CURRITUCK

AIRPORT Pg. 2
JUNE 2009 WEEK 3

KHK MT. TRIP

LOOKOUT MT.
coming soon

Soaring JRSP JUN 09 VOL 5

 Soaring
Jockey’s Ridge State Park

The Airport is about 45 min north

of Jockeys Ridge. This day when I went
It there weren’t too many students and
Johnny towed me and Lazer up above the
clouds. Lift was weak but it was still tons
of fun. We ate at Mel’s on the way back.
 The winds were East North East for al-
most 4 days straight. Sunday night it start-
ed, a group of us after work took a couple glid-
ers to the beach but things still hadn’t turned
on yet. Lazer of course was able to soar and
made the gap a few times at Oregon St. The
next day was no joke the winds were straighter
East and a few of us tried taking an eaglet off
the top before classes. The air was strong but
not as smooth as I thought and I went into the
hill on my first flight. There was a slight turn
I thought I could handle but I was wrong. I
jammed my pinky finger in between the base
bar and the wheel. The glider was fine surpris-
ingly but it was pretty embarrassing but that’s what I get
for trying to soar an Eaglet, but that didn’t stop me. I fixed
the turn for teaching and just watched the rest of the day.
Tuesday was on again, I tried a falcon but was pulling in too
much and had lost the confidence to turn back toward the hill

at all and flew out of the lift band. Soaring sand

dunes is way harder than you’d think and it is a
lot of flying close to the ground. Conditions were
so good I saw Bruce flying. That was the first time
I’d ever witnessed him soaring and it was amaz-
ing. Everyone was taking turns, Instructors on
the 170 and 195 falcons. K-T on her 140 Falcon,
Dave, Rob and Trebor on the sonic and a Mark
IV. Mike had his Pulse out and I saw Mark fly
it too. Lazer and TJ spent the whole day up in
corolla getting hours at a time on the beach.
I was teaching on the south east hill and
looking back at the ridge with my jaw dropped.
Later that evening after the last class Greg
Bagbee showed up all the sudden and then
it really turned on. He launched at the north
end where most people were sinking out and
got up and over the top fast and stayed up.
 and Jon also top landed. Later
he and Jon were soaring togeth-
er at the same time, like it was
point of the mountain, except it’s
NOT. It’s not even half as high,
the face of the hill was chang-
ing before our eyes, and there
were tons of tourist standing
below them. It was an awesome
sight. They flew till the sun set
and we had to get off the dunes.

I had barely met him the night before and he had mentioned
he was a pilot and I mentioned that conditions were going
to be good, he said he hadn’t flown for a while but he might
come out. I didn’t know who he was till he flew over head
and started talking to us from the air. He was “Shredding”.
There was actually a group of old instructors there that day
also getting air borne but now we were all just waiting for Bag-
bee to land. Eventually he top landed and others were getting
up. Brian and Wes on the 195 were getting super high and Wes
 The next day
was good again
and I was there
early for June
training. I set
up an eaglet
191 and had
my finger ban-
daged up and
hooked in at
he base of the
hill. Hiked it
to the top and
this time was

just planning to test fly. It flew nice and level and also back-
wards pretty good so I top landed. Then I launched and got a
little further out in front and made some passes. It was hard
work just to keep the wings level and penetrating and you have
to plan your turns out way earlier than normal, but when you
let out at the right time it goes UP. It was fun but my body
was all over the place to stay in control I was told it looked
pretty funny. It is possible to soar an Eaglet but not easy.
There was some more amazing flying that day and lots of
teaching it was epic. At the end
of the day seven of us loaded
into a van and headed to Look-
out for even more epic flying.
-EM