THE TRIP

     The trip up to Oregon was an adventure in itself. Chad Bastian, Don Freudenthal, Jim Maddox, and I packed anything and everything onto the roof of the Hummer in weather proof "body bags" and set out on the 750 mile trip leaving by midnight. With three TV screens, a cappuccino machine, and 18 hours of X-Files videos we were set! By early morning we were feasting on pounds of pig and fresh eggs just outside of Lakeview.
LAKEVIEW, OREGON
     Beautiful downtown Lakeview is… well….small. The town has the population of the Loretto Plaza, and is about the same size. The remnants of what used to be a thriving logging town many years ago, is now forced to survive off the tourist dollars and passing traffic. The town has a hang gliding history since the early days of the sport, and has decided to welcome the sport with open arms in hopes of becoming a Mecca for pilots and increasing the local tourism. The people were overall quite friendly, and even the town tourist beaurea had "welcome paragliding and hang gliding" signs on their windows. The roads to launch were unpaved but pristine, and the majority of the local farmers welcomed pilots landing on their farms (only one or two shot at us).

THE WARM UPS
     We purposefully arrived at Lakeview a few days early so we could warm up, and get to know the local flying. We quickly learned from the locals that the conditions had been less than usual for the area, and El Niño had definitely messed up the local conditions. With water levels the highest they had been in 20 years, the lake rose to levels whereupon it acted like an ocean front, located upwind and cooling the flying sites while tempering the usual thermal conditions creating almost an induced downwind inversion on the town of Lakeview. As a result, the flying had been unusually poor, and we began the trip with a lot of parawaiting. We later found there was far more parawaiting to be done, but the magic of the glass-offs made the wait worth while.

THE TERRAIN AND THE COMPS
     A week of 110 degree heat and 26mph winds pretty much summarizes the event. Only a few task days were called, and even those were not thought to be indicative of the type of great flying that the area is known for. The terrain varies tremendously there, with flights starting from barren mountains and tasks usually calling for flights over tall forrests, quickly transitioning to canyons and barren flat desert. Even just driving along the task routes was an awesome sight, passing from mosquito-ville to the Sahara in a matter of miles, with the scenery looking like Yosemite one minute and the planet Mars the next. Some stretches had endless miles of volcanic rock with not a bare spot within site. Landing there would not have been pretty. Many of the routes have huge ridges like the walls of the Grand Canyon, stretching upward from flat salt deserts. One can imagine what the lift might be like along these 1,000-foot walls when the conditions were just right.

DAY #1
     The first day was blown out, and we sat around getting to know each other. The day ended with spot landing contest at the base hotel. One of the great things about this place is the hotel has one of the primary LZs, and landing in front of one's room was a daily event. In fact, with my knee fresh out of ligaments, it turned out to be a good thing. With hopes of perhaps competing with a leg brace on I tried to fly in the glass off. The Lakeview glass-offs are magical, and happen as late as 8pm, with sunlight available until almost 10pm. Lift was everywhere, and later in the week there must have been 50 gliders all parked in the laminar air one night. On this first night however, I launched and found that the weight of my leg combined with a side step on launch led to my knee popping out of joint just as I launched. I felt the pop and a knife like pain in my knee, then looked down and saw my foot facing the wrong direction! OUCH!!! Concentrating on not dying, I continue to climb in a house thermal until I was high enough to safely let go of the brakes. I let go , pulled on my lower leg, and POP it fell back into place!!! Ahhhh… that felt better. Now, I could concentrate on how the hell I was going to land on one leg! My knee was quickly swelling to the size of melon, and I continued to climb while I called the "buddies" for advice. I let them know what had happened to my knee and that I might need some help. Being the good friends that they are, they quickly began shouting suggestions…quot; I have the Dilaudid suppositories down here" shouted Jim, "a comforting thought", I thought to myself." Land in the geyser!" shouted Chad.
     "hm, he must want to sell me a new glider", I thought… 100 degree sulfur water can't be good for my glider, not to mention my Ball vario and my lungs should I fail to get out of my harness in time. Boy, these guys are just full of advice. Don had the best advice and radioed "Land down here at the hotel and we'll catch 'ya". Well, given those choices…suppositories, sulfur water, or catch-the-crip, I decided to try to top land. By now, I was a mile upwind and about 500 over launch, so … back to launch I went. Unfortunately, it was blowing about 26 on launch, and coming down required both ears and speed bar. Pushing the speed bar with just one leg turned out to be more difficult than I ever imagined, so after four failed passes I decided to bail and went for the only other acceptable idea. "Ok guys, get ready to catch me!" As the sun set, I had no choice but to come down on my now pumpkin size knee. I set up, hit the strangest wind shear I'd ever flown in, with the wind at 100 feet AGL blowing at 30mph and the wind at 75 feet AGL at zero/zero. Sudden acceleration towards the ground and here we go!!! I figured I would go for the complete stall about a foot off the ground to try to convert all horizontal energy into vertical, and it worked, except I flared at about 4 feet instead of one. I plunked on the grass and guys carried me to the hotel where a little bit of ice and a lot of Vicodin went a long way. It became clear that I wasn't going to be a strong competitor in this year's comps.

THE REST OF THE COMP DAYS
     We awoke to day after day of howling winds. It became increasingly more apparent that the best flying this week was going to be late in the day, so each day GW announced the meeting times to later and later. We spent the mornings talking about flying, calculating flying formulas, and surfing the net. It seemed there were almost as many laptops as there were gliders in our hotel wing. The air conditioning kept us cool in the 100+ degree heat, and although dipping in a pool would have been perfect, the only pool at the hotel is a mineral spring with temperatures near 100 degrees (not particularly refreshing in the desert heat).
     Travel to launch was quick and easy. The roads were great, and pilots either drove their own cars, loaded on the "big yellow bus", or piled into the Hummer. The Hummer quickly became the official comp vehicle, and music requests allowed us to park on the side of launch with doors open serving music to the public. It also became the only source of shade for miles around and plenty of comp pilots took turns napping under the 3 foot ground clearance of the beast.
     With respect to the actual tasks, I'll let you read about those in Paragliding magazine. They were tricky given the lack of significant lift, and making it to any of the goals seemed to me to be a small miracle.

AFTER HOURS PARTYING
     If you were expecting great stories in this section you will be disappointed. There ain't much to do in Lakeview. By the time the sun set we were all pretty baked, so a little pizza and air hockey at the bus driver's pizza shop was the highlight of the night. I may have been #42 on the score list, but I was #1 on the hockey table. I found the Vicodin I was taking for my knee greatly enhanced my air hockey skills. It's hard to believe people get hooked on this stuff. I found myself having to take handfuls of the stuff just to be able to sleep, and I seemed to be missing the "high" that experienced druggies rave about. I personally found the stuff to be better at producing constipation than euphoria. The best post flying adventure took place on a day where nobody scored a single point. The first ever "Zero Validity Day" that GW had ever seen. After retrieving pilots from all over hill and dale in 100+ heat, we decided to Hummer up to one of the natural streams and do a little swimmin'.

     We found a beautiful spot in the canyons, and plopped ourselves into a small collection of mini-rapids for a cool back massage. Suddenly, I noticed Don and Jim running out of the water. Why would they leave such splendor? I can't believe they're ready to go- we just got here? Jim is now waving his arms and screaming something at the top of his lungs, but I can't hear a thing due to the noise of the rushing water. It sounds like "lawyers, lawyers". Huh? What does that mean? I stand up to try to hear what he's saying and look down to find myself covered with tiny blood sucking leeches!! YUCK!!! I hesitate to look under my shorts for fear of what I might find…. AHG!! They're all over Mr. Happy!!!! Get me out of here!!! It turns out the guys had realized long before me that we weren't alone in the water. Tiny little black leeches had attached themselves all over. Also, tiny little worms were trying to find their way into forbidden passages, and burying into our skin.
     I've never been crazy about the outdoors, and little critters trying to eat me from the inside out is just one of the reasons why.

WHAT I LEARNED
     For ten days we ate, breathed, and lived paragliding. I never thought it was possible, but even I was getting tired of talking about flying. I thought we had discussed pretty much every aspect of flying imaginable, but… I was wrong. Below is a list of stuff I learned. Some may be old hat for the seasoned competition pilots, and some of you will undoubtedly think "What? He didn't know that?", but nevertheless I found the following discoveries to be quite enlightening:

1. SPEED TO FLY
     One of the more lively discussions was that of the formula for "speed to fly". Many of the newer high performance wings advertise "great upwind performance". I used to think this was a load of bunk, as how could a wing possibly know whether it was going upwind or downwind? As I learned during this week, it matters!!!
     With the help of the Furgeson brothers (Makers of Ball Varios and designers of the Ball Vario COMP) we analyzed the speed to fly formulas and what they mean. The question became what speed should a paraglider fly at when flying either upwind or downwind from one turnpoint to another, with the goal being reaching the next turnpoint with the greatest altitude.
     Given the premis that there is no lift or sink (eliminating the vertical component which would change from glide to climb), what speed should one fly when flying down-wind?
     The difference between upwind and downwind performance and best glide depends on the efficiency of the glider at the various speeds (hence, the "polar"). Gliders like the Nova Vertex, which have a low sink rate at high speeds will outperform on the upwind leg. Gliders with a very low sink rate at slow speeds will tend to outperform on the downwind legs. The swing Ventus or Astral for instance, modeled in part like the famous Minoa, have excellent min sink characteristics at 10% brake. The min sink at slow speeds allows the glider to "ride" the downwind drift while loosing very little altitude, thereby arriving at a downwind location at a higher altitude. When a Minoa races a Vertex upwind however, the Minoa requires a significant amount of speed bar in order to achieve the same penetration as the Vertex with little to no speed bar. The performance in this configuration leads to higher sink rate, therefore the Minoa arrives at the turnpoint significantly lower than the Vertex when going upwind.
     Although initially confusing, with some thought the principle becomes quite clear. In trying to define these numbers precisely and mathematically we find that a graph of the polar can be handy. When given a horizontal wind speed (positive or negative), the best speed to fly in a given condition can be extrapolated from the graph by drawing a line from the origin to the tangent of the polar. In tail winds, this will always be just faster than but approaching minimum sink!!!! How much faster depends on the polar and the amount of tailwind.
     I haven't quite figured out the mathematics of why this is true, and I can't say for sure that it is, but I am working on it and will hopefully have the formula figured out by the next newsletter. If any of you brainy engineers out there have it figured out, please let me know.

2. GRAPHICS COMP VARIO
     I don't own stock in the company, and I'm not getting a commission, but I have to tell you that this is the most amazing piece of equipment in paragliding. The vario basically calculates all of the above speeds and simply tells you how to fly. When combined with a GPS signal, it not only tells you how fast to fly, but in which direction. Although not simple to use, the degree of flexibility, countless number of features, and super sensitive variometer circuitry makes this an unbelievable bit of technology. When flying in competition, the vario will even tell you when you're high enough to abandon that thermal and go on final glide. It takes a lot more than just a vario to make someone a winner, but toys like this one sure do make some decisions easy.

3. GW MEADOWS
     This guy is one of the most controversial personalities in Hang Gliding and Paragliding. Mention his name in any circle of serious pilots and you are sure to get 30 different opinions on the guy. Why? What kind of personality do you think it takes to govern the largest body of free flight pilots in the country?
     Hang glider and paraglider pilots all have one thing in common- strong personalities. The sport is not for the weak of heart, and flirting with death selects a renegade bunch that doesn't like to take orders. Let's face it, we would have a hard time agreeing to run out of a burning building together. Thirty pilots would have thirty different ideas as to whether we should walk, run, or fly out the window. Now try to run a competitive event with 60 such personalities, throw in the unpredictable weather, the cost of doing business, and last but not least the risk of death for each and every participant in each and every task.
     Anyone who gets to know GW Meadows has to agree that he is one of the most righteous, most honest people on the planet. Everyone may not agree with his philosophies, his decisions, his choice of tasks or his choice of locations, but no one can deny that he does his job with full conviction and that he is extremely bright and dedicated to fairness.
     Although my first impression was one of a brash manor, time allowed me to get to know the real GW. I personally have found him to be one of those great personalities that one rarely has the opportunity to meet. A great man who few people in the sport probably gets to know well enough to appreciate.

4. THE GOATS
     OK, I'm getting sleepy and couldn't possibly write about all of the things I learned, but this one I couldn't leave out. I've always loved puzzles and I collect them. This is one of those brain teasers that is just perfect for scrambling the brains of pilots who have been sitting in 100 degree heat all day stressing about the next task. It's well known as the "Monty Hall Puzzle". Here's the puzzle:
     There exist three doors. Behind one is a million bucks, behind the other two are goats. You choose one. Now Monty shows you one of the doors you DIDN'T pick. Behind that door he shows you a goat. Now gives you the option of either keeping your first choice, or trading it for the door you didn't choose yet to be revealed. What should you do, and why? Or does it matter? Answer:
     First, let me assure you that the anwer you are about to read is the correct one. Many of you will argue to your death that it is wrong, but it's not. This one has been around for a while and is well known to statisticians and mathematicians.
     The correct answer is you should always trade!!! In this particular example, it increases your odds of getting the bucks from 1/3 to 2/3. This is why: the probability of choosing the right door on your first guess was one out of 3 (1/3). That means that the probability you did NOT choose the right one (that it is left behind) is 2/3. Monty will ALWAYS show you a goat, and this is merely a distracter that doesn't change the equation. By giving you the option to trade your first choice for the "leftover" door you increase your odds from 1/3 to 2/3.
     Here's another example: This time you are given 100 doors to choose from (99 goats and one door with a million bucks). You choose one. Monty now proceeds to turn over door after door after door that you didn't choose.. showing you 98 goats. Now there are only two doors left. The probability that you chose the right door on the first shot was only 1 in 100. The probability that Monty has the bucks behind the only door he hasn't sown you is 99 out of 100. By always trading in this case, you increase your chances from 1% to 99%!!!!!
     For those of you who think it's still 50/50…. The reason it is not is that Monty showing you 98 goats is NOT a random event. He ALWAYS shows you goats because he knows where they are. He will never show you the money. Therefore, you are not choosing between two "random doors", you are always choosing between the dud you chose and the door with the bucks (except for the 1 in 100 times when you might get lucky and choose the bucks on the first pick).
     I love this puzzle, and watching it eat up Chad's brain on launch generated a couple of chuckles. It was great fun watching this puzzle spread and following the arguments and fights which broke out across launch as people swore the odds were 50/50.

WAS IT WORTH IT?
     Despite not being able to fly, limping around in miserably hot weather, and being attacked by leeches, this was a great week. The opportunity to watch people like Othar Lawrence or Chris Santacroce fly was an amazing sight. At one point, OJ suddenly left a climbing gaggle in what seemed to be a ludicrous direction and almost magicaly flew directly into an unmarked boomer that allowed him to out climb dozens of other competitors within seconds. The "sixth sense" which some of these guys have developed is beyond scientific explanation. The amount of experience and unwritten knowledge which is available in this type of competition rivals the best of organized clinics.
     I recommend that anyone with the ability to participate in such an event do so for the sole purpose of learning. There is talk of next year's event being held in Aspen, Colorado. If that's true, this next year's competitions should be one of the best ever, and post flying activities should reach a new high.