Subject: Glideaho, etc.

Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 10:15:22 -0800

From: ANDY LONG <andylong@bigplanet.com>

To: Kevin Frost <klugulh@primenet.com>

Kevin:

Thanks for the video. Great stuff. I especially liked the footage following the extremely high wind cliff launches where someone is just about to land and gets blown up about 30 feet by this huge gust.

I noticed in your posts and your note a recurring theme of "come and land at 6 grand in the desert heat for something fun and new to do." I get the feeling that you enjoy watching sea level types try to deal with these amusing density altitude, 747 type landings. Well, for your reading pleasure I have a couple Sensor (me) landing tales for you. One was at King in my 610.

Al Whitesell, a guy named Arlin, Larry Bunner and I were ready to go from the upper launch at King. Al and Arlin get off and climb out. Larry and I were right behind them but launch conditions suddenly became undoable. Down, 90 degrees right, 90 degrees left, down, etc. Larry and I are no launch potatoes but we were stuck on launch, pouring sweat, for 1 hour!

Finally one comes through and we're both off the hill. Most of King was in shadow by now and we both plummeted. Larry is soon in the LZ but on the last bumps before it I find something and climb out but it fizzles before I can get high. I dive for Ram's Horn cause it's in the sun. I come in low, find nothing, scrape all the way down and finally resign myself to a landing on the fan. I throw some smoke and it's coming from all over the place. On final I fly by the smoke to see it switch to from behind me. It's about 98 degrees, 1:00 pm and I'm weighted down like an astronaut with all my XC crap.

I say to myself, "This is going to hurt" as I come barrelling into ground effect. I start running in the air like a Hang I who has just been yelled at by his instructor and cover about a quarter mile running flat out, doing the high speed triple long jump moon walk, before I can get under the glider and finally see that I'm not going explode into a pile of flamming wreckage. By then however the glider is in a bit of a turn so, knowing I'm actually not going to pile drive, I just let the nose go and come to a stop in a cloud of dust left by the nose plate, still standing. Why I didn't bury myself 6 feet in the ground I'll never know. The only damage was a broken mount on my Ball 652. I can't remember how many paces it was but I finally retraced my steps and found the first one... miles away from were I had stopped. It reminded me of George Worthington's stories of landing the Mitchell Wing.

Another one of note was last year at the end of a 117 miler I had in the Owens. It was north of Basalt, no wind, thermally, 95-100 degrees, 6,000 MSL. Me and another guy are trying to talk each other into landing first and finally I decide to go. Dissected terrain and dust devils. Space Shuttle speeds ground effect this time. I over shoot landing cross slope and am about to begin floating into a shallow gully. I flare earlier than I know I should, balloon up some, hold off for a second then flare in a bit of a turn but I know already that I'm screwed. I get in maybe three bounds and absolutely POUND in, flying face first into a prickly desert bush, cutting my nose in several places on the spines.

My buddy who was watching this from 500 feet up says over the radio, "Hey, that didn't look so bad" as blood begins to trickle on to my hand. I look up at the glider expecting to see two downtubes with 90 degree bends in them. No damage! I couldn't believe it. I guess I was so far behind schedule with the whole landing sequence that I didn't even have time to hang on before eating dirt.

Such were the conditions that day that 5 of us who were spread out from Bishop to where the two of us landed all pounded. No one even landed on their feet. A few poor souls had to meet their maker at 6,500 feet. Ouch!

- Andy