Southern Arizona Hang Glider Association
The Demo weekend started early for some of us. I left Tucson on thursday evening with a loaded truck.
We spent the day Friday training and getting current.
Saturday morning dawned with no wind at the craters,and hopes of more training.. The wind did not cooperated early. Four miles out it was blowing 15 SW.
The weather service predicted SW and breezy. We met Rob and Dustin, WW and Moyes rep`s and headed up Sheba at 0830. A few pilots were setting up in the 20 gusting to 25. I elected to go down to the bench. The pilots who launched from the top decended to lower altitudes in front to soar in the reduced velocity.
It looked strong and bumpy. I took care of details and waited. Around 1030 with the barometer starting to drop and pilots getting higher,I launched after setting up, four gliders.
Conditions were getting better, a little strong around noon.
That`s when the convergent hit. No wind then west north west set in. Several pilots headed for Merriam. I did not see any of them fly from there. Dave Bishop had set up on the bench and I was close to going up to get him when the Sw wind came back. He launched and soared for two hours.
Everyone who wanted to fly did so. The sky got crowded for a while, pilots adjusted. I flew in the peak of the congestion and found no real problems. The sky was full of gliders! the highest count was seventeen at once!
Dustin did some aerobatics. That was the only scary stuff I saw. I set up more gliders, ok I assisted a little and flew again myself. Bill Holmes launched his students from the bench to the west. The lz looked like a multi colored field of dacron.
Rob and Dustin continued to assemble and disassemble gliders till dark !
The sun set was spectacular, see Velmas pic`s at the Alamo site!
Fun was had by all. I counted one broken up right for the whole day.
Which is pretty incredible considering, conditons were gusty and a little strong at times.
Note, two pilots landed around the side of Sheba,uneventfully.
To please the crowd and contain the mess the AHGA provided t shirts and portajohns.
Thanks guys for all your efforts to make this event a good one.
O yah nice shooting Brad !
I am sure I have left plenty of activity out so feel free to add details guys.
Eric
Demo Dazes report
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Chuck Park
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Laural and I arrived on top of Merriam Friday afternoon in time to watch Ken and Russ do really nice hard long run launches in minimal winds. They both got extended sledders. Saw several Pg's do the same. Dinner in glider camp was beans and wennies followed by a brief socialization around and mostly downwind of the camp fire. Tucson, Sedona, LA and Alamagordo were among the represented home bases. One fosters down and off to the bed of the truck for a nice albiet interrupted sleep.
Saturday morning and it was off to Shiva (in honor of my old dog Shiva who used to chase us and our Chandelle around the knolls in the 70's) knolls where I found myself in line behind Jason who was behind Russ in reasonably low winds. This after waiting out a period of 15-20 and gusts to 30. I had a nice launch with assistance from already flown Dave Snyder and Allan and landed shortly after several passes and four minutes. Right behind me whispered in Jerry mumbling something like "I love this glider" regarding his newly purchased WW.
After lunch it was back up to the knoll and after set up in amongst tens of gliders I made it out to launch and was able to sustain a 35 minute flight in a gaggle that numbered 17 at times. Although I mostly stumbled along at the bottom of the stack, I nonetheless found myself looking down on the top launch of Sheba a couple of times. My Falcon is a really nice glider. It is fun and easy to fly and except for exceptionally slow foward progress in a wind it is everything I need...currently. I have never flown with that many other gliders in the air at the same time and I found it a bit daunting. But by and large the crowd seemed to follow some simblance of order and I only found myself at the same altitude and opposite directions with one other glider, and we both rather easily avoided each other. I saw one guy wave to me once. Thanks Eric! It is nice to fly along and watch others lined up and launching below. It seemed like there were always three or more gliders on launch while I was up. So I flew around gaining and loosing altitude and waited for Laural to decide to drive down to the LZ so she could film my landing. But she only hung around launch enjoying Shasta's play with the other glider dogs on the hill. I got 35 minutes and then voluntarily went out toward the lz, climbing all the way, worked my way down and landed, overshooting my designated spot by 20 meters. Sunday was forcasted sw at ugly, and having an awful lot of homework to do, we loaded up and headed back to Tucson.
I saw Ken, Russ, Jason, Jerry, Allan, Dave Snyder, Dave Bishop, Eric, and Eric's student (sorry I don't know your name), Randy (in his Dream) all in various stages of flight. Fred, I don't know if you flew but you were there too. Also there helping and witnessing the beauty was Joel. So Tucson had a good contigent including Allan as an expatriate. There were many spouses, significant others, and offspring there as well. And so was Kimba, her mother and her sister.
Saturday morning and it was off to Shiva (in honor of my old dog Shiva who used to chase us and our Chandelle around the knolls in the 70's) knolls where I found myself in line behind Jason who was behind Russ in reasonably low winds. This after waiting out a period of 15-20 and gusts to 30. I had a nice launch with assistance from already flown Dave Snyder and Allan and landed shortly after several passes and four minutes. Right behind me whispered in Jerry mumbling something like "I love this glider" regarding his newly purchased WW.
After lunch it was back up to the knoll and after set up in amongst tens of gliders I made it out to launch and was able to sustain a 35 minute flight in a gaggle that numbered 17 at times. Although I mostly stumbled along at the bottom of the stack, I nonetheless found myself looking down on the top launch of Sheba a couple of times. My Falcon is a really nice glider. It is fun and easy to fly and except for exceptionally slow foward progress in a wind it is everything I need...currently. I have never flown with that many other gliders in the air at the same time and I found it a bit daunting. But by and large the crowd seemed to follow some simblance of order and I only found myself at the same altitude and opposite directions with one other glider, and we both rather easily avoided each other. I saw one guy wave to me once. Thanks Eric! It is nice to fly along and watch others lined up and launching below. It seemed like there were always three or more gliders on launch while I was up. So I flew around gaining and loosing altitude and waited for Laural to decide to drive down to the LZ so she could film my landing. But she only hung around launch enjoying Shasta's play with the other glider dogs on the hill. I got 35 minutes and then voluntarily went out toward the lz, climbing all the way, worked my way down and landed, overshooting my designated spot by 20 meters. Sunday was forcasted sw at ugly, and having an awful lot of homework to do, we loaded up and headed back to Tucson.
I saw Ken, Russ, Jason, Jerry, Allan, Dave Snyder, Dave Bishop, Eric, and Eric's student (sorry I don't know your name), Randy (in his Dream) all in various stages of flight. Fred, I don't know if you flew but you were there too. Also there helping and witnessing the beauty was Joel. So Tucson had a good contigent including Allan as an expatriate. There were many spouses, significant others, and offspring there as well. And so was Kimba, her mother and her sister.