[Bob Kuczewski]

Great posts and flight stories Bill!!!

The quote below from Sam on the safe splat thread reminded me of a tree landing I had years back. Since I’m making a large step away from Joe’s Safe Splat topic I figured to move this report to a thread closer to the same topic.

I think you made the right choice. This topic was intended as a way to share individual flight experiences. Thanks for sharing.

Sam (the man)---
“After falling >300' wrapped up in the crumpled glider, the landing was a no stepper.”
Sam had said a pecan tree was between him and his impact zone. Which sounds like a well placed tree to me.

      

Here is my tree landing story:
  :
Both the glider and I dove nose first into the tops of the trees. The left tip caught and snapped and put the right tip leading the way down until it caught and snapped. Now it was nose first again and the branches really worked to slow the descent. When the glider came to a stop my feet hit the ground with the same force you would expect jumping down from a kitchen chair. The glider never touched the ground.
  :
If I had landed 15 feet to the north I would have been a wooden, skewered, 180 pound, Shish Kabob!

                  . . .     

[Bob Kuczewski]

I came to this topic to log some of my more recent flights, but reading Bill's tree landing story reminded me of one of my own.

We were down in Mexico many years ago when I was still a pretty new hang gliding pilot. I had a fair amount of airplane time (single engine land and sea), and that sometimes made things "interesting".   

In this case, there was a huge field surrounded by what Californians call "trees" (a.k.a. "tall bushes" to the rest of the country). I was thinking like an airplane pilot when I did a nice long downwind, a nice squared base leg, and a nice crisp turn to final. The only problem was that the difference between downwind ground speed and final approach ground speed was much more pronounced in a Falcon than in an airplane. So I suddenly found myself on a collision course for the last row of Mexican "trees" at the near end of the field.

Fortunately, I executed a nice big flare and settled down on my feet between the "trees". The glider was perched up on the tops of the "trees" and I was able to wiggle it forward to emerge onto the field to see a few people running toward me. I yelled that I was alright, and we all had a few good laughs about it afterward.

It was almost forgotten, but one of Sylmar's stellar drivers (thanks for every flight Dana!!) decided that I deserved a "nick name" so she started calling me "Palo Bob" with "Palo" meaning "tree" in her version of Spanish. Well, I didn't want to be known as "Tree Bob" for the rest of my life, so I worked real hard to squelch it. But every once in a while someone will remind me of it with a good laugh.

Thanks for sharing your story Bill, and giving me the courage to share mine.        

[Bob Kuczewski]

Let's see ... what did I come here to post?

Oh, that's right, some flight logging.

March 17th, 2013 - I had a nice (but short) flight at Sylmar in remembrance of Erwin's passing. Erwin was a pilot, a driver, and a mentor to new pilots. I was a fresh hang 2 when I met Erwin, and he helped me with many of my first flights at Sylmar. So I thought about Erwin all the way from Launch to the LZ. I even hollered out his name a few times as if he might hear me up there thinking of him. Thanks for everything Erwin!!

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This picture is over the Pacoima Dam, and you can see a red-tailed Hawk in the picture just below the other hang glider. In the video, that Hawk shot up from below and dove back down again.

[Bob Kuczewski]

March 16th, 2013 - This was a short flight at Torrey Pines. The north face (best lift) was clogged with paragliders, so I headed south where the lift wasn't as good ... hoping it would be good enough. It wasn't and I ended up on the beach after a very short flight.

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[Bob Kuczewski]

March 10th, 2013 - This was our "Second Sunday at Torrey" hang gliding "fly-in" for the Torrey Hawks. I usually don't fly myself on the Second Sundays, but I set up my glider for other Torrey Hawks members to fly. This day Greg was one of our attending members and he had a nice flight on my Falcon.

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[Bob Kuczewski]

March 6th, 2013 - This was a nice flight at Torrey Pines. I don't think I flew very long (less than an hour) because Ken's niece was visiting and flying a tandem with John.

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[Bob Kuczewski]

February 28th, 2013 - I had a bunch of nice flights at Dockweiler Beach in both the Condor 330 and my Falcon 195.

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[Bob Kuczewski]

February 20th, 2013 - This was a nice flying day at Torrey Pines. Unfortunately, I don't remember how long the flight was, but my video camera ran out of memory!!!

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[Bob Kuczewski]

January 28th, 2013 - I flew Ken's Freedom 150 for a nice flight at Torrey. I normally put my video camera out on my washout struts, but Ken's Freedom doesn't have them so I went for a keel mount. Unfortunately, I didn't focus it very well when I started it, and the resolution was set too low.

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[Bob Kuczewski]

January 13th, 2013 - Again, I don't remember how long this flight was, but it looked like a good day so it could have been a half hour or 2+ hours.

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