Saturday, March 25, 2000

I was able to get back to Elk (Northern California, just above Clearlake) and I can gladly say the thermals have definitely started. A couple of us from the Bay area joined up with four more Sonoma Wings pilots. Things were looking a little iffy on the drive up, with low clouds and light fog much of the way. Bill V. said that was supposed to burn off and we should have post frontal conditions, which will churn up the air and let the thermals build up. We met at the LZ. There were several paraglider pilots launching at the time, but the conditions were still light, both at the top and in the LZ. It is not advisable to fly a paraglider in the afternoon there due to the dangerous conditions in the LZ (more on that later).

Bob, Todd, Bill, Rich, Ernie and myself, along with our two drivers loaded up and met at the South launch. Conditions were looking very nice with a wind straight up launch, between 11 and 14 MPH. Bill, as usual, was first to launch. By the time he was 100' out from the hill he was already above launch. Within 15 minutes we were all in the air. Bill started teasing me that all he could see of me was the top of my sail. This was in response to my teasing him about last weekend. I had taken several pictures of everybody in the air, but I told Bill, all of the ones of him were just the top of his sail.

After about 20 minutes, the thermals started to build enough that one could leave the security of the ridge lift and search out some thermals. Todd, who is an awesome XC pilot, decided to take a chance and go upwind, toward Clearlake, and get in an XC flight. His reward was a close up view of the LZ. Oh well, you can't get big rewards without the risk. Everyone was having a great time with a lot of low saves, all the way back up over launch. The wind seemed to be pretty consistent out of the South at about 15 MPH. This caused an interesting effect. We would fly to the South, toward the LZ and pick up a thermal. As we circled we would drift over the back. By the time we had penetrated to the front again, most of the altitude gained would be lost. And so it went.

Ernie commented on the radio that several times he had been in a great thermal and each time he would top out just below 5000'. I had caught one good thermal that took me up to 4800'. It seemed like 5000' was as high as anyone was going to get. After about two hours of this I decided to head to the LZ. I noticed an eagle about 200' in front of me heading in the same general direction so I decided to follow it and see if I could find any more lift. I was down to about 3400 when we both started going up. My vario settled in at about 500 fpm. I lost sight of the eagle but gave it a "thank you" for the tip. I had somehow blundered right into the core and had a very smooth, constant 500 fpm ride up. At 4800 feet things were still the same. I thought how nice it was going to be to tell Ernie I was past 5000'. At 4900 I had my finger on the transmit button. Then at 4920 I felt a couple of small bumps, at 4940 some more bumps. At 4949' much to my disappointment I stopped going up. It felt like I was sitting on the top of a hot air balloon, not going up or down. I searched for another minute but 4949' it was going to be.

As I continued on my way to the LZ, Todd got on the radio to say two pilots had been slammed by a rotor in the LZ and anyone else should use the alternate LZ. One of the pilots looked to have a separated shoulder and was on his way to the hospital. My stomach started to tighten. I did not know there was an alternate LZ. Much to my relief, Ernie said he was on his way to the alternate and I could follow him in. He was about 1000' below me and I could easily see him. He made a great landing with me a couple of minutes behind. I could feel the effects of the rotor off to my left as I was on final. Once I passed the small hill that caused the rotor things from there were uneventful. The last two gliders landed in the alternate LZ without any more excitement. The alternate LZ is about 300 yards down stream and around the bend from the main LZ. Anytime the wind is out of the South-Southeast, this is the safest bet. The only down side of the alternate is, if you have to walk back to your truck, you have to wade across the creek (this time of the year it's only about 12" deep). It's quite easy to drive across.

Everyone had a great day. I talked to the pilot with the separated shoulder and he said he even had a great day, right up to the point where he got rotored in. He said he was about 3 seconds from flairing, about 3' off the ground when the nose of the glider rolled forward right into the ground. His base tube, down tubes never touched. In fact he did not even bend a down tube. When the nose struck the ground, somehow he was thrown to the ground. He said he did not see how this could happen because his hang straps were not long enough to let him. It turns out he did not separate his shoulder, he broke it in at least 4 places. It looks like he will be in surgery Tuesday to get some hardware installed to hold everything together.

Vince Endter