Chad Gets Loopy
We pestered Chad Elchin of Highland Aerosports, tug pilot extraordinaire and Master of Looping hang gliders, to tell us about his new world record.
16 July 2001
Monday morning at about 9 am. Sunny pulled me up to 16,000 just upwind of Ridgely airpark. It's pretty cool having the bay and ocean appear so close. After release, I pointed the glider at the runway, pulled the basetube to my waist, and began my first loop. I soop and about 150 ft at a time, I began making my way back to the airport. At about 6600 I had completed 50 loops. I only know this from looking at the barograph. I couldn't keep count past 10. Anyway, at this point I'm feeling pretty tired in the shoulders. I'm looking at the ground thinking that's a long way to go. By the last 20 loops, I was alternating taking one hand off the basetube and shaking it out at the low bar pressure points. Sunny did a great job in judging where to let me off. I finished loop #95 near 700 AGL and landed on the grass runway. I believe the world record for consecutive loops was set by Mitch McAleer in 1998 in Rio de Janeiro with 76 loops. This makes a new world record I think.
Chad
 Stork visits Pilots
- CHGA cheers -
Looks like some local pilots are going to be training batten boys and girls soon, rumor has it, they'll be available for a small fee in a couple of years.
Ric and Karen Niehaus
Jabin Richard May 2001
Roland Owens
Kathryn Ann
7 lbs 1 ounce, 19 inches
Sheila and Mark Gardner
August 11, 2:14 pm
Bridget Marie
8 lbs 1 oz, 22 1/4 in.
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Pulpit Approaches
Contour of the Pulpit Primary
Red arrows indicate uphill slope.
The crops are planted differently from year to year. These photos are from 1994 and while the shape of the field is accurate the plantings are not. Every pilot is responsible to land in an unplanted area with unplanted access back to the breakdown area. (Don't walk through crops.) It is highly recommended that each pilot walk both the primary and the secondary lz's before flying.
(Click on images for larger view.)
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This strip is always unplanted and provides walking access off to the left and then alongside of the road back to the breakdown area.
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Christy
West or northerly wind or light wind, any direction. My favorite part of the field to use when it's either light from wherever or from a northerly direction, is the part that sits by itself north of the owner's house, east of 7th St, west of the tree line and south of the crest of the hill. I do my 'downwind' on the west side of the road (7th St), turn on base about in line with the owner's house (that one you see by itself in the bottom left of the picture, most northerly of those houses), turn final over the house and go up the slope. This field doesn't seem to get planted as often as the main part of the field.
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Christy
Southerly wind or really light wind any direction: My next favorite approach, is to do a diving turn into the field from the most northerly part of the field next to the road and land on the rise as I'm heading toward the breakdown area. When I use this approach I usually lose my altitude over the field, then do left turns in my approach with the base along the tree line until I come to the part of the tree line that cups north where I turn on final. I keep my speed up on both these approaches.
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This scenario provides an uphill, into the wind approach if the wind is from the north. This section is usually less planted or not planted.
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Same as above, but using the diagonal offers more length for final, and the slope is uphill this direction. Use the same path to walk to the breakdown area as the first approach.
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Mark C:
Downwind toward the treeline on the north side, base along the trees, and then final along an upslope, well in from the road (no crops, so plenty
of choices, and I wanted lots of room).
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Secondary LZ
Land in an unplanted strip (varies with the season) uphill and into the wind. The hill crests in the middle.
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