NWS is calling for strong surface winds, but otherwise it looks good.

Hi Scott,

It does look good for Box! If I had a driver I would go!
Flew there yesterday got 2 hr.

Eric

520-405-3814

Heading out for hopefully a nice evening glass off.

Scariest flight of my life. I am lucky to be alive. Got it all on video. Will post a report tomorrow.

Thanks for sharing this Scott.
Please consider joining us at the next meeting to talk through it. We can all use a refresher on avoiding getting blown into rotor as well as what to do when you realize it's inevitable.

Scott thanks for posting. Defiantly looks pretty bumpy. It looks like to me that you staled the wing then got a huge surge when it restarted followed by a big collapse??? Glad your ok!

Aaron

Holy crap, that looks terrifying!

Very glad you made it out ok.

John

http://youtu.be/23H0p6Vda2k

http://youtu.be/ZiVXFj9Kyhs

Less dramatic footage from yesterday.

Yes, I definitely stalled my wing. I took a collapse, pumped it out with the brakes, stalled the wing, and it turned back into the hillside as it dove. It was terrifying.

I couldn’t find any pilots available to fly with me, so a non-pilot friend graciously agreed to go with me and mind the dogs while I flew.

We parked at the LZ and I hoisted my glider onto my back. Scattered throughout the LZ were the first yellow and orange Mexican poppy blooms of the season and scads of black and burgundy fuzzy caterpillars – spring is upon the desert. I was expecting the hiking path to be overgrown and lost, but we found it well trodden and marked with green streamers. The hike to the top of the first knoll was steep and scrabbly, so I made the ascent alone while my friend and the dogs hiked around the flatter lowlands.

Someone has cleared a very nice northwest launch on the first knoll and I spent a few minutes studying the wind. There were very nice cycles blowing straight into launch with very light lulls in between. I thought if I launched right at the beginning of a cycle, I would be able to climb up the spine to stronger lift, but if I launched in a lull, I would probably have to scratch for lift and possibly sink out.

I set up my glider and harness and new video camera mount. I put on layers and layers of warm clothing, hot while standing on launch, but essential for an extended flight at altitude.

My first inflation of my wing behaved oddly, so I immediately set it down. I made sure I had good, symmetrical pressure across the wing and pulled it up a second time in a nice cycle. I was expecting to be yanked off launch and propelled up, and I was lifted off the ground, but I was immediately blown back behind launch, so the wind had more horizontal component and less vertical component than I was expecting. Flying between the century plant stalks, I crept out in front of launch and began exploring the air up and down the spine.

The wind aloft was surprisingly strong and straight up the northwest spine. I would creep forward ever so slowly flying into the NW wind and then zoom SE up the spine. In short order, I was well above the top of Mt. Alazzurra. I made a point of staying way out in front of the spine and the mountain because at trim, I was barely making any ground speed. Up on top, the winds were due north.

After ten or fifteen minutes, I felt comfortable enough with the conditions to deploy my new video camera mount. I flew around for a relatively uneventful hour getting used to the camera boom swinging around in front of me. Given that the winds were quite strong with a lot of horizontal component, the flight was actually a bit boring because most all I could do was point into the wind and slowly drift east and west along the ridgeline.

About the time I would normally expect a glassoff to start, about 30-45 minutes before sunset, the north winds suddenly became much stronger. Immediately I noticed my negative ground speed and I got into the speed bar and pointed my wing NW to head for the LZ. Much to my distress, even with full speed bar, I was making no headway to the west and I was tracking south. As I drifted over the spine, I contemplated killing off altitude with big ears or a B line stall to try and get below the ridge line and stay on the windward side of the mountain, but I estimated that the increased drag of either maneuver would put me well south of the ridge line and right in the rotor. In retrospect, I could have considered working the lift as best I could to get as high as possible and then turning south and trying to outrun the rotor, but in the moment, I was fixated on staying to windward.

I stayed in the speed bar and suffered several lee side turbulence collapses. With each collapse, I moved further and further south, behind the spine. I had a spectacular series of collapses that ended in the worst collapse I have ever experienced in 24 years of flying. There was a moment when the wing was below me and I was falling straight into a huge rock outcropping on the hillside. Of course, I didn’t have contemplative thoughts in that moment, but I did have a very clear impression of how the coming impact was going to break my body. After that collapse, I decided I would stay off the speed bar and simply focus on keeping the canopy over my head and I would land wherever I came down in the desert.

I spent the next seven minutes with the wing pointed west, drifting south, not trying to go to any particular place, just trying to keep my wing over my head and inflated. There was an overhead power distribution line to the north of Box Canyon Road and it looked like, of course, I was on a trajectory to reconnect with the earth right at the power line, but just to the north of the line, I found some lift and bubbled up and cleared the power line by several hundred feet.

Box Canyon Road was the cleanest, widest space around and I didn’t see any power poles or fence lines so I did big ears to kill off some altitude and had an uneventful landing right on the dirt road. I phoned my friend in the LZ and was quite surprised when she told me she had been searching the sky but never saw me in the air.

Thank you for sharing the experience.
Glad we didn't have to rename the mountain.