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by Maurice Sheldon
Nice flying today. The wind was very slight this AM, so forward launches were the order of the day.
Tony was off the ground before me after a second attempt. Given his newness to PPG, his technique and attitude are exemplary. It's a pleasure to fly with him. I look forward to flying with him and Bill (and others?) on Tuesday at McCartney. I got some nice pictures of Tony in the air and plan to add them to my website soon.
My first launch was unsuccussful. Once my wing was stabilized overhead, I noticed I had little "runway" left and I aborted the flight. I guess I had set up to close to the ultralite hangar. I tried moving the wing to a spot with more "runway" and setting it up, all the while with my motor running on my back. I should know by now that this technique does not work in zero wind conditions. After two more attempts like this, I was still struggling on the ground with my motor putting along on my back. I decided to kill the engine, unhook, set up the wing properly and then give it a go again. This was the ticket and I got right off the ground.
The area is quite pretty, with lots of mountains in the distance, Lake Pleasant a few miles away, numerous saguaros growing quietly in the undulating landscape, and a long, curving aqueduct cutting through the land. The only drawback seems to be the that we share the air with others, including handgliding utralites, PPC's, fixed wing gliders, some fixed wing GA planes, and other traffic. I must have counted over 15 different aircraft in the air while I was flying. The air patterns seem to be well defined, but this still makes me somewhat nervous. That said, I would still come back, especially with the hospitality of Julie Potter and John Kemmeries.
Lastly, I decided to take an intro lesson with John Kemmeries, the owner of the Kemmeries Aviation ultralite park, on one of his tandem handglider trikes. We got off the ground just before noon when the thermals were just getting going. It made for some interesting flying. Those things are much more responsive than our slow, pendulum wings, and more stable in turbulence. I had a tough time relaxing, since I was thinking that if we were in a paraglider in these conditions, it would be advanced flying. Even though we were visibly bumped around, the aircraft handled the turbulence gracefully. I would highly recommend trying this. For $85 it sure opened a new window into flying for me.
by Tony Fassette
It was a gorgeous morning out there today! I arrived about 5:40 at the field and Mo was close behind.
We said "Hi" to both Greg and John. Both were very amiable and helpful. We looked for our Sun City guest, but did not see him. We did however meet a gentleman by the name of "Dunbar" that was visiting from Maine. He had a powered parachute that he was "parking" at the facility. Very nice gentleman. He will be following our post as he will be in town a bit longer and would like to meet up with others in our "gang" to fly with.
In any case, the weather conditions were ideal with approx. 6 mph winds out of the North and a tad bit of clouds keeping things a bit cooler and stable on the ground.
I was off the ground first (thanks to Mo for assisting) and had a beautiful 30 minute flight. Since I didn't get launched until about 6:20, that left me up in the air a little longer than I usually like to stay on summer days. Air was very good through 400 AGL. Got some good video of the race track and above the Southwest mountain ridge. Came back along the canal and picked up a covey of quail. Healthy covey. Looks like the rain is doing well for the wildlife this summer.
Got some video from my Kodak MC3. Once I get my streaming server running I will try to post, but for now the video is too large, (approx 5-10 meg per segment). It was interesting working around with equipment way up there. I know you folks have been doing it for a while, but the thought of losing the equipment while aloft is not comforting. Just remember to keep all items on a short leash as Mo can atest to.
Mo was finally off after contending with some obsticles (you know, cars and the such). He had an uncharacteristcally short flight. He had already flown three times this week and was satisfied with yet more air time, (Air Mo, or is that MoAir?). As always, good to see the MoMan.
John recommended that we pull our vehicles along side of the row of parked gliders next time out. It should work out very nicely as we wont' have to walk the equipment as far and there is an adjacent runway with no obsticles other than a few low level bushes. It will also take us out of the way of the main Ultralight runways.
Mo offered to to pay John and he recommended that we only pay about $2 per. John mentioned that since we really didn't take up space or use the hangar/tie downs it wasn't really something we needed to be paying for. Very cool. And you can still take a refreshing dip and fuel up on some cold water.
There was a bit more traffic out there compared to last time, but the folks flying appear to have very good air awareness and as long as you make your intentions known, it shouldn't be a problem. The Ultralights can really move in ways our PPGs cannot.
