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by Anne-Odile "Skippy" Thomas
Well, what I thought would never happen did, last Sunday, November 7, 1999. Imagine getting drilled so badly, to the point where you are forced to do a fly-on-the-wall on the South foothill face of West Bowl. You've probably practiced a similar landing many times in your mind, but hope you never have to actually do it! This mental rehearsal came in handy for me on my flight. But, before we come to that point, let me retrace the chain of events that led to this memorable flight. Saturday, November 6, was a no-flying day for me and Tony. The winds were too strong out of the S.SE to even justify driving up the mountain. A few pilots flew the "Back-of-the-Rack", but I knew this was not even an option for me on my Falcon 170. Tony and I went fishing instead. We caught nothing, so between flying and fishing, our day was pretty uneventful. We were quite determined to turn Sunday into a better day. Sunday morning looked much more promising. In the early morning hours, Debbie the wind-talker was announcing decreasing S.SE winds: 10 mph, 8mph, 6mph. We decided to have an early start to take advantage of mellower winds, in case they would pick-up again later, like they did on Saturday. We called John Bowers and met up at the Cieniguitas LZ at 8.30am. As we picked up our gliders at Hammer's, we looked at the satellite picture on his computer: a front was about to come to our shores later on that day. Another small frontal line was already over Santa Barbara, and was causing some overcast skies. Some clearing might happen between that small front and the big one that would hit us later on that evening. We figured we would time it just perfect! Hammer was not too excited about flying though, and decided to go biking instead. As Tony, John and I got to the Alternator launch, the winds were out of the S.SE, blowing about 12-15 mph on the road at the top of launch, but only about 7-10mph at launch. It is quite typical to have some Venturi effect going on at the top. So even though I did not think the conditions were that great, they did not overly concern me. I was more concerned by some fresh bear poop that we noticed right at launch. John, trying to be smart, set up his glider between Tony and I, commenting that the bear would eat one of us first, before he would get attacked. It would give him the chance to run for cover while the bear would maul us alive. Out on the ocean, the sun shining some rays through the cloud layer created some eery, yet beautiful very bright sunspots over the water. It was a fantastic sight. As we were setting up, we noticed a lower band of clouds developing from the West. That band was developing quite fast towards us, and threatened to shut us down for the day. It is often the case at the Alternator, when the clouds fill in lower than take-off. You usually want to get to West Bowl before those fill in the gap between take-off and West Bowl itself. I was still quite concerned about the wind velocity, and was not overly enthusiastic about flying in those conditions. I looked for any clue that would give me a better indication of what was really going on out there. A couple hawks were getting some amazing lift and did not seem to be knocked around too much. That was quite reassuring. The higher cloud cover was moving rather fast though. We then scrambled trying to decide who would be the wind-dummy for the day. Tony was willing to go first, but that would leave me and John last, one of us having to take-off without wire assistance. I would feel most comfortable if I had wire assistance, so I volunteered to fly first. As I was taking my glider down to launch, clouds were already filling in, in front of launch. I would have to rush to avoid being shut down by the lack of visibility and low cloud-base, nothing I hadn't done before at the Alternator. I waited for a mellower cycle, one that would come in fairly straight from the South. Finally it came, and off I went. It was about 11.30am. The ten or so minutes that followed were quite memorable ones. As I took off, I went straight up, sucked up by the lift and into the cloud. I had to stuff my control bar in, to stay out of the cloud and avoid losing sight of the ground. I cleared that initial cloud really quickly and all looked great. The air was quite smooth and very buoyant. I was higher than launch, and higher than West Bowl on my way to the slide. My game plan was to get to the front of West Bowl as soon as possible, as some other clouds were starting to wrap around the West Side of it. I did not want to get trapped in them. I headed straight towards the slide on the back of West Bowl. As I reached about ½ way to the slide, I realized that my ground speed was almost nil. I was barely moving forward, stuck as I bucked into some strong head wind. I started playing with my speed in an attempt to find the speed that would make me move forward without losing too much altitude. Nothing worked. My single surface Falcon just could not penetrate that head wind. West Bowl never looked so far away than at that moment! All I needed to do was to get to the front of West Bowl, and all would be back to normal. The winds would not cooperate though. I finally slowly started moving forward, but all of a sudden hit some very heavy sink. My sink-alarm went off on my brand new Roberts' vario, a reminder of how fast I was falling out of the skies. I realized that I would not be able to make it over the slide anymore, as it suddenly became a giant wall in front of my glider. I had to veer off to the East in an attempt to go round the lower part of West Bowl at a lower altitude. However, I was still sinking rapidly out of the sky, and making little forward progress. I saw the bottom of the canyon rushing at me, at which point I realized I was in trouble. I unzipped my harness in order to be prepared for the worse. I was in constant radio communication with Tony and reported my progress as I was hugging the ridge hoping to milk any kind of lift I could find as I slowly made my way around. Tony asked everyone to clear the radio frequency to allow me to give a full report on my progress as I was struggling with my flight. I was probably about 1-2 wingspans away from the mountain side at that point, getting knocked around quite a bit. Somehow, I managed to make it around West Bowl, and had the hope to be able to land at Robbins'. However, it became clear to me really soon that it would be a failed attempt. While it looked feasible on a straight glide, I would have to cross two canyons, go against a head wind, and fly over some power lines with little altitude to spare. There went my bailout option. My remaining and only option was to hug the foothills of West Bowl and pray for some lift. I made it over some low saddle, which I had never noticed from my previous flights there (the terrain does look very different from up high than from low down.). Unfortunately, that initial pass was very unproductive. I could not find any thermal. I made a left turn initiating another pass hoping to find some lift, but there was none to be found. I was slowly and gently sinking out, shutting myself out of any safe landing options. I took the decision to land when I was level with the lower level of the power lines that run right along the foothill of West Bowl. I was trapped! To the South were the power lines; to the North was West Bowl, to the West was the spine which you usually follow out to the Cieniguitas LZ; and to the East were nothing but canyon walls. I decided to look for the safest landing option available to me, avoiding any rocky area, high trees, power lines, steep gravel slides where I would have a higher risk of injuring myself. I also did not want to sink out all the way to the bottom of the canyon, as I feared I might clip a wing on a tree, or narrow canyon walls. I picked out a spot on the face of West Bowl, what seemed to offer a slightly lower incline, covered with chaparral. I would have to pull off a down-wind, uphill landing on top of the chaparral. I got out of my harness, set up my approach with plenty of speed and went for it. I flared at the perfect time and landed my glider perfectly on top of the bushes. What a relief! What I had practiced in my mind many times, had just paid off. I looked around as I was hanging with my harness about 4-6 feet off the ground. The slope was steeper than what I had originally estimated. I also just missed by about 4 feet a rock face that was also covered by the bushes. This said, I felt quite secure right where I was, so I immediately radioed my predicament and stressed that I was not injured. I was however trapped in the chaparral, and would need assistance for retrieve. The first person I talked to was Gilbert Roberts, who happened to be listening in from his home. A call was made to 911 by Lew Riffle or John Greynald to inform them that should they receive any call about a downed glider, all was under control. They would take care of the retrieval. The following three hours were more similar to a military operation, than a pilot retrieval. My radio battery was getting quite weak by then, and Gilbert advised me to save it by only using my push-to-talk and click in yes/no answers. I was however able to communicate the altitude of my landing, and a rough description of where I was. Unfortunately, this was not enough to determine my exact location. They still had a lot of problem figuring out which canyon I landed in. Although, they knew it was somewhere between Robin's and the spine out to Cieniguitas. Tony decided to fly from the Alternator to try and get a visual on me. Flying his Sport, he figured he would have a better penetration through the wind, and would not end up in the same predicament I did. He was able to spot me, but barely made it to Robin's himself. He got sink for his entire flight out. Little John picked him up and was able to determine better coordinates of my location. By then, they had a full crew organized in the retrieval efforts: Lew Riffle, Gilbert Roberts, John Greynald, Bob Ramey, John Bowers, Tim Johnson, Guy Lindburg, Kipp Harmer and Tony. A number of other pilots also offered their assistance right away, but this crew felt they had sufficient help to retrieve me very efficiently. And so they did! Little John, a walking topographical map himself, figured out the closest road to reach me. Bob Ramey used his charm to convince the landowners to open up a chained gate to allow them to drive to the top of Northridge Road. By then, I had managed to extract myself from my harness and glider by climbing onto the control frame and unclipping myself. Luckily, I had some water with me, which made the wait very bearable. I climbed up a rock to get a view of the canyon where I landed and the surrounding ridges. Soon, I was in visual contact with the cars that had gathered at the end of the road down below. Gilbert climbed up the spine leading to Cieniguitas and turned himself into the "Spotter". Overlooking the entire scene from the top of the ridge, he was able to direct the crew towards my glider. His directions were instrumental to a quick recovery. Chaparral bushes are very dense bushes that are about 6-10 ft tall. It is therefore very difficult, if not impossible to get any clear view out of it, while trying to force your way through it. The following scene was almost comical for me to witness. As the crew was bushwhacking their way up the canyon, they appeared to be some sort of chaparral monster quickly destroying its way through it. Bushes were shaking, branches were breaking, voices were yelling, the earth was shaking. Gilbert was directing this invisible monster up the canyon towards me. Finally, I was in voice contact with the creature and realized that I had nothing to fear. These were the voices of my friends. And what friends they were. After directing them to me, I finally saw them emerging from the bushes: Kipp, with his face bleeding, and Guy, were the first ones to get to me. I was so happy to see them. The rest of the crew followed shortly after them. We started cutting the bushes around my Falcon, Kipp's old Falcon... I was proud to stress to him that I did not damage my glider one bit., not even a downtube! John Bowers climbed on the high bushes and started getting the battens out from the back. Little John, Bob Ramey, Lew and Tony cleared out an area where we could fold up the glider. Lew had brought with him a pack full of all the gear one could ever need to survive in the outdoors.In no time, my glider was all packed up, including removing the two outer-leading edges, so that we could carry it in a more compact way. Once we were ready to head back, Gilbert helped us once again to navigate through the high and dense chaparral towards a riverbed that eased up the last few hundred yards of the retrieval. Bob Ramey, master bushwhacker, paved us a way through the chaparral and poison oak fields. John Bowers and Tony graciously carried my glider down to the car, while all I had to carry was my harness. We finally made it back to the car, safe and in one piece, relieved that the entire retrieve operation had been so successful. It took everyone less than 3 hours for the entire retrieve to take place. Amazing! As we staggered back into the car, the real motives of such an efficient retrieval became apparent. Some were hoping to be first in line after they hoped I would break up with Tony for using me as his wind-dummy. Others were more concerned about "saving the Club Treasurer" since no-one else wanted to take that job! We had a good laugh about it. Some asked me if I was scared during that flight. I definitely got quite worried when I started sinking behind West Bowl, but this soon gave way to a state of high awareness of the situation, trying to analyze (very quickly) every possible way to handle the situation best possible. Or, as Little John puts it, while describing the tone of my voice on the radio throughout my flight: it went from initial anger, to being very concerned, to finally lead into quiet resignation. This probably describes it best. Final thoughts. What have I learned?
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