Buoy on the lake was reporting 8 MPH and the airport was 20, gusting 30. How is this possible? I headed to Bender to check it out. On the drive there I could feel the van being pushed by the wind. I parked in the north parking lot and ran to the cliff edge with my anemometer. It was reading 10-12 with a gust of 20. It was spinning so fast that it sounded like the blades were about to explode. The wind was cutting thru my non-wind breaker Carhart jacket and my hand was stinging from the cold. I retreated to the warm van. The speeds should have been flyable but there was no f’n way I was going to fly. It seemed way to strong and I thought: I’m going home. (The next day I realized that my Anemometer was set on meters per second. So actually, 22-27 MPH with gust of 45 MPH.)
Then I looked at the big field to the west. My training has lead me to fear high wind but I’ve always wanted to practice in crazy wind under an intentional, somewhat controlled situation. This seemed perfect. I unbagged the wing and created a wall. Instantly, I was running across the field while holding the bottom of each riser, one in each hand. How could I stop it? I didn’t think I could handle holding both risers in one hand –pull was too strong. Couldn’t get a hold of the C’s. I needed to drop a riser but that would have led to a tangled mess. After a good 100 yds, I reached the end of the field and dropped a riser and reeled in the C’s. Balled up the wing and thought, I’m going home. As I walked across the field, I thought, can I untangle the wing in the wind? The answer was no way. As I was driving out, I decided I did not want to leave my wing in the tangled mess, so I headed to the park about a mile inland.
At the park, I untangled the wing and tried some more kiting. The turbulence in the park made sustained kiting impossible. When it did fly, it pulled me across the park. At the west end, the air was cleaner but stronger and I was worried about ending up in the WE energies fence. I packed up to head home, but wait: When would I have smoothish, strong, east wind from the lake and the opportunity to practice again? This time I headed to the bottom of the hill at the south LZ.
I setup in a low spot near the bottom of the hill. I hand kited and it seemed manageable.
I hooked in, inflated and was immediately lifted off the ground and slowly pushed backwards up the hill. As I reached the top, I targeted an area with the least amount of small bushes and prepared to be pulled backwards. After a few attempts I became better at reaching up and pulling the C’s while being pulled backwards, but I could not manage to stay on my feet. Then the wind died some and/or I got better at using the speed bar to penetrate the wind. If I stayed low by turning back and forth and used speedbar, I could keep from being pushed back up and over the hill. I traveled north down the ridge until I was downwind of my van. Pushing full speedbar, I moved slowly down the hill. As I approached the road, halfway down the hill, I slowly let up on the speedbar. I came to a stop about 10 feet off the ground. It was an awesome sensation: To be hanging close to the ground but not touching it and not moving at all. After about 10 seconds, which seemed like an eternity, a car started coming down the road that I needed to cross. If the wind changed I might have hit the car so I pushed full speedbar again. I crossed the road at a slow walking pace and at windshield level. They did not need to, but they slowed down and watched me pass. I waved and they waved back. At the bottom of the hill, next to my van, the lift died and it was an easy landing. After 4 hours, this time I actually went home.
The forecast for the next day was similar to the previous day with 18 gusting 24 but was to die down around 11:00. I find that sunrise is usually calmer than the forecast predicts and this was no exception. I launched about 7:30 and was able to ridge soar if I stayed low. At the top, there is one area of the open field that extends about 200-300 yards back. I kept that in mind as I tested climbing. In no time, I was 300’ up and being pushed backwards with full speedbar. I started doing aggressive wingovers until I got closer to the ground. There the lift stopped and I landed about 50 yards from the woods. You can see in the picture the southern most line was flying backwards to the wnw.
I felt my back starting to go out, which happens when I have not hydrated enough the day before. I pounded the bottle of water I had and headed back to the van for more water. I called Mariyan and asked “How do I deflate in high winds to avoid being pulled back?”. With his advice, I headed back out to the hill. The wind had picked up and I was not able to penetrate again. Just before touching the ground at the top of the hill, I quickly grabbed an A on the left and the C on the right. Pulling hard, the wing rotated slightly and collapsed. I was still on my feet! Thanks Mariyan.
I took a small break and Ken showed up. We headed out again a little after 10:00. The wind had died some and I started using Big Ears to lose altitude and keep from being pushed backwards in the faster upper winds.
By the time the crew started showing up the winds had died a few more MPH and it was perfect for staying up. You did not need to come down unless you wanted to (unless you went too far inland to hover over 4 deer and couldn’t get back to the lift. The deer did not mind and later bedded down just NW of the launch site). I landed several times to start my tracking app only to get distracted, take off again and once I was back in the air realize I still hadn’t started the app. I did eventually remember and tracked some of my flights—I’m surprised at how densely I covered the area.
A little after 3, Adam was thinking of wrapping up. I suggested flying once more and landing closer to the parking lot. I attempted to launch but the wind had died some more and I overshot the inflation with the wing coming down on top of me. Adam launched as I started straightening out my wing. Before launching, I looked up at the top of the hill and could see the treetops over the crest. Without saying too much I could see Adam could use my assistance (he hasn’t shared, so I’ll let him provide details if he wants to). After all was good with Adam, I launched and headed towards the van. As I passed over the van, I was higher than I wanted and had a choice: Right of the light pole and head toward the water or left and a fast landing. The water seemed scary even though it was still a long way off and it probably would have been the better decision. Instead, I turned very late which swung me over the hood of a parked car and ended in a very fast landing. There were 2 people sitting in the car and I can only imagine what their perspective was as they couldn’t see me coming and suddenly there was 2 feet going over their hood (there was never a chance that I was going to hit the car.) As a result of the very fast landing, I was feeling a lot of pain in my left toe. I believe I broke this same toe 2 months ago and it was just starting to not hurt all the time. That night the toe pain was unbearable. While everything ended up fine with Adam, we both could have done without that last flight.
I think I am grounding myself until Columbia.