 Unexpected
Romp
By Brad Weiss
Mar 22, 2002
After an early morning
flight cruising the roads and tooling around in smooth air, the group was
packing up to leave. Around 915, the thermals were getting strong early and I
decided to don the vario and go back up. But after a few minutes of bumbling
around at 400 feet in the rather uselessly narrow thermals....I gave up and
headed to the LZ.
After killing the
motor and while gliding into my base leg turn at 250 I picked up a little
thermal. My vario showed maintenance...cool! Right over the LZ, with the whole
crew watching i just kept circling in silence for about 3-4 minutes; maintaining.
Round and round slowing circling ever hoping for the moment to last.
With no discernable
wind and only a slight drift to the thermal, round and round i went in a flat
tight turn...hooting every few minutes. This was at 385 feet...still over the
LZ.
Then I started to
gain some more....at 580 the vario indicated a slightly higher climb rate but
still very slow and smooth.  At
850' the Brauniger was still reading a smooth powerful climb rate not much
stronger than down below...i had to drift with it somewhat to stay cored but
still with no discernable wind on the ground except a slight movement south.
I was still pretty
much right over the LZ; Phil and Tom at this point were cheering...hopping
up and down. A small bird had joined me in the rotation at this point. 900 and
still gaining smooth as silk.
At 1385 i must have
entered the main flow as the vario went ballistic and pegged out...whoa...I'm a
whimp! So i pulled ears....whoa...still going up at half max on the vario....whooa-no!
 Not
wanting to re-inflate I used alternating big ears to steer myself at 90 degrees
from the drift line and at 1550' I'm still in in big ears and going up
...yuck.....right about then i managed to drop out of it...big sink registered
on the vario as I exited but i was so relieved to see it say sink.
Whew. I steered
another 90 back to the LZ using alternating ears and stayed in ears to about 500
feet then spiraled in a steep turn till i set up at 90 on base....brought it in
for a high speed swoop landing (in a slight turn) to counteract any sink and was
cheered by the crew.....upon my landing...
I've been replaying
the event over and over in my head.
Brad Weiss |
