Wendy and I had our fill of fun at REI and TJ Maxx buying crap that we needed, so the phone call came at the perfect time. We raced home. I tossed the glider on the truck and Wendy hopped on her bike. The plan was that Wendy would ride up Old La Honda Road and do the retrieve while I raced to get my glider set-up. It was already late morning, which is about a couple hours later than we usually get going to fly Windy.
I got to the top and set up my glider fairly quickly. The wuffos were everywhere asking questions about hang-gliding and all that. I, of course, obliged and patiently answered all their questions. Within about 1/2 hour I was ready to punch off...the cycles were still coming in pretty well.
There was a lot of lift when my feet left the ground at launch, but there was also a lot of sink, as well. I tried to stay in tight along the bluff at launch, but was not comfortable with the rowdy air...time to head out and find some other air to play in.
There was a fair amount of sink everywhere I looked, so I headed to the LZ. North of the LZ I found a couple bullet thermals that brought me within a couple hundred feet of launch...not bad...I was pleased. That pleasure was short-lived though as the thermals were really broken and had a significant amount of drift.
Time to land...
In my haste to get up to launch, I didn't set up a wind streamer in the LZ. The Windy Hill LZ is a postage stamp area to land, and it can be really easy to get boxed in with few options. There are quite a few pilots with solid flying skills who don't like to fly Windy because of the landing area. I've always had confidence landing at Windy, though, and may have been testing my abilities a bit too much by not setting up a streamer.
As I was setting up my approach, I opted for the usual uphill downwind approach. Midway through my "downwind" leg, I changed course and opted to land in the opposite direction (downhill / more upwind) as I could feel the air had quite an easterly flow. Everything was looking nice with the change in course. I had good speed and was at the right altitude, maybe a tad high, though. The LZ felt really active with thermals popping off left and right. Remember that thermal I hooked before landing? That came off the LZ.
As I made my turn to final I got popped up and turned into the trees along the southern edge of the postage stamp LZ...I mean really popped. I thought I was going to have a tree landing, a first in my flying career. I got the glider turned, though, but was too high to accomplish a landing within our LZ...survival mode. I'm not going to write where I landed in this post, but let's just say I had a wonderful football field hike with my glider in 4-foot tall grass...quite the workout.
Lessons learned:
* Take the time to place a streamer in the LZ
* Remember to drop all VG when landing at Windy
* See first bullet point
Overall, though, I was happy with how the landing turned out. It was one of those landings where I didn't give up and just kept flying the glider, going from Plan A to Plan D in a matter of seconds...no broken metal...no hurt pride...just an exciting flight, that's all!
Flight time: 12 minutes
Afterward, Wendy and I headed to the Alpine Inn and had a burger, hog dog, and beer which sort of knocked me out...I was beat from the hiking I had done with my 72 pound bird.
The pictures below will give you a good idea of how tall the grass is now in the LZ...
