Small Victories (with a flying 'pitbull')

July First, a welcome mid week holiday.

Onto the West Coast Soaring Club Line group to pop a quick, 'Anyone flying Bridal?'

Andrei replies, "sometime after noon."

Car loaded and out the door. I will likely be sitting around for a few hours waiting for a ride to show, but as the investment adage goes, "Better a year early than a second late."

Sitting in the car at the Bridal LZ, AC running to stave off the increasing heat. It doesn't take long for a car bearing an older gent in a collared shirt to pull up. Josef, an occasional pilot here in the valley. 

Following him is a pickup with Chris and Shawn (the pilot from the Yukon who unofficially broke the Canadian PG distance record with a flight of 260 km). A little milling about occurs, hoping a ride shows up but no dice. Our quad of pilots piles into the pick up to make our way up to Lower Bridal.

Along the way Shawn recounts his adventures in Brazil, conversations with pilots planning to cross the Sierra Nevada range, and the Burning Man festival. Oh, and the general state of flying in the Yukon - the lone consistency lies in the lack of back to back flyable days.

Arrival on launch reveals some strange conditions. The west wind is completely absent and a pulse of NE cycles make their way through the trees just behind us. The outflow has yet to completely subside.

Time passes, the outflow ever...soooo....slowly decays.

Shawn kits up and I give him a hand layout the wing out, ribbing him with a "I just wanted to touch the highest performing PG wing in Canada.". It takes little time for a cycle to come through and Shawn is away and climbing out.

Chris is not far behind.

I watch their wings with a keen eye, looking for small sharp yaw and pitch movements indicative of rough conditions. Nada. Just smooth carves.

In the meantime, Andrei, Elena, Tyler and Kristi have arrived and hiking up with a family of 'launch tourists'.

Launch is about to get cozy. Go time.

Thirty minutes later Elena has set up above me and is starting to feel the afternoon heat. It is starting to roast out. A puff of a cycle comes through and Andrei points out, "Looks good." Not hard to tell he wants me to hustle so Elena can get away quickly. Wouldn't blame him in the least. Two sets back and the wing just drops. Not strong enough for a reverse. Switch to a forward. I hear the right tip thwack during the run but don't feel it.

Airborne.

Away from terrain and scan for traffic.

Clear.

The radio chirps to life, its Andrei...

"You have a small cravat on your left tip." Glance up, the trailing edge tip is caught in amongst a few C lines. One pump of left brake. No effect. Quickly grab and tug the stabilo. Clear.

It is situations like this where SIV training pays its dividend. One of the quirks of the sharknose on the Delta 2 is the tenacity of the cravats. Previously working through these makes for quick work in the real world.

Everything squared away, off to the mixing bowl we go. Except with the lack of wind, there is no mixing bowl today. Just a wide swath of gently rising 1.5 to 2.0 m/s air. Over Alan's Ridge and beyond. Approaching the next spine things spice up a bit and I start to bank into a carve. The rising air draws me towards the side of the mountain. I look down and east to see a road leading towards what I suspect is Upper Launch  A sudden chill to the air signals the end of the inversion.

Onwards to Elk!

Mind you, I am not entirely sure which peak Elk is, just that Elk is at the end of this ridge and that is where I am going.

So ...

Onwards to Elk!

The air begins to take on a sporty flavor with my first (and only) collapse of the day. I am near the lip of the ridge either in rotor or mixing thermals from both sides of the ridge. Not sure how much worse it will get, I decide to take a prudent path - push out front.

To find...

Sink, sink and, more sink. Rotor?

Oh well, return to the churn and backtrack to the bowl behind launch.

Several rivers of thermal crawl up the mountain to my right, beckoning the nose of the Carrera. One in particular causes the Carrera to go full on 'pit bull', the nose snapping right and charging in for the kill. My view immediately fills with tree covered hill side. Hard right to force the wing to do a three quarter turn to get back on heading. I make note of this spot to revisit at another time, today is not the day for tree top kicking climbs.

Back to the bowl to see Kristi climbing in a right hand turn. I blend in from outside and just behind but don't find much (1.5m/s) compared to the strength of the climbs closer to the ridge line (3.0 m/s).

Back west, again. This speaks volumes to my lack of patience.

I settle for a triangle route. Back down the ridge, out to the highway, back to lower.

The glide out to the highway initially has some decent chop (more hints of rotor?) but smooths out nicely. I am able to grab a drink from the Camelback and flip through some Podrunner mixes on the iPod+iHome mini speaker on the flight deck. Out in the valley, the west wind is picking up. There is a risk of being forced to back into the LZ if the wind climbs much more.

New plan: Play it safe, tag Lower, and set up to land.

The remainder is uneventful with landing coming up about 15 feet short of the cones. I watch other pilots work the ridge just downwind of launch, varying between standstill and crawl. I am sure the winds will die off as the sun sets. There are no regrets on my end for calling it a day early.

Just about to leave, I am paid a visit by a fellow flier who seemed quite content to stick around for a few minutes. Didn't have much to say, but then again ...

Those who do can't explain, those who don't can't understand.

Take some Gin (Carrera), add some Apple, shake (Part 1).

Tuesday, a peek in the inbox reveals, "Still interested in trading in your Delta 2?".

Jim has a potential buyer looking for a preowned Ozone Delta 2 Large, I'm looking to downsize, and the demo model Gin Carrera M is up for sale.

We might just have the makings for a deal.

By end of day we certainly do as I am lighter a Delta 2 plus some cash and heavier one Gin Carrera in apple.

Courtesy of Gin Gliders.

The weight loss that drove the downsizing had been root caused by the specialist the day prior (a genetic conspiracy it would appear) and meds prescribed to get it and a plethora of other symptoms under control (one of the more notable being nausea that would take hold in less than 20 mins from the time of launch).

Saturday morning. While the side effects of the meds are still a bit of a nuisance, I am starting to feel better than I have been in several months.

Only one way to celebrate this fortunate turn of events, pile the kit into the car and bee line for the hill.

Upon arrival, the LZ is virtual ghost town with Jim having taken the students to the training hill pending the establishment of the afternoon inflow. Knowing there might be an hour plus wait I wander the Ranch and chance upon a pair of pilots waiting for a ride, chatting them up in sequence to help kill the time.

The beep beep beep of a Nissan Atlas backing up heralds 'go' time and we all pile into the van for the first run of the day. The skinny on the Line group for the local club hinted that most folk would be up in Pemberton thus leaving us an uncrowded hill for what might be the last weekend of summer.

The crew is a mixture of first time and low air time pilots, plus moi. The nervous energy of the first timers, as they come to grips with the magnitude of what they are about to do and the sense of empowerment that will surely follow, leaves me with both a smile and sense of envy. How many of us on those first few rides up the mountain were not thinking at some point, "why am I doing this?", only to have any and all doubt disappear within seconds of landing?

Left to my own thoughts - how is my stomach going to handle this? The wing is smaller than my last and despite the EN-B rating, it is much more talkative (reactive to turbulence). Much like the first timers, I need to cast doubt aside and simply trust that it is going to be fine.

At the top we find waiting for us (the other) Martin and a pair of ladies that typically fly Bridal Falls on the south side of the valley. With the sun inching lower on the horizon each day, north facing Bridal is finding itself more and more in shade thereby driving the regulars to south facing Woodside. But even with this trio added to our ranks, Woodside is far from becoming a beehive of activity today.

The femme fatale duo launch first, followed by myself. Getting settled into the swing of things takes longer than normal as I try to align how I would fly the Delta 2 with the handling of the Carrera. It doesn't take long to realize that I need to let the wing do its thing and more or less just 'shut up and listen'.

Allowing the wing to sniff out the sporadic collection of 0.1 and 0.2 m/s climbs, I again have Kelly's advice playing in my head about mirroring the air but keeping energy in the carve. The wing turns in much quicker than the Delta2 and yet I find it more reluctant to dive if I am bit heavy handed on the initial turn in. Following what appear to be a trio of buzzards, I claw and scratch my way back up to launch height. By this point I am half an hour into the flight and my stomach is handling things remarkably well. Two more pilots have since launched and all have or are in the midst of landing.

Then the -2.4 m/s flush.

No matter where I go, the mountain is singing some Celine Dion track whilst I am being drilled to the oceans floor.

To the LZ it is. Nary a climb on the way out, but it matters not as I arrive with height to spare.

Thus ends what is easily my best flight since the last day in France at St.Vincent.

There is hope.

Flying Fast Forward 2014

The 2014 season is well under way with:

The Ozone Chabre Open in Laragne, France.

XC Course with Chris White and crew of Jocky Sanderson's Escape XC in Sederon and St.Vincent les Forts, France.

A bit of thermalling at our home sites Mt.Woodside, Agassiz and Mt.Mackenzie, Pemberton.

Ozone Delta 2 XC/SIV Video - Annecy/Bassano

XC/Thermalling: Bassano, Italy 
Kelly Farina @ Austrian Arena 

XC/SIV: Annecy, France 
Jocky Sanderson @ Escape XC 

Wing: Ozone Delta 2 

Track: I just tell myself - Balligomingo 

Flying Fast Forward 2013 on Vimeo

Ozone Delta 2 SIV: Accelerated Symmetric, Accelerated Asymmetric, Small Wingovers.

Accelerated Asymmetric proved to be a non-issue and easily managable - no kittens died as a result of an asymmetric being pulled while on bar.

Collapses experienced outside of SIV environment have thus far proved to be equally as boring.

The wing appears to resist turning, even in normal flight until it has built up some speed. This may explain the effort needed to start a carve in a thermal, or post collapse behaviour in level flight.

On the contrary, once the wing has settled into a bank angle, the effort needed to keep it there is relatively little.

Such a dichotomous behaviour has drawbacks, as the transition from a tight 360 to a nose down spiral tends to happen very quickly in surprising contrast to the time/effort needed to originate the turn. But this is a wing meant for XC pilots that intend to remain fairly current (100+ hours/year) - so this sort of behaviour should not catch the pilot unaware.

That all said, the only real 'quirk' the wing has is the tenacity of a cravat in resisting recovery.

Video of manoeuvres on Vimeo.

Ozone Delta 2 SIV: Full Stall (plus cravat clearing)

Raw footage from Annecy of an early attempt at full stall that was allowed to thrash a bit too much and horseshoe, enabling the left wing tip to become trapped in the lines.

Stabilizer pull cleared the first bit but had no impact afterwards. Correction finally required 30% asymmetric, hand over hand on stabilizer, and brake pumps to re-inflate.

The brake pressure at the stall point is extremely pronounced. Simply put, there is no excuse for a pilot 'accidentally' stalling this wing.

Camera is leg mount GoPro with wide-angle, so the pulls are a lot deeper than it appears at first glance.

Subsequent stalls resulted in varying degrees of cravat, though were addressed much more quickly/aggressively.

Delta 2 Full Stall Video on Vimeo