SDHGPA will be hosting the
​USHPA 2018 Film Festival November 17th!

The San Diego Hang Gliding & Paragliding Association presents the 2018 USHPA Free Flight Film Festival, featuring five new films showcasing hang gliding, paragliding, and adventure travel in the US. The two-hour showing will be held at on November 17th at The Palomar Main LZ starting at 5:30pm with Fly-in & BBQ before. The amazing visuals and compelling stories are sure to appeal to all audiences – pilots and non-pilots alike.

​“The USHPA Free Flight Film Festival showcases the best hang gliding and paragliding has to offer, from imagery captured utilizing a Cineflex camera stabilization system mounted to a helicopter, to a first-person GoPro masterpiece shot by professional pilots,” said Martin Palmaz, Executive Director of USHPA. “This festival highlights the heart of hang gliding and paragliding, from projects working with communities, to flying and camping over vast mountain ranges, to aerobatics, to a lone falconer and his pursuit of the perfect flight. There is something for everyone.”
 

Films included in the 2018 Film Festival showing:

1. Building Dreams
2. Inspired
3. Maters, Misfits of Moab
4. The Perfect Flight
5. North Of Known

Hang gliding and paragliding are a combination of adventure sport and aviation. Pilots fly light and non-motorized foot-launch aircraft both recreationally and competitively. Hang gliding pilots hang prone in a harness, suspended from the airframe, and exercise control by shifting their body weight. Most modern hang gliders are made of an aluminum alloy frame covered with synthetic sailcloth to form a wing. Paragliding pilots fly lightweight aircraft that have no rigid primary structure and resemble elliptical parachutes. The pilot sits in a harness suspended below a fabric wing that is comprised of a large number of interconnected baffled cells. Hang gliders and paragliders can travel hundreds of miles on rising columns of air, called thermals, soar for hours in the wind pushed upward by coastal terrain, or simply fly down from a mountain in calm, still, air.
​

Event & Site Location :  Palomar Main LZ
(SDHGPA Palomar Main LZ - Roberts Ranch, 15482 CA-76, Pauma Valley, CA 92061)  (map)

​When: Rough Schedule
9:00am - Start Meeting in Main LZ  for BBQ set-up and dropping off supplies.
10:30 - 3pm Carpooling to launch: Many will be coming out later in the day. Please try to wait for others and carpool up to launch from the LZ to minimize number of cars on launch.
We expect it to be flyable until dusk. See forecast to be updated below.
11:30 - Peak Heating
BBQ will start as people start to land.
4:46 - Sunset
~5:00 November General Club Meeting 
5:30 ~ Film Festival Start 

• SDHGPA Membership is Required to fly Palomar.
• This event is Free to SDHGPA Annual Members, & SDHGPA Visiting Pilot Members
• + side dish Potluck item & BYOB: so plan to bring an appetizer,  side dish, salad, or dessert to share.
• Non Flying Guests: $5 Donation for the BBQ main course.
• Remember to bring a beach chair for the film

For detailed Site info, see the Palomar Site Guide
​If you haven't flown Palomar before or checked out the site guide this month for updates, please read the site guide prior to arrival.  It may save you from landing in a burial ground or from wandering into rotor, or it may even help make your flight epic!

Cost: 
Free to SDHGPA Members & $5/ non flying guest BBQ donation is appreciated
SDHGPA Membership is required to participate in the Fly-in at Palomar and covers the BBQ.

Any new (late) Annual Memberships joining for the Fly-in will be rolled over into a 2019 Annual Membership as an added bonus.  
(Full Annual Membership, or Visiting Pilot membership is valid for this event. For non flying guests, a $5/ person BBQ donation is appreciated)

Note that all Cars must have a parking pass in the LZ & Launch (& no parking out on the road).
Please take care of Memberships and print parking passes before driving out if not current.
All memberships are on line and easier with a strong connection. . . ​
To Check Current Membership Status

Please RSVP

RSVP Responses

​ABOUT USHPA
The United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (USHPA) is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to support sport flying in foot-launchable, unpowered soaring aircraft. USHPA develops, standardizes, and administers programs that foster and promote practices for safe flying. USHPA maintains a working relationship with the FAA and other regulatory organizations to ensure continued access to airspace. The organization also maintains relationships with public and private entities to promote the procurement and maintenance of flying sites.
 
USHPA is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado. For more information on hang gliding and paragliding, go to www.ushpa.org.
​

ABOUT SDHGPA
​The San Diego Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (SDHGPA) is a hang gliding and paragliding club dedicated to the promotion and preservation of foot launched soaring (non motorized "free flight") in San Diego County. SDHGPA is a local chapter of the United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, USHPA. We work collaboratively with land owners and governing agencies at the local level to keep our primary flying sites open by maintaining, insuring, purchasing, regulating, and monitoring our launch sites and landing zones. Our guiding principle is that all foot launched pilots of hang gliders and paragliders alike share common goals and interests best served by a united effort to promote flying safety, education, and good community relations in San Diego County. We support hang gliding and paragliding at the national level through the United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (USHPA) and concurrent membership in that organization is the one and only club membership requirement.

History: The SDHGPA is the Oldest and Longest Running Hang Gliding and Paragliding Club and Organization in San Diego and Southern California originally organized in 1973.

For detailed Club History and History of motor-less Free Flight in San Diego that goes back to the 1930's, See: SDHGPA and San Diego Free Flight History.  

​The Palomar Site Guide has been updated to highlight some Protocols that are being overlooked. 

Specifically to: Check in with the Ranch Office Manager (Clarissa) Monday - Friday (& Saturday if ranch hands are present) and introduce your self.  ​

Saturday October 27th!!  2018 at Palomar

A Halloween Costume Themed SDHGPA Fall Fly-in

Come on out and share the sky with the San Diego free flight crew.  BBQ main course & soft drinks will be provided by the club after flying - feel free to bring any appetizers or side dishes you'd like to share & BYOB.

For detailed Site info, see the Palomar Site Guide

​If you haven't flown Palomar before or checked out the site guide this year for updates, please read the site guide prior to arrival.  It may save you from landing in a burial ground or from wandering into rotor, or it may even help make your flight epic!

Cost: 

Free to SDHGPA Members & $5/ non flying guest BBQ donation is appreciated

SDHGPA Membership is required to participate in the Fly-in at Palomar and covers the BBQ.

Any new (late) Annual Memberships joining for the Fly-in (after October 20th), will be rolled over into a 2019 Annual Membership as an added bonus treat.  Late membership Roll-over normally starts in November.
(Full Annual Membership, or Visiting Pilot membership is valid for this event. For non flying guests, a $5/ person BBQ donation is appreciated)

Please take care of Memberships and print parking passes before driving out if not current.
All memberships are on line and easier with a strong connection. . . ​
To Check Current Membership Status

The Social Committee would like some help from some volunteers to help coordinate, set up, BBQ and break down. Also, if you have a portable Fire Ring that would be great!

Please also RSVP via the Club Calendar invites or RSVP form below.

RSVP Responses

Last years PALOMAR DE HALLOWEEN ICARNAVAL was a great time,  Looking forward to this years!

I should probably start naming names: Bill Davis was the one who saw the opportunity to shove me into a thermal over at Little Black, and I’ll probably always remember his super simple and intensely shared advice over the radio: “Keep turning, ya knucklehead!” ​

As funny as it sounds, that’s really all you need to get started with thermalling, although that’s just the start of the invisible elevator game.

Chris Cote spent lots of time at Blossom with me going over what he looks for and how he understands the sky from the ground and from the riser-feel once he’s skyward. It’s always nice to get the perspective of someone who has put in a ton of time in a very short period (and who holds more than one of the local site records.)

Ivan Guajardo was also more patient than he needed to be when it came to talking through the first steps of Blossom and the crossing to El Capitan, and Mike Dowdall has been about the most generous and encouraging pilot I’ve met on launch.

Yes, Phil Russman was there barking his occasional gems of wisdom, Paton always drops the technical flying info-bombs, and before he got sucked into buying a house, Robert Michiels was a fairly constant wingman. ​

I got to enjoy the glory of a hike with Dave Metzgar and hear his gravelly version of what’s right and wrong in the world of paragliding, which is one of those experiences that just makes you want to hear more.

On a few car rides to club meetings or out to Horse with Josh Gelb I got an exceptional and interesting view into club history, including many lines that are rarely flown now and the genesis of the Palomar launch.

​Finally, an exhortation to those of you who either haven’t renewed your membership yet OR who are new and wondering what a membership actually gets you.

One of the reasons San Diego is such an excellent and reliable place to fly is that we lean heavily on just a few people to do all the paperwork and admin “stuff” to keep our sites open. ​

Access to Horse, the permission to fly Palomar, the ability to put up weather stations, keeping sites maintained, the website itself, and keeping us an insured & recognized club in good standing with USPHA is frankly a huge PITA.

The easy way is to take the money you’d spend on your sweetie for a cheap dinner once a year and pay your membership dues. That’s a one-time action that allows the 4 or 5 people who do 98% of the volunteer work that keeps San Diego such a great flying area to keep on slaving away on our behalf. ​

Oh, and if you find anything other than a cheap dinner in San Diego for under $40, let me know!​

The hard way is to volunteer to actually do all that paperwork, and there is a TON! ​

While I’d encourage you to volunteer, it’s far easier and also pretty effective to just pay your dues. We’ve got about 100 pilots who haven’t renewed yet, which represents a good chunk of our yearly income as a club. If you fly any more than 3 times a year it’s basically a no-brainer to continue supporting.

Finally, if you’re new and thinking about joining SDHGPA, please do!

Most club members are happy to chat with you and share as much as we know, along with introducing you to potential flying buddies and mentors. You can eat $40 worth of tacos at any one of our fly-ins, so if you’re a hungry pilot, think of coming to multiple fly-ins as basically being paid to fly and eat.

At $40 per year for a full annual membership, this is about the most valuable spend you’ll make this year. Ping us with any questions, and see ya in the sky!

Cheers,
​Nik Hawks

​A work party will be announced when we are ready for the installation depending on the location selected and manpower required for that location install.

For this 4th station, we chose the Ultrasonic wind sensor like at Palomar and Laguna for less maintenance and more obscurity due to no moving parts. The rest of the system is similar to the other club stations that are also solar powered and send data over a cellular network connection. Data is then sent to the Holfuy Data hosting site and WEB based data visualization. ​

Look for the LB WX station data to be coming live in the next month and find the data on the SDHGPA WX Station Page along with the LB Site Guide.  You can also use the holfuy stations Apps available for iOS & Android. 

Elsinore convergence animation / slideshow hr by hr
From XC Skys on a classic day 9-27-18 starting at 9 am till 6 pm.

Watch how the day develops and progresses. The colors are showing top of usable lift and the scale is on the upper right. From blue to green then yellow are the higher altitudes. 

Note that the Eastern side of the Santa Ana Mts / Santiago Saddleback coastal range (that block & hold back the westerly winds and also referred to the E's Back Range) typically develop 1st before the flats heat up to be workable. Many times, it becomes a patience & waiting game while trying to hold onto altitude before crossing over into the flats.  A lot of times, it is beneficial to hold onto the Back Range until the West pushes through. Once the west pushes through, it is time to go with it and try to stay slightly ahead of it as a tail wind, as the cooler west diminishes the Back Range's productivity, and the Flats turn on.

​Blossom Site Update: Asking for everyone’s support to help counter the proposed sand mining project in the valley. Nik is leading the current efforts and has written a October Update post about what is needed to Help Counter the Sand Mining Project.

Event Planning:
10/27 Halloween fly in:  Need help with stuff for fly-in
Bill has some stuff but needs pickups to transport - Joseph, Luke, etc...
​Steve to put up sign up sheet – See Sign-up Genius link on Halloween Fly-in info page
 
USHPA Film Fest 2018 at UCSD 11/17? Or at Palomar with a fly in 11/17/18

• Kim is working details to get co-sponsorship with a UCSD sports club to bring the costs down to a reasonable level.
• Default / Back-up location will be Palomar
• For more info see and follow the Film Festival Event page

A few days after the meeting, the Board determined that Palomar would be the best Event location from the proposed locations.

Other Club Business:
Memberships:
Dues the same for next year, approved by board unanimously

Lots of people not renewing but still flying:
Ask em to join if u see em. Best tactic in my experience - present it as an essentially voluntary and supportive action, of little cost - a way of protecting and maintaining our sites and doing right by your fellow pilots.

SDHGPA 2019 Elections
SDHGPA Board Nominations & appointed committee positions for 2019 will open at the next scheduled meeting in November. Please think about how you would like to be support your flying community in this next year.  Elections will be in Dec - Jan via mail in ballots. 

LiveTrack24 SDHGPA Group
Steve R- everybody should use LiveTrack24 and sign up for the SDHGPA tracking group, so we can find em. Any tacking device dealio from satellite Spot or Garmin inReach type to cell phone app can be linked and combined in LiveTrack24. Our Livetrack24 Group is a good way for us to merge all of the different tracking devices and methods into one location for our SDHGPA group to quickly and easy access pilot locations for retrieve or emergency purposes.

A good practice is to use both Satellite and phone app for tracking for redundancy and that the cell apps can fill in more data points between the 5 or 10 min satellite tracker data send intervals. (If using phone for tracking, it is a good idea to also use a back-up battery supply)

​Bill D. - everybody that doesn’t have a dedicated SOS-sending satellite tracking dealio is basically committing suicide. But if they want to go with wimpy-ass LiveTrack, whatever. Maybe we’ll come find em, maybe not.   And off we go into the abyss . . . 

Topic Discussion: ​ Weather Tools
Great talk by Chris Cote on weather-casting tools and how he uses them to crush the rest of us in XC-land. If you missed it, it’s your loss. Or gain - if you or I tried to fly in some of the crazy conditions he calls “awesome”, we would just be scared out of our minds and likely give up paragliding for golf. 

Cheers, 
Dave Metzgar

​Banner LZ - Emergency Bail-out (San Felipe Valley) (CDFW Lands Pass required)

• Hazards:  Unimproved desert bail-out – Old grazing fields better than many options. However cacti, yucca & other desert plants, & wash ruts – Can be thermic and need to watch for high winds out of Banner Pass. Need to pick best options on approach.
• (CDFW Lands Pass required)
• No motor vehicle access: foot access only from the paved roads

"Fish and Game" LZ - Emergency Bail-out  (San Felipe Valley) (CDFW Lands Pass required)

• Owner: State of California
• Hazards:  Unimproved desert bail-out – Better than many options. However cacti, yucca & other desert plants, boulders & wash ruts – Can be thermic and need to pick bests options on approach.
• (CDFW Lands Pass required)
• No motor vehicle access: foot access only from the paved roads

Come on out and share the the sky with the San Diego free flight crew Saturday June 2nd.  Taco Cart & soft drinks will be provided by the club; feel free to bring booze and any appetizers you'd like to share (BYOB).

SDHGPA Membership is required to participate in the Fly-in.

Please RSVP & take care of Memberships and print parking passes BEFORE driving out if not current.  
​
All memberships are available online, here.  Please make sure you're paid up and print out your Parking Pass before you arrive. Let's work together to keep these wonderful sites available to the free flight community!  (Temp or Annual membership including guests is to help cover all you can eat Taco Cart & have site access). 

Check Current Membership Status

Rough Time Table:
1:00 - Set-up & General Meeting Time / Check in at LZ opens
1:45 - Carpooling to launch starts
2:30 - Site intro on Main Launch
2:30 - 7:00 - Launching (H1-H2 & P1-P2 should be launching later . . .)

~ 6:00 Appetizers (potluck) & LZ festivities Start
~ 6:30 - 8:30 Taco Cart Serving: chicken, beef, & pork tacos along with cheese quesadillas

The Social Committee would like some help from some volunteers to help coordinate, set up, and break down. Also, if you have a portable Fire Ring that would be great!

Current Weather:  ​
​Yep, we have a weather station on launch!

It was a flight just like any other, until it wasn't.

On May 5, 2018, flying my PG on the north side of Palomar Mountain, I deployed my reserve.  This is the story.

Steve Rohrbaugh, Josef de Beer, Steve Prairie and I met in the Palomar LZ just after 11:30.  It was already hot, light breeze out of the west, and scattered high clouds.  We headed up to launch in Josef's car.  I had just been expecting to site fly, but Steve R thought big XC might be possible going north.  He wanted to fly to Marshall.  I didn't think I'd be able to keep up with him or Josef or Steve P, but it would be fun to try.  I fly an Advance Epsilon 7, a B wing, with an unfaired harness, and the three other guys were in pod harnesses with C or better wings.

Up on launch, things looked good.  Wind was variable, but direction was usually good, with the wind mostly light but occasionally strong.  I was ready first, and launched at 12:51.  I found lift right in front of launch and started thermalling up. If you want to follow along, this Doarama (http://doarama.com/view/2115273) captures Steve R's, Josef's, and my two GPS recordings.

For whatever reason, in those first few minutes, I decided to feel for my reserve handle, and re-familiarize myself with just where my hand needed to be to grab it.  I told myself that it was something I should be doing every flight, but I had gotten out of the habit.  Premonition?  I don't know.  But I'm glad I did it.

I was in a good thermal, drifting out of the west, but at 7100 it felt like the thermal, and the west push, stopped.  It felt like I hit a different layer of air, maybe east coming over the back.  I decided to head northwest toward Eagle Rock.  Before I got to the next ridge line, I found thermals again drifting out of the west. At 7300 I headed north over the spine of the mountain, where I found a thermal that started drifting out of the east above 8100. I topped out around 8800, and started heading NW.

I got to Eagle Rock at 7700.  Beyond it, I found nothing but sink and turned around to try to tank up on altitude.  Josef and Steve P streaked past me going NW, south of me and 500 ft higher.  I wasn't finding lift where I was, so I decided to follow Josef and Steve P anyway.  I watched Josef hit some really bad sink as he approached what looked like the NW end of the range.  He started heading more north, and soon found a good thermal, and Steve P joined him.  I wanted to join them too, but didn't think I had the glide, so I headed north before I reached them, and found my own weaker thermal.  I gained 400 ft before it petered out.

At this point I was really perplexed what to do.  If we tried to go NW, we were fighting the west.  It was an over an hour into the flight and I was maybe 5 miles from launch.  Maybe this wasn't going to be a big XC day.  The last good lift was back before Eagle Rock.  I decided to head back that way and hope to get high enough to make the next move.  I left with 5600, but as I headed back, losing altitude, I decided it was too risky to be low on Eagle Rock trying to make it back toward launch.  So at 5300 I turned northeast, heading for what looked like landable ranch land on the way to the 79.

I started hitting big sink.  I began to think I would have to land at the ranch furthest in.  At about 1000 AGL (3700 MSL) I got my low save, a nice 200-300 FPM thermal drifting out of the west. As I climbed, it got stronger, 400, 500, up to over 900 fpm. About 2 minutes before it all went to shit, I actually thought to myself "For a 1000 fpm thermal, this is really smooth.  One of the smoothest strong thermals I've been in in a long time!".  I had it centered, wasn't hitting any rough edges, and was rocketing up. As I climbed above 8k, I started contemplating my next move.  I could see Steve R to the east of me, slightly higher, heading north.  I also saw Josef about my altitude, but back to the south.

As I climbed through 8500 the lift was weakening, but I was still climbing at 200 fpm, still smooth.  I saw 8800 on my altimeter and then I heard my wing rustle and I went weightless.

Now I should say that I really, really wish I noticed everything that happened in great detail and remembered everything that I did, in the proper time line.  But I don't.  I remember thinking at one point that I was two seconds behind everything that was happening.  By the time I realized what the wing was doing, and thought about what I needed to do, the wing was doing something else.  So I realize that what I report may not make sense, because I could have the timeline wrong.  And I make no claim that I reacted with the right inputs at the right time.  I will admit that as a pilot with lots of experience in the normal flight envelope, once I got outside that envelope, I was a bit lost.  I very well could have made the situation worse.  Or I could have just failed to adequately correct.  Or maybe I hit turbulence that would have gotten the best pilot's wing folded up.  I honestly don't know.

Anyway, I went weightless, and it felt like I dropped about 6 feet.  I remember thinking "Oooh, that was a big one", but I wasn't terribly concerned as the harness picked up my weight again.  But that was immediately followed by what felt like getting whipped around (or maybe I went weightless on one side of the harness).  I grabbed the risers out of the instinct to grab something to hold on to.  I know, not the right reaction.  And then some moderate G's and then I watched my wing fly down in front of me, below the horizon.  Luckily it didn't keep going past about 20 degrees below the horizon, but I thought "Oh Shit", like when you're at the top of the roller coaster and you know the fall is coming.  I knew I was going to fall down between the lines, and I tried to remember the right thing to do.  I thought, you've got to time some strong brake input to keep it from surging again.

So what happened next is a bit of muddle.  It seemed like before I could make that surge correction I was planning, I was getting yanked around.  The next clear thing is that I was in a spiral. As I spun around, I could see the wing about 30 degrees above the horizon, pointed mostly down at the ground.  The left half of the wing was folded under.  I knew that I was dropping fast, but I also knew I had been at 8800 feet when this started.  I knew I had some time to try to fix the wing, but I also remembered the warning about pilots blacking out from g-forces in a spiral before they could throw their chute.  I didn't feel like I was anywhere close to blacking out, but I also thought to myself that I should not go too long before hucking.  So I tried to fix the wing.  The left wingtip was kind of balled up, tangled in the center lines, flapping.  I pulled a lot of left brake, hoping that might pull the wing out of the tangle.  Nothing happened.  I started to look for the stabilo line, but started to think, "I don't know if that will untangle that mess, maybe I should just chuck the reserve". Right then Josef yelled over the radio, "Throw your reserve!, throw your reserve!"  I thought, if I'm not sure I can fix this, and someone else thinks I can't, it's time.  I reached for the reserve and pulled.  It was harder than I expected (the G-forces increase the pressure the deployment bag is under).  The handle came out, but still no chute.  I had just pulled the handle out to the extent of the web strap connecting it to the bag.  So I grabbed the strap and pulled again.  I'm thinking "Throw the reserve into clear air", but all I had in my hand was flapping fabric.  I'm wondering what happened to the reserve when poof, it opens and everything slows down.  I'm guessing all this took about 4 seconds (from deciding to pull to getting it out).  OK in my situation, but way too long if I had been close to the ground.

From the GPS track, I'm guessing the chute opened at about 7400 feet.  And it was about 50-60 seconds between the first collapse and chute opening.  My maximum descent rate was over 2400 fpm.

Once I was under canopy, I radioed to the others that I was under canopy, was OK and was going to land on the north side of Palomar.  Both Steve R and Josef started flying in my direction to be ready to mark my landing location and assist if they needed to.

Under canopy, the glider was winding itself up.  I don't think I had a riser twist when I hucked (I'm not positive), but by the time I established that the reserve was open, the risers had twisted, and as the wing flew in a spiral (the left wing tip was still stuck in the middle lines) it was twisting all the lower lines into a rope.  This was a good thing, I figured, because if it kept going, the wing would be forced smaller and smaller.  As it was, sometimes the descent was smooth, other times the wing would grab some air, yank me forward, and create some penduluming between it and the reserve.  As I got lower, I grabbed the "rope" of twisted lines, and started hauling the glider in.  I got to the end of the "rope" where the lines fanned out, and wasn't able to grab the fanned out lines, so I stopped hauling in, and started thinking about where I was going to land.

With incredible luck, I was heading straight for a dirt road.  I actually thought I might land right on it, but in the last 500 feet, the wind shifted from west to north, and I missed the road by about 50 feet.

I remember thinking, bend your knees, get ready for a PLF, and roll with it.  As I got to 50' AGL, I realized that the slow spin of the reserve meant I was going to land going backwards.  At about 15', I looked over my shoulder and saw a bathtub size boulder right where I was headed.  "Oh fuck", I thought.  I let go of the wing, heard branches crack, and then I was on my back, heart pounding, looking up at the sky, with no pain.  Kind of comfortable, as a matter of fact.  I immediately radioed to Steve and Josef that I was down, was OK, and if nobody saw me move for a while, don't worry, I was just going to lie there for a minute and catch my breath.  And I did.

I was very lucky.  I had been set down right in between two boulders.  My only injury was a slight scratch on my right elbow from one of the boulders.  By landing backwards, my harness (stuffed with my camelback, hat, and glider bags) took the brunt of everything.

Josef radioed that he was going to fly back to launch, get his car, and come get me.  Luckily, I had cell coverage, so I was able to identify the road I was by (Cutca Valley Truck Trail), and radio the details.  I even called my wife to let her know what happened, before she heard any rumors from someone else.

Then I had to decide what to do next.  My reserve had drifted over some bushes to the south, and my glider was hung up on bushes to the north, with my harness in between.  The bushes were 6-10 feet tall.  I thought it would be almost impossible for me to gather the wing and chute without help.  Besides, I was just not up to it.

I admit to being surprised at how much the whole thing affected me.  For up to half an hour, I was literally shaking.  I had only been flying an hour and a half, but I was very tired.  The adrenaline rush had taken a lot out of me.

For reasons that make no sense now, I wanted to get to the road in case someone came by.  I thought, find a clear path to the road, take out a manageable amount of gear, and then come back for the harness, glider, and reserve.  So I grabbed my helmet, instruments, water, and jacket, and looked for a way to the road.

It is hard to convey just how thick the bushes were.  I spent a few minutes trying to see if there was an obvious path out.  No. I put on my gloves and started breaking branches to clear a path. It literally took me about an hour to make it 50 feet to the road.  I got more scratches from bushes than from my landing.

By that time, Paton W had stopped by the Palomar LZ, heard what happened, and volunteered to drive my car to come get me.  That was great news.
​

My plan had been to drop the first stuff at the road and go back for the glider, reserve, and harness.  But I had no energy for fighting my way back through the brush.  Also, I worried that the road I was on was behind a locked gate.  So I decided to start hiking out, and come back for the glider later.  I turned on location sharing on my phone, and started walking.

The next day, I recruited my son-in-law, and Josef volunteered as well, and we went back.  With the three of us (and brush cutters) it was pretty easy to retrieve all the gear.  Even so, it was a long day.

So, what do I conclude from all this?  One, I was very lucky. Lucky that I had altitude.  Lucky that my chute worked perfectly, even if I didn't.  Lucky to not hit anything hard on landing. Lucky to be so close to a road, in bushy but moderate terrain.  As I hiked out, I saw plenty of other places I could have landed that would have been hell to get out of.  Lucky to be flying with friends who saw what happened and helped out.

So, what the hell caused all this?  I think all day, we were seeing different layers of air moving in different directions. I'm guessing that at 8800', I hit the east shearing over the lower level west.  But I don't know for sure.

The more interesting aspect of this whole thing is how I performed.  I didn't panic, which is good.  I don't think I did anything terribly wrong, but I'm pretty sure I failed to do some right things when they needed to be done.  We all like to think we have "the right stuff".  Maybe some of us don't.

My one and only SIV clinic was in 2011.  Way too long ago.  In fact, my chute hadn't been repacked in a couple of years.  It's easy to get complacent.

As for the future?  I don't know.  I love XC.  But something like this changes the risk/reward calculation we all do when we decide to fly.  Next time I might not be so lucky.  My instinct is to jump back on the horse that threw me.  But it gets really hard to say "It won't happen to me" when it's happened to you.

​Jeff Brown

Leonardo of the 3 tracks:  http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/compare/1955600,1955099,1953590

Steve R's side bar comments: Jeff is correct in speculating that he had hit a strong East shear overriding the West at around 8.5-9K.

If you view Jeff's track, Jeff was thermaling up in the west side of the convergence. The thermal that I had prior to Jeff's but more south east of Eagle Rock was similar. We were Thermaling up in the westerly coastal air mass flow in areas that were protected from the stronger lower level winds. North into Temecula and flowing up the Aguanga Valley was the typical lower level winds that scrub and cut off the thermals.  The trick for this route is to make the jump from the West side to the East side of the Convergence before the lower level cuts off the thermals, or make the jump over areas under the influence of the lower level cutoff wedge.

Jeff's thermal path (Red) location graphically in relation to the main convergence line.

My own thermal, like Jeff's, was the strongest thermal of the day for me and I had heavy banked up in it to load the glider in this thermal. As I was passing through this shear layer, my own glider was heavily being pitched and surged to the point of almost doing asymmetric spirals while while thermaling with active piloting and still going up 500-800fpm.  In strong thermals and potentially turbulent ones like this, I find it is best to throw efficiency out the window and load up your glider in a high banked turn with lots of wt shift.

Followup note from Jeff:

I had a good chat with Phil Russman about what could have been happening with my wing during my incident.  He said a big surge (wing flying down past the horizon) is usually caused by stalling and/or spinning the wing.  I doubted that scenario because I never pulled a lot of brake.  In fact, I was thinking "get your hands up" and don't pull a lot of brake.  So that led Phil to propose that probably, some part of the wing collapsed and got behind me, and then as I fell and re-loaded the lines, it started to shoot forward just as I was putting my hands up.  That sounds very reasonable to me.  So, as far as the first part of the incident, I made two mistakes; not looking up at the wing to see what was going on, and releasing the brakes just when I should have been applying them to stop the surge.

After the big surge, when the wing was below the horizon, I think that the line-loading went to zero as I fell down between the lines.  Probably, with the wing completely unloaded, the left wing tip folded under.  Again, I didn't keep my eye on the wing.  If I had seen the cravat and immediately applied right weight shift and some right brake, I might have kept the wing from winding up into a spiral.  Phil says once you have a "stuck-tip cravat" wound up in a spiral like that, it is very difficult to remove.  Even if right weight shift and brake couldn't keep the glider flying straight, a slower turn and lesser G forces would have given me time to find the stabilo line and try to pull the cravat out.

Given the first couple mistakes, once the glider was wound up in a spiral with a stuck tip, throwing the reserve was the right thing to do.

My intent in writing up my account is not to suggest that unknowable crap will happen to your glider while you're flying.  I believe that if I had reacted promptly and correctly, I would have lost a bunch of altitude, but not had to throw my reserve.  My intent is for all of us to learn from my mistakes.

Jeff