Session #15

June 17, 2017

site: Cape Kiwanda, Oregon coast

One day in between south flow rains. Less than 5mph mostly west. Shirtsleeve weather with sun out by mid-morning. Joanna went on up with the GoPro. The very gentle breeze while we were there made it possible for me to climb up without a need to turn the glider around and climb facing west which I have to do when the wind is more than 5. I made one climb up and flew from the top hanging from the cage. Did not attempt to get feet up. Pitch felt a little touchy as could be expected but I was able to manage it. Landing was in almost no wind and I came in hot and ran it on. Bruised my feet. Next flight I successfully kicked up. Launching in nearly no wind was not giving me much margin and because of the west direction I had to begin a turn to line up with the beach about the same time I wanted to be kicking up into the cage. Joanna got my first flight but missed my second where I kicked up. I dropped both feet at the same time and had to shift forward to avoid a stall too high off the beach. Still no wind and ran it on but could not flare and ended up dropping the nose into the sand. The 3^rd flight Joanna got and I kicked up but you cannot see it on the footage because the GoPro lense is just too wide. The 4^th flight the flow dropped off to almost nothing between occasional cycles and you can see on the footage that I was close to a stall on takeoff and not running hard or far enough to really get flying solidly. Because it’s so steep where I was launching I got away with it but with no margin for error. You could see on the footage that I made a couple of attempts to get my feet up before realizing I need to turn right to get on a track for the beach. I had unintentionally slowed the glider down in my attempts to get up and it spun right immediately as I applied right rudder. You can see in the footage how the glider basically “falls out of the sky” when you stall in a turn (otherwise known as a spin). I was very lucky and only bruised my left armpit and bicep, bonked my right side rib cage and bruised my right hand which also sustained a couple of minor cuts. Also bruised or cracked the top of my right foot. It’s 9PM now and I’m still pretty sore. The glider will need to go back into the shop. The right wing that I had re-built looked fairly good given the severity of the crash. The only damage I could really see was the LE tip bracket on the lower wing was really bent and will need to be replaced. Also, the rudder cable tore a rip about 5 inches long toward the root. The left wing was in worse shape. I will need to replace the hang tube which I bent and also several of the brackets. I won’t know about the spars until I finish getting the right wing back to flying shape.

Lessons: Same thing that happened at Dog Mtn. Trying to get into the cage, then having to make a roll correction while trying to maintain adequate airspeed. Too many things at my skill level at this stage. I believe that I need more wind on take off so I don’t have to worry about launching and then I should not attempt to get my feet up until I’ve lined up on my final flight path to land. I think I better do this until I get very good at it before progressing.

Setting up the black tarp on top so that I could set the glider down made multiple flights much more doable. I could rest once I made the climb.

This is my first launch where I flew from a hanging position

The GoPro used is clearly unable to allow any more than the first couple seconds of the flight before the glider is out of sight.  I would be able to learn a lot more if I just attach it to an outboard strut.

This was my 3rd launch where I did get both feet into the cage right about where you can't really see me do it.  I managed it without much of any perturbation in pitch which is the goal.  Still, the GoPro is just not the camera to be doing this kind of filming with.  The lense is just way too wide angled.

This is the "grand finale" where I get a poor launch, attempt to swing first one leg up and fail followed by a classic spin with no attempt to recover (not sure I could have)