crest of the hill, launching, landing, and taking it back to the cart... adds up.

By about 3 o'clock, the winds had picked up to the point where you needed two person wire crew to launch and I was too tired to do so safely. I ended on a 7 minute flight that got me above launch.

The wing went back to Storrs on a ladder and I spent a scant 1:20 the next morning short packing it and the rest of the day playing with my nephews in the pool.

When do I get to fly again? It may be a bit before I get back out to the hill, especially since I'll have to get out early enough to reassemble the wing and test fly it.

Open the link and click on Watch in High Quality for the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrnL1d6K2P0