air june 1992 - acvl · a 5.25" or 3.5" kbt disk as an ascii file or in any of the major...

NATIONALNEWSLETTER

JUNE 1992 THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE HANG GLIDING ASSOCIATION OF CANADA VOLUME 6 ISSUE 2

This newsletter is produced by the Hang Gliding Association of Canada andis published and distributed quarterly to it's members through the ProvincialAssociations. The views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarilythose of the Hang Gliding Association of Canada, its directors or the editor.Anyone may contribute articles to this newsletter although generally twopages are set aside per Province. The Editor reserves the right to editcontributions. This Newsletter is produced on a IBM compatable computeruseing Microsoft Word and Aldus Pagemaker. Contributions may be sent ona 5.25" or 3.5" kbt disk as an ASCII file or in any of the major word processingformats. Disk will be returned if accompanied with a stamped addressenvelope. Written and typed contributions will also be accepted. Send themto;Barry Bateman, 21593, 94a Avenue, Langley, BC. V1M 2A5. (604) 888 5658Published on 1st March, June, Sept, Dec. Deadlines are two weeks prior.

Provinces who # of times # of timescontributed Province HAS they HAVE NOTthis month; contributed; contributed;

----> HGABC 22 0----> ALBERTA 22 0----> SASKATCHEWAN 12 10

MANITOBA 13 9ONTARIO 17 5QUEBEC 14 8

----> NEWFOUNDLAND 15 7

Barry Bateman on final approach at Mt Woodside, BC. Photo by Dave Hunter

CONTENTS

HGAC/AVLC Directors Reportsby J. Moshard, ....................4

Safety Reportsby Stewart Midwinter................5

Airmailby HGAC Menbers .................9

Alpen Open Internationals '92by Randy Haney ..................10

California Airtimeby Dave Mitchell ..................12

About the Rocky Mtn Leagueby Karen Keller ...................14

Craik Quest '92by Doug Keller ...................16

Winter Flying in Saskatchewanby Carroll Pellitier .................18

Craik, the way I see itby Carroll Pellitier .................19

Across the Countryby Barry Bateman .................20

Man's Oldest Dream, Realisedby Geoff Schnieder ................22

The Yaw Indicatorby Al Faulkner....................24

Quit Stallin, Eh!by Al Faulkner....................26

Competition Scheduleby J.C. Hauchecorne...............27

Other Contributions from;Vincene Muller, Janet Moshard, Davis Straub, RonBennett

President: Martin Henry3595 Old Clayburn Road, Abbotsford, B.C., V2S 6B7home; (604) 854 5950

Vice President West: Mia Schokker3595 Old Clayburn Road, Abbotsford, B.C., V2S 6B7home; (604) 854 5950

Vice President East: Jacques Fontaine981 13th ave, Fabreville, PQ. H8R 4N5home; (514) 627 1444

Secretary/Treasurer: Martin PolachBox 1442 Cochrane, Alberta. T0L 0W0home; (403) 932 3680

Ratings: Rick Miller10435 79th Ave, Edmonton, Alberta. T6E 1R7home; (403) 461 3592

Competition: J.C. Hauchecorne1735 Dublin Street, New Westminster, B.C.. V3M 2Z9home; 521 1559: days; 1 800 283 8530

Airspace/Saftey/Aero Club: Stewart Midwinter444 23rd Ave N.W., Calgary, Alberta. T2M 1S4home; (403) 230 7769

FAI/Records: Vincene MullerR.R. #2 Cochrane, Alberta. T0L 0W0home; (403) 932 2759

Insurance: Kevin Thomson30 Thistledown Dr., Kitchener, Ontario. N2E 3C3home; (519) 742 5744

HGAC Editor: Barry Bateman21593 94a Ave, Langley, B.C. V1M 2A5home; (604) 888 5658

Instructor Committee Chairman: Ron Bennett339 Hawkhill Place, Calgary, Alberta. T3G 3H7home; (403) 239 7378: fax (403) 221 6950

Paragliding committee Chairman: Pierre Laplante5344 Fabre, Montreal, PQ, H2J 3W5 (514) 523 8489

Hang Gliding Association of Canadac/o Aero Club of Canada,306-1355 Bank Street,

Ottawa Ontario

Manitoba Hang Gliding Association200, Main Street, Winipeg,

Manitoba R3C 4M2

Ontario Hang Gliding Association1220 Sherpard Avenue East, Willowdale,

Ontario M2K 2X1

L` Association Quèbècoise De Vol Libre4545 Pierre de Coubertin, C.P. 1000, Succ, M,

Montrél H1V 3R2

Hang Gliding Association of NewfoundlandBox 122, Churchill FallsLabrador A0R 1A0

Hang Gliding Association ofBritish Columbia

1367 West Broadway, Vancouver,British Columbia,

Alberta Hang Gliding AssociationBox 2001, Stn M, Calgary,

Alberta, T2P 2M2

Saskatchewan Hang Gliding Association303 Main Street South, Moose Jaw,

Saskatchewan S6H 4V8

PROVINCIAL ASSOCIATIONS

PARAGLIDING RATING

30 high flights (over 300m vertical drop or two minutesairtime)- Log book must be signed by HGAC recognizedinstructor

Minimum three different sites

Five part written test (Available in English or French)- 100 multiple choice questions on aerodynamics,meteorology, flying skills, equipment knowledge andair regulations- 70 % passing mark (maximum of 6 errors) per section

Study material:Hubert Aupetit “ABC of Paragliding”or Dennis Pagen “Paragliding Flight”or Balet/Fragnière “Le Vol Libre”plus“Ultralight Aeroplane and Hang Glider InformationManual” TP 4310E: Available for $5.35 from;Transport Canada, AANDHD, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A0N8

Flight Test- 2 out of 3 flights with different assigned task as perflight test sheet and flying site/conditions. Precisionlanding in 30 meter diameter circle.

Cost $10- Must be a member of HGAC recognized ProvincialAssociation- Valid first aid recommended

N.B. If already in possession of a foreign licence of acomparable level only the written portion of the exammust be re-done to obtain a Canadian Rating.

PARAGLIDING INSTRUCTORSSTANDARDS

1 Be at least 18 years old2 Have a Canadian Paragliding rating3 Minimum of 1 year experience and 100 high flights

since obtaining rating4 2 day standard first aid course (minimum)5 2 day National Couching Certification Program

(NCCP) Level one Course (or equivalent)6 10 day apprenticeship and recommendation from

HGAC recognized paragliding instructor7 Attend a 2 day HGAC sponsored instructor’s seminar.

To Maintain Certification an Instructor Must:

1 Provide yearly student numbers to chairperson ofNational paragliding committee before the end ofJanuary.

2 Re-certify every three years3 Only sell safe gliders to properly trained individuals.4 Report accidents to their provincial association

Gross abuse of the position or failure to adhere tothese guidelines may result in rating being revoked.

HGAC ParaglidingCommittee Membersand their Responsibilities

Janet Moshard: 1992 Chairperson, Exam RevisionBox 1097, Whistler, BC V0N 1B0(604) 932 7052 Fax 932 8750

Joris Moshard: Tandem Rating(Address same as Janet Moshard)

Pierre Laplante: US and International Recognition5344 Fabre, Montreal, Quebec H2J 3W5(514) 523 8489

Heinz Hefti: Instructor and Pilot Ratings113, Rue Guy, Iberville, Quebec J2X 4W5(514) 358 32151

Sean Dougherty: Competition7128 21st Ave NW, Calgary, Alberta T2M 1K2(403) 288 9485

Paraglider Pilots!Do you know who is on the HGAC/ACVLPara Gliding Committee?Do you have something to contribute tothe development of the standards that arebeing set right now?Do you want to serve on the Para GlidingCommittee?

If you do the HGAC/ACVL suggest that you should lookup the name of a Committee member (names listed withthe HGAC/ACVL directory in this issue) serving yourarea and get the information you need. Let theCommittee now your thoughts! Don’t be afraid to

GET INVOLVED!

HGAC/AVLCDirectorsReports & Updates

HGAC RECOGNIZEDPARAGLIDING SCHOOLS

and EXAMINERS

British Columbia

Aerial Sensations ParaglidingWayne Bertrand,

Box 2039, Station R,Kelowna,

BC. V1X 4K5phone (604) 765 2FLYFax (604) 765 8200

First Flight ParaglidingCameron Mackenzie,4470 Prospect Road,North Vancouver,BC. V7N 3L7

phone (604) 988 1111

Parawest ParaglidingJanet & Joris Moshard,

Box 1097,Whistler,

BC. V0N 1B0Phone (604) 932 7052

Fax 932 8750

ALBERTA

Muller Hang Gliding and ParaglidingWilli Muller,RR #2

Cochrane,Alberta , T0L 0W0

Phone/fax (403) 932 6760

Paragliding CanadaAlex Bahlsen,

RR #2Cochrane,

Alberta, T0L 0W0phone (403) 932 4603Fax (403) 932 4656

Rocky Mountain ParaglidingGlen Derouin,P.O. Box 2662,

Canmore,Alberta, T0L 0M0

Phone (403) 678 4973

QUEBEC


A writer once remarked that there areonly 13 basic types of stories to be toldin the entire sphere of humanexperience. However, the movieindustry manages to bring out severaldozen new movies each and everyyear, continually finding new windowdressing for the same old wares. Hanggliding accidents are similar — thereare only three main types: on take-off,in the air, and on landing. Yet each andevery year pilots find new variationson the same old themes. Gatheredbelow are some of the latest examplesof local pilots’ creative efforts at self-destruction. They are presented foryou the reader to learn from and soavoid duplicating their efforts.Instead, you can move on to as-yetundiscovered variations.

One day last year it was too windy tofly paragliders at a site in France, sothe pilot decided to practice inflationswith a friend holding on to him as ananchor. Surprised by a strong gust ofwind, the pilot and assistant werelifted off the ground and blown overthe back of the peak. Eventually thehelper couldn’t hold on any more andfell 150m. The pilot, overcome by hisresponsibility for the accident,committed suicide some time after.

A group of paraglider pilots wentflying in a narrow valley overlookingChilliwack Lake in BC. As it was waytoo windy to launch at the summit,they hiked down a way, then took offand tried to penetrate across a lake toland. Three landed in the water, 30-50m offshore. One pilot wasted timetrying to swim with his paraglider,and by the time he unclipped from theharness he was too weak to swim, anddrowned.

A pilot with about 20 loops loggedwas doing more in ridge lift at a smallhill near Calgary, with a newspaperphotographer in attendance. Hestalled upside down and fell invertedfor a while, but swung aroundrightside-up below the top of the hill(i.e. less than 300 feet from theground).

Which of the following statements is

correct?a) The pilot should have thrown his

parachute as soon as he inverted as hisaltitude was so low, not waiting to try torecover;

b) There was no danger, as the glider wasbuilt to take at least 6g positive andnegative, and the pilot still had 300 feetmore to recover;

c) The photographer was impressed andprinted the photo of the upside-downglider in the local paper;

d) Looping at low altitude in strong windswith little experience is not the very bestidea;

e) There was no accident, as the pilot didn’tbreak the glider, or injure himself;

f) Both a) and d).

To check my answer I spoke to John Heiney,the world record holder for most consecutiveloops in one flight (52), about his loopingpractices. John has done hundreds of loops,and has never had to deploy his parachute.John said he was very concerned about thisaccident and wondered about the impact tothe sport and other pilots in the area had thelooper hit the ground. He admitted tooccasionally looping his glider at 300-foot-high Torrey Pines, but only if he has beendoing many loops recently at high altitude, isfeeling well, and his glider is flying properly.Oh yes, at Torrey, even though he may be atlow altitude he is flying over water, not hardground, and he is in smooth coastal air.

John believes that even if beginning loopershave an initial success, eventually they getinto a rut of unsuccessful loops which doesnot end until they truly understand themechanics. So all of a pilot’s first 100 or moreloops should be done at high altitude, wherethe pilot has time to attempt a recovery ordeploy his parachute(s). By comparison, thispilot has about 20 loops experience.

John also believes that ballistic parachutesare not a bad idea for this type of flying, asthey allow a pilot to deploy his 'chute even ifhe has fallen into the airframe and folded upthe glider around himself; he notes that someaerobatics pilots fly with two parachutes.

Finally, John remarked that many stalledloops result in the glider tumbling, which

1992 1st Quarter Saftey Report

BY STEWART MIDWINTER

.....continued on next page

pilots are unaware of how turbulent the air canbe above this field. Pilots should approachwith lots of speed and bear in mind Pagen’ssuggestion not to fly outside the boundaries ofa tree-lined field in strong winds.

An advanced pilot was competing in the east-ern US and scratched too low. He struck adead tree while approaching the landing fieldand fell to the ground, suffering a collapsedlung among other injuries, and damaging hisnew glider.

A junior intermediate pilot was trying tothermal close to the trees at Deadman’s andwas dumped, hitting the trees and fallingupside down to the ground hard, damaging theglider but luckily without injury. The cardinalrule for thermalling is: always leave enoughroom to make a 360 toward the hill in sink. Anadvanced pilot launching at Deadman’s let awing come up on takeoff and was turnedimmediately; he scraped his wingtip alongthe cliff face that forms the launch, butnarrowly avoided crashing. Anotheradvanced pilot competing at Deadman’s triedto get firstly over then, after hitting sink,

Another 3 months, another crop of accidents.Quite a few took place over just one weekend-the Easter long weekend. This is the first longweekend of the year, and for many pilots it istheir first serious flying of the year. They arerusty and forget in some cases to leave a littlewider margin for error at this time of year.

Another factors in many accidents is that thepilot was doing two or more new things atonce. A good rule of thumb is that the dangergoes up with the square of the number of newfactors. If you are trying a new glider at a newsite, your risk is 2x2 = 4 times higher. If youare also flying in strong conditions which youare not used to, the risk is 8 times higher. Andso on.

An intermediate pilot on a brand-new gliderwas soaring at Cochrane in southerly windsand tried to top-land in the big field N of theroad. He made an approach eastward over thetrees downwind of the field and, when he hita large eddy while turning into the wind,continued around and hit the trees downwind,destroying his glider and nearly severing onefinger (he was not wearing gloves). Many

regularly leads to structural failure.Deploying a parachute quickly andsuccessfully from a broken glider can bedifficult, as an American pilot recentlyreported from his hospital bed.

In another incident, eight paraglider pilotswere scratching in light SE winds atCochrane. Three were higher than the othersand flying W (downwind). The lead pilotsuddenly turned and flew out from the hill andthe second pilot hit the first pilot’s leadingedge with his feet. If he had been 1 meterlower...! There were several contributingfactors to this incident. Firstly, the secondpilot could have reacted by quickly divingbehind the lead pilot; he did not do so.Secondly, the lead pilot could havecompleted his turn and then have flown E, butthe third pilot was right behind the secondpilot, and in the way. Finally, the first couldhave checked the airspace more closely

before turning.In another incident, a HG pilot started a tow ina light crossing tailwind. As he lifted off thetruck, the weak link failed and he driftedacross the road to the downwind side, stillpointed down the road. He wanted to land intothe wind or across the road, but he felt an AGTmarker post in the ditch was in his path, so heturned downwind and landed hard, breakingdowntubes. The simple lesson here is toconsider what might happen if your weak linkfails on takeoff: are you prepared mentally?do you have a landing place?

A pilot was ridge-soaring at Owl’s Head withan HP-1 in NW winds 60 km/h or more. After45 minutes, he couldn’t penetrate any more,so tried to top land in a tiny tree-lined parkinglot and was rotored to the ground, fatallyinjuring himself. A better choice might havebeen to land in the trees, and a better one yetnot to fly in such winds. (Did he get a forecastprior to flying?). S.M.

around south-facing cliffs in a strong NWwind; continuing in heavy sink, he had tosuddenly land in a clearing at the base, and notbeing able to open his zipper at the lastmoment, fell down and broke a downtube.Wheels would have saved his glider.

An advanced pilot competing at Deadman’swas flushed by continuing heavy sink.Arriving over the infamous “crash pad” LZ,he could not see a windsock to indicate winddirection, so he descended into the “ToiletBowl” LZ to make a perfect landing beside awindsock there. Several other pilots thatfollowed him landed in the crash pad becauseit was convenient; one broke a $100 downtubeand another ground-looped his glider.Surprise! This paragraph is not about anaccident; for a change, it’s about an accidentavoided, at the price of only a 15 min. walk outto get a car.

An intermediate pilot scratched below the topat Camrose and was rotored by a bump outfront. He hit the hill with his wingtip and benta downtube with his shoulder, but somehowcontinued flying and landed at the bottom. Anadvanced pilot at Camrose left his recentlyoverhauled glider unattended and it blewover, damaging the sail and a leading edge;two weeks earlier a similar fate befell anotherglider of his. Another advanced pilot atCamrose tried an unusual top-landingapproach and hit trees, damaging the sail onhis glider.

An intermediate pilot at Longview took off aswinds were building and soon was blownback; he landed safely on top but then theglider was flipped over by the wind, breakingthe downtubes.

An advanced pilot top-landed at Cochrane inthe falling dark and stalled down the last 3m,breaking a downtube; wheels would havesaved his glider.

An intermediate pilot with little soaringexperience made a turn toward the hill atLongview and froze; he hit the hill hard(luckily with big wheels to lessen thedeceleration) and broke the downtubes, keeland bent several battens, also fracturing hiselbow. This is a reminder that ridge-soaring isa dangerous activity, especially for those withlittle knowledge.

An intermediate pilot landed in earlyafternoon in thermalling conditions after atow flight and nosed in heavily, dislocating


continued from previous page.....

1992 2nd Quarter Saftey Report



FAI Sporting Licence

The Aero Club of Canada hasincreased the price of the SportingLicence to $15.00 effectiveimmediately. A postage andhandling fee of $1.00 has also beenadded making the NEW PRICE OFA SPORTING LICENCE $16.00

New application forms are availablefrom;

Vincene Muller,HGAC Records and Statistics

Committee,RR#2, Cochrane, Alta, TOL OWO.

phone or fax (403)932-6760.

The HGAC Record and Badgepackage is also available fromVincene Muller. Cost is $10.00 andincludes a copy of the sporting code;all documents necessary for badgeand record applications; a guide toBadges and Records; current list ofCanadian Official Observers;Current list of Canadian and WorldRecords.

ACTIVITY Fatalities/100,000Airshow ................500Home-built aircraft ........300General aviation ......... 145Timber faller/logger........129Airline pilot .............. 97Motorcycle rider .......... 80Ballooning............... 67Power line installer/repair ... 5015-25 yr male driving a car .. 50Fireman ................ 49Sailplane soaring ......... 45Peace Corps............. 42Garbage collector ......... 40Truck driver ............. 40All terain vehicle .......... 36Roofer ................. 32Driving a car ............. 28Skydiving ............... 25Flight attendant........... 23Hang gliding ............. 22Real estate agent .......... 7Editors & reporters ......... 4

number of deaths4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

fatality rate per 100,00010 12 15 17 20 22 25 27 30

The above statistics were taken fromthe April 1992 issue of the USHGA's"Hang Gliding" magazine and reflecthang gliding fatalties in the USA in1991. The breakdown of hang gliderpilots in the USA is as follows;

USHGA Pilots 8,060Non-USHGA Pilots 1,600Students 18,567Tandem Students 8,693

TOTAL 36,920

his shoulder. As he was several hundredmeters from the windsock, it is likely the winddirection was different where he landed andhe was in fact downwind. In thermally or lightand variable conditions, land close to thewindsock! S.M.

Paticepants in the HGAC/AVLC Paragliding Instructors Course, heldMay 2-3, 1992 in Whistler, B.C.

L-R; Alex Bahlsen, Glen Derouin, Wayne Bertrand, Joris Moshard,Janet Moshard, and Cameron MacKenzie

Tandem Instructors(informal) Clinic

July 16-17, Golden B.C.

If you are presently offering tandemflights and would like to glean andshare as much information as you canfrom and with other tandem pilots, youare invited to attend an informaltandem clinic, chaired by StewartMidwinter on July 16-17. Thedisscussion will center around theexperiences of the various tandempilots present, so as to pass on anyuseful tips and tricks they may havefound that could be of use to othersoffering tandem flights. There will be nocharge as everyone present isexpected to participate. There is alsothe possibility of some tandem towingtaking place, but that decision will bemade at the clinic.

For more information contact;Stewart Midwinter444, 23rd Ave NW

Calgary, T2M 1S4 Altatel (403) 230 7769

ROCKY MOUNTAIN PARAGLIDING&

AERIAL SENSATIONS PARAGLIDING

Are hosting an:

Advanced Paragliding Manoeuvres CourseWhere: Sicamouse, BC

When: July 25, 26, 27. Cost: $100 per day.

Which Includes transport from landingto launch, floatation gear, motorboatstandby, instruction of advancedmanoeuvres.

Instructors will be Glenn Derouin andWayne Bertrand, both hold HGAC andforeign instructors ratings.

Participants must have currentprovincial and HGAC memberships,logbook and a reserve parachute.

We suggest participants be at anintermediate to advanced level of flyingand are capable of doing steep ramplaunches.

If you are interested in attending a$25.00 deposit is required before July7th to reserve a spot in the coursealong with the following information;

Name: Age:Address: Glider type:Number of flights: Hours Logged:

Number of years flying:

Send to:Aerial Sensationsc/o Wayne Bertrand

Box 2039, Postal Stn RKelowna, BC V1X 4K5Ph: (604) 765 2FLYor (403) 678 4973

For almost four years, we have beenthe importers of A.D.C. products,which is one of the best brands on themarket. In our continuing search forexcellence, we now have the pleasureto tell all of Canada that we are nowimporters for “NOVA”, the paragliderthat has been acclaimed “sail of the

year”. We also carry the “FLYTEC”range of varios.

If you are already in the hang gliding orparagliding business and want you andyour customers to ‘fly higher andfurther’ on our products, just give us acall or send a fax to;

MICHEL MONTMINY or BENOIT TREMBLAYAtelier de la Glisse

224 Saguenay, St-Fulgence, P.Q., Canada. G0V 1S0tel; (418) 674 9276 or fax; (418) 674 9451

DEALER REQUIRED

ATELIER DE LA GLISSE INC (CANADA)

CHECKLIST9 Front horseshoe10 Front stall11 Pre-stall feel12 Full stall13 Rear riser stall14 Pre-negative feel15 Negative spin (stall recovery)16 Negative spin (opposite brake

recovery)17 Reserve deployment

1 Pendulum action2 Wingovers3 Steep spirals4 Ears with 1 outside A-line5 Ears with 2 outside A-lines6 B-line stall

EXERCISES OVER WATER7 50% collapse (fast correction)8 80% collapse (correction after

180° turn)

CRITERIUMINTERNATIONAL

DE PARAPENTE DELA RENUNION

Oct 27 - Nov 1, 1992

The Reunion Paragliding andHang Gliding Association haveannounced that the thirdInternational ParaglidingChampionships of ReunionIsland will take place October 27to November 1, 1992.- Meet Director will be Alain

Barthere.- The World’s best pilot have

been invited- 40,000FF worth of prizes will

be offered.- Entry fee is 500FF which

includes transportation tolaunch and retrieval.

- Licence or rating from pilotscountry of residence isrequired.

- Safe equipment and a radioare required for the contest.

45 pilots will be accepted for thecompetition. These pilots will bedivided into 3 groups.- The top 30 pilots will be

ranked according to officialcompetitions or

- Pilots National CompetitionRanking or

- Registration Date(The organizer will make thefinal decision)

Two qualifying rounds will beavailable to the pilots who don’tappear on the top 30 list and willbe organized the week beforethe official contest. The top 10from the qualifier will advance tothe competition.

The contest rules followed willbe those of the FFVLA special airfare + for 15 days isavailable departing from France.

For more information contact:Vincene Muller,

HGAC Record & Statistics,RR#2, Cochrane Alta TOL OWOph and fax: (403) 932-6760

Airmail.....

I guess you might call this a letter to the editor.It concerns an event which happened at thelast AGM of the HGAC. The event was theelection of officers, and my representation ofJohn French as a ratings Officer. I feel that Idid not do a fair job on John’s behalf, but thecircumstances behind this could have easilyhappen to anyone.

What happened at this here AGM was thatJohn French was depicted as being ready tostep down as Rating Officer, so Rick Millergraciously (?) offered his services for theposition. Unfortunately John wasn’t ready toretire, and that was the position I was ready torepresent at the AGM. But statements weremade at the meetings to the contrary, and Iwasn’t prepared for these. Upon hearing theseremarks I thought I had mis-interpreted Johnin our telephone conversation of the weekbefore, so I kind of went along with the

Communicationbreakdown

statements. All this led to ageneral consensus that John wasready to call it quits, which hewasn’t.

I now wish to make a publicapology to John, for such poorrepresentation. Secondly I wish tomake a recommendation.Sometimes when parties gettogether for short periods of time,especially by phone, the wrong

ideas or opinions get transmitted. This canlead to misrepresentation, as was the casehere.

My suggestion, is that, in the future anyperson wishing to seek a position on the boardof officers should place his/her intent in letterform, a form that can be placed before themeeting by a representing person.Conversely, anyone wishing to remain in aposition, or step down from service should doso in letter form. This may seem funny in thatthe HGAC sometimes, in fact most of thetime, has problems drawing volunteers, butthe suggestion should prevent future mis-communication.

This is a good example of howcommunications can sometimes go awry, solets see if we can prevent future breakdowns.Sorry John, and all the best Rick, thanks toboth for making their services available in thebetterment of Hang Gliding in Canada.

Chris Walters, PresidentHang Gliding Association of Newfoundland.

Ahhhh Chute!

Recently in the Vancouver area there hasbeen some controversy over therequirements of backup chutes forparagliders. Here are some thoughtssubmitted by Randy Haney, who lives andworks in Europe, where paragliding is verypopular. Ed.

Regarding the recent discussions on backupparachutes for paragliders, they should, inmy opinion, be mandatory. Also, I believemost pilots are simply too ignorant becauseof their inexperience - or better, haven't theeducation to really know how importantthey are. Flying paragliders above all seemstoo easy for most people and in fact it oftenis. Controlling a paraglider which has beencollapsed by unseen turbulence is anotherstory. Rather than law - which is oftenignored out of pure spite if nothing else, Ithink the answer could be in education.After all, I don’t know of one top paragliderpilot there in Europe who flys without abackup chute regardless, and I know a lot ofthem. When I think back to what I thoughtwas OK (just because I didn’t know anybetter) when I began to fly it makes mewonder how I am still alive today. I’ve hadsome hard knocks, and even used myparachute once under a broken glider not tomention numerous other times when I wasreally happy to have it. In over 2000 hoursI’ve seen some pretty good reasons whynever to fly without one. So I guess in short,I still think it’s just a matter of educationbecause without that how does anybodyknow you are not just trying to make themagree to your whims or - “Kiss Ass”!

Randy Haney

Dan for wrongly attributing his article tosomeone else, and to Al who suddenly foundhimself the victim of Dan's creative letterwriting through no fault of his own. Both Aland Dan are, or have been editors of varioushang gliding newsletters and no intent wasmeant to belittle their accomplishments.

Now, if only I could get them to direct theircreative writing to me in the form of anarticle!

Barry Bateman, Ed.

It seems that I have managed to createsome creative literary writing, butunfortunately, not in the form of an article.In the last issue I reproduced the article"Glider Talk" that I found in the Nfld"Atlantic Inflight" magazine and due tonot thoroughly checking the magazine,attributed the author to being Al Faulknerfrom Nfld. It would appear that I waswrong and therefore sparked some'creative correspondence'(?) back andforth across the country as the author wasin fact Dan Fabian from Vancouver, BC.

My Apologies must go to you both. To

Editor creates "East-West tensions"!Apology Required

1992 CANADIANNATIONALSJuly 18-25, 1992

Mt Seven, Golden, BC

There will be three award categories;Lightweight, Middleweight, andHeavyweight. Entry Fee $30

Co-Meet Directors will be RonBennett, Calgary, (403) 239 7378 andJ.C. Hauchecorne, Vancouver, BC

(604) 521 1559

The Hang Gliding Associationof British Columbia

(Randy, Canada's #1 pilot, currently residesin Austria where he works for FLYFa.Villinger, the European Wills Wingfactory and representative. This is an accountof one of the many competitions that Randyhas participated in, and hopefully morereports will follow as the competition seasonprogress's. Ed)

What began as more of as local competitionsome years ago, because of goodorganization, task and weather (not tomention a reasonable entry fee and prizes totenth place) has now become very popularwell attended International event in Austria.Gnadenwald (for those who are not familiar)is located just 10 km east of Innsbruck on thenorth side of the valley. Directly behindlaunch is a typical Austrian style Hut-resturant for snacks and drinks before startand in the landing area there was also a dayand night beer garden for the spectatorsand..... Because of its close vicinity specialclearance had been grated from the Innsbruckairport which allowed tasks to be called thattook us directly by the city offering somefantastic views along the way.

Day 1 Conditions where good enough to calla 114 km task to the west direction of StAnton, with the turnpoint at Uztal and with 2positional photo’s along the way to insure thatwe remained on the north side of the valleyand not flying in the Inns control zone.Working against a variable headwind afterrounding the corner after Inns was a littleslow, but those who pressed on found good liftafter the gap of Telfs and made the turnpoint.No big secrets on this day, pilots were flyingat all altitudes and still getting results so it waspretty good. Ruppert Plattner ended up as thefastest pilot of the day with 3:55:00 - almost30 minutes faster then the next pilot. Sixpilots completed the task in all, R. Plattner,Michael Endl, Manfred Ruhmer, KarlReichegger, Ermino Bricoli and RandyHaney getting times within only a few

minutes of each other. Many other pilots werespread out in 10 km of fields before the gaolat Gnadenwald where late in the day the liftwas light and the east valley head wind hadbegan. Most notable on this day was RobertSwaiger who flying his Pro DesignChallenger flew also to the turnpoint andreturned - landing within 15 km of gaol!

Day 2. Robert Swaiger again, showed us itwas a reasonable day launching early toattempt the same course as day one - withbarograph. For us it was a four turnpoint 112km task, Innsbruck ski lift, Achensee Bottomstation, then across the Inn-tal into Zillertalturning at the intersection of Zell am Zillerthen back to Achensee for the final controlpoint before streaking to gaol. Before start wewere treated to some expensive entertainmentas a pilot forgot to hook into his glider. Quickto react he released the glider as he went offthe end of the ramp and luckily fell harmlesslyinto the bushes directly below. Unfortunatelyfor his flying machine things were not sogood, as it stalled, dove and generally zoomedaround for 2 or 3 minutes before selfdestructing on impact far below, Wow!

Getting back to the course, the difficult partseemed to be in getting up again after crossinginto the Zillertal, where lift down low wasweak, broken and drifting. This was not to beexpected by most pilots whose experiencedstronger conditions in the Inn-tal where therewas a thermal for everybody. Even so, oncegetting the first lift in Zillertal many pilotsmade it to 3500 meters (11,500 ft). Fantastic!From this altitude one could see clearly intothe German flatlands which then lay inverted,and even across into Italy where thecloudbase was existing much lower. 13 pilotsmade it into goal this day, Randy Haney beingthe fastest and also very happy taking the2000 schillings day money, with KarlReichegger close behind. Notable next wasWilli Vonblon, a good and new and alsoyoung up and coming pilot from Foralburg,

Austria. Stefano Bricoli streaked in less thana minute after Willi with 9 other pilotsfollowing. Interesting enough of the 13 totalin goal, 5 were Italians! A few tired pilotsadded to the entertainment in the landing areaby thundering in and taking out a few controlframes.

Day 3. 110 km with two turnpoints. Strongconditions - an Owens Valley day. Climbswere very strong in the first hours but afterrounding the corner after Innsbruck so wasthe wind - and all associated turbulence. AlexBusca, one of the best Italian pilots I’ve everseen was flying his K4 high near Telfes whenexiting a thermal his glider tucked under him.Alex lost the base tube almost immediatelyand the glider tumbled further. After somerevolutions the glider broke and began tospin. Being a cool type Alex surveyed thingspretty well before deciding to throw his chuteas he was pretty high. Unfortunately uponthrowing the chute it was directly consumedby the spinning glider and never did open. Atapproximately 2000 meters (6500 ft) Alexspun into the trees on the side of the mountain,got up and walked away - carrying his brokenglider and bent up harness with him! Wow!For the rest of the pilots things went on andafter Telfes the going was good untilAcheensee when things got mixed up byslight overdevelopment and valley crosswinds. Many pilots went down here just shortof the second turnpoint in valley winds. Atthis point I had the misfortune of deadbatteries on my vario. Lucky for me DrewCooper and Karl Reichegger were alwaysnearby and allowed me the reference I neededto finish the task. Karl won the day withRandy Haney second and Fritz Scodl thirdwhile Ermino was again close by being one ofthe 4 Italians to make gaol from a total of tenfinishers. Manfred Ruhmer flew to within 100meters of goal just a few meters to low to getover the trees before goal. Ruppert Plattnerbeing a few meters higher than Ruhmer justcleared the trees and squeaked into thelanding area making a spectacular but perfectdownwind landing in front of the beer garden.

Day 4. Early in the morning while I was at theWills Wing shop in Hall, in walked AlexBusca. Alex was keen to fly again but neededsome equipment to do it. (His glider broken,harness bent and ‘chute ripped!) I wasimpressed! Within about one hour I was ableto organize things for Alex, giving him my163 Super Sport and one of my own selfdesigned and built harness’s after packing asleek new metamorfosi ‘chute just in case.

The forecast was for conditions to be not asgood as the previous days - withnorthwesterly winds and possibilities ofoverdevelopment. For these reasons the task

ALPEN OPENINTERNATIONALS '92BY RANDY HANEY

called was shorter with one turnpoint at Telfesand return to Gnadenwald for a total of 67.2km. Until the corner of the range by Innsbruckthings were really easy, after that theheadwind was stronger and more than half ofthe pilots went down within 5 km of theturnpoint covering the fields with Dacronnear Telfes. Being patient and taking someslow climbs before the turnpoint allowed 24pilots to get their photo’s. 14 of these finishedthe task, one of them being Alex Busca, whoon the Super Sport, seemed to have no troublewhatsoever keeping the pace and finished 6thfor the day - his best placing ever in the AlpenOpen! Bravo Alex! Ruppert Plattner had thefastest time for the day, second was RandyHaney, followed by Karl Reichegger who wasjust 50 seconds behind. Next to come wereManfred Ruhmer and Ermino Bricolifinishing high like everybody else, as therewas much un-normal lift directly over thevalley on the final glide to goal where oftenyou could expect sink and a headwind instead.

Day 5. Because it looked likeoverdevelopment early in the day the officialtask was called off and in its place they madea 3000 schilling prize for spot landing in frontof the beer garden. Unlike many competitionswhere everybody just wants to go home on thelast day, the atmosphere was still really aliveand more than 70 % of the pilots stayed to flyfor the spot and watch the many interestingattempts of pilots trying to get their feet in apool of water which was the target. In additionto that, both Randy Haney and RuppertPlattner performed aerobatic routines,turning their gliders upside down over thelanding area, complete with the batonsattached and trailing smoke marking themanoeuvres. Finally Peter Muller flew also agreat aerobatic routine with his “Saltu”sailplane and impressed everybody bymaking a spectacular landing directly in frontof the crowd, Fantastic! In the end there wasa three way tie for the spot landing withMarkus Gullen, Wolfgang Kothgasse, andRandy Haney who had all splashed down inthe water bull’s-eye with variable force.

Who won the meet? Karl Reichegger andRandy Haney were often seen flying near toeach other throughout the meet. In fact therewas a constant battle going on as they racedeach other throughout the whole competitionwith only a few minutes or just secondsseparating them on all days. In the end, after4 days, over 13 hours of flying and 410 km indistance the scores for Haney and Reicheggerwere both 3769 points - a tie for first place!!!It was really amazing! Ruppert Plattner tookthird flying hot and fast making up time aftermissing goal on day 2.

At the closing ceremonies it was nice to see 10

people being presented with trophies and $$$prize money, as opposed to just the first threeplaces. So it ended, with Fun and Flare after4 solid days of good competition flying, goodorganization and entertainment. With resultslike that we should see the Alpen Open gettingeven more popular in ’93, see you there!

Many thanks from us all to, Waxi & SabineSiess, Rudi & Margot Knorr, MarkusVillinger and Gerwolf Heinrichs fororganizing and running such a great meet. Notto be forgotten either is Fritz who served greatfood and drink in his beer garden throughoutthe meet making the atmosphere in thelanding zone 100% brighter every day.

Final Results;1 Randy Haney 37691 Karl Reichegger 37693 Ruppert Plattner 36234 Manfred Ruhmer 33705 Ermino Bricoli 33165 Ernst Gostner 33167 Markus Wieser 31148 Rudolf Dornauer 30549 Drew Cooper 300510 Michael Endl 2971

Spectra Towline


Roger Nelson has contracted an Ontariomanufacturer to make him 30,000 feet of2.3 mm (.09") dia coated, braided, 700 lbtest Spectra towline, and is offering it forsale for .11¢/ft. The tow rope will weighonly 5 lbs for 3,000 ft.

The present 1/4" tow rope used on manysystems creates about 100 lbs of drag for3,000 ft. Adding this to the 25-30 lbs ofdrag your glider normally producesreduces your L/D ratio from 10:1 to 2.3:1on tow and gives you a poor climb rate,which is why you need high tension at thetop of the tow. Also, the haevy weight ofthe rope adds about 25 lbs to the weight

your glider carries on tow, increasing thestall speed.

Reducing the line diameter, and weightvastly improves matters. The 2.3 mm lineshould create about 38.6 lbs of drag (65%less than the 1/4" line), and reduces your L/D ratio from 10:1 to 4.2:1, almost twice asgood as with the larger rope. And since3,000 ft of the thinner rope weighs only 5lbs, your stall speed will not be affected.Your climb rate would be much greaterwith less line tension, which wouldincrease safety.

If you would like more information,contact Roger Nelson,154 Chinook Drive,

Cochrane, Alberta, T0L 0W0res: (403) 932 6598 bus: (403) 266 2241

Horseshoes on tow?

Recently Martin Henry installed a newparagliding type tow line recoverysystem on his tow system, but the firsttime he tried it, it fell unopened to theground, and the line stretched across, acanal, a dyke, a fence, a stand of treesand a swamp!

In desperation, he asked the driver tohit the rewind motor anyway: the'chute popped open, and pulled the lineinto the air, clearing all the obstaclesand flew back to the truck!

And then there was his wife Mia, whowhist towing recently down in ChelanWashington, was so intent on gettingas much height from the tow aspossible that she managed to pull theentire 5,000 ft of Spectra towline of thedrum!

She managed to release the linewithout any problem but it did take awhile for the driver to find it in thefield, and when he did he had to stretchit out before he could rewind it, andthat's about a mile of towline. He wasnot impressesed.

The AlbertaHang Glider Asso-ciation

Our trip started early Saturday morningMarch 21st. The sun was just rising as we tookoff on runway 16 from Edmonton Municipal,bound for San Francisco via CalgaryInternational. At Calgary, as we finishedtaxiing out to the runway for takeoff aboard a727, I watched the flaps go in and out fourtimes. I said to Rick and Lois "we've gotproblems", after which the captain announcedthat the plane had a malfunctioning micro-switch, and that we would have to return to theterminal. On our return to the terminal, thecrew turned the wing deicing system on fullblast for a few minutes. Because of the cooltemperatures and the fact the plane had justbeen started for it's first flight of the day, theswitch had frozen! Before we arrived back atthe terminal, the captain announced that theswitch was now working, so we taxied back tothe runway and took off without anybodycoming out to check the flaps. Whew! Theplane flew and we lived.

We had great aerial scenery for almost theentire trip between Calgary and SanFrancisco, starting with the Rockies, then thesouthern Columbia Valley as we passeddirectly over Cranbrook, onto Spokane, andfinally into central California. The flightended with a tour of San Francisco Bay. Weapproached from the north over the ocean,passing to the west of the Golden Gate bridge,then over San Francisco, and across the bay toOakland. We then followed the contour of thebay all the way to San FranciscoInternational.

After getting our luggage and rental van inquick order, we raced off south on Hwy 101,for the 90 miles between the airport andSalinas. Rick was driving about 80 mph on a55mph posted road! Once we checked intoour motel, Rick and I drove the 15 miles westto Marina, in search of Marina Beach StatePark, home of "Western Hang Gliders" andthe State controlled flying site. When wearrived we could see a pair of gliders soaring

the sand dunes, which ranged in height froma few feet to 100 ft asl. One of the pilots welater found out was 72 years old, and a realcharacter. We both felt the need for glidersnow!, but would not be able to get any fromthe Pacific Airwave factory until the next day.

Sunday the 22nd dawned sunny, but pre-frontal with a big low pressure system just offshore. The wind was southeast, which meantthe west facing beach was off for the day.After walking around the Pac-Air factorygetting a pre-tour view of the shop fromsailmaker Sue Christie, we gave up on flyingfor the day. Rick, Lois, and I loaded up the vanand headed south down Hwy 1 which runs upand down the coast. We saw some fantastichouses and coastal scenery, especially by acommunity called Big Sur. It is hear that arange of mountains meets the sea, making forlots of high coastal cliffs. We made it to about15 miles north of the Big Sur flying site whenwe were turned back by torrential rain, thelow was now overhead! It rained hard allafternoon and most of the night.

Monday the 23rd again dawned sunny so wewere up early, finished with breakfast andheaded over to Pacific Airwave for 8:00am,which is when they open for business. Wehoped to see the factory in action for a coupleof hours, then scoop up a pair of new factorydemo gliders and catch some post frontalwesterlies down at the beach. Well, thewesterlies were to light to be soarable, so wehung out at the shop until after lunch. Rick andI really got to know the staff and the layoutand functions at Pac-Air. I helped Dana, theguy who does almost all the airframeassembly and sail mounting. We took the sailsoff of two gliders, changed a broken keel, andresailed another glider. (This knowledge wasa great help, as Rick found out later back inEdmonton). We had both taken sails off of ourown gliders, and had them down at Pac-Airwith us. Rick's had a new trilam leading edgeand the trailing edge fixed and I had a

modification which added two outboardbattens, and two small patches put on my Kisssail. In all, I took off 4 sails from 3 glidermodels, and resailed 3 gliders. In total, Iworked on 6 different glider models duringthe week (K2-145, K2-155, K3, Vision Pulse10m, Vision Pulse 11m, and a double Vision).Rick kept mostly to ̀hands off the gliders'kind of work, but was still able to pick up a lotof information and helpful hints. While wewere resailing our gliders, Rick was havingtrouble refitting his sail. So, I took it off, andstarted again, and was able to slide it back onlike a pro.

After being back from lunch for awhile, wenoticed that the wind was light west outside,so we phoned the beach to get a report. It wasnot yet soarable, but seemed to be slowlypicking up and several gliders were set upwaiting. We did not need to hear any more, sowe loaded up a new K3 for Rick and a K2-145for myself and took off for the beach, leavingLois abandoned at a shopping mall. At leastToni, one of the office staff, said she would beable to pick Lois up when she phoned afterfinishing shopping.

Arriving at Marina Beach, we went intoWestern Hang Gliders shop and signed in onthe site registry. We then had to buy a diversknife, having already borrowed one fromToni. Signing in and flying with a divers knifeare state park regulations. (Hook knives donot meet this requirement because if you landin the surf where the waves are breaking, theglider will be flattened on you like someonestepping on a Styrofoam cup and you mightneed to cut your way up through the sailbefore the waves can drag you out to sea).Over the years, two pilots have drowned atMarina Beach. The biggest waves we sawduring our time there were 10 to 12 ft high asthey were breaking in the shallows.The wind never did get strong enough to getup high enough in front of the ramp to crossthe gap where all the sand dunes start and run

CALIFORNIA AIRTIME(Rick, Lois, and Dave's Adventure Down South)

BY DAVE MITCHELL

for 9 miles. The launch ramp (40 asl) sits ona dune about 100 ft long, so you have to makepasses on it to get high enough to cross the300 ft gap where there are no dunes. We eachdid 4 flights from the ramp, with Rick's bestbeing 4 passes on the dune and 2 for myself,before we sunk out and had to land. The airwas very smooth and bouyant, even in thegap, for the light wind we had. There are onlytwo ways to land on the beach. One is to land90° across. The other is to fly into the windtowards the water, slow to a mush mode, thenpush the glider pass stall until it stops, or youwill be in the water every time. It is differentto what we are used to, to say the least. Wepacked up our gliders while watching aPacific coast sunset, and hating every grain ofsand on the beach. It is horrible for breakingdown when the glider is covered in mist fromthe surf and the humidity of the evening. Thesand practically leaps of the beach to get ontoand into every part of the glider.

Lois gave us a bit of a ribbing when we arrivedback at the motel. Firstly, we had left her atthe mall in the afternoon, and then we were atleast an hour late getting back from the beach.Well, the wind had began to pick up an hourbefore sunset, so we had to stay to see if itwould become soarable. What else is new?

Tuesday the 24th dawned sunny again, but theforecast was not sounding good. The next lowpressure system was just off shore, andquickly moving inland. After breakfast, weagain arrived at the Airwave factory around8:00am. We were looking forward to meetingKen Brown who was expected back fromMexico. Ken had 5 days of missed work,which he took care of in 3-4 hours, by whichtime the weather was looking much better. Ittook very little persuasion to get him out ofthe shop with flying in mind. We loaded 5gliders onto a factory four wheel drive truck,and headed out. Our idea was to head north toanother state flying site (Ed Levin Park)which is 40 miles southeast of San Francisco.A quick phone call while at the gas stationshot that idea down. The road to launch is dirtfor it's 600 vertical feet, and had been closedby the parks department due to heavy rains.Much to our relief Ken said "no problem!".We would go to a site called ̀Lake Anderson'which was even closer.

We set out and arrived at a wide open grasslaunch and top landing area with a great viewof a small valley. There were 2 reservoirs inview, Cayote to the south and Lake Andersonto the north. Farther out in front of this valleyis a much wider valley, similar to theColumbia Valley, but the mountains were notas high. Ken mentioned an interesting factabout the valley at the base of the hill whichwe were about to fly off; it was created by a

fault line. The wind was about 45° acrosswhen we arrived, but was blowing straight inby the time we had set up our gliders. Settingup is one thing Ken is very good at, he couldeasily set up 3 gliders to our 1. Ken took offfirst as Rick and I looked on to see what toexpect out front. Ridge life was light butthere. After spending a few minutes at 50 to100 ft over, Ken found a light thermal andstarted to work his way up. This was enoughfor Rick, so he hooked into the K3 he hadflown the day before. There was a good cyclewaiting out front, which quickly took him toabout 400 ft over. We only had one vehicle ontop, so out plans was to keep one person on theground in case somebody sank out. Thisworked out well, as Ken was test flying brandnew gliders before delivery to dealers, as perHGMA regulations. It did not take him long toput a Vision Pulse 10m through it's paces,then he came down to give me a chance to fly.Rick was still well above as I took off with theK2-145 I had flown the day before. I got alittle above for a few minutes, then the windsock on launch started to droop, and I began tosink below launch. It was about then I beganto think of the small sloping emergency fieldI might soon be landing in if I sank out. I wasabout 200 ft below launch before my variobegan to sing it's little song. I had found amellow, easy to work thermal, good for about300-400 fpm. I never went below ridge heightagain, and ended my flight with a top landinga little over an hour later.

While Rick and I were flying, Ken was settingup a Vision Pulse 11m. Soon a vehicle arrivedcarrying 2 gliders on top, thus allowing allthree of us to fly together. Ken did his testflight routine on the 11m, then once againwent down to land. This time Ken started toset up a Double Vision, but before he couldfinish, Rick got put below launch by a big sinkhole. The windsock was lightly flapping, butpointing in the opposite direction. I lost atleast 500 ft but was able to stay above launch.Rick scratched like crazy for probably 8minutes, slowly sinking out and finallysetting up and landing in the demandingemergency field 800 ft below launch. Hebonked the landing a little bit, but did nothingto the glider except a few grass stains on a newwhite leading edge. I was glad I did not haveto follow him in, but he did a good job ofputting it down where he did.

After watching this, and seeing that both Rickand the glider were OK, Ken took off with theDouble Vision. Although built as a tandemglider it seemed to handle fine with only Ken'sweight. Thermal strength had been increasingas my flight went on and Ken and I flew a fewthermals together that were good for about800-1000 fpm. I seemed to have a bit of anadvantage over him, as he had no vario, and

the thermals were small for the 215 sq ft gliderhe was flying. Towards the end of my flight,I spent about 5 minutes flying with a hawk.We worked our way north, flying severalthermals together at the same level before itstopped turning and glided off to the north.Shortly afterwards the wind dropped off quitequickly and started to cross from slightly overthe back. We had been watching Rick breakdown from the air and by the time he wasfinished, Ken and I were getting pretty low, asthe thermals now seemed to be dying off. Kenwent down and landed, and I followed him in.

After a little flying talk, Ken and I startedtaking gliders apart, and I went down to pickup Rick. Once Rick and I returned to the top,Ken said he was going to drive a car most ofthe way down to a different landing zone. Hewould then walk cross country to where wehad left his rental car, which had to bereturned to San Jose. The car Ken drove downbelonged to Jim, an instructor who lives atMorgan hill. He had arrived while I wasairborne. Leaving us to the gliders and thetruck, Ken said "goodbye, have fun, and Ihope you get to fly some more". All the Pac-Air people were this good to us. Rick and I didnot fly again, but we stayed and watched Jimand Colin fly down. Jim was way belowlaunch, then found a real light thermal andtook it to about 800 ft over. Colin was Jim'sstudent and was just learning to thermal. Healso did a good job of staying up in very lightlift. Before we left, a C 130 Hercules passeddirectly over launch, at well under 1000 ftover; good thing there were no gliders in theair at the time. Rick and I celebrated finallygetting to soar by joining Jim and Colin for abeer in Morgan Hill. We then raced back toSalinas to find Lois and go for supper. Rickwas devastated but not to surprised to find thatLois had used up a good portion of his creditcard limit while shopping all day.

Wednesday 25th, our last full day in Salinas,once again dawned sunny and warm, but withsoutheast winds. Rick and I only had one thingon our minds. We wanted to soar the dunes atMarina Beach in a major way. Rick and I wereback at Pac-Air at 8:00am and Lois was goingto go back to the mall to see what she could dowith the rest of the credit cards limit. I spentthe morning at the shop helping out a bit withparts and glider construction. Rick spent thistime doing some serious number crunchingwith Ken Brown. Then we went out for lunchwith Toni and Derek. While returning to theshop, we noticed that the wind had switched,against what the weather forecast was callingfor, to a light west. Ken could not join ustoday, but suggested we take a pair of newVision Pulse's to the beach, a 10m for myself


and an 11m for Rick.

The wind was soarable, but a little on the lightside when we arrived. We wasted no time ingetting signed in on the site registry. I hadbeen a bit disappointed at being given an entrylevel glider to fly, but that was to changequickly once we were at the beach. The Pulseis a double surface glider, but it has many lessbattens to stuff than the K2 and K3. Thisallowed us to get set up quickly. The Pulseswere a good choice for one other importantreason. The wind was quite light and thesewere big gliders compared to the K series. The10m is 165 sq ft and the 11m is almost 190 sqft. We both agreed after landing these gliderswere great fun to fly. They are very lightweight, about 52 and 58 lbs with instantresponse handling. This glider blows awaymy Gemini 164 that I started out with. I reallyenjoyed the Gemini, but this glider is lighter,faster, and easier to land, to top it off. Afterflying the Pulse 10m for only a few seconds,I felt comfortable flying very close to thedunes in the smooth ocean air.

Rick launched first, got up over the ramp in afew seconds, then made passes on the rampdune for a few minutes, working his way up toabout 40 ft over. He then shot the gap south ofthe ramp easily, but sunk out on a section ofdunes that are less than 10 ft high, where theymet the high water line. I followed, and hadthe same results as Rick.

There are two shallow relaunch areas a littlesouth of where we landed, so we carried upand launched again. This time we both got upabove the dunes easily. We spent just over anhour riding the incredible ocean air, withwaves breaking almost below us, and only afew pelicans and a few hundred seagulls toshare it with. We travelled about 2 1/2 milesdown the dunes, to where there was a largegap of very small dunes. The wind was slowlygetting lighter, or we would have crossed thisgap, as the dunes keep going for another 7miles south. On our return trip, as we nearedthe glider shop and ramp, we were bothgetting low. Rick definitely did not haveenough altitude to make it all the way back.With an extra 5 or 10 ft, I might have been ableto get over a small section where the dunes areonly a few feet from the ocean. I would havehad to fly over the water at less than 10 ft, soI turned around and landed about 20 ft fromwhere Rick was standing in front of the Pulse11m. We were two very happy pilots afterfinally getting a chance to soar the beach.Now we could go home!

After dropping off the gliders, we hooked upwith Lois for supper once again. The next

over the International airport where I work.We then flew over Mill Wood's and easilyspotted Rick and Lois's house and a minute orso later we passed just west off, and spotted,the house I live in. Then, a hard left hand turn,and over to Kingway Garden Mall so low, fora few seconds you think you'll be landing onthe roof. And then it was over.

If you are ever passing by close to Salinas, youhave got to meet the people at PacificAirwave. They really made the trip for me.We never did get to meet Jean-MichelBernasconi, as he was out of town. Hopefullywe'll see him next time. Thanks go to; Toni,Ken, Dana, Derek, Mike, Gus, John, Sue,Briggs, Natalie, Cheryl, and the rest of thePac-Air crew!


morning, under sunny skies, we pointed thevan north headed for San FranciscoInternational. All three of us were happy thatwe had accomplished what we had hoped todo. For Rick and I, this was to get some goodflights in, especially at the dunes, and to getsome business done at Pac-Air. For Lois, thismeant to shop until she dropped. She musthave done a great job, as we returned withmuch more weight than we had taken down.The Air Canada clerk told us that we could notcheck in "11 pieces of luggage" withoutpaying extra(!) but she let us carry on morethan our fair share, thus avoiding the extracharges.

East of Oakland, for as far as you could see inany direction, was a collection of fantasticlooking cu's. 200 or more miles did not looklike a problem at all, except for the limitedlanding fields in some locations. We had noproblem with Canada Customs on our returnthrough Calgary, although Rick had to forkout some more money to get all of the goodsthat Lois had bought back into the country.

The final leg of our trip was the short flightbetween Calgary and Edmonton. As weapproached Edmonton we passed directly

1992 REGION ONE CHAMPIONSHIPSBY DAVIS STRAUB

It’s coming soon to Chelan. June 20-22(Saturday through Monday). The everpopular test of pilot verses dust devils. Theregional contest that is run like the nationals.The 1992 Regional Championships.

First off, expect 30 to 40 pilots. Second,we’ve had good luck with this time frame andhave had unstable conditions to our previousregionals. Third, the tasks will be triangles, orout and returns to the junk yard landing fieldat the base of Chelan Butte. Fourth, this yearwe are using an aerial start gate, a tarp on topof Chelan Butte.

Chelan is the place for hot cross countryflying over open flat lands that provide plentyof safe landing areas. You won’t need oxygenand the conditions are much milder than sayColorado, New Mexico, or the Owens Valley.Expect many dust devils to mark your route.There will be lots of other pilots gaggling outon the course to help you cover ground in ahurry.

Chelan is a resort town with a big beautifulwarm lake, that is beckoning you pilots homeas you complete those triangles. With thisformat you won’t have long retrieves. As thedriving task is greatly reduced, yoursignificant other will be enjoying their time at

the beach. Chelan has lots of good food andaccommodations. We will be camping outat the airport at no cost during the meet.

Lional Space, our time keeper, will behelping me run the computer at the end ofthe day so that you will be getting your upto the minute results.

How ‘bout, the fact that you can tow up ifyou want at any time, as long as youphotograph the tarp from the west side?Bring your camera, we will supply the film,35mm, and do the developing. You willneed to photograph the turn points as wellas the tarp.

The cost is us$30 to all pilots. You need tobe rated at least Hang III with XC, andTur(bulence) sign offs. Your glider does nothave to be certified as the Regionals are notUSHGA sanctioned (no need, Regionalscan’t have WTSS points, cost Canadianpilots more if we did).

Pilots meeting 9:30am Saturday, June 20thon top of the Butte. Rain weekend is thefollowing weekend. Two days are a validround.

ABOUT THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN

HANG GLIDING LEAGUE(and how it assisted me to progress in confidence)

BY KAREN KELLER

It had been 10 years since I had flown, butduring the “Fly West Camps” in Golden, B.C.last year, I knew I just had to fly again.

In September I took lessons through "FlyWest" and in October I joined “The League”.The League was formed so that moreexperienced pilots could help lower levelpilots develop their skills in a safe and funmanner. This was what I was looking for.

My big advantage was that my husband,Doug, a pilot of 16 years was there to coachme. But as I got to know the other pilots, Irealized that everyone had knowledge thatthey were willing to share.

After three days on the training hill we headedto “Longview” for my first high flight (550').On one of Rod Porteous’s Sabers and myradio taped on, I launched, Doug coaching mefrom the top and Rod taking over for mylanding from the bottom. I didn’t make it tothe landing area on this or my next 2 flights.

On our next trip out to Longview Doug helpedwith the launch and is again on radio. KenShackleton and Richard Gibson had justarrived and seeing me on launch they headedstraight for the landing area. Ken took overmidway on his radio and I finally make it tothe LZ. Hugs for Ken & Richard at the bottom- 4 flights today.

In November my Gemini arrived from SanFrancisco and we were off to Longview again.I was really nervous but everyone was onlaunch with advise and encouragement. Imade it to the landing area with 80 feet! InJanuary we were at Longview again and I triedmy first soaring flight, and chickened out.Two passes and a 7 minute flight. Not greatbut the League pilots insist I’m doing greatand tell me not to give up.

After a couple of non soarable days wedecided to take the tow truck out. Afterwatching lots of good tows, Glenn Dagenaisspent some time explaining all about towingto me and took me for a 1200' instructionaltow on the League Tandem Glider. A greatway to learn about towing and flying.

The following Saturday we took the tow truck

out again. Rod test flew my Gemini on tow,but conditions were too ratty. The moreadvanced pilots flew and about 5:00 pm itsuddenly mellowed out. It was now time forthose pilots waiting to get their first tows.Craig Heffernan was off first and had a reallygood tow. Rob Sivell was next and anothergreat first tow. Then it was my turn. Was Inervous? Not really. Rod was driving, Dougwas releasing, and Craig was videoing. I justput my trust in them and relaxed(?). “Go tocruise”, “accelerate”, “and Release”, and I’mgone - straight up and it’s perfect. A 1500'tow. The truck raced back to the landing areaand Rod radioed me in for my approach.

Everything’s going great and then Doug toldme he was working out of town for 3 weeks.I was devastated. There goes my flyingpartner. The weekend came and it seemed likeall the League pilots called to go flying, and Irealized I wasn’t on my own. After 2 weeks ofbad weather, it looked soarable at the NWsite. Jeff Runciman called and we headed out- it was soarable. We slammed my glidertogether and hooked up Doug’s radio and voxunit and walked up to launch just as it died. Iwent anyway, got 50' over and 5 passes,thanks to Jeff on the radio keeping me in closeto the ridge. I sure learned a lot that day.

The next day Ken and Richard and I went toLongview, meeting Geoff Schneider andMitch Nixon out there. We set up and thistime I’m blown out. Ken and Richard wentand it soon mellowed out. Geoff helped meoff and launched behind me. Ken coached meon the radio and the other pilots reallywatched out for me (or maybe forthemselves). The wind soon switched anddied and we all headed out to the landing area.My first soaring flight - 28 minutes. Anothergreat day.

It’s May now, Doug’s back and I’ve got twohours now. The League pilots have becomegood friends and have earned my trust andrespect. The League is a place to belong to andlearn from and it works. You always havesomeone to go flying with. I hope this storyencourages more of these type of clubs toform where all levels of pilots can fit intogether to promote safe and fun flying.

INSTRUCTIONSTANDARDSCOMMITTEE

As the newly appointed Chairman of theInstruction Standards Committee, I wanted tocommunicate my objectives to all membersof the HGAC, and solicit views from anyoneand everyone who might wish to participate inthe process of revising our instructionstandards. As you may already know, theexisting standards have been in effect since1988 board of Directors meeting in Toronto.However, you may also have noticed that theyare not working all that well. We have beenable to certify a number of new instructors,but there is little consistency in the process, somany certifications are incomplete andexpirations are out-pacing new certifications.I believe this to be due to the complexity of thecurrent system.

The solution then, is to simplify the process.I have already done a fair amount ofpreliminary work towards this end, whichincludes a recommendation to re-structureour certifications to include a provision fortandem and towing endorsements at both theInstructor and Senior Instructor levels. Theproposed changes would also see theInstructor Certification Program (60 hours)reduced to a two day seminar. Each level ofcertification would require therecommendation of a Senior Instructor, butvalidation and record keeping would be theresponsibility of the Instruction StandardsCommittee, the HGAC Board of directors andthe National Ratings Officer (NRO wouldissue rating cards with the appropriateendorsements and maintain records of expiredates).

These proposals are being sent to the SeniorInstructors across the country along with aninvitation to sit on the committee, but again,everyone is welcome to participate and anycontributions or opinions you may have willbe appreciated. Also anyone activelyinstructing is encouraged to send anymaterials or tools they are currently using forInstruction purposes or to seminars(Instructors, Tandem, Towing).

You can reach me at:Ron Bennett, Chairman

HGAC Instructors Standards Committee339 Hawkhill Place, NW, Calgary,

Alberta. T3G 3H7tel (403) 239 7378 or fax (403) 221 6950

Quest (kwest) n. 1. An expedition oradventure undertaken in order to performsome prescribed feat, as in medievalromance. 2. Slang. A journey by Hang Gliderconsisting of a series of consecutive crosscountry flights, usually done in a group.

As of May 1992 a new word has been addedto the list of Hang Gliding jargon. Questing isthe flatland version of sky camping. It has thesame sense of excitement and adventure butthe logistics are a lot easier. Any pilot withaccess to a tow system and some spare timecan experience this new twist to cross countryflying.

The Craik Quest was conceived by RodPorteous on the drive home after the 1991Saskatchewan Open Tow Meet in Craik,Saskatchewan. Instead of doing the eight hourdrive the Friday night before the 1992 MeetRod thought it would be fun to start fromBeiseker, Alberta the weekend before theMeet and fly to Craik instead of drive. He wasright.

After getting a lot of enthusiastic responsefrom local pilots, Rod decided to run theQuest as a competition. By February therewere 10 pilots committed to going andanother 5 or 6 that had expressed interest.Unfortunately, by the time the Quest was tostart only 4 pilots were still committed, RodPorteous, Jeff Runciman, James Lintot & me.We were lucky to have Robin Fernandes asour driver.

Saturday morning, May 9, Rod, Jeff, Jamesand Robin showed up at my house and weloaded up the truck and headed for Beiseker.We stopped at the Esso station for the pilotsmeeting just in case someone decided to comeat the last minute. As expected no one wasthere so we continued to the tow site two milesnorth east of the intersection of Highways 21& 9.

It had rained all day and part of the nightbefore but the forecast was for clearing skiesby morning with clouds and showersdeveloping in the afternoon. It wasn't idealweather but we knew it could be good if thetiming was right. We got to the site a littlelater than we hoped and by the time we weresetting up at 11:30 the Cu's were alreadybuilding.James hadn't towed and Robin hadn't driven

before so Rod and I had to do a little coachingbefore we could get in the air. Rod was on theback with James for his first tow and I was inthe front teaching Robin to drive. James' firsttow went well and we got Jeff off next. Theyboth worked a few bubbles but didn't get up.By this time it was starting to O.D. and Icouldn't wait any longer so I suited up and gotoff the truck. I released into a thermal andwent to cloudbase and was on my way. Thedrift was to the east northeast and our goal wasHanna. I was on a track just north of Drum-heller and things were going pretty well eventhough I was getting a lot of rain and snowpellets on the way. I was in contact with theother guys by radio and things weren't goingas well for them. It was O.D.'d by then and noone else got up. Pretty soon I was surroundedby verga with almost 100% cloud cover. I wasgetting low but managed to scratch alongbetween 5000'-6000' for the last 15Km. Be-fore landing just south of Delia I radioed myposition to the rest of the guys who werebreaking down in the rain. I managed to breakdown before the rain got to me but I got wetwhile waiting for pickup. Distance for Day 1was 60.5Km.

We decided to stay in Hanna for the night andfound an excellent tow road on the way therejust 6Km east of where I landed. Day 2 wasvery similar to Day 1 with early Cu's and overdevelopment expected by afternoon. Westarted earlier and I got up and away before12:30. Everyone else got burned again butwhile I was in the air they met PhyllisMcDonald, Lanny's mother, who writes forthe Hanna paper. They did an excellent PR joband Phyllis did a story on the Quest for thepaper. My flight was similar to the previousday except I spent a lot of time on the leadingedge of some major development with a hugeblue hole in front of me. I didn't get low thistime but I could see some huge cells closingin on the hole from the North and the South.I saw Youngstown ahead of me still in thesunshine and decided to fly out to the sunshineand land there while it was still safe. Anotherbig benefit was having a place to hide outfrom the rain, which started just after I carriedmy gear across the road to the Petro-Canadastation. Distance for Day 2 was 75.8Km.

Once we got to a motel James got some badnews from his family and had to head homethat night so the Quest was now down to justthree pilots and our driver. After the rain

stopped we went out tow road hunting andfound a good one northwest of town. It had afence on one side but was definitely useable.

The next morning we stopped at the localhardware store to see if we could findsomething that would help with the tow ropeand the fence. There wasn't anything obviousbut we did the McGyver thing with a paintroller and an extension handle that workedpretty well. When we got to the tow road itwas overcast with the wind blowing straightdown the road from the North. We could seea hole coming towards us from the North sowe quickly set up. Rod got up first and leftlow, climbing slowly. He let us know on theradio that he had landed East of Youngstown.I got up barely, and drifted with it knowing itwas my only chance. After gaining 1000' I lostit and squeaked into the same field as Rod.Just as we finished breaking down it started torain with some hail mixed in for a while. Bythe time the truck got there we were bothsoaking wet. The rain continued for most ofthe day but the forecast was improving.Distance for Day 3 was 9Km.

Tuesday morning was clear and we got outearly. I was on the truck for the first towbefore 11:00. I got to cloudbase but it wasonly 6300' so I didn't leave thinking cloudbasewould be higher later in the day which wouldmake it easier. I landed at the truck and Jeffdecided he was going to go for it. He wasclimbing and talking to Rod and me askinghow high he should go. He was under a cloudbut we could see blue behind him so we toldhim to keep climbing until he was atcloudbase. With a little encouragement itwasn't long before Jeff was off on his firstcross country flight. After a couple of tows forRod and another one for me we were both stillon the ground thinking maybe Jeff would bethe only one to get away. It gave me theincentive I needed to get up on my next tow.By this time cloudbase had risen to about8100' and the upper flow was more Westerlythan on the ground so it wasn't too hard tofollow Highway 9. We were hoping to makeit into Saskatchewan because we were gettinga little behind schedule. This wasn't to betoday however. Jeff landed just short ofCereal for a distance of 31.9Km and I landednorth of Lanfine on the highway at 42.8Km.Rod tried a few more times but couldn't get it.Wednesday the pressure was on. We had only3 days left and were still not across the border.We found an excellent tow road south of

CRAIK QUEST, '92BY DOUG KELLER

where I landed the day before and about 7Kmwest of Oyen. Conditions were difficult. Thewind was from the west at 20 to 30 km/h andthe few Cu's that were around were small andwispy. Jeff got off first and drifted awayclimbing slowly but lost it pretty quickly andlanded just east of Oyen. I towed 3 times andRod towed twice but we didn't get up. It wasgetting late so we decided we would tow onemore time and if we didn't get up we wouldhave to drive across the border. Majorbummer. I had my last tow at 3:45 and it waspretty much the same as the last three. I gotback to the landing area a little higher butdidn't get any bumps till I was about 400'AGL. I knew this was my last chance so I waspretty determined. I started turning and wasdrifting away pretty quickly not gaining but atleast maintaining. I got down to 340' AGLbefore I started climbing consistently. Finallyfound a little bullet core and cranked it overclimbing to 9000'. The drift was straight downthe highway and it wasn't long before I wastaking pictures of Alsask as I crossed theborder. I was smiling now. Once across theborder the highway heads north and the driftwas taking me away from it. After topping outin a thermal I started heading cross windtowards the highway but wasn't going to makeit. I got a save at 5000' off some hilly terrainand soon I could see Kindersley. I driftedalong between 5000' and 6000' for a long wayand flew right over the town at about 5000'. It

was 6:00PM and I didn't get up again butmanaged to float along in the buoyant air foranother 15Km landing just west of Beadle fora distance of 116.3Km. Jeff's distance was8Km and Rod got away on his last tow andmade 5Km.

We set up Thursday under a clear sky with anorthwest wind about 20 to 30 Km/h. Wecould see a wall of Cu's approaching from thenorth and we had hopes of a big day. We stillhad a long way to go but a hundred milerwould put us in a good position to finish onFriday. Jeff got up and away on his first towbut he radioed he was landing fairly quickly.The same thing happened to Rod. We weren'tsure exactly where they landed but the planwas if I got up I could radio their position toRobin and he could go and tow them up wherethey landed. I got up on my second tow butlost it after gaining 1000'. I could see that Rodhad landed with Jeff and it looked like I wouldbe joining them so I gave Robin their position.I lucked into a thermal over their field andthought I had my ticket to cloudbase. I washaving problems talking to them and when Ichecked my antenna cable connection at my'biner I saw that it had pulled apart. I got outmy telescoping antenna and managed to plugit in to the radio but during all that dickingaround I lost the thermal. At least I could tellthem where I was going to land and maybe getanother tow. I cruised downwind and landed

south of McMorron 25.5Km from launch.Rod and Jeff made it 7.5Km and got towedagain when Robin found them. Rod gotanother 3Km and by the time they got to meit was too late so we called it a day.

We didn't have to decide whether to fly ordrive on Friday because it was completelyovercast and the wind was southeast at about30 Km/h so we loaded up the truck and headedfor Craik. When we got there there was anarea of broken cloud with lots of dust devils.We decided to fly and when we were settingup we saw five dust devils at one time in thefield beside us. By the time we were ready ithad clouded over somewhat but there was stilllots of lift. Rod got up and headed to town. Jeffand I landed at the truck and picked up Rod toofficially end the 92 Quest.

We had to face the fact that the Quest was overand we didn't make it to our goal but we hada great time on the way. We met a lot of greatpeople, had some good to great flying, learneda lot and we towed and someone got awayeveryday. For me it was one of the bestexperiences in my 16 years of flying and Ican't wait for Quest '93.

If you are interested in attemping CanadianRecords or obtaining Delta Silver or Gold(hang gliding); Eagle Silver or gold(paragliding) you need the following beforethe season starts:

- Membership in a Provincial Associationwhich is a member of the Hang GlidingAssociation of Canada

- FAI Sporting Licence Cost $15 + $1postage & handling

- Barograph

Application Forms for a Sporting Licence areavailable from:

Vincene MullerHGAC Records and StatisticsBox 4063, Postal Stn. CCalgary, Alta, T2T 5M9

If you want information on Records andBadges you can also get the Record/Badge

Information Package from Vincene Muller.This includes:

- Sporting Licence Application Form- Official Observer Form- FAI Sporting Code- HGAC Guide to Records and Badges

This package of information cost $10.00 (add$1 for postage and handling)

Make cheque or money order out to:The Hang Gliding Association of Canada

If you have any questions, write VinceneMuller or phone or fax (403)932-6760.

Remember:To apply for a World Record or representCanada at a World Championship it isnecessary to have an FAI Sporting Licenceissued by our National Aero Club.

Notice to all Pilots,Hang Gliding or Paragliding

A record attempt is not valid unless the AeroClub has issued the licence before theattempt!

To apply for badges a sporting licence is notnecessary. (However it would be a shame tomake a record flight with a barograph and nothave paid for the sporting licence!)

Remember pilots, in 1989 the FAI in Parisadded several new record categories to Class0 - Hang Gliding, several categories are stillvacant, including all Canadian FemaleRecords and Canadian Tandem Records. InParagliding there are very few recordcategories that have been awarded. ManyEuropean pilots have claimed records butthey have not had completed paperwork andtheir record claims have been disallowed.

DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU!

From; Vincene MullerFAI, Records & Badges

Saskatchewan Hang Gliding Association

Ya, right! Let's talk about winter just when it's starting to warm up andthe flying season is getting under way. Well for some die hard pilots,the flying season has never ended. Last year, in particular, was fairlymild with lots of soarable winds. We weren't without our fair share ofsnow, though, as you can see from the photo's. In fact the odd winterafternoon was spent shoveling it until we finally got to launch to findthat the wind had crossed 90 degrees or has died altogether. But, whenwe did manage to luck out and get a day that was soarable, it made allthe other days seem trivial.

Last winter was more or less the first winter which I decided toundertake the adventured of bundling up in ski-doo suits, snow boots,balaclava's, and ski goggles to brave the arctic temperatures and findout what the term "crazy" meant. At least that's what some of our"beach" pilots thought I was. But I wasn't alone. Greg Moore, andVivian Hooper had also bared the brunt of a runny nose and frozentoes. One of our more enjoyable flying sites is Valport which is reallyonly flown in winter because if you are unfortunate to sink out, you'llbe doing laps in Long Lake! On the day pictured, the wind was 40-60degrees cross, blowing 30 kmh up the 200 ft ridge, if you want to callit a ridge, and Greg and I managed to each log an hours airtime.

Temperature: -10°C; wind chill, -24°C; but a cup of hotchocolate and a granola bar put a good end to a great flight.

One of my more memorable winter flights was at Skyout. A250 ft high ridge facing southeast, just 20 miles north ofRegina in the Qu'appelle Valley. It was another one of themC.O.L.D. days with a 60 kmh breeze. After getting bored withmy 20 minutes, 200 above flight, I was preparing for a toplanding when my vario started beeping a steady 200 fpm up.This continued for the next 10 minutes until I found myselfat 2000 ft above launch. I spent the next 20 minutes enjoyinglife and gazing down at the white valley below. But, all goodthings must come to an end. And end it did.

I now have a whole new perspective on the term "WinterFlying". It's easy. it's fun. And it doesn't have to be cold. Justdress for it. Believe me, it's worth it.

PS. Thanks Vivian, for the photo's!

WINTER FLYING INSASKATCHEWANBY CARROLL PELLETIER

Above; Digging out the truck on the road to launch.Below; Gliders soaring Valport with the frozen lakebelow. Photo's by Vivian Hooper

The 1992 Craik open tow meet was a goodtime again this year. We had a turn-out ofinteresting pilots (21 in total) from Alberta,Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. It was a littledifficult at times, getting everyone in the airwith only three operating tow systems, but itwas a good time just the same.

To give you a quick run down of the weatherconditions and the task we encountered, Day1 was a write-off. Overcast with rain. It did,however, give us a chance to test ourexperimental system (and experimental itwas) without the pressures of a competition.The thermometer that night dipped to ascreaming -2°C and believe me, my littlenylon tent just didn't cut it. My thanks to Jeff,who managed to keep us all warm by setting

himself and the entire campsite on fire!

Day 2: We had awaken to sunny skies andstrong winds. Good right? Wrong! The taskwas called and Wynyard it was, 82 miles orso. By the time we had got to the tow site (5miles from town) and were set up, the windhad all but died and the upper flow had shutdown any convection that there might havebeen. At least until about 2 or 3 o'clock whena few pilots did manage to squeeze some 40 +mile flights. It was a grueling day (3 1/2 hoursto do 40 miles) but it ended with a fantasticsteak BBQ in the campgrounds. Ourcompliments to the chef(s). Oh, by the way,sunburns for everyone. The day warmed up toabout 30°C and was blue, blue, blue.

CRAIK, The way I See ItCraik Meet, Sask, May 16-18

BY CARROLL PELLETIER

Day 3: Another cooker of a day, but this timewith a little bit of wind. The task was StalwartBeach. 22 miles and the time to beat was 45minutes, right Doug. It was one of those dayswhere the envelope of activity was about anhour and a half long. If you were in the airbefore or after this you were S.O.L., exceptMark the Magician and his infamous VGComet. By the way Mark, just where wasgoal?

When all was said and done, the RockyMountain League finished as first place team,and Mike Reibling of the Regina teamfinished in Individual first place. Me, I didn'twin but what can I say? It was a good time.

Next year?.... Same time, same place.

Entry Fee: $20; $25 late entry after July 15th

For more information contact:Stewart Midwinter,

444, 23rd Ave NW, Calgary, Alberta, T2M 1S4Res; (403) 230 7769, Office; (403) 290 7251, fax; (403) 261 3919Wir sprechen Deutsch; Nous parlons Français; Hablamos español.

Last years meet featured 3 days of xcflying (2 days open distance, 1 day raceto goal). Best results: distances up to 110km, altitudes up to 4300 m asl (14,000ft), durations up to 6 hours, 3 FAI WorldRecords, several National records.

Site has perfect takeoff site which is1400m (4600 ft) above the large landingfield (3:1 glide ratio). You may useaircraft VHF radios (meet directors willmonitor 123.4 MHz) or FM if licensed.4wd vehicle required or rides can be

arranged at the site. Alternatively you cancharter a helicopter to the top (about $40per ride).

Good accommodation available locally,or camping.

Competitors should have experience inmountain flying and turbulence(thermals can be up to 5m/s 1000 fpm, ormore), and have a reserve parachute andliability insurance (this can also bepurchased at the meet).

2nd Annual Western CanadianChampionshipAugust 1-3, 1992

Mount Seven, Golden, BC

The Hang GlidingAssociation of

Canada's NationalNewsletter

How's that for a mouthfull? Responce tomy request for suggestions for a newname for this Newsletter has beengrowing. I've recieved not onlysuggestions for a name but also forgeneral magazine layouts, Great.

Remember, we are looking for a"Canadian" name which needs to be bi-lingual and reflects both paraglidingand hang gliding. Send your ideas to mebefore 31st Dec 1992 at

Barry Bateman, HGAC Editor,21593, 94a Avenue

Langley, BC, V1M 2A5(604) 888 5658

From our Alberta corespondent (Theiridentity is being withheld so that the gossipmay flow more freely!) we have the followingreport;

The Wetaskiwin pilots have been towingregularly all spring however the best flightsso far are by Kelly Mason (CanadianWomen’s Team member) with flights of 50and 60 miles so far, leaving the ‘boys’ in the

dust (and to drive retrieval!). To makematters worse, Sean Dougherty spent the Maylong weekend in Wetaskiwin and had thelongest flight of the day on Sunday (28km) onhis paraglider.

The Cold Lake Hang Gliding andParagliding Club spent a weekend with theNorthern Lights Club in Edmonton learningthe finer points of towing on Adam Hunt’snew trailer winch. This new club from theairforce base at Cold Lake has six membersnow but are expecting numbers to increasewith the closure of the bases in Germanyand the pilots from the Baden Club who willbe transferred to Cold Lake. Their first clubouting was a ‘flying’ trip to Cochrane toattending Rob Kells Chute PackingSeminar. Club member, Chris Hayman (ahelicopter pilot who is also a parachuterigger) spent the weekend learning the insand outs of repacking hang gliding/paragliding reserve chutes.

Roger Nelson drove to Saskatchewan forthe tow meet in May. ‘Hot’ Roger on his‘hot HP-AT 145 zoomed 30 miles to goal in32 minutes, BUT, missed the goal, (he wassoooo fast that he arrived at goal before thetimers) and ended up 7 miles PAST goal!No, ‘hot’ Roger did not win the meet!

Three Calgary pilots ‘quested’ to Craik forthe meet. We hear ‘looper’ Mike Rieblingwon the meet.

Great flying at Cochrane over the May longweekend. Many hours of soaring by ‘sharks'and ‘jellyfish’.

The Northern Lights Hang Gliding Club inEdmonton were once again invited to

participatein theN a m a oAirshow.Each daythey werepart of theshow witha 20 mintime slot toget upA N Dd o w n .Saturdaywas quitewindy andt h eultralights

who were to follow the hang gliders ‘wimped’out and the time slot was extended to 40minutes. Visions of two flights each flashed,however a military Hercules giving a group ofVIP’s a sight seeing tour of Edmonton andlanded in the middle of the performance, so

that cut down the extra time. Only DaveMitchell managed a second flight (and he wassmiling!)

Pilots flying in the display had to have at least100 hours logged. Four club members,Georges Thibault, Dave Mitchell, RickMiller and Jeff Marler were joined by the‘ringers’ from the South, Chris and WilliMuller. Support crew were Gus Larson, Roband Miles Debenham and Vincene Muller.Two tow rigs were used with three pilots pertruck. All tows went smoothly and averagedaround 2000' per tow (using 11,000 feet ofrunway). All 11 flights over the two daysended with perfect ‘10’ (as measured on KenShackleton’s scale) landings on the grass,between the Snowbirds and the UkrainianMigs in front of a sellout crowd of 250,000.

The demonstration was organized by AHGAVP Georges Thibault. In the main hanger, theclub had a static display manned by KenHarapnuik. At times six or seven pilots wereneeded to answer questions from the public. Itwas estimated that 300-400 people per hourpassed by the booth. Dave and Jeff had flownwith video cameras and in-flight video wasshown at the booth after the demonstrations.

Peter Bowle-Evans reports good flying fromlower launch, Mt. Seven, Golden - the road isvery wet and muddy right now

Matt Duford of Calgary has had some goodflying off Mt. Swansea.

Ex-Albertan, James Swansburg now living onthe beach in Wasa, BC, has logged excellentflying and some out and returns in the last few

From Around the Country.....

The performers lined up in front of the glidersand the Snowbirds.

Aerial shot by Willi Muller. The white [plane is the Antonov, a Russiancargo plane and the largest in the world.

weeks. Ron Docherty, Steve Ritchie and Bob MacKenzie of Calgaryhave all been out flying Wasa sometimes joined by Simon Maybury (a‘Limey’ of no fixed address).

Meanwhile in Lumby, BC we hear that Darryl Ross who moved fromKimberley, BC is ‘skying’ out the locals. To make matters worse,Howard Vandall passed through at Easter and joined Darryl. The ̀SkyGod’ from Calgary is hoping to move to the Lumby area in the next fewyears.

From the WEDNESDAY CLUB NEWS (Alta) It looks like the trendfor smaller gliders is well under way in Calgary. Richard Ouellet, 186lbs has just sold his HP-AT 158 and ordered a 145. Howard Vandell,175 lbs traded his brand new Super Sport 153 for a go-fast HP-AT 145,Stewart Midwinter traded his HP-AT 158 for a 145, and Ross Hay, 155has also bought a HP-AT 145!

Looks like the pilots flying in theOwens in this years pre-worlds arepreparing for some serious stuff asmost of them now have full oxygensystems. With the altitudes they'll beflying at (18,000 ft) they would befoolish to fly without it.

During the Savona, BC competitionthis easter, the pilots were treated to thesite of several thousand cranes passingoverhead on their migration north. It'squite a site seeing thousands of themclimbing in one thermal. It gives one anexcellent insight into how a thermalwanders and drifts around as it rises.

One other interesting thing of note isthat Canada Post has released hangglider stamps. They are on the pre-stamped International airmail letterswhich you can buy in packages of five.

It now looks like Richard Roussin, HGand PG pilot from Montreal, Quebec isgoing to become a regular visitor in theCalgary area as he is now piloting one of Air Canada's airbuses thereon a regular basis. Looks like he will be getting the best of flying in theeast and west!

Reports have been coming in from Alberta of some long flights takingplace there. On thursday 28th May, Doug Litzenberger released on towfrom Hobbema, near Camrose and landed 7:20 hrs later at 8:15 pm inthe town of Plenty(!!!), for a distance of 332.5 km (206.6 mi). Welldone Doug. Unfortunately he needed another 2 km to better WilliMullers Canadian record of 206 miles which was set in 1989, by therequired 2%. Nonetheless, it's still the longest, albeit not officially.

Also on the 28th, Ross Hunter flew 93 miles and the day before StevePreboy flew 125 miles. As mentioned earlier, Kelly Mason, has had 50and 60 mile flights so far this season. Speaking of women, do yourealise that there is not one official Canadian Womens record!! So, ifyou want to go down in the Canadian history books, just strap on abarograph, have your flight observed, fly a couple or three miles, gaina few hundred feet, or fly a couple of miles out and back, and grabyourself a record. Need some help, call Vincene Muller (tel # underdirectors list).

Meanwhile in SASKATCHEWAN, Craig Lawrence has been

Ken Shackleton from Calgary, Alberta has a greatlogbook idea: he grades each landing on a scalefrom 1 (2 broken downtubes + additional damage)to 10 (perfect): this is an easy way to trackprogress in your flying/landing! Here is his scale:clip it out and paste it in your logbook. Score thelanding as it happened and don't adjust forexcuses, as in "it would have been a 10, but a gustof wind turned me and demolished my glider, so I'llmark down a 10".

Landing Quality Scores

10 Perfect no-stepper9 Had to run a few steps8 Lightly touched a wing but held up basetube7 Lightly touched basetube but held up the nose6 Lightly nosed in5 Nosed in harder but no damage4 Bent a single downtube but it was repairable3 Had to replace 1 downtube2 Had to replace 2 downtubes1 Had to replace 2 downtubes + additional parts0 Glider damage + personal injury

Barry Bateman looking atthe inversion in theFraser Valley.

keeping the Prairies in the running with an excellent 125 mile flight,you can be sure he had no mountain thermals on that flight!

Haven't recieved the MANITOBA "Flatland Flyer" recently (am Istill on the Mailing list? Ed), but they are not alone as I haven't seenthe ONTARIO "Wings over Ontario" or the "Sur Vol" fromQUEBEC. (Could you check to make sure I'm on your list. Ed)

Reading the March "Atlantic Inflight" from Newfoundland, I seethat Al Faulkner is going to compile a "Guidelines for Towing"manual, (It's public news now Al, so there's no backing out now! Ed.)which will be based upon his own experiences and what he has read andlearnt. If any of you have any input I'm sure Al would be more than

.....continued on page 23

(This article was originally written as auniversity paper and I have decided to publishit here as, not only does it make interestingreading, but it may also be useful to you if youare looking for something to handout to thepublic, explaining what it's like to hangglide). Ed.

Since the beginning of time, mankind haslooked up at the eagles envious of their easeand grace of flight. With the development ofhigh strength aluminum tubing, steel wires,and space age materials such as dacron,kevlar and mylar this dream has become areality. Modern hang gliding is a mixture ofthese ingredients that when properlyprepared, form our wings. If you add to thisrecipe a few electronic gadgets which tell usif we are going up or down, our altitude, andhow fast we are going we can truly soar likethe eagles and experience their world as theydo.

With the increase in quality of instruction andequipment available today, pilots are flyingfurther, higher, faster and more gracefullyevery year. In Calgary alone, there are twocompanies that offer instruction, sales andservice for almost all makes of gliders.

Today’s hang gliders weigh between fifty andeighty pounds and can reach speeds up toninety miles and hour in a steep dive, howevernormal flying speed is around twenty to thirtymiles and hour. Pilots are suspended like apendulum which allows them to control theglider. If your weight is shifted forward yougain speed. Shifting your weight back willcause you to lose speed. To turn, simply shiftyour weight in the direction you want to go.

Even though there is much more publicawareness of the sport, whenever hanggliding is mentioned people still say, “Isn’tthat dangerous? The answer to that is, No! Iwould prefer to call hang gliding a high risk,because if you are not paying attention to whatyou are doing you could get hurt. However,not paying attention while driving a car willalmost certainly cause you more harm. I feelthat everyone at some time, including myself,have been afraid of heights. I have a hard timestanding on the roof of a small building and

looking over the edge because I feel I couldfall off the building and looking over the edgeat the ground below, but flying high over theground securely attached to my glider doesn’tbother me at all. Maybe, because I know Icould fall off the building, but I know I couldnever fall from my hang glider and ifsomething did go wrong while I was flying allI would have to do is deploy my parachute toensure a soft landing. If this is stopping youfrom trying this exciting sport, don’t let it.

There are now many different ways oflaunching a hang glider. They can belaunched off steep slopes, such as mountainfaces or large hills. There are also a fewcompanies that have developed special towsystems to enable hang gliders to be launchedfrom a variety of vehicles. To launch frommost tow vehicles all you need isapproximately two miles of road withoutfences or power lines along the edges. Theseroads are easy to find just past the city limits,and off you go, up up, and away. This meansthat no matter where you live you can fly.Within three hours of Calgary there are atleast five places to fly and four of these areless than one hour away.

Prior to every launch pilots go through adetailed list which they have been forced tomemorize through repetition. This listincludes things like checking the weatherconditions, to see if it is safe to fly, inspectingthe glider to make sure that it is set up properlyand free from any serious damage, checkingthe hang straps to make sure they are secure,scrutinizing your parachute to ensure properoperation should you need it, and making surethat you have everything in your harness thatyou will need during your flight and after youland. Only after all these things have beenthoroughly inspected is it safe to considerlaunching. Now you can get on your harnessand move your glider into position for launch.You then hook in and lock the carabineer, doa hang check to ensure nothing is tangled andthat you are properly in your harness, checkthe wind direction and speed, wings level,proper angle of attack, BALANCE, POWER,SPEED, and you’re off.The sensation of being carried upwardstowards the clouds by rising air, called a

Man's Oldest Dream,REALISED.BY GEOFF SCHNIEDER

thermal, as you lie comfortably in yourharness is incredible. The feeling of the windblowing gently in your face, the smell of freshair and the spectacular view, as you spiralconfidently up towards the clouds issomething most people would enjoyexperiencing. There is nothing like flyingover a mountain and being able to see massesof mountains in all directions. To be able tofly over herds of mountain goats, elk, deer oreven humans without being noticed, unlessyou call down to them. To soar with an eaglethousands of feet above the earth and see itlooking inquisitively at you as if it’s thinking“I wonder if it can fly as well as I can? or Iwonder how much that bird eats? Is thismountain range big enough for both of us?Then it breaks eye contact, rolls over on itsback, and disappears below you, but before itleaves it lets out a majestic cry that is only fitfor the king of the birds, the eagle. You arealone again in your new found world, highabove the ground when you spot yourdestination. You begin to set up yourapproach for landing, and regretfully saygoodbye to the skies that have been yourcompanion once again. Now you glideeffortlessly over the ground waiting for yourglider to give you the signal to flare. No, notquite yet, just a little bit further. NOW! youpush out sharply and you’re on the your feet,another perfect landing and flight to add toyour log book.

It’s no wonder more people are learning tohang glide everyday. The gliders are easier tofly and land, and you can fly almost anywherenow that modern methods of launching a hangglider have been developed. One can silentlyexplore areas that most people have neverseen and it can be done without damaging theenvironment in any way. The sheerexhilaration of a high speed dive, followed bya wing over is intoxicating to say the least.The addiction that one feels towards flyingafter only one flight is overwhelminglypowerful. It is truly hard to believe, thateveryone hasn’t tried this sport, just look atwhat you are missing.

3rd ANNUAL BLACKCOMBPARAGLIDING MEEThosted by; Parawest Paragliding

This year we had 31 participants; 17 Canada, 9 USA, 2 Switzerland, 1Germany, 1 Japan, and 1 Hong Kong. Truly an International meet! 29 of thoseentered were men and 2 were women. However both women were in the top10!!! The standings are based on two flights by each pilot:Flight 1; estimated time with a target landing,Flight 2; touch and go with a target landing.Results are as follows;

NAME FROM SCORE PARAGLIDER1 Lionel Strauffer Buchillon, CH 85* P22 Mike Eberle Ellensburg, Wa. USA 75 Wills Wing3 Scott Nicholson Vancouver, BC. CAN 60 Ailes de K Genair5 Bill Mendenhall Seattle, Wa. USA 50 Excalibur4 Christian Mülach Seattle, Wa. USA 45 Ailes de K Flyair6 Richard Auer Whistler, BC. CAN 406 Trish Sadan Whistler, BC. CAN 406 Mike Sadan Whistler, BC. CAN 407 Tom Duguid Whistler, BC. CAN 357 Donna Jane Miller Whistler, BC. CAN 357 Mike Miller Whistler, BC. CAN 35

* (out of a possible 100 pts)

The winner recieved a pair of ELAN MBX skie, second place received aCAMELBAK drinking system and third place recieved a WILSON tennisracket. Best Costume went to Trish Sadan.

Top right; Two ofthe contestantsviing for the

"Best Costume"prize at the 3rd

annualBlackcombparaglidingMeet. Right;Cameron

MacKenzie atBlackcomb with"Rainbow Mtn inthe background.

pleased to hear from you. Maybe with towinggoing on in such diverse place's like Ontario,Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and Nfld, wecould come up with a manual that is usefuland benificial to all HGAC members,wherever they live.

Back here on the 'wet coast' the "Bull Sheet",newsletter of the Vancouver and Fraser

Valley HGC, manage to stir some of itsmembers to life when an "outside" club, theBC Paragliding Association, attended a localVan-Fraser club meeting, seeking to becomemembers so they could fly Mt Woodside. (Itsort of reminded me what it would be like if awoman entered one of those "English 'old boy'clubs", much coughing, spluttering, bulgingeyeballs and falling off chairs, What!, What!)The Van-Fraser club has a ruling that backup

'chutes are required at Mt Woodside, and theparaglider pilots felt that they weren'tpractical for them. Needless to say there wasmuch "discusion" with no 'give' from eitherside. This resulted in two paraglidingdirectors being nomimated to the BOD at thefollowing meeting, one from the HGABC andthe other from the BCPA. Stay tuned!Barry Bateman, Editor.

continued from page 21.....

Hang Gliding Association ofNewfoundland

I recently read about a yaw indicator beingmade available for hang gliders. I can onlyspeculate as I have never actually seen one orhad a suitable explanation given to me on thesubject, because of course I live out here in“the land that God gave to Cain”. Well I tellyou it got me hot under the collar.

At the very least I findthis deployment to be asad commentary onwhat people will do togather an advantage in acontest (or otherwise)environment. At it’sworst I see this as aninvitation for someoneto breach Canadian law,introducing a majorinfringement on thesafety and security ofall air travellers, whoare under theassumption that no oneis so crazy as to fly insuch an unsafe manner.

Essentially a yawindicator is a devise thattells a pilot they areyawing (clever eh).This of course tells youthat you are banked andtherefore supposedlyyou can defeat the #1killer for people that enter cloud. In anyaircraft it takes the average non-instrumentrated pilot approximately 45 seconds to entera spin/spiral/etc., generally overstressing theairframe from excessive G’s or causing anearth bound excursion of major proportions.

Back in my fixed wing instructing days, weused to take applicants for a nightendorsement up to demonstrate this to them,by having them close their eyes, (to simulateflight in cloud with instruments) and havethem simply maintain straight and level flightin normal cruise.You see, a person flying along in sunshine,

lollipops and rainbows, constantly sees thehorizon and constantly makes adjustments,using visual reference to the ground, horizonetc., to keep the blue side up and the browndown. Your ears are generally (in a poweredaircraft) only tuned into engine noise and inthe case of a hang glider you are somewhat

attuned to wind noise. Essentially your earsare tuned out, being delegated to a peripherysense. Your sense of smell and taste aregenerally tuned out and the sense that Godgave to geese is also tuned out in certainpilots. Your eyes are King, because they giveyou airspeed, groundspeed, attitude, heading,altitude, glide slope and yaw. Now when youenter cloud all this is gone. Surprise, surprise,where am I going to, bye... Your eyes arerelegated to hoping and praying that they willget a visual reference to get some clues. Soyour brain goes into overdrive and switchessensory priorities. Turn on the ears. Next asmall lift imbalance, say created by

turbulence creates roll/yaw. Now, saidaircraft is turning/banked. Now we all knowthat if a bank is not accompanied by a bit ofpushout, then you enter a descentaccompanied by an airspeed increase. So earsdon’t fail me now. What’s that, an increase inwind noise. Ow geez, I must be speeding up,

so to stop speeding upI remember my oldinstructor, saying“push out! stupid”, sopushout signal isflashed to trustybiceps.

Now everyone knowsthat in a modern hangglider you have tomake a move tounbank it, because it’snot roll positivelystable. Most gliderswill not roll level orstop rolling, withoutinput (neutral ornegative rollstability).

Ever noticed that thewings have anhedral?(Wing tips droop,lower than the keel inlevel flight). Thismakes the hang glidernegatively roll stable.

They will tend to continue rolling if no inputis put into the glider. To understand this,picture the aircraft in a bank, where the lowerwing is actually vertical (as viewed frombehind). The upper wing (in the case ofanhedral) will still be somewhat horizontaland thus producing lift, thus it will want tocontinue rolling the aircraft.

Also the wings are swept (wings tips are aft ofthe nose). This has the same effect as dihedral.To understand this my students we mustpicture the aircraft with dihedral in a bank,such that the upper wing is vertical (again, asviewed from behind). We will then see that

The YAW INDICATORSomething to think about before you buy one

BY AL FAULKNER

Cathye!, Are you sure you don't hear something coming?Al Faulkner at Churchill Falls airport, Nfld.

the lower wing is still somewhat horizontal,thus still somewhat producing lift. Sweepingthe wings also does other things such as cause‘dutch roll’ or‘ wing walking’, where a yaw iscreated which becomes a roll and whencountered it produces a yaw and roll in theopposite direction. Of course the thing abouta dutch roll is that it increases in amplitudewith each oscillation. Another thing thatsweeping wings causes is to delay the onset ofthe enormous drag rise, associated withapproaching the speed of sound.

All seriousness aside, the anhedral, sweepand other features, compete to make yourglider do as it do. Obviously this lesson inaerodynamics is very cursory and don’t goquotin me, for Gods sake.

The only other clue that your brain has to goon is the reactions of your inner ear(eustachian tube). These little suckers aredownright notorious, for the ability to messup, particularly when the their owner is goingfaster than his tiny little trotters will take him,due to the effects of inertia, vibration etc..Guess what causes car sickness? Generallythe aforementioned inertia and vibes willcause the liquid in the eustachian tubes toslosh around and send all kinds of wild andcrazy info to the brain. Vertigo whichessentially is a disorientation caused byconflicting sensory perceptions, steps inwhen a person is in a cloud. You have novisual reference, your only perception is thatwhen you are suspended in your harness thatmust be what vertical is, so when a wingcomes up unexpectedly, by the time yourbrain computes, you are settled in a turn, soyour bod now perceives that vertical , is a linestraight out from your chinny chin chin. Yourinner ear senses you are upright so when themessage comes into the brain that you areaccelerating, vertigo sets in, ‘cause it don’tcompute. Geepers, creepers, what you do tothem peepers.

So now your turning and accelerating, so youpush out to slow down and the rest is a sadsong. Your turn tightens, you push out, stalland spin or you get wise and do nothing andspiral, possible reducing your glider to a massof rubble.

This is where your sense of smell comes in.You can smell danger so strong that you cantaste it, however you can’t do anything aboutit. Like Daedalus before you, you have flowntoo close to the sun and your wings havemelted.

If you wish to experience this feeling firsthand, some day when you are way up high andout of harms way, close your eyes for tenseconds, then try twenty, then thirty and right

up to a minute. Really close em so you can’tget any visual clues. Don’t count if you cansense shadows from your sail, overhead. Incloud you see nothing but solid nothing.

Sometimes between layers of clouds if theyare sloped, you can get a strange illusion,where your eyes sees the slope of the cloudand figures that it is what level is. I heard astory about two military jets passing throughcloud layers, who upon seeing a light aircraftflying along, decided to have some fun. Theyrolled over inverted and then passed close bythe light plane so the pilot could see them. Ohno! are they upright or am I?

So, if you have a yaw indicator ahaa!!! Youreyes are now back to work (albeit usingartificial, unreal data). Your eyes now knowwhich way level is, your bar position givespitch and airspeed is provided by ears.

Another very insidious thing happens whenyou take a person with no instrument trainingand practise and put them on instruments.They continuously fight with the “seat of thepants” “gut feeling” and the instrumentindications, causing vertigo, airsickness andpanic etc.. This is especially true if the personis tired or overexcited or the display is a bit

confusing. Some instruments show a needlewhich leans over in the direction of the turn,which can be confusing if your mind looks atit and decides that it is actually seeing arepresentation of vertical.

Clouds are notorious for building and boiling.

The benign air surrounding them can quicklyturn into a sea of boiling, frothing, anger ofthe Gods, kind of stuff. This is due to variousand sundry activities going on within, such asthe evaporation and or mixing, created byfrontal movement, as two different air massescollide and create the cloud. Just listen to anaviation VHF frequency during a busy time ofday, around an airport, when clouds arepresent. Chances are you’ll hear differentaircraft calling in, to say that they are lookingfor permission to deviate around clouds.

On numerous occasions, when flying abovecumulus, I’ve watched them boil and build.Years ago, when I was young and foolish witha brand new license I perchanced upon a rainshower while on final for landing. Rather thanskirt around it, I figured that it didn’t look toobad, I’ll just skin through this opening.Mistake! I thought God himself had reacheddown and smacked me upon the head! I wastreated to what seemed like an eternity ofviolent turbulence and enough static that theradio crackled continuously.

How do you know that you’re not flying intosome unforeseen vertical developmentembedded in the cloud? How do you knowthat your not headed into some cumulo

granite (a mountainpeak). How do youknow that the cloudisn’t building in thedirection you’reheaded. How do youknow that your batteryor gyro isn’t going toroll over and playdead? Maybe a wirebreaks. Do you gettwo so you have abackup?

Now, how’s thisdangerous, I mean,‘cause I’m just a littleole fella tryin to getsome airtime, right,eh!!!

Well would you walkout onto the TransCanada Hwy withyour eyes and earstaped over? Wellthat’s in effect whatyou’re doing when

you fly in a cloud, because aircraft oninstrument flight (IFR) are gum booting itthrough the clouds and they have no way ofseeing a little dacron and tin kite. Neither doesATC’s radar. You are in effect endangering


Al Faulkner on launch at Hughe's Brook, Nfld.

Various magazine articles have beenbased on the idea that no paraglider pilotseducation is complete until the pilot hasdone fall stalls, big ears, etc. Thereasoning is that you won’t know how toget out of these weird unusual situationsunless you get this basic training. I look atthese statements with a leery eye.

I can certainly understand drilling it in toa student what to do in certain situations,however I draw the line at doing someextreme maneuvers.

The idea of course is that if you teach aperson how to recover from a deep stallthen they are safer but what about theprimary airframe. From everything thatI’ve read and can visualize, it takes abeating.

In a hang glider a stall is a fairly benignmanoeuver, that if not carried out from anaerobatic attitude is of little stress value tothe airframe and is fun to practise once ina while to keep you sharp. In a paragliderit is a different matter altogether. Duringrecovery a person could easily overstress

Quit StallinEh!

BY AL FAULKNER

the glider by waiting too long to recover,thus allowing the rate of decent toincrease, which could allow it to exceedthe design inflation maximum speed.Also the lines can become entangledowing to an asymmetric deflation orwhatever.

If a person learns these manoeuvres withan eye to perfecting them, sooner or later,I surmise that they will overstress theirlines, as overstress can be cumulative.

Ever notice that quite often these trainingsessions are done over a lake, with aretrieval boat available...

I have noticed during the brief time that Ihave been flying paragliders that theaccident reports indicate an alarminglyhigh number of fatal and non-fatalaccidents involving pilots doing thesemanoeuvres, structural failure orimproper reinflation occurring forwhatever reason.

My personal opinion is that if it ain’tbroke don’t fix it. If conditions are thatrowdy pack it up and go home.

As with any sport in it’s infancy,paragliding will be subjected to acontinuous litany of “experts” who“learned the hard way how to flyproperly”. Unfortunately their opinionsare taken as gospel, without a lot ofserious thought or research into thesubject.

the lives of numerous people, not to mentionyour own skin. You are also making it toughon the rest of us who have to explain to thepublic that “no not all hang glider pilots flyinto clouds”.

My unqualified suggestion is that if you seesomeone with one of these lethal gizmos, isthat you give them a meal of hot tongue andcold shoulder!!!

Boy, am I ever glad that I’m not anopinionated type of guy.


The ICEMAN

You have probably come across articles thathave originated in Newfoundland that refer toa pilot called "Iceman". To enlighten those ofyou who have wondered about the story of thename, now it can be told!

Apparently "Iceman", alias John French,our past HGAC ratings director, was flyingfrom a coastal site in winter, which had arestricted landing area and required anapproach parallel to the shore. Well,basically, John blew it and found himselfgliding out to sea, only the sea consisted of iceflows. As he found himself heading over thelast one of any consequence, he flared andsettled down gently upon it.

He then proceeded to break his glider downand wait, hoping the flow would not drift tofar, while his flying buddies found a boat sothat he could be retrieved.

The accompaning photo of John on his fatefulflight, with the "X" marking his landing spot,says it all.

Barry Bateman.

Official confirmation has just beenreceived from the FAI of Kari Castle'sOpen Distance record set last year inthe Owens valley.

The official Feminine World OpenDistance record is now listed as335.76km on a Wills Wing HP-AT 145

1992 COMPETITION SCHEDULEDATE PROV COMPETITIONJan 6-16 Aust FORBES FLATLANDS Tow launch Hang/paragliding competition. NSW, Australia. Entry A$150. Contact: Len

Paton, Boganol, Henry Lawson Way, Forbes, NSW 2871. Tel; (068) 537220Jan 17-31 NZ NEW ZEALAND HG CHAMPIONSHIPS Wellington. Site: 2850' Mt Climie, in the Timutaka range. Race to gaol/

open distance. Contact: P.O. Box 13-238, Johnsonville, Wellington, New ZealandJan 18-26 Aust AUSTRALIAN OPEN HG CAMPIONSHIPS Tumut, NSW. Ten sites, triangle and out and return. Contact; Ian

Jarman, HGRA, P.O. Box 558, Tumut, NSW, 2720Mar 28-29, BC VFVHGC XC MEET Mt Woodside, Agassiz. Entry fee ? Possible camera turnpoints. Contact J.C.April 11-12 Hauchecorne (604) 521 1559 (Rain days April 11-12)April 17-19 BC SAVONA XC MEET Savona, Entry fee ? XC racing. (May also double as B.C. Championship) Contact; Jim

Bamford at (604) 373 2614April 11-18 USA EAST COAST CHAMPIONSHIP Sequatchchie Valley, Tennassee. 450 WTSS points. Limited space. Contact;

Sequatchie Valley Soaring Supplies (615) 949 2301April 23- MEX INTERNATIONAL MEXICAN OPEN Guanjuato, Mexico. Entry fee us$130 includes; transportation, film, 2May 3 parties, prize money. HG&PG, M&F Contact; Aero Dinamica, Reforma 30 Piso 3, Col, Cenrto G.P. 06040, Mexico

D.F. Tel (525) 379 2140 FAX (525) 370 6243April 24- INDIA WORLD PARAGLIDING MASTERS Billing, Himachal Pradesh, India. Deadline March 1st. 70May 7 pilots maximum. $10,000 in prize money. Enrty fee $1200 includes; air fare (from Paris, London, Rome, Geneva,

N.Y., Tokyo) transpiortation, food, lodging, entry fee, etc. Conyact; Vincent Brisard, 3 Rue Treboutte,38000Grenoble, France. Tel (33) 76 21 11 45; FAX (33) 76 96 92 33

April 25-26 BC THE NOT SO GREAT RACE Lumby. XC racing. Entry fee $25 Camping available. Contact; Randy Wilford (604)547 6190

April 25-26 BC 3rd ANNUAL BLACKCOMBE PARAGLIDING MEET Whistler, BC. Hosted by Parawest Open to all licencedpiots, 19 yrs or older. Contact Janet or Joris Moshard (604) 932 7052

May 16-18 BC CLUB CUP (Tentative site; Keremeos) Sponsered by VFVHGC (Not confirmed)May 16-18 Alta ALBERTA CHAMPIONSHIPS Camrose, Alberta. (Trentative) Entry fee ? Contact ?May 27- Nor 8th EUROPEAN HG CHAMPIONSHIPS. VÅgÅ, Norway. Preliminary enties by March 1st, final entries beforeJune 11 April 15th. Contact; Norwegian Aero Club, HG-EM 1992, P.O. Box 3869, Ullevål Hageby, N-0805, Oslo 8, NorwayJune 6-13 USA SANDIA CLASSIC Albuquerque New Mexico. 450 WTSS. Entry fee ? Contact; Mike Gregg (505) 822 8586June 13-14 Alta 20TH ANNUAL COCHRANE MEET Cochrane, Alta. (Longest running meet in north America) Entry fee (?) Hang/

Paragliding. All levels. XC & spot landings. Contact Willi Muller (403) 932 6760June 22- USA CROSS COUNTRY CLASSIC INTERNATIONAL (PRE-WORLDS) Owens Valley, California.JULY 7 Entry fee us$495 no later than April 15 '92. Contact; Tom Kreyche, Cross Country Classic, P.O. Box 873, Mtn

View, Ca 94042 (415) 965 8608 FAX (415) 965 1361 (There may be restrictions on team size and number ofcompetitiors. Contact J.C. Hauchecorne for further information/reservation at (604) 521 1559)

July 5-12 USA MANUFACTURERS LEAGUE MEET Dinosaur, Colorado. 450 WTSS points. Hang II-V Entry fee; us$250.Contact; Nick Kennedy, P.O. Box 1026, Telluride, Colorado 81435 Tel (303) 728 3905

July 7-12 Wash CHELAN CROSS COUNTRY CLASSIC Washington, USA. Contact ? (Cloud Base Country Club, Wash)July 18-25 BC GOLDEN CLASSIC (CANADIAN NATIONALS) 3 levels of competition Entry fee $30 Contact; Ron Bennet (403)

239 7378 home; (403) 221 6882 work.Aug 1-3 BC WESTERN CANADIAN CHAMPIONSHIP Golden. Sonsered by Rocky Mountain Hang Gliding League. Entry fee

$30. Contact; Ken Schackleton (403) 295 1575Aug 1-3 BC SALTSPRING FLY IN Saltspring island. Entry fee (?) Contact Victoria HGC, c/o Les Sainsbury, (604) 727 3819

(Don't forget to reserve a spot on the ferries)Aug 1-3 BC WESTERN CANADIAN PARAGLIDING CHAMPIONSHIPS Golden, BC Entry fee ? Contact; Stewart Midwinter

(403) 261 3919Aug 3-9 CH VERBIER LUCKY STRIKE OPEN (PARAGLIDING PRE WORLDS) For more infomation contact J.C. Hauchec-

orne (604) 521 1559Aug 8-9 BC GROUSE MOUNTAIN FLY-IN Vancouver BC. (Rain days, Aug 15-16) No entry fee!!! Free party Contact Steve

Best (604) 985 8521Aug 22-23 BC VEDDER MOUNTAIN FLY-IN Sardis, BC. Contact J.C. Hauchecorne (604) 521 1559Aug ? Wash CAN-AM Black Mnt, Maple Falls, Washington. (Not confirmed) Sponsered by the Cloudbase Country Club at

Entry fee (?) Level II, III, IV.Sept 5-12 USA US NATIONALS Telluride, Colorado. Entry fee us$295 Contact; Nick Kennedy, (030) 728 3905Sept 5-7 BC CACHE CREEK TEAM MEET Cache Creek/Clinton/Savona, $25 Entry fee XC-racing/open distance. Probably

based out of Cache Creek. Contact Barry Bateman at (604) 888 5658

1 Mike Reibling2 Doug Keller3 Craig LAwrence4 Rod Porteous5 Larry Lawrence

6 Glen Dagenais7 Mark Taylor8 Barry Morwick9 Ron Bennett10 Rodger Nelson

Results from the Saskatchewan Open Tow Meet Results from the Savona Easter Meet (BC Provincials)

1 Lional Space2 Rick Hines3 John Mc Clintock4 Mark Tullock5 Dan Keen

6 Mike Harrington7 Steve Best8 JC Hauchecorne9 Willi Muller10 Chris Muller

***Classified***Classified***Classified***Classified***

Magic Kiss 154. Flour Pink andmagenta. Extra undersurfacebattens added (a' la K2) thereforeno yawing tendencies. Glider is in"as new" condition. Flown by a li'llady pilot on Sunday's. Moving up(down?) to a smaller glider. Offersaround $2000. Contact;Mia Schokker (604) 854 5950

Wills Wing HP 2Excellent condition. Quit flying.$1500 obo. Contact;Ken Ramsay (604) 980 2729

Sensor 510 Good shape fro agreatr price. Has speed bar, VG,and heavy sailcloth.$600 obo. Leave message at(604) 383 6962 (Victoria BC0Motivated vendor!

Paraglider: Trilair 24 70-100 kg.Advanced pilots only. 100 flightsCall Janet Moshard at;(604) 932 7052

Paraglider: Nova 49/92 Ad-vanced pilots only only 5 flights.$3600 without harness. Alsotowing system, used for 7 days.Call Réné at (514) 527 4433

For Salemometer Swiss precision only $80Sigma Minitex 110 reserveparachutes $595Contact: Parawest Paragliding,Box 1097, Whistler, BC (604) 9327052

Provincial

HGAC

ADVERTISING RATESClassified adds are free to all HGACmembers for personal adds only.Please try to keep to a max of 5lines.

Business rates:Classifieds: .25 cents per word,min $4. Photo's and special layout,$10 per column inch.Quarter page: $25Half page: $40Full page: $75These rates are for camara readyadds. If any special layout is re-quired call the editor for quote.Payment required in advance.Make checks payable to HGAC.

LOG BOOKSThe HGAC now has the new "hardcover" logbooks. These are darkblue with gold embosed logo andname on the front cover. Lots ofroom for all your information, yetsmall in size. Contact your nearestHGAC director for your nearestsupply.

600 POINT SCORINGThe HGAC now has available the600 point scoring system on com-puter disk. It's extremly easy to usewith pull down windows and helpscreens! If you have an IBM co-matable computer and would like acopy, contact HGAC Competitiondirector JC Hauchecorne or BarryBateman. (tel #'s inside front cover)

HGAC FORMSThe HGAC currently has approx 40forms covering everything from aform listing the forms (!) to competi-tion committe policies to ratings tofatalities. If you require any informa-tion about any HGAC committeeand it's standards, ie badge andrecords claim form etc, contact:

Mia Schokker3595 Old Clayburn Road

AbbottsfordB.C. V2S 6B7

tel (604) 854 5950

Stolen

Wills Wing Skyhawk 168 #9258Dark blue leading edge and doublesurface (Skyhawks have a little bitof double surface)This glider was stolen from the Si-camous launch (B.C.) on SundayAugust 4th 1991 from Dan Heighesof Calgary. The glider was stolenwithout the basetube , so has onlythe two downtubes. The glider wasin the usual Wills Wing bag.Anyone spotting this glider pleasecontact the RCMP and/or VinceneMuller (403) 932 2759

FOR SALECamelbak drinking system -hands free hydration while flying$37.50"Understanding the sky" byDennis Pagan $25New! Skywatch "FUN" ane-

WESTERN CANADIAN SITEGUIDE

If you are planning on flying in Brit-ish Columbia the "Western Cana-dian Site Guide" published by theHGABC is a must.Contains over 75 sites, with com-plete information including; height,type of flying, xc potential, maps,contact names, even locations ofhouse thermals.The site guide comes in a stiff, looseleaf plastic binder that stands up tohang gliding abuse and allows sitesto be added, deleted as required.Only $15 + $2.50 p&h from;

HGABCc/o Martin Henry

3595 Old Clayburn RoadAbbottsford

B.C. V2S 6B7(604) 954 5950

The Return of the

AMERICAN CUPThe American cup, the first International hanggliding Team competition which originated asa challenge between the Americans and theBritish in 1978 is to be re-awakened after a 6year break.

The 'Cup', which has been won by Britian ('78,'79, '82), the USA ('80), and Australia ('86)presently resides on Bill Moyes mantlepiece,in Australia, after their victory at the lastAmCup, which was hosted by the way, inCanada at Mt Swansea, Invermere, BC.

Australia plan to host the competition from Feb5-14, 1993, and should they win, put it up forchallenge again, in Australia, on alternateyears to the FAI World Championship. Ifanother nation wins then they become host forthe next America Cup. The top fiveparticipating countries will have automaticentry to the meet with the remaining threeplaces going to the top nations in the previousFAI Worlds.

For this coming meet the competing nations areexpected to be, Australia, USA, Canada, andBritian plus the four other highest placednations from the Brazil 1991 FAI WorldChampionship; Brazil, Switzerland, France andJapan, with the first reseve being Germany.

The venue is Tumut, NSW which is halfwaybetween Canberra and Wagga-Wagga, isgenerally dry with max daily temps of about 25-35 °C with cloudbase between 6,000-12,000 ftasl. If sponsorship cannot be found then theentry fee will be Aus$3,000 per team.

If you are interested in being on the team orrequire further details contact the followingbefore July 30th, 1992;

J.C. HauchecorneHGAC Competition director

res; (604) 521 1559 or 1 800 283 8530

air june 1992 - acvl · a 5.25" or 3.5" kbt disk as an ascii file or in any of the major...

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