Learning to fly (part III)

View from Peterson Butte Launch

Over the course of that spring and early summer, Ryan and I, together and separately, few Cape Lookout and Sollie Smith, all the while practicing our kiting skills at Cape Kiwanda. Matt Hensley even spent a day with us at Astoria teaching us how to kite with As and Cs. If nothing else, the spring was a time of learning. The coastal air was clean and smooth. The wind was predictable even when the pilots weren't. Bill also spent time with me a site closer to Eugene - a place called Peterson Butte. He worked on the As and Cs with me there. Despite him being twice my age, he treated me like a peer. Through these combined efforts, I began to fill in all the holes of P2 training that my first instructor had left behind.

It was Ryan who had the idea Cape Perpetua. Cape Perpetua was and remains an old site not often used. I am fairly certain that the story you are about to depicts its most recent use. Having never flown the site before, we arrived early to find the wind, as far as we could tell, coming in perfectly. We scoped conditions for two hours, checked potential landing zones, and observed conditions longer still. Finally, Ryan had had enough. He reversed and found superb, smooth lift. As I prepared to follow him into the air, the wind died and clouds blanketed the cape. I was fogged in - except Ryan reported that the fog only veneered the cape. He was a few hundred feet out in lift and could still see the beach. I forward launched. My plan was to go straight out until I cleared the clouds. I told him my plan on the radio before launching so he would stay clear as I emerged from the cloud bank. Then I went for it. It was a dumb thing to do, especially without a GPS. I felt lost in the fog and did my best to keep my bearings.  I was lucky. It worked. A minute after launch, the clouds began to part and I could see the coast. The rest of the flight went well, until I went in to land. I had chosen a small beach. It was the tightest landing zone I had ever attempted. In the end, I felt too confined and low to turn. Forced into a gully,  I landed downwind and in a stream. My glider filled with water and I struggled for over an hour until Ryan landed, packed, and came to help. I broke a few rules to make this flight happen and I know it was stupid. Was it worth it? I don't know. I got away unharmed, but, as I said, I was lucky. Everything else aside, I survived and learned from this day. There is something to be said for that.

As April rolled to May and May to June, the coastal winds began to take up their summer regime, a non-flyable regime. Rather than wind going up and over capes, wind goes around them instead in the summer - in other words, no lift.

With the coast dying, Ryan and I took the sage advice from a man by the name of Blizzard and threw money down for an SIV course. It wasn't cheap, but it was worth it. SIV stands for some French shortening of a French term for an emergency maneuvers paragliding course. I experienced being towed by a boat for the first time, something I do not remember fondly. A paraglider feels sluggish under tow. The wing never feels like it is in the correct position overhead. The vibrations coming through the mile long cable are not reassuring. I was always eager to hear the "NOW" over the radio, telling me to cut the tow and be free of the whole thing. Then, I would find myself over a half mile high with a guy on the radio telling me to foul my wing in various ways. It started with collapsing the wing, and moved on to flying backwards, stalling the wing, wing overs, cravats, spirals and, for some, reserve tosses. If I told you I was anything but terrified each flight, I'd be lying to you, but I learned more about my glider in those two days than the 10 hours of air time I had had since I started flying. Check out the video for what I'm talking about. The next day I presented my thesis to the geology department. I did so with a grin and sore neck.

I left the SIV course with a better understanding of my wing and a better understanding of what to do should things go wrong. It was an excellent experience and well worth the cost. Since then, I have saved myself from at least one incident that probably would have destroyed me or my wing.

With a dead coast, I headed east, to the high desert, for a different sort of flying - the fabled glass off.
Glass off is the term given to air that rises from the ground after the sun heats the surface of the earth all day long. All the warm air releases skyward and creates a very smooth but strong lift event. If you catch glass off early enough, you can fly for hours. Pine Mountain is world renown for its glass offs. As a member of the Cascade Paragliding Club, I was a little surprised by how welcoming the Desert Air Riders were. Despite my affiliation, they treated me as one of their own.

A toward the setting sun and other pilots
Somewhere above Pine Mountain

On my first flight at Pine, I was warned about the venturi effect, an increase in wind speed due to topography, near a saddle in the ridge. I noted the advice along with everything else thrown at me during the site intro. After launching, I stayed out in front of the ridge for some time and then slowly worked my way back toward the saddle and summit. At the point of my path closest to the saddle, I turned to fly away from the ridge. To my horror, I found myself making no positive gain on the ground. The speed of the wind coming at my glider exceeded my gliders maximum air speed. I was moving backwards. I fully engaged my speed bar to steepen my wing's angle of attack and leaned back in my harness to reduce drag. Nothing was working. Going over the back of a ridge is a very bad thing. The wind ward side contains stable rising air. The lee side is an area of sink and turbulence. I had already been warned that more than one pilot had broken their back after being pushed through the saddle. After fighting the wind for more than 10 minutes, I looked behind me. My horizontal position had not changed, but I had gained over 1,000' since the ordeal began. I added a slight angle to my yaw to try to slowly work away from the saddle. After another 5 minutes of sweating pure fear, I broke free. I stayed well out in front of Pine Mountain the rest of the night - not venturing near the saddle again.

I would end up riding 3.5 hours to Pine Mountain every Friday that summer. Launch elevation was around 5,000' ASL. It was not uncommon to exceed 7,000' ASL. I would spend the night in my tent near launch, fly the next morning, fly glass off again Saturday night and head home Sunday morning. The flights were great. I eventually overcame my fear of the saddle on the calmer days and checked it out from a safe perspective. I also flew mornings before the thermals started acting up and it was at Pine Mountain that I finally exceeded my first 20 hours of flight time.

The glass offs were noticeably more turbulent than the coastal flying. Even during glass, there were thermals that would produce stronger lift. It was unsettling at first. I eventually grew accustomed to it increased turbulence, but never really acquired the taste for textured air. At the end of summer, I rode the 3 hours down to Woodrat and participated in Star Thistle. Kevin Lee, a well known instructor the Rogue Valley Hang Gliding & Paragliding Association, gave me a well developed site intro and made sure I was able to handle big air of Woodrat.

On my first flight from Woodrat, I saw my first reserve toss (not including the SIV clinic). The pilot fell behind the ridge, an easy feat at Woodrat. The turbulence turned his wing into a ball and 5 seconds later he lost nearly 700'. His reserve toss was almost too late to matter, but he walked away unhurt. I never flew midday at Woodrat, being too weak in my thermaling skills. I did, however, fly the glass off there. It was even more turbulent than at Pine Mountain. I couldn't become comfortable in the stronger air. After an hour, I chose to land. Learning to thermal would come later.

As August turned into September, Pine Mountain glass offs became colder and weaker; however, the end of summer meant a return to coastal flying. The Cascade Paragliding Club had just finished its revitalization of the Yaquina Head site. I arrived around noon on a mid-September day to find the wind coming straight up launch at 9-10 mph. I called Ryan. Given that he only lived 10 minutes away, he showed up promptly. It was blissful to return to the smooth coastal ridge lift that I had spread my figurative wings in so long ago. The conditions were perfect. I was also surprised to see my flying had improved since my last coastal flight in June. Yaquina flight felt like a summarization of all I had learned since I first unpacked the wing the February before. My wing had a character I was learning to understand. I could read the wind. I knew how to react. Yaquina Head was the first time I felt like a pilot who completely understood the science and mechanics of flight.

Sadly, the day would also be my last day flying with Ryan. We had basically learned to fly together and from each other, but it was time to go. I said farewell to my partner in crime and rode home thinking of what the futures may lay in store. I was moving to Hawaii at the end of the month.