My Life is a Cliche

Have you ever felt like your life is a cliche? I don't often, but Sunday afternoon I fell head first into a couple of notable hang gliding cliches. The end result comes down to several fractures in my nose, a moderately cool looking black eye, a healthy slice of humble pie, and some lessons I'll not soon forget.

It was Sunday. The first day of the Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge. Other than that fact it was unremarkable. We decided it would be a good day to get a sled run or two in. Mitch decided to set up his electric scooter tow rig in the LZ to help people get familiar with the technology before his landing clinic scheduled for later in the week. I flew... it was nice. Contrary to expectations I didn't have a stone cold sledder but was able to stretch it out for an extra 5 minutes in a little thermal over the LZ. Top it off with a very nice landing and I was feeling good. I walked up to where Mitch was running tows from and watched what was going on. A friend was about to tow up using an aerotow dolly. His tow went well and was unremarkable. He pinned off over the middle of the LZ and that's when it started to go weird. I'm not here to tell his story, but suffice it to say that he ended his flight with a less than beautiful landing... I imagine some stitches were needed. After the dust cleared Mitch stepped up and asked "Who's next?" Enter cliche #1

There are Old Pilots, and Bold Pilots, but Few who are Both. 

I didn't hesitate to step forward. After all, I certainly wasn't going to do what that last guy did.... and I have wanted to try this for a long time. Never mind that the wind is alternating between calm and lightly tailing.... never mind that I've never done a static tow before. After all, I've seen this on youtube, how hard can it be? 

I rigged up my tow release and stepped into position. We decided to try a foot launch. I have been eager to give this a go ever since I first learned about it. I was really looking forward to the landing clinic and I hoped to get a jump on the game by starting today. Mitch gave me a ground school lesson on how it's done. He explained the differences between Static Tow launches and mountain launches. I understood what he was telling me. Launching is all about Angle of Attack. The theory is always the same, however the implementation differs. I am ready... I shout "GO! GO! GO!". Mitch echoes my shout and starts pulling the line. I run. I run some more. Still running. Just as the glider starts to lift off my shoulders I feel the line tension increase and it's as if the hand of God grabbed my by the chest and pulled me through the control frame. Enter cliche #2

Never Land On Your Face.

My feet struggle to keep pace but I just can't run that fast. I begin to fall forward... and that's when time slowed down. As I fell the base bar touched earth, dug in, and the power whack commenced. I watched the nose of the glider come down in front of me like a white curtain. It seemed to take about 4 seconds for it to fill my vision. During that time I watched my left hand come in front of me to break my fall. I watched the ground slowly swing up to meet my face. I flinched away and felt my helmet hit the dirt. I actually had enough time to think "Oh, that wasn't bad at all". I thought the crash was over... I honestly did. Then my face hit the dirt and the weight and momentum of my body behind it squashed my right eye socket into the ground.

Then time returned to it's ordinary pace. I felt fine. I didn't think I was hurt at all. I knew that my spine and neck were fine... it all happened so slow I didn't even question it. I also knew that I was going to have a heck of a bruise on my right eye. I raised an arm to signal to the crew that I was OK, and began to get up. James, Mitch, and Ollie showed up right about then and told me to just sit still. Right about that same time blood started gushing out my nose.     Oh.       bugger.

Angels were with me. In particular, Marie the Amazing. She brought me a towel. She sat and made chit chat while blood streamed out of my face. As the background noise of people packing up droned on I sat in a surreal space grounded by Marie's conversation and the occasional reassurance of The James Dean. Cliche #3.... this time a good one:

The Hang Gliding Community is Awesome. 

Many, many thanks to everyone who helped me out, tried to make me feel better, cleaned up my blood, broke down my glider, brought me ice, and generally took the time to make my life better during a down moment.

So what happened? Everyone I've spoke to has had an opinion. This is the nature of pilots to dissect an event... try and glean any tiny bit of truth from it that can be had. We all live with our choice to pursue this sport. It is dangerous. I think it makes us feel better to try and understand 'what went wrong' when somebody screws up because it will, hopefully, prevent the same thing from happening to us.

So here's my technical analysis. I had my angle of attack too low. I would have been flying sooner if I had gotten the nose up a little and when Mitch had fed the last bit of juice I would have flown smoothly away from the hill. I believe that 3 years of mountain launch experience has conditioned me to keep my nose down... always keep it down. If it starts to go bad get the nose down even more!! It didn't help that I was using a release configured for aerotow, designed to assist with keeping the nose down on those fast tows. Nor did it help that we were towing downhill which added further to the forces pulling the nose down.

However there's a much more important lesson to walk away with. When learning a new skill, approach it cautiously, and ease into it with an incremental progression. I was attempting to launch using a method I had never tried before. The wind was working against us. The field was crowded and smaller than ideal. I was flying my intermediate level glider. I was brimming with confidence. In retrospect, I only gave these factors a glancing consideration. I was a fool! It's humiliating. I don't mind making a technical error... hey we all do sometimes. A gross and obvious lapse in judgement is something I have difficulty accepting about myself. These kinds of mistakes have serious consequences in the world of aviation.

So that's my story. Time to reassess. Time to dial down the brashness and remember cliche #4:

You Will Be Able To Fly For The Rest Of Your Life. Make Sure It's A Long One. 

Landing Reflections

I guess some people just need a little push. I suppose I am one of those. I have been flying close to three years now and have never landed out. All of my cross country flights have been 'out and returns'. Then came my adventure a couple of weeks ago... there's nothing like jumping in at the deep end!

The forecast conditions were ripe for a trip down to The Point and back. Strong winds early picking up a little bit during the afternoon and only dropping off late in the day. Ideal! With some sunshine we should get some nice thermals to keep it spicy but basically it looked like an all day soar-until-you're sore kind of forecast.

3 minutes and 1000' into the flight

When we arrived at launch the wind was light. Lighter than forecast. We started setting up confident that it would pick up soon. Sure enough, before I was ready to launch it had picked up to the point of being a fail-safe ridge soaring day. I launched and started climbing quite rapidly. I shouted in glee. Within 3 minutes I was 1000' over and feeling great! I didn't hesitate but pushed North towards the point immediately.

My plan was to get to the point, then turn around and head back south meeting up with everyone else part way. I'd then turn around and fly with them the rest of the way to the point one or two more times. There was lift everywhere and I was leaving the climbs before reaching the top because I knew I had it in the bag... or so I thought.

About 2/3 of the way there I noticed that I was slipping down in altitude to ridge-lift height. No problem, I thought, the ridge is going to be working all day! Well, the forecast was one thing but the reality something else. Within 10 minutes it went from BANGIN! to flat. Without much warning I found myself clinging to scraps of light lift right at ridge height just hoping that it was a temporary lull. If conditions picked up again soon, I could still make it back to the LZ.

No Dice

The thing about flying to the point is, there are really nice LZs all the way. Big sprawling pastures are the norm... that is until the last little bit. The last couple of miles out there is only one field which is at the Chattanooga Nature Center... more specifically something they call Reflections Riding. This riding has a horse pasture in it. It's not very big... it's basically just big enough to put a hang glider down into. When flying to the point, we always have our eye on that tiny looking patch of grass and we always hope it doesn't come to that. I'd scoped out the field on a previous visit with Zoe and I knew it was very do-able.  It would require a precise approach and the margin for error is slim.

LZ right over my helmet

A closer look

As I turned away from the ridge and pointed my nose at Reflections Riding I wasted no time getting my legs out of my harness, into the full upright position, and my VG set at 1/4. I didn't want to have to think about anything other than setting up a perfect approach and getting on the ground safely. I arrived with enough altitude for a single 360 to survey the area. Given the forecast conditions of the day I was relieved to see absolutely no wind blowing across the field. This allowed me to set up my approach from the ideal direction without any concerns for possible mechanical turbulence from the surrounding trees.

On final... the ducks disperse

I flew southwest, over the creek. A Great Blue Heron startled and flew along the waters surface. I gently banked onto my base leg heading over the pond. Then I pulled into a steep diving turn over the pond, cutting between the trees on either side that serve as a gateway to a good landing. Entering ground effect just past the debris pile I know I had it nailed. Wait for it... wait for it... flare! And I'm down. It was as good a landing as I could have hoped for.

This one distracts me as an ominous shadow approaches my camera...

Then the residents of the field stopped by... 3 horses. 3 very curious horses who weren't above trying out the flavor of glider fabric, or camera casing either! When the staff of the Nature Center arrived they couldn't have been friendlier. They helped me pull my glider over the fence and away from the teeth of the equine welcoming committee.

So there you have it. Having turned down opportunities to land out in larger, easier fields on earlier flights I had finally been forced into it by fickle conditions. What's more I had landed a fairly tight field and had done so with precision and grace. It was just what I needed to get over whatever unspoken blockage was keeping me close to home. I felt elated, and proud, and my confidence was boosted quite a bit.

To watch a video of this flight, go to Landing Reflections on Vimeo