Pre-Flight

Ralph Sickinger

The Journal of a Hang Glider Pilot

Monday, September 23 - The great Ric Niehaus is holding a cross-country flying seminar this weekend at Ridgely; clear the calendar for the weekend, this is not to be missed!

Wednesday, September 25 - Oh wow! Pete Lehmann is going to be attending the X-C clinic, and flying his Falcon to help those of us who are "glide-challenged". This is great news!

Friday, September 27 - The X-C clinic is tomorrow; I can't wait! Here's the plan: get up at 6:30; shower, shave, load the car, get breakfast, and be there by 9:00. But, first, it's Friday night, and I'm going out...

Saturday, September 28
6:30am - [alarm goes off] Ugh... I need sleep... I guess I don't really need to shave... [reset the alarm]

7:00am - [alarm goes off] Ugh... Still need sleep... I guess I don't really need breakfast either... [reset the alarm]

7:30am - [alarm goes off] Ugh... Still need sleep... But I really gotta get going...

9:10am - Arrive at Ridgely, right on time. (Almost.) Fortunately, they haven't started yet, so I'm okay.

11:30am - Wow! Pete Lehmann has been doing most (ok, all) of the talking this morning, but what a wealth of information! I've already learned SO much. Still, we've been at it for two hours how; I hope we take a break soon...

12:30pm - Finally a break in the action! (Man, I gotta pee!) I'm thinking about lunch, but Pete should be done soon, and then we'll go eat.

2:00pm - Pete is STILL talking... need food... feeling week... if I don't make it, tell Mom I love her...

Sunday, September 29 - After Pete finally finished yesterday, it was too windy to fly, so we went today instead. I finally got my first X-C flight today! How cool is that?! Chad dropped me off in lift, which I eventually took to cloud-base (pretty cool in it's own right!) It's amazing though how overwhelming the experience can be the first time. It all seemed so simple yesterday when Pete and Larry explained it, but it's a lot different when you're actually there. For instance, once I topped out, the next step was "go downwind". So I looked around and went "AGH! I DON'T KNOW WHERE DOWNWIND IS!!". Don't panic... just look at the windsock in the field. "I'M AT 3600 feet! I can't SEE the sock from up here!" No problem, there's Ellis, circling over the town of Ridgely, I'll just follow her... and that actually worked! I found 2 thermals that way. Unfortunately, I was behind her and got caught early when it OD'ed. Still, I wasn't the first glider to land, and on my first time out, I made it 6.6 miles! What an incredible experience!

Monday, September 30 - I still can't get over my experience this weekend! Spent two hours on the web looking at GPS units; gotta find one quickly so I can go X-C again during the Fly-in. For the first time ever, I think the Falconeros will actually have four X-C pilots for the comp!

Tuesday, October 1 - Looking at the weather forecast for this weekend - looks like it's going to be great for High Rock!

Wednesday, October 2 - Ok, now the weather forecast is calling for rain all weekend. What the heck?

Thursday, October 3
8:00am - Woke up this morning with sore neck and shoulder muscles, and remembered dreaming about X-C'ing from Fisher Road to The Pulpit. Dang, I was sleep-flying again! This X-C thing has really gotten to me; I blame Pete Lehmann for this...

9:00am - Checked the weather forecast again; now it looks like Jack's on Friday, and the Pulpit on Sunday?

1:00pm - Look at the forecast again; now they're calling for rain on Friday, but sunny all weekend.

5:00pm - Check the forecast (again); now they're calling for tornados on Saturday, and snow on Sunday. No wait, that's Michigan; McConnellsburg should be southwest on Saturday, and west-north-eastish on Sunday?

Saturday, October 5 - Checked the weather forecast this morning, and it looked like it would be a perfect day for flying at either the Pulpit or at High Rock. But, alas, after only eight tries at predicting the weather, they still got it wrong. It was blowing like stink, and completely unflyable. (At least by Falcon standards...) I headed over to High Rock though, and spent the afternoon taking pictures of all the grown-up pilots launching off the Rock in their big gliders. It was tough, not being able to fly, but it was thrilling to see people flying off High Rock again! (Thank you, Joe Gregor.)

Sunday, October 6 - Ugh! I got my foot caught in the zipper pull cord trying to prone-out after launch; by the time I got unstuck I had flown through the lift band, and was losing the battle with gravity. A six-minute extended sled just wasn't enough flying for the weekend! (But I did manage to get a pretty good tan while hanging out in the LZ all afternoon...)

Wednesday, October 9 - Finally got the pictures off the camera, and there's some really good looking ones in the bunch! (If you can't be flying, at least you can be looking at photos of flying!)

Sunday, October 13
9:00am - I woke up this morning with that recurring nightmare, where I'm wearing an orange-and-brown apron, and this voice in my head keeps going "Time to make the donuts..." Oh yeah, it's time to do the newsletter again. <sigh> But that's ok, 'cause I've got all day to do it.

1:15pm - What's this? Mark Cavanaugh thinks that it might be flyable at Woodstock this evening, for an hour or so before the sun goes down. Hmmm, be the responsible editor and work on the newsletter, or put it off and go flying? Let me think about that for a minute...

1:18pm - The truck's loaded up and I'm on the road, heading to Woodstock...

4:00pm - Arrived at Woodstock, and there were gliders EVERYWHERE! Considering the iffy forecast, I'm thinkin' there's a lot of pilots who are really desperate for air time. I know how they feel; I'm one of them.

7:00pm - Wow! Cavanaugh called it just right! Oh, it felt so good to fly again, and stay up in the air for a while! The flying was wonderful, and the weather was so nice that even hanging around in the LZ while waiting for a ride was enjoyable.

It was 11pm before I finally made it back home, but what a great way to spend a Sunday; hanging out with my fellow pilots, and then soaring above the trees for 30 minutes, before gracefully swooping in to the LZ for a beautiful stand-up landing. God, I love this sport!