As the year wanes, the summer eases into the mild and pleasant autumn. This is my favorite season, with the landscape transforming into a joyous palette of reds, oranges and yellows. It’s like the whole land celebrates another harvest, another trip around the sun, another successful cycle of life. There is the foreboding of the coming winter, as the days get shorter and shorter and progressively cooler and cooler. But perhaps this is why the land celebrates. Maybe it is to keep you in the here and now, enjoying the wonderful scenery, the beautiful life as you see it without thinking too much of the future. I love autumn.
Aside from a couple short flights in the backseat of the 2-33 and the Grob, I haven’t flown much since I returned from Hungary. Certainly not cross country or any interesting flights worth mentioning. So when the first solid cold front of the season was forecast to roll in, I felt the urge to fly again. Even better was that I was largely ahead on my week’s work. It looked like fate would have me fly on this nice ridge day.
Steve was the spark plug for the day, getting the tows organized and taking the first tow. By the time I drove up from Philadelphia, picked up Bobby, and arrived at the airport (a 2.5 hour commute nowadays), I saw Steve pulling 508 out to the runway. This is probably the first time in my recent memory that someone else was launching earlier than me on a ridge day, good for him!
But in any case, this motivated me to get the LS4 together and I worked diligently and efficiently. It is amazing how easily and quickly the whole process goes when you’re well practiced and eager to go. I had the ship together and prepped to fly within 25 minutes and that included helping get Bobby’s wings on as well! The wind already picked up, it was time to get on the ridge and go.
By the time the ship was on the flight line, Tommy was just arriving back from towing 508. Socks changed, in the cockpit and we were ready to fly. Cookie and Jonathan launched me and we were on our way.
It was a rough tow! I measure how challenging the tow is by how close I am to opening the airbrakes. Normally I am relaxed and don’t think about it. When it’s gusty, I have my hand ready to open the brakes in anticipation of big gusts and the resulting slack line, which was the case on this tow. Huge thanks to Tommy who was pummeled for half a dozen tows. He was a real sport doing all those takeoffs and landings in those conditions!
A quick tow to the ridge and the lift was working solidly. The wind direction was almost right on, perhaps a touch north of perpendicular. I drove onto the ridge and was easily established in the ridge band. A quick run up to Fairview Lake and then I was heading southbound.
Boy it was wonderful to be back on the ridge. After not flying it for a while, it all just comes back to you in a gleeful surge of memory. It’s a moment of joy, similar to when you come home after being away. You forget how familiar everything is.
The previous week I had hiked the local ridge with my father. We trekked from the Delaware River almost the whole way to Catfish Pond. The round trip took us a little over 9 hours and I was absolutely exhausted at the end of the day. It really put this ridge flying business into perspective when I flew the whole length of the hike in about five minutes! Soaring is absolutely amazing!
The ridge was pretty rough. Every once in a while the gusts would fling my feet off the pedals. I kept up a good clip for now, 90-100 knots, happy to play the conditions for now, but not any faster. The trees danced below.
By the time I got to Hawk mountain, the sky was bordering on overdeveloping. My first thought was that it wouldn’t be possible to make it upwind and to come back a bit later. The cloudbase was around 3500ft MSL and it didn’t look like it was working all that well. I tried to find a thermal and even went off the tip of Hawk to do so without much luck. But when I turned back, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try to get to cloudbase and give it a try anyway. And at that point the thermals cycled in nicely and climbing up to cloudbase wasn’t too difficult. And given, why not attempt an upwind crossing? It was a bit trickier since there was not a clearly solid line and I wasn’t that high. But a thermal in the middle of the jump got me comfortably high enough to get across to Sharp. Very nice!
With the solid northerly wind, Sharp was working gangbusters. Normally I’d be more inclined to thermal through this section if I was flying recreationally, but today it was just totally solid. Sparing myself the trouble of thermalling along, I just floated along in the ridge lift without breaking a sweat.
With the northerly wind, the line to Bear set up closer to Tremont. Again no troubles climbing up and an easy crossing to Bear Mountain. Bear had a line of lift that smelled a lot like wave. I fiddled around in the rotor a little bit, but the line was not staying stationary enough to be worth the effort, or at least so it seemed. Gus Johnson, the rascal, got up to 10,000ft in his 1-26! Evidently the wave was working well!
But in any case, I kept enjoying soaring the ridge and worked my way down the Mahantango. It seemed best to stop at the Susquehanna River with the overdeveloped sky ahead on Buffalo Mountain and the northerly wind. The OD can slacken up the wind and suppress the thermals; best to head back.
It was only around noon and it felt disappointing that this was the most the day could offer. It didn’t excite me to go back to Blue Mountain and do laps and laps; I’ve done that plenty before. So as I was climbing to transition back to Bear, I looked upwind. There are two ridges there, Little Mountain (aka: Northumberland Ridge) and Nescopeck Mountains (Bloomsburg Ridge), both that I hadn’t flown before. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to fly with them; the northerly wind that should make them work very nicely!
It was a bit of a challenge getting from the Mahantango to Little Mountain. The cloudbase hardly lifted any higher, getting only up to 3800ft. With the stiff headwind, it was tough to buck the wind while maintaining glide back to the ridge behind me. Slowly but surely I made it around the tip.
What a beautiful Little Mountain (hehe)! The tip had a very cool perspective on the valley, with the Tuscarora and Shade Mountain off in the distance. Selinsgrove Airport was just the northwest, along with the broad Susquehanna River beside. With the ridge working solidly, I headed northeast bound, floating along at 85 knots or so. I enjoyed the view several hundred feet above ridge top.
Trevorton was off my right, with the wooded landscape and strip mines from days past. To the northwest was a beautiful valley, with fields full of corn and cut hay. I saw a nice paved runway at Northumberland Airport and a beautiful little grass strip at the northeast end of the ridge. This would be a very nice place to fly gliders!
Time to make another jump to Nescopeck Mountain. This one took me freakin’ forever. Every time I climbed up, I drifted back quite a bit. It was two steps forward, one step backwards for a good half an hour. Finally one cloud higher than the rest took me to 4200ft and this was enough to comfortably make it across.
Nescopeck Mountain worked great! The Berwick Nuke plant beckoned in the distance, belching a huge column of steam. That plant offers a very consistent thermal when you need it; my nickname for it is “Ol’ Faithful”! I’ve hoped to fly this ridge on future triangles. It seems like a very nice way to get home from Lockhaven; climb up to 6000ft, do a glide to Nescopeck Mountain, pick up a downwind bubble from the nuclear plant and then glide across the Poconos to Cherry Valley. This would save quite a bit of time on the way home.
The ridge worked very nicely all the way up to where Rt.80 crosses through a gap. At this point the ridge loses a bit of definition and the fields become sparser. I floated along at 2300ft a little beyond the gap where Rt.81 crosses. Beyond this point the ridge fades away and becomes hardly usable. Time to head back.
Since the cloudbase was still low, it wouldn’t work out well to cross back over the Pocono Plateau. As such, I flew the same way back as I got here, along the same ridges. This was a very nice fast run, with easy downwind jumps back to Little Mountain and Mahantango.
With the sky cleared up, I flew the length of the Mahantango and took the chance to cross the river. The wind slackened a bit on the other side, but the ridge hung on a bit. It got soft enough that I was eager to take a thermal up when I found one at the tip of Buffalo Mountain. This let me plod back to the Susquehanna River and sneak back across to the better working ridge on the other side.
Right as I crossed the river, I saw two bald eagles playing with each other. They left a thermal, flying wingtip to wingtip, occasionally getting in each others way! There were many birds migrating along the ridge system, though the five eagles that I saw were the highlights of the day. These majestic raptors actually take interest in your presence and are the most fun to fly with!
After this point, I worked my way back home. The sky ODed over Sharp, so it was a bit trickier to make the downwind jump back to Hawk. But finally a solid thermal took me to 2800ft and then it was easy sailing getting home.
It was freakin’ cold. My camelbak leaked and the sun was on my back. I was shivering the whole way home. Once back on the local ridge, I finished the leg to the Fairview and was eager to get back on the ground. The ridge was softening up anyway and I was pretty satisfied with the flight. Time to go to Blairstown.
When I landed, I learned that Bob Janney landed the club Pilatus in a field and a big crew went out to get him. Steve and Taz helped me put away the LS-4 and we hung around until the rest of the ACAers came home. Taz and I ate dinner and got pizzas for the ravenous club members, who arrived from the retrieve 10pm. We had a jolly time in the warm ACA shop, content at the completion of the first nice ridge day of the season.
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Thanks Aero Club Albatross for giving me the opportunity to fly the gorgeous LS-4. Thanks Tommy for the tow!
See the flight log here.
Soaring Economist 