Cliffside Cripple

The Title
Cliffside Cripple is the name of a beer Doug Jackson made for a little fly-in we had a Cliffside a couple of months ago. It had a picture of a leg with a plaster cast on it. I drank some, but I never expected to be the Cliffside Cripple....

The Good
A good flying forecast for the weekend makes Friday more exciting and Cliffside had definite potential for Saturday. Unfortunately the soundings on Saturday morning were less impressive - a lot more wind - but after some debate we all headed out to Cliffside, worried it would blow-out.

Dan, Mark and I headed through together; spring doesn't last long in the eastern gorge, so we enjoyed the sunshine and green grass. Up at launch there were a lot more wings on the ground than in the air; a few pilots had just top-landed rather than risk being flushed. It looked like another high-pressure, thermic sort of day - choose your cycle carefully, stay with the thermal.

A whole bunch of pilots turned up (I think Dan counted 21 wings). I launched soon after arriving when there were maybe 4 or 5 wings in the air and had a short flight, getting a few hundred over but top-landing. I took off again and had a longer flight, getting quite a bit higher - up to around 2,500 ft. It was relatively easy to stay up, not so easy to get high.

When I thermal, I prefer to get high quickly, so I've got lots of elevation to play with (who doesn't?). Here I found myself thermalling relatively low in somewhat bumpy stuff for longer than I would have liked. More and more gliders flew, but generally they were well spread out. After a while a whole bunch of us landed - I was hungry.

The Bad
The wind was picking up, it didn't seem like an XC day, but Steve and I reckoned we'd give it one more flight to see if we could get away. Steve took off, I brought up my wing, the wing was above my head and flying and under control, I let go the C risers and started to turn to my right (everything is going great at this point). As I did this, the wing turns a little bit to its right. Instead of continuing my turn and sorting it out, I turned back round and take a step to the left (facing the wing) to get underneath it and then I get plucked of the ground, facing backwards. I'm not holding the Cs, so I can't easily kill the wing and I reckoned I would just fly out backwards and turn round.

However, almost immediately the wing turns sharply back into the hill, turning downwind. I hit hard and try to PLF. How do I know this? First, I remember most of it. Second, I've actually seen it on a grainy video. Looking at the video, it was all under control and happening slowly - including flying out facing backwards - until the last second or two when my wing turned into the hill very quickly.

I lay there as people rushed over to help me. Paula made sure I was OK, Deanna got me her hiking sticks, Gabe packed my wing, Hannes carried my backpack down. Thank you to all who helped. The walk down at Cliffside has never seemed so long.

The Ugly
A visit to the ER confirmed what everyone thought - a sprained ankle. It is nicely swollen and an interesting color. Given how hard I hit, pretty lucky really. I suspect it will get better quickly, but we'll see. In the meantime, The Flying Scotsman could be renamed The Limping Scotsman.

I'm still haven't come to any definite conclusions and I spent some time talking to Jim about it (he saw everything pretty clearly), but my tentative ones are

1. When you let go of the Cs in strong conditions, you are vulnerable. Don't hesitate on the turn.
2. I shouldn't have tried to sneak in an extra flight; I guess I was just too confident in my launching ability in strong winds, but the combination of strong and thermic can be more challenging.
3. I had set up near the edge, and this probably contributed to my taking off when the wind gusted (rather than being pushed back or dragged).
4. When I took off, I expected to just fly out facing backwards - I was pointed pretty much directly into the wind. So did the spectators. I considering pulling hard on the brakes to kill the wing, but I thought flying out was the better choice - I'm less sure of that now (maybe if I hadn't been near the edge, it would have been).
5. Dan thinks I might have been better set up further to the L, where the wind tends to be a little straighter and I agree.
6. When flying backwards, I wasn't really controlling my wing. This is a very disorienting situation and I've tried to practise it at an SIV clinic, but it is a hard situation to replicate.

Some pictures -> http://picasaweb.google.com/DMMullin/Cliffside04April2009#

Tracklogs -> http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/175781, http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/175782