Craig's Flying Blog

2009-10-24T02:39:00.003-05:00

It's been a long time since my last update. Things have been great in California. I am getting my fare share of beach time, mountain biking, and of course, hang gliding. My first flight at Fort Funston (a WWII gun station on the western San Fran coast) was incredible. I flew with hawks, and the highlight was seeing a whale breaching in the ocean. The following week I flew on the east side of the bay at Ed Levin county park and had a long flight. This was my first time flying with an Eagle.

My most recent flight was at Fort Funston again. This time I flew with the video camera running. Below in a bit of the 3 hours of flying that day. Fort Funston is by far the most beautiful place I have soared.

Hang Glide Fort Funston from Craig Stanley on Vimeo.

2009-07-26T23:32:00.003-05:00

I had a great last flight at Whitewater on Thursday. On my first flight I released around 1200' and stayed up for around 15 mins but was unable to gain altitude. On my second flight I went up to 2000'. After sitting around there for some time I was up to around 2500' but the climbing was very slow. There was no thermal core. I flew to the north over a large sod field and eventually "bumped" into something. I climbed at around 150 feet per minute until I got to 3000'.
At this point the strangest thing happened to me. A black duck flew ~30 feet under me. I did a double-take. I never expected to see a duck that high since they are not soaring birds. He quacked as he flew by.
I eventually made it up to the clouds at ~4000' feet. I flew out to the side of the cloud and kept going up. I was cruising along the side of the cloud diving through wisps that were sticking out. Then, when a cloud wisp formed under me, I was able to spiral down through it. I eventually came down and had a great landing after a 1 hour 40 min flight.
This was a great last flight in Wisconsin! California here I come.

2009-07-22T09:56:00.002-05:00

As most of you know, Mandy and I are moving to California (Cupertino) at the end of this month. We will miss all of our friends here in Chicago. Since this is a flying blog . . . .now something flying related. I shot this video while in California a few weeks ago. This is a pilot flying at Fort Funston on the San Francisco Pinnensula. This will be about 40 mins from where we will be living and is soarable for ~50% of the year. With mountain biking and a beach nearby, there are plenty of things to do when the wind is not good. My hang gliders will be in the moving truck for all of August, so tune back in for September posts!

2009-06-15T16:49:00.003-05:00

I had a wonderful flight on Friday. I had a personal best for time aloft (4 hours 15 mins), altitude (just of 7k AGL), and solo flight distance (30 miles). It was also my first time sharing a thermal with a sailplane, and my first time flying over Kettle Moraine (see the image) which is where I go mountain biking.

One of my favorite parts of the flight was when I was 15 miles away from the airport and getting very low. I had picked out my landing field and was under 1000 feet when I spotted a bird turning circles over a corn field to the south of me. I quickly flew over to the bird and sure enough there was lift. It was slow and first but eventually I found the core of the thermal and made it back up to 5000 feet. I was so glad I got LASIK because otherwise I don't think I could have found that bird!

When I first got the the field the bird flew away. I had luckily learned a lesson from a wise pilot awhile back: "Never follow a bird that is trying to fly away from you."

At this point I decided the weather was not good enough to make the flight all the way home or to lake Michigan, and I did not have a driver lined up to come get me, so I decided to try and make it back as close to the airport as possible. After another low save over a sod field I had enough altitude to safely fly over the town of whitewater and back to the airport. By this point the clouds had completely decked over. The lack of sunlight usually means thermals are done, so I assumed my flight was done. At around 1500 feet my vario started to beep indicating there was some rising air. I found a spot where I was able to stay between 1000 and 2000 feet for over a half hour turning around and around and around. Then all of the sudden the thermal "turned on" and i started to actually gain altitude. I thought I was the last person in the sky, but at 5000 feet I reached to top of the thermal and was surprised to meet Dale and Terry there. They apparently saw me turning down low and joined the thermal above me.

I slowly flew around and floated back towards earth. At around 2000 I decided the day was done, so I did some fun high-speed turns and spiraled back towards earth. A good landing put a nice end to my day. My neck was a bit sore the rest of the weekend from all that time in the harness, but that's nothing to complain about!

2009-05-25T19:01:00.010-05:00

Saturday's flights were uneventful. I had a ~25 minute flight with only a single climb. We were lucky to get what we did with the weather how it was. That evening we had a cookout with campfire and live music that was a lot of fun. Sunday ended up being a decent XC flying day. Mark, Rich, Greg and I took off. I launched first and hung out at cloudbase (4500 feet AGL) until everyone had launched. We then all started drifting downwind. After my first glide I released my VG rope (which allows me to tighten the sail for a better glide) and the rope went all the way through the cleat that holds it. I tried for some time to put it back in the cleat, but doing so would be a long 2-handed operation, and it also takes 2 hands to fly a glider so I gave up on it. Rich and Greg were 1 thermal ahead of me for most of the flight (~2.5 hours) which actually worked out very well since I then always knew where the next thermal could be found. Mark caught some horrible sink at 35 miles and was forced to land before a very long blue hole. I was hoping to have radio communication with the others (we all brought radios) but it seems my radio must have had the button stuck (which I re-soldered that morning) causing radio communication to not work at all. During one of my long glides about 1 hour in I was flying while holding the VG rope in my hand and tried to get a drink from my camelbak. The bite valve came of the hose and unfortunately with a full face helmet, visor down, and the camelbak located well above my back, it was like a geyser going off in my face. Blinded by the water all I could do was search for the hose with my gloved hand and eventually got it out. The hose flew over my shoulder and continued to soak me. I was very hungry the whole flight because I skipped breakfast (stupid mistake) which did not help when I started to get airsick. After getting low and drifting at 1500 AGL for a long time, I decided to glide for something better, but not much was there. I spent my last 800 feet searching over a neighborhood in hopes of finding a Memorial Day BBQ I could partake in while waiting for my ride. I saw smoke coming up from behind one house and my mouth started to water. After flying over there I saw they were just burning some yard waste :-( so I continued over to the soybean field to land. After a good landing one of the neighbors came out to inform me that the airport was only a mile north of there with a "what the heck are you doing here" voice. I told him I didn't want to land at the airport and he seemed a bit shocked. It's always great seeing peoples faces when you land away from the airport. I landed 47 miles from my release point (as the crow flies). Greg and Rich made it 75 miles landing ~5 miles short of the Mississippi river. The flight had it's share of frustrations (radio not working, camelbak explosion, VG rope not functional, GPS tracklog started too late, landing just short of 50 miles, no cell signal after landing), but with a "personal best" for XC flight and a good landing, I had a very big smile on my face. I uploaded a whole bunch of photos from this weekend to: http://tinyurl.com/q7h62a My flight can be seen on the map and loaded into google earth by clicking the KML link here

2009-05-24T19:25:00.001-05:00

I flew a personal best of 45 miles today! I just got picked up and am heading back to the airport for more flying tomorrow.

2009-05-23T23:05:00.003-05:00

i was able to slide the lock and clamp the release so i could release the string from my mouth. I then pulled the barrel at 2k and released.

2009-05-23T23:05:00.001-05:00

After adding another loop to my mouth release, it worked wonderfly today! I had light tension so i know it would release if i was in trouble. At 500 feet

2009-05-23T20:55:00.003-05:00

eather should be a lot better tomorrow. Tonight we are just enjoying the grill and live music.

2009-05-23T20:55:00.001-05:00

I flew once this afternoon between thunderstorms and had a small climb to 3k. I'm planning a xc flight tomorrow going downwind with some other pilots. W

2009-05-22T16:21:00.002-05:00

Here's a video from the Flytec Race and Rally showing lots of aerobatics. Most of the film was shot from the dragonfly. Our weekend fly-in weather is looking so-so. There is a chance of rain and it seems nobody knows what the lift might be like. We have cross country, flour bomb drop, and spot landing contests planned, with food and live music on Saturday evening. It should be a good weekend even if it is not soarable. I am going to try posting via SMS this weekend. We'll see if it works. -Craig

2009-05-06T20:13:00.001-05:00

I have completed the webpage for the Memorial Day Weekend Fly-In. Now we just have to hope for good weather.

2009-05-03T20:50:00.006-05:00

I had 2 flights today and hit lots of sink. A lot more sink than thermals. My first flight I climbed for a short while but the thermal was very bumpy. My second flight I made it to ~5000 feet and decided to try going XC, but as I flew downwind the air only got worse. I was back on the ground 6 miles away from the airport. From 5000 feet in dead air I should be able to glide closer to 10 or 11 miles. The good news though is that the camera worked beautifully. I think I need to find a different location to mount it though because the down tube is in front of my face in almost every shot. Here are a few of the better pictures. Click on the image to see it full size.

2009-05-02T21:16:00.003-05:00

I went to the airport today with forecasts of decent winds and strong thermals to 7500'MSL but by the time I got my wing set up, wind were aroun 15 gusting to 25, which is faster than I am comfortable taking off in (could make me take of before I start going down the runway). With predicted winds of 10-15 straight west I was planning to fly to Lake Michigan. I had planned out a flight to the beach. With winds aloft at 25-20 mph all I would have to do is stay airborne for 2 hours to make the 50 mile journey, but getting airborne was unfortunatly unsafe. I will be heading back tomorrow afternoon after teaching sunday school (should be able to take off around 2pm). Tomorrow's forcast is for winds of 10 kts on the ground, 15 at cloudbase of ~7k MSL from the northwest. This might be a great chance for me to try flying home, something I have wanted to do for a long time. There should be other pilots there tomorrow looking to go XC, so it could be a fun day if we get several pilots together. I will post some updates in a few days. The image shows possible routes for east wind to the beach and nw wind to get me home (Island Lake LZ). Click the image to enlarge.

2009-04-26T18:09:00.002-05:00

Since it was a rainy weekend and not flyable, I spent some time making a mount for my new camera. I took a tripod I got for Christmas (Thanks Matt!) and removed the legs. I then bolted that to a piece of PVC pipe that I cut in half (leftover mouth release tubing). I put a rubber furniture foot between the tripod and the PVC to give it a nice flat but flexible surface to mount on. I then drilled slots in the PVC to add zip-ties. The camera can now be mounted on to any tube on the glider. Hopefully I will have pictures from the camera next week!

2009-04-25T13:50:00.003-05:00

I bought a used Canon S70 digital camera a few days ago which will become my dedicated wingtip mounted camera. The camera has an Intervalometer that allows the camera to take a picture every minute until the battery dies or the memory card fills up (1 Gig Card). This makes picture taking hassle free since you just start it before the flight and don't think about it again. The camera is 7 Megapixels, and has a 28mm lens so I should be able to get everything in the shot that I want. The camera does a good job at taking long-exposure night shots as well, somthing I have not done since my camera I had in germany broke.

2009-04-19T21:06:00.003-05:00

I stayed up in Whitewater on Friday and Saturday. We had around 12 pilots on Friday. I got a one hour flight in and then a 2.5 hour flight. There were a lot of thermals around and plenty of other pilots to help you find them. You can see a 40x speed animation of my GPS track below. Notice my altitude and climb rates at the bottom. Saturday was a bit more difficult. There was high cirrus and lower clouds starting to fill in. I made it up to cloudbase ~ 4k twice. I experienced some cloudsuck when I got there and pulled in for full speed and the vario was still beeping. I had an upwind glide that must have been right along a lift line because ~3 miles later I was still right at cloudbase. It was really cool to zip along the underside of the clouds at 40 mph. I eventually started to get rained on and raced back to the airport after the 1-1.5 hourflight. I got to kill altitude from 3k which was a blast (i'm usually struggling to stay up). I got packed up before the sprinkle turned into rain at the airport. A great weekend for sure!

2009-04-13T10:56:00.001-05:00

2009-04-11T15:11:00.010-05:00

I've been working on making flying a bit safer. I recently made the transition to a topless glider. With my old glider seen here at the left, I had a bike brake lever at my right hand (click to zoom in on any picture). With a quick squeeze of the lever, the release up at the top would open releasing me from the tow plane. Because it takes 2 hands to fly a hang glider, it is important to be able to release from the tow plane while keeping your hands on the control bar. I have experienced, and seen plenty of videos of pilots getting out of control on tow, and unwilling to take their hands off the controls. When you get in a bad situation, pilots tend to try to control the glider instead of letting go of the tow rope. In the second it takes to grab for a release, a glider near a lockout position can really get in bad shape. The pilot in this video failed to release from the tow plane when he started to lose control (PIO) which shot him at the ground after locking out. After switching from my Ultrasport to my Talon, it was time to start towing from the shoulders only (no rope going up attached to the glider). The talon really does tow a lot better from the shoulders (less yaw issues). The down side of this was that I could no longer use my bicycle brake release. After some pointers from Steve Kinsley and Tad Eareckson, I created the release shown here. The idea is quite simple, and can be made with $3 worth of material from the hardware store and an hour of spare time (more if you're like me and can't find your drill so you turn the bits by hand). Above in the picture (going to the pilots left shoulder) is the traditional barrel release which becomes the secondary release with this setup. The rope from that secondary release goes through the tow rope and then back to my new release. This release has a loop that goes through the tow bridle (red rope), and then back to the release, where it is held by another rope that goes through the diameter of the release tube and then up to the pilot's mouth. When the pilot wants to release, all he has to do is release the rope or scream a profanity, and the mouth string goes though the tube, and releases the loop which then releases the bridle which then releases the tow rope. "But isn't it uncomfortable?" No, the tow force get gets down many times over going through all those loops and through the tube. The force on the mouth rope is very low. What is really nice though is once you are a few hundred feet up and away from anything hard (the earth, for example), you slide the gray tube forward and it locks the mouth rope in place. Then you are left with a barrel release on both sides. Just pull back on the barrel on either shoulder, and you are released from the plane.

I plan to test the release over the next couple flights to be sure it releases when I want it to, doesn't release when I don't want it to. I will update again here as soon as I see how things work out.

-Craig Next week, first flights of the season and a new wingtip camera (hopefully). Hang Glide in Wisconsin! Get Towed up in Whitewater

2009-03-29T11:35:00.001-05:00

Great video featuring the Dragonfly: The ultralight used to tow up Hang Gliders:

2009-03-29T11:20:00.004-05:00

Hang Gliding FAQ -> This high resolution video teaches the basics of hang gliding: http://vimeo.com/3536482

We're Up!

2009-01-27T10:06:00.001-06:00

I've completed the new websites for both the Whitewater Hang Gliding Club and Midwest Aerosports. In both sites you fill find great information about learning to fly in Wisconsin. With a close eye, you will even see my Mom, Dad, and Wife all flying. ....the things they do for me.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-22T08:11:00.001-06:00

Merry Christmas to all!

What a Day!

2008-10-19T19:59:00.001-05:00

I have not written in quite a long time. Fall flying has been so-so at best . . . untill yesterday! One of the best fall days I have seen in this area! Plenty of cold pilots!

My parents were there for the day. Thanks to the tandem pilot, Terry, my dad was able to get an hour and ten minutes of air time and a trip to a 4700' cloudbase on his very first tandem!

I had the joy of boating around the sky with them at cloudbase snapping pictures as I could. Trying to stay with the tandem was quite a chore! The tandem glider flys a lot slower and does not climb as fast as my new glider. I had to work hard to get close to them but. Unfortunatly the air was so rough that whenever I took my hands off the bar to grab the camera and snap a picture, I would start to turn away. I also made the mistake of making the camera tether too short so I could not really see where I was pointing the camera.

I ended up going about 4 miles downwind and then coming back. I had over an hour of airtime and was getting pretty cold. It would have been a great day for a downwind XC!

-Craig

My New Ride

2008-08-03T19:36:00.000-05:00

Here is my new spaceship. I took it for a flight last night, and this glider is amazing. I launched at ~7:15, well after all the gliders were down for the day. I released at 1850 feet agl and the glider started to climb. Who would have thought there would be a thermal that late at night taking me up an additional 600 feet?

The glider is a Talon 140, which is known as a "topless" design. You will notice that it does not have the post or cables on the outside of the glider. All of the stability systems are on the inside of the wing, making it a lot faster and more efficient.

2008-03-19T21:55:00.001-05:00

Not related to flying, but pretty cool/scary:

2007-10-31T23:20:00.001-05:00

I flew up at Whitewater on Sunday. Once again, I flew with a camera, and once again, I had camera problems. On my first flight my vario was not working. I'm not sure what's going on with it, but it gets in some wierd mode and I can't get it out. I ended up releasing from tow around 1700' feet (I guess), and turned every now and then. I've gotten pretty good at knowing when I hit lift. You can feel the acceleration in your chest as you are pushed into the harness. I also can feel when I accelerate downward - you get that "i'm floating" feeling. The hard part is knowing when you are in consistant lift or sink. When on glide, I can usually look at the horizon and see rise or sink, but while turning in a thermal at a constant speed, I have no clue if I'm going up or down. I can see it better at low altitudes, but up high I don't stand a chance. Perhaps I am looking in the wrong place. After a 15 minute flight, I got towed up again with a working vario. I released in light lift at 1900'AGL and took it up to 2k, but at that point it was a bunch of light bubbles. After turning in that area for awile, I was at a slight net loss, so I decided to search elsewhere. Thermals are supposed to come from dry, dark field, and will usually be found after a downwind trigger on a windy day. I try to use this while flying. I search 2 or 3 locations that I thought would be good, but found nothing but sink. I was then flying back to the airport when at 700' I felt the pressure in my chest that only a hangglider pilot can really enjoy. I looked down and slightly up wind and what did I find? A swamped field of light color. I started to turn lightly, and then kept trying to find the core of the thermal. I tried using a new technique I learned from Mike Barber in Tennessee, which is to control turn radius with pitch (push in or out) rather than roll (push the bar to the side). In a hang glider, we have good pitch authority with very little effort, whereas roll control takes a lot of muscle. I used to try to get into the core by attempting to roll really hard into the rising air. Remember that when doing so, the rising air that you are trying to get into is actually rasing the wing on that side and trowing you back out. Trying to overcome this will roll control takes a lot of effort. However, if you are already in a turn and feel you are really close on the core, you can push out on the bar. This will slow you down (keeping you in the core longer), decrease your turn radius (keeping you in a tighter circle on the core), and takes very little energy. The slight increase in turn slip and increased spiral dive speed are nothing compared to the upward speed in the core of a thermal. A tight spiral in normal air makes you go down fast, but a tight spiral right in the core of a thermal will make you go up, up, and away. I ended up coring this thermal really well. The vario was showing a constant 300 fpm upward, and I held on for several minutes taking me up to 3500'. It was cold that day, and the temperature + wind chill that high was taking its toll on me. I was shivvering, and my fingers were numb - but not numb enough to make me leave a thermal. Eventually I slowly came back to terra firma, riding a few bubbles on the way. I ended this nice flight with a great no-step landing. Not my best flight ever - but definatly was my best October flight ever.

Flying 'til the cows come home

2007-10-10T08:44:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture taken right after I landed on the last day. There was only one cow there when I landed. After starting to tear down the glider, I heard a "mooooo". I turned around to see all of them lined up to great me.

New Video

2007-10-09T21:35:00.000-05:00

Here is a video I took on the last day of flying. Unfortunatly the memory card ran out of room right before catching a thermal at 600ft and climbing all the way to the clouds.

TTT Video

2007-10-08T16:58:00.000-05:00

Here is a video of lemmings jumping of a cliff. Can you find which one was me?

FLY! Saturday was great!

2007-10-07T19:35:00.001-05:00

More pictures in the photo gallery at www.craigstanley.org/gallery

I just got home, and will be sure to give last day summary sometime tomorrow.

No Flying ;-(

2007-10-05T13:22:00.000-05:00

After 6 straight days of flying, I don't think I will get one in today. The weather is looking bad with low clouds (1k over launch) covering most of the sky and overdevelopment in areas. The good news is that I have a new video for ya'll. Unfortunatly the video stops before I come back into view and climb to 3000 over launch, but still fun to watch. The video is also available at www.youtube.com/cdeggz The weather forcast looks like it should be better tomorrow, the last day of the comp. Saturday night is a party, and then I have the 11 hour drive home on Sunday. -Craig

Having a great time

2007-10-01T20:54:00.000-05:00

New Pictures at www.CraigStanley.org/gallery

Since until now I have only been posting from the cell phone, I thought I would give a quick summary of events so far in more than 140 character blurbs.

On Friday I got in with enough time to do some ridge soaring. This was an evening flight with a Strong wind. It was also my first launch off the ramp. I let my nose get a bit to high, and went off the edge without much airspeed and was a bit wobbly. Luckily I was able to recover just fine and made it back 150 to 200 feet above launch. I was then able to soar the ridge for a good amount of time hanging out over launch.

On Saturday I flew with an instructor at Whitwell (the place without the ramp). It worked out nice because he had two tandem flights that day, so I would cliff launch, and then he would go off with a passenger, and then the other tandem customer would drive to pick us up. These flights all went very well, and I was able to get my cliff launch rating.

Yesterday was one of the best flying days I have had since my long flight in Whitewater. I decided to take off very early (people said I was smart for doing so, but I think it was dumb luck and being eager to fly). I was able catch several thermals as they swept up the valley wall. These thermals took me to 3090 feet above launch (launch is ~1500 above the valley floor, which is at ~750 MSL) at one point. I kept racing downwind and getting lucky finding some monster thermals. Many of the people that flew after me found weak conditions, and had to land quick after launching. One pilot had poor judgement and ended up clipping a tree and almost hitting a house on the way in. He had a busted lip, downtube, leading edge, and ego.

After I made it to the C goal (different goal for every group), I hung around above the airport for awhile and then decided I might as well attempt the goal for the B pilots. I made it part of the way back upwind, but at this point conditions were getting worse, and my penetration was poor. High wind speeds and low climb rates make it hard to move into the wind.

My track log from yesterday can be downloaded at www.craigstanley.org/9-30-07.kml

(You may need to right click and select "Save Target As" and then open from your computer)

This should open up the track in GOOGLE EARTH, and zoom in. I recommend looking at the map from the side so you can see the altitude. In the track log you can see where I was turning circles in thermals and going up, and also on glide going downwind. I am interested to calculate my glide angle later on. I feel that I may have been pulling in too much and flying faster than my best glide angle.

Today's flights were quite un-eventful. The lift was very powerful, and very small. It was very difficult to turn in them. Some pilots were able to get high, and after doing so were able to stay high, but my skills were not there. I sank quite a bit after launch. There is a house below launch with a small field the size of a baseball diamond. It was actually kicking off a thermal. I flew above the house there for ~10 minutes, gaining a 40, loosing 30, gaining 30, losing 40, ect. I made it back up almost 250 feet before the thermal seemed to die off, and eventually I got low and had to go head for the landing field (First Baptist Church).

Later in the day, around 4, we went back up to the launch site to get one last flight of the day in. There was no lift left, and hardly any wind. Although it is more fun to fly thermals, it's nice to take a flight every now and then when you know there are no thermals. Then you can take in the view, enjoy the experience, take some aggressive turns, and not be concerned about losing the altitude that you know you will lose anyhow.

I did take several pictures today. Unfortunately I forgot my counter-balance for the other wing This consisted to a tape measure clamped onto my leading edge last time - not sure if that is acceptable in the Boeing manuals. These pictures were taken from the keel and the lack of a wide-angle lens is frustrating. Oh well.

Unfortunately I forgot my computer's power supply, so I have to borrow one. Additionally, the closest wireless signal is a 15 minute drive to the bottom of the mountain, so web updates won't happen very often.

-Craig

Mountain Bike

2007-09-27T10:47:00.001-05:00

Looks like I am taking the mountain bike too:

http://www.dirtworld.com/trails/trail.asp?id=1611&trail_name=South%20Rim%20Mountain%20Bike%20Trail

Forecast for Whitwell, TN

2007-09-27T10:03:00.001-05:00

I'm really liking this!

The Launch

2007-09-25T11:54:00.000-05:00

Here is a photo of the Launch Ramp at Henson's Gap, courtesy of Clark. I can't wait.

Fly

2007-09-24T16:29:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my new blog site. I plan to use this during my vacation to Tennessee for the Tennessee Tree Toppers Challenge - A "fun comp" where we fly for our personal best. Newbies like me get to fly with experts, and learn more about cliff launching and thermaling. The focus is not on winning, but rather going distances and shooting for a personal best.

So why a blogger and not regular old CraigStanley.org? Well, the blogging app let's me post via web interface, email, and most importantly, from my mobile phone via SMS. Since I'm not sure what my internet connection will be like, this opens up new possibilities. I will be able to type a text message on my phone, and then the next time I get a cell signal (can you say mile high, 3cm antenna) the text message will send and post to my blog.

As you may already know, I got a wing-mounted camera working this past weekend. I plan to fly with the camera most of the week, shooting pictures and video that I will post online when I can find a decent internet connection and some spare time.

Be sure to check back often. I plan to update from September 28th through October 7th.