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| Mossy Bank - 9th July 2007 - View the entire paragliding news archive |
Mossy Bank
The forecast looked promising on Friday night, so I rented a car and headed down to finger Lakes, arriving to meet Mukrim at 6:30 am. Conditions were not favouring our intended site, Hammondsport, so when Doug and Chuck arrived we all headed out to Mossy Bank where we met up with Scott. Mossey banks video.
Mossy Bank is a very small site with tall trees right behind the launch area. This can make for very interesting launches.
Mukrim setting up for launch
Mukrim assessing the conditions
Mossy Bank take off is surrounded by tall trees making launch tricky since the wing is in dead air and there are about four steps to the cliff edge.
It was a nice day. Apparently Mossy Banks is a tricky Launch site for PG pilots. I must have got lucky as I had two, straight forward, easy forward launches. We were spotted by a group of about six kids just as Mukrim was preparing to launch. They were all fascinated and couldn't believe he was going to 'jump'. Mukrim's launch was very tricky and he was swinging all over the place (See Mukrim's crazy launch here!). The kids loved it and then bombarded me with a million questions before helping me lay out my glider. I think we may have a few new pilots when they are old enough.
Mukrim made it across the valley, but decided to return rather than risk bombing it and spending hours hiking back. We were treated to a few high thermals, but they were sparse. The last half hour of the second flight was spent trying not to fall out of ridge lift and just waiting for the thermal that would take us high enough for a top landing. Eventually it came and we all grabbed our chance. Thanks for the loan of your vehicle Scott. It was a pleasure marking thermals for you!! :)
Mukrim decides to join me in the LZ
Mukrim preparing for jis second launch of the day
Scott Wise up high
Scott Wise circling in a thermal
Scott Wise's account: Mukrim, Mark and I flew Mossy. The Stoner brothers headed off to the Cliffs to join the Elmira guys at indian cliffs. Both Mukrim and Mark had early flights, but came down due to bumps and turbs. I found them in the LZ where I went to place my wind sock. After a short briefing, they headed off for lunch, while I headed up to launch. Just as I went to put the dog in the car (before launching) all the Pg guys got back from lunch and the Stoners decided to head east.
Well, I launched first (third of the day) at 2:50 pm and promptly lost 150 - 200 ft in my first 2 passes. I thought I was headed for the LZ, but on my 3 pass, I hit some nice lift and popped back up
above launch level.
It was thermally and bumpy as reported, but pretty quickly I was up to 1K above the valley and things were smoother there. Mukrim then launched and slowly work his way up to my level. At one point we hooked a nice thermal cycle together. I got to my max alt of 4,200 AGL and proceeded to cruise around. While I lost alt in the process I looked around and Mukrim was still floating around where I had left/lost the lift. I lost track of him and it turns out he headed up wind toward H-Port - not sure how far he got.
Next Mark launched and he too worked his way up. There were good and bad cycles. During the good ones I was on top, and during the bad ones both the PGs were higher. :-)
Near the end of our flights we all ended up mainly ridge soaring with only minor clearance above the top. There we practiced our ridge soaring and I must say that one blade wing and two PGs weaving around a low, fairly short, ridge site worked pretty well, coordination wise.
Finally, another minor thermal cycle came through and first Mukrim and Mark caught it and circle up. I took note and headed their way. They gained to about 400 over and first Mukrim headed back, then
Mark. They had decided to go for a top landing.
I found their lift and headed up to about a grand AG(valley)L and decided to follow suite. Once they had both gotten down, I made my approach, coming up a little short of where I wanted to be, but had
a sweet no step (hardly any flair) landing into a nice smooth head wind at 4:43 pm. It was a good work out and a good day. |
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The content of this site is � Mark Andrews 2005-12, mandrews1973@gmail.com
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