Most Landouts in One Day

Brian Glick wrote:
I know a guy that landed out at a contest once while serving as the
sniffer!!!

Back in my hang gliding days, this person was called the "non
competition task pilot". No one ever called him that - he was the "wind
dummy".

Tony V. LS6-b "6N"

Early 1970s, El Mirage, Region 12s. Weak day, so free distance is
called.

Teenage me was crewing for my instructor who was flying a Zugvogel.
Off he goes, and promptly lands at a strip 12 miles away. We get
there
quickly, derig (not as simple as today's glass birds - open trailer,
lotsa
nuts and bolts, etc., all pulled by a 1960 Desoto), and race back to
El Mirage.

My instructor starts rigging immediately - its now after 3 pm, and
contest
rules say that the last launch has to happen by 4 pm as I recall. His
wife,
smelling a rat, starts screeching: "No, oh no, oh no you don't!!"

Rigging complete, we push to the line and launch him with a minute or
two
to spare. Off he goes in a different direction, and lands about 40
miles
away. As we derig the Zugvogel for the second time that day, my
instructor says: "Well, that was better than 12 miles!"

Flying is more fun than crewing, but *nothing* in soaring has ever
been more entertaining than crewing for the Fellners.

Rolf

On May 2, 8:35 am, brillo_pad wrote:
Flying is more fun than crewing, but *nothing* in soaring has ever
been more entertaining than crewing for the Fellners.

Rolf

The first contest I ever flew in was El Mirage. The first Day Dick
Fellner and I landed on Lucerne Dry lake, me in a 1-34 and he in the
Zugvogel. We had flown through the shear line and into no lift. The
next day the first turn was again Big Bear, Dick landed the same place
and I was determined to get past that, which I did, and landed closer
to Silver Springs on the way back from Baker.

I have a lot of Dick Fellner Stories and that could fill another
thread. He and his wife were arguing one day and he went out and
slammed the door to their trailer which latched shut. I was walking
by and I hear this little voice, "help, help" I went over and opened
the door for her and for ever after I was the guy who saved her life.

We used to go to summer camp in Mauterndorf (Austria) for a few years.
A lovely little airfield, friendly people, excellent food. And quite
good gliding, too. Sometimes.

One day the operating company managed to have both tugs in maintenance
at the same time so we were forced to winch launch. Now basically
thats not a problem for us, we start around 90% of all flights like
that at home. But on this particular occasion we knew it was going to
be just a bit more exciting.

The setup:
The grass runway at Mauterndorf is not very long, maybe 750m of cable
available.
The winch itself - hopelessly underpowered, that's why the locals
never really used it.
The weather was fair, in the higher mountains we could see the first
Cu developing. Wind from SE, about 5-10kts.

Now if you have Google Earth search for Mauterndorf, Austria or LOSM
and have a look. You'll notice a hill to the South of the airfield, it
rises about 300m above the runway. The valley on the other side of it,
in the South, lies a good 100m lower than LOSM.
The only hope of getting a soaring flight was to immediatly fly around
the hill to the sunny and upwind side and find lift there.

So that's what Paul (instructor and experienced XC pilot) did. He got
about 200m out of the launch with his ASW20, flew out of sight and we
waited. Less than five minutes later the phone rang. All OK, he was in
the field we had inspected the evening before. We of course immediatly
went to retrieve him with the trailer. From the field, while
derigging, we could watch others climb away, one or two just barely,
though. After re-assembling the glider Paul launched again - with the
same result as the first time.

Two landouts with trailer retrieve in the same meadow on the same day.

We were not unhappy the tug planes were in operation again the next
day.

Regards
Marcel Duenner

On 3 Mai, 21:34, MaD wrote:

The setup:
The grass runway at Mauterndorf is not very long, maybe 750m of cable
available.
The winch itself - hopelessly underpowered, that's why the locals
never really used it.
The weather was fair, in the higher mountains we could see the first
Cu developing. Wind from SE, about 5-10kts.

Oops! Wind was from SW of course!
Sorry