The Flying Wire

It was a typical post-frontal day at Mission Peak. A low pressure system had pushed through the night before and now the air was cool, the wind was from the northwest, and the sky was filled with an armada of clouds – good soaring weather if we were patient. On days like this, the air at Mission follows a predictable pattern. Morning conditions are light, with moderate winds and thermals. Sometime around 1 PM, a big flush cycle pushes through that can send the careless, impatient, or over-ambitious pilot down to the LZ. After it passes, conditions build and the lift grows stronger, with booming thermals that give way to ridge lift as the wind picks up and shifts the north towards evening.

Like any pattern, this one can vary, and so it was today. The wind seemed a bit stronger than usual, and threatened to turn north, which could mean more than the usual amount of sink. But it was spring, when thermals are big and much is forgiven, so I had high hopes for a good flight.

Launch was easy, like hopping on a bicycle for a ride down a hill. Seconds later, my variometer began to beep and I began to climb. One s-turn, two, and I was high enough to circle. A few cautious 360s and I was above launch, with room to explore. This was one of those days when thermals were marked by clouds. As each column of rising air pushed above the altitude where temperature and dew point came together, the moisture inside condensed into a billowing cumulus – a sight that brings joy to any soaring pilot. Unfortunately, it was also one of those days when the wind was strong enough to blow those thermals apart. The combination was challenging, and it wasn’t always easy to stay in the lift. It took me some time to figure out where to look and to sort out the right combinations of airspeed and bank angles to use, but at last things began to come together and I was able to fight my way up to cloudbase.

By now I felt that I’d taken the measure of the day. Rather than hang around over the peak, I decided to try the standard challenge from Mission and fly four miles south to Ed Levin Park, turn around, and fly home. The trip south – downwind – is usually easy. The trip home can be a bit of a poser. Recognizing this, I began my flight conservatively. Rather than leave lift, lunge toward my goal, and hope to find more lift along the way, I drifted with each thermal, letting the wind push me south. By the time I reached the Ed Levin LZ, I was at 4200’ – well above the 3200’ that usually guarantees getting back to Mission.

With so much altitude to play with, it seemed the trip home would be a piece of cake. And when I did turn back north, the headwind was no more than I’d expected – 10 MPH at most. But gosh I was going down fast! My variometer dial was offscale low, and the ground was coming up at me in a rush. In a matter of minutes, I was down at 2500’, even with the tops of the mountains. Then I was below ridge level, still sinking like a stone. Mission was out of the question, and if I got any lower, I might even lose touch with Ed Levin. This would not do at all! Irate, annoyed, I headed out over a quarry to the west. I would not be so easily defeated!

Work, sweat, and a bit of cursing got me back up to 3200’, but by now I’d drifted south again. My second attempt to head north was even less successful than the first, and I only made it half a mile before I was down below ridge level again. It was clear I was going to be forced down at Ed Levin – an ignominious fate after I arrived there so high. It was also clear that the landing was going to be nasty. The same wind that was ripping the thermals apart was going to fill the LZ with turbulence. I’d landed in these conditions before, and it had never been a terrific amount of fun.

With this in mind, I tried to time my descent. My plan was to reach the ground between gust cycles, when conditions were reasonably sane. And as I set up my approach, it looked like I’d pulled it off. But the Weather Goddess laughs at our plans. When I turned onto my downwind leg, I looked over my shoulder to see a vast cloud shadow looming behind me. A huge convection cell had formed to the north and was sweeping south to engulf the field.

At times like this, all you can do is grit your teeth and prepare to get hammered. Laughter helps, and conditions were so perverse that I just had to laugh. Base leg was an empty gesture, for the air was so turbulent there was no telling what my glide angle would be like. I turned final, crossed the trench, and saw that the wind streamer I’d chosen as my target was flicking back and forth 90 degrees every few seconds. This was not going to be a landing, it was going to be a melodrama! And indeed it was.

As I carried my wing off the field and over to the breakdown area, I realized that I was not alone in my ignominy. All told, four pilots had tried to from Mission to Ed Levin and back. All four of us sank out at Ed Levin. And all four of our trucks were back at Mission.

Oops.

Like all retrieval problems, this one was eventually solved. And like all good recreational flying expeditions, this one ended at a fine restaurant! The days since then have been uneventful, for a high pressure system has moved in, shutting down the thermals at most of our sites. But when I look at the National Weather Service synoptic maps, I can see another low pressure approaching from the west…

We’ve done it! For most of April 2010, the Flying Cloud, R-505 has come out at the very top of a Google search for ‘R-505′ as the first of 6,750,000 listings. This is no mean accomplishment, and I imagine the folks at RPM Wheels, REL Acoustics, and Sony were wondering what this business with the airships was about. I’d like to thank all of you in the Flying Cloud community who have made this feat possible. If we stick together we might someday hope to come out on top of searches for even more popular words, like ‘flying’, ‘cloud’, and ‘the’

Friends inform me that we’ve also been showing up in the top five in a Google search for ‘naked viking girl’. I have mixed feeling about this…

The day looked quite promising. The sky was blue but the forecast called for a storm that evening – these are usually signs of soarable conditions. My only concern was a layer of high clouds that threatened to block the sun and shut down the thermals. The best way to deal with these was to wait, so I set down my harness to serve as a pillow, then stretched out beneath my wing to watch the sky. This kind of waiting is as old as aviation. Richthofen’s men must have waited the same way, leaning against the wheels of their Fokker DR.Is until the call came to go aloft. Centuries from now, combat cyborgs may wait for deployment, flight software paused in their ready buffers, until the call comes to make the jump to hyperspace.

Today the call was subtle. Pilots who’d launched before me and been struggling to stay up were finally beginning to climb. I watched for several minutes to make sure these conditions would last, then shouldered my glider, carried it up to launch, and hooked in. The launch itself was unremarkable. I’d been working on my technique, paying more than usual attention to speed awareness and pitch attitude, and the run off the hill went without a hitch.

As soon as I was airborne, I wondered if I’d punched off too soon. The lift seemed elusive. I’d try one of the usual places, my variometer would beep to show I was going up, then it would fall silent and I’d lose another hundred feet. Soon I was well below the peak, out in front of the 1500’ hill, feeling disgusted with myself. How annoying, to sink out so ignominiously when others were getting up!

My vario beeped. I turned. It kept on beeping. Could this be the one? My glider seemed reluctant to climb, but as I kept on fighting, the ground began to fall away. A timeless struggle brought me even with launch. Then I was above it… far above it… approaching 4000’. I gave a shout of delight. Perhaps this would be one of those rare magic days that happens once in a decade when the lift builds and spreads until you’re a mile above the mountains!

The air at 4000’ felt weird. Every now and then, my nose would fall and the glider would go into a steep dive. This was more than the usual drop that happens when you fly out of a thermal: it was something disturbing and savage, as if some invisible monster was stalking me, waiting to pounce. I flew west, trying to find smoother air, but this didn’t seem to make things better. Annoyed, I decided to burn off some altitude and wait for conditions to improve.

To my perplexity, things grew worse as I descended. One moment, I’d be climbing in weak lift. The next, I’d be falling out of the sky for long unnerving seconds as the control bar swung back to my waist. Could something be wrong with my glider? This seemed unlikely. I’d preflighted it carefully, the way I’d done for years. But why hadn’t anyone else remarked on these conditions.

I keyed my radio. “KC6PKT here. This air seems weird. Has anyone else been getting pitched down in long dives that last for several seconds.”

“No, the air feels great where I am.”

“Darn. It looks like there’s a problem with my glider.”

I wasn’t afraid… exactly. But I did feel a sense of concern. Could I keep on flying? A few more nerve-wracking plunges convinced me that this might not be wise. But could I land the glider? What would I do if it tried to dive on final – or worse, went unstable in roll? There weren’t many alternatives. I could throw my parachute, but this would mean coming down in a pile of wreckage. And I was a pilot, dammit, not a parachutist! It made more sense to try to get down in one piece.

So thinking, I headed out over the landing zone. As often happens in situations like these, it proved hard to get down. The usual method – burning off altitude in a steep-banked turn – could be just asking for trouble if there was something wrong with the wing, so I cruised in wide circles, looking for sink. A dozen minutes, during which the glider switched unpredictably between normal and strange, got me down to 1000’. Once there, I unzipped my harness and went to landing configuration to see how the glider would behave. A few practice approaches convinced me that I could reach the ground with the wings level. I might not be able to flare, so that I piled in and broke some aluminum, but aluminum is cheap.

The world seemed unusually bright as I began my landing approach. The air felt fresh, and I found myself smiling. This might not have been one of those great triumphs over mortal fear that forges men’s souls, for I was hardly in any real danger, but we must take our victories where we can. Fly a base leg. We’re getting popped up by a thermal, be ready to throw in a shallow s-turn to get down. It looks like we can turn on final here. Roll out, keep the wings level, and be ready to catch the nose if it drops. Hey, what do you know, we got down into ground effect without hitting anything! Bleed off speed… shall I try to flare… why not? Push out a bit late, drop to my knees, but hey, I’ll take it!

Subsequent inspection showed that I’d managed to dislodge the upper velcros on my nose cone so that the top came loose in flight. This must have happened while I was fiddling with the glider after I’d finished my preflight inspection. Is there a lesson here? I’ll leave that for you to decide. As for me, I’d faced a minor non-life-threatening emergency, kept my head, and was happy with the way I’d acquitted myself. This left me with a strange feeling of glee.

A Concluding Note: In his brief but remarkable book, Bone Games, Rob Schultheis noted that fear can freeze us in our tracks, make us loopy, or become a catalyst for superhuman clarity and performance. He suspected that the latter state has something to do with the correct balance of adrenaline, nor-adrenaline, and endorphins, and that it can be encouraged by training. I am certain he’s right. As a confirmed slacker… and coward… I will never pursue the necessary training or reach this state myself. But on days like this one, I’ve glimpsed it from afar.

I wish I could claim credit, but those mouseovers weren’t my idea. They were suggested by The Mighty Cindy — one of the more imaginative pilots I know. And they’ve been a terrific amount of fun! But I cannot help but wonder how many people have discovered them. I also cannot help but wonder how many people have…

1) Found all 20 verses of the First Book of Keew.

2) Found the Mouseover of Good and Evil.

3) Found the Mouseover of Life.

The latter may be somewhat tricky to locate, but it is most certainly hidden in that image map… somewhere…

Forgive me for a moment this off-topic commentary about the real world, but sometimes the impulse is impossible to resist…

It’s become popular to criticize on NASA these days. The argument seems to go as follows: ”Murfle murfle murfle… if the NASA would only get out of the way!… murfle murfle… Private Enterprise!… mrfle murfle… Spaceship One!… murfle murfle… Google!…. murfle murfle… PayPal!… murfle murfle murfle… Libertarians in Spaaaaace!” But for all of it’s supposed flaws, NASA still has the world’s only working spaceplane. It still has the only working space station. And it’s still the only organization that has landed men on the Moon. Ever. And they did it six times.

History is full of people who thought they could do better. Remember Japan? They were going to take over the space industry with their superior technology. Remember China? How many orbital missions have they flown? Remember VentureStar, Beal Aerospace, Rotary Rocket? Getting into orbit is hard! You need to fly at Mach 23. That’s eight times faster than Spaceship One! Sixty-four times the kinetic energy! To reach that kind of speed, you need more than Burt Rutan and a hybrid rocket motor. You need powerful fuels, engines with a high specific impulse, materials that can withstand fantastic temperatures and pressures. You need guide the ship, fly it, and keep it under control. You need to deal with instabilities and vibrations that could blow it to fragments or tear it apart. And you need to keep the thing from exploding… keeping in mind that a rocket engine is basically one big controlled explosion.

That’s why launch vehicles are so complex. It takes more to build one than wishful thinking. This isn’t to say they can’t be improved. Most rockets are built for the commercial market by private companies like Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, and ULA. Their management has considerable incentive to get costs down and reliability up, and vehicles like the Delta IV — the unglamorous workhorse of the modern launch industry — have become a commercial success.

So why aren’t we on Mars already? There are two reasons. First, NASA has ended up in situation where managers will be penalized for their failures, but never… ever… be rewarded for success. The result is predictable: many cover themselves in paperwork. And contractors who should be doing science or designing equipment find themselves creating reports about how Everything Is Fine to protect those managers. This is a sure way to destroy an organization. It has destroyed any number of large companies. It brought General Motors to the brink of bankruptcy. It brought us Windows Vista. Viewed in this light, it’s a testimony to the dedication of NASA’s scientists and engineers that they’ve kept the agency alive!

The second reason is best explained by the image below.

This the X-20. It is a small reusable space shuttle that was under construction and scheduled to fly in the 1960s (!!!) before the program was terminated by Robert MacNamara. The history of the American space program is littered with vehicles like this that were canceled when they were almost ready to fly: the X-20, the National Aerospace Plane, the X-33, the X-34, and now Constellation. Some were canceled by Congress. Others were canceled by the President. A few seem to have been canceled just for the heck of it. Now imagine yourself a senior manager. You’ve dedicated thirty years of your life to five successive programs, every one of which was cut short by some previous administration when it was on the brink of flight. A new administration, with great fanfare, has announced the next Great New Plan That Will Usher In New Era Of Space Exploration. Do you believe it… this time? And what do you do?

Days like this do not arrive unheralded. They begin with a forecast for blue skies followed by a major storm. As the fateful day approaches, there are portents. The wind turns fickle. High clouds mark the sky. Excited messages flicker across the bulletin boards, “Saturday looks like it could be good!” The final sunset spreads red across the horizon.

Morning dawns, wild and grey. You pick up your phone, dial the wind-talker on top of the mountain, then leap out of bed, sleep forgotten. Grab breakfast, take a shower, and go, because today’s the day! It’s amazing how easy it is to load that wing onto the truck. It may weigh 75 lbs in its cover bag, and be longer than the vehicle, but now it seems as light as a toothpick. Grab that harness bag, toss it in back, make sure you’ve got everything — boots, jacket, radio, flying glasses. Then turn the key, hit the road, and my my, who would have guessed your truck could go that fast!

When you arrive, the parking lot is packed. The logistics — deciding whose truck to take, moving gliders, and transferring gear — pass quickly and soon you’re headed up the hill with your friends. Conversation, which normally might be focused on flying, is focused on… flying! The wind was ripping this morning; will it back off enough to launch? If it does, what will be the best time? And what will the day be like? You’ve seen these conditions before, so you call it: strong winds until 11 AM, when it will drop in a flush cycle that lasts until 1 PM and puts early-launchers on the ground, then build and veer as the day advances. Yet another piece of your reputation is on the line.

The top of the mountain is grass, stone, and roaring wind. It’s also bloody cold! Putting your wing together in conditions like this is a bit of a challenge. By the time you’ve finished and done your preflight inspection, it’s 1 PM, just as you planned. Switch on your flight deck. Rig your radio cables, struggle into your harness, and slap on your helmet. Wrestle the wing around until it’s facing into the wind.

The game is more serious now. In conditions this strong, moving up to launch requires concentration. A moment’s inattention or bad technique and the wing could be snatched from your hands and destroyed. Even hooking into the hang strap is a challenge. One last pre-launch check and now it’s no longer a game. Your fate is in your hands. In a moment, you will leave behind the world of illusion and enter the real world — a world few people ever see, where one must accept full responsibility for one’s actions. Clear your mind. Watch the cycles. Feel the wind. Shoulder the wing, hold the nose down, start to run…

…a moment of total concentration…

…then the ground is falling away, FAST! Your variometer screams — “Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep!” — to show you’re going up. The slope that was under your feet is a hundred yards below. Your wing pitches and rocks — a jolt of turbulence — then the air grows smoother. And still you climb.

The world grows wider as you ascend. With every thousand feet, the rules, walls, and chains of ordinary life seem farther and farther away. Soon they are forgotten, leaving only the mountains, the sky, and the clouds. For this is indeed a day out of legend. The lift is everywhere. Staying up — normally a struggle — is easy. The numbers on your altimeter, often a subject of considerable concern, become matters of idle amusement. 3000’? 3500’? 4000’? Who cares on a day like this?

What do you do when there’s no need to worry about going down? Some pilots hang out above launch, enjoying the view. Others fly the usual routes, attempting the traditional challenges of this site. You decide to explore towards the south — normally a forbidden direction. The mountains look different from this angle. It’s a strange perspective, like learning something new about a lover, and the sky above is spectacular. The clouds are riven by upside-down canyons, studded with inverted table-lands that reach down like misty gray walls. You see a distant glider threading its way between them (being careful to obey FAR 103 regarding cloud clearances in Class G Airspace). The sight is so beautiful you give a shout of joy.

It is, however, quite chilly. You’ve been recovering from a cold, so you weren’t in the best of shape to begin with, and that sweatshirt, jacket, jeans, gloves, bar mitts and full-face helmet that seemed warm enough when you launched seem somewhat less adequate after two hours in the air. Should you go for three hours? Of course! Well, maybe not. Maybe it would be a good idea to head down and land while you still have enough strength to fly the glider.

This is not as easy as it sounds. The usual tricks, such as flying past the foothills to get out of the lift band, don’t work on this day when air is going up everywhere, and you’re hardly in shape to fight your way down. If youth and strength aren’t an option, let’s try old age and treachery! Watch your variometer. When it indicates lift, relax, take it easy, and enjoy the view. When it indicates sink, throw in a few quick turns to burn off some altitude. Half an hour of this and you’re low enough to start your approach.

Nothing focuses the mind like trying to land a low-speed aircraft in strong shifting winds — unless it’s trying to land a low-speed aircraft in strong shifting winds when you’re so dog-tired you’re not entirely sure you’ll be able to handle the flare. But that’s why the gods invented laughter. You fight your way through it all, laughing with glee, until you arrive at the ground in a style that can only be described as ‘less than perfect’.

Days like this become legends. Implicit in these legends is the question: “Why?” Why do some people leave behind the world of convenience and illusion, where life is comfortable and we’re protected from our mistakes, for a rawer and wilder world, where life is not always pleasant and actions have consequences? I suspect that there is no answer. It would be easy to condemn this impulse as abnormal and immature – a ‘risk-seeking personality trait’, perhaps. But I believe it is something to be celebrated: an essential part of any healthy society.

Remember those classics by Roger Zelazny: Lord of Light, Creatures of Light and Darkness, the Chronicles of Amber? His characters were Archetypes — creatures out of myth, but with human personalities and failings. Garth Cameron Graham has managed to recreate this same elusive mixture of legend and humanity in his webcomic, Finder’s Keepers.

Card, one of the two chief protagonists of Finders Keepers, is the Lord Cardinal, Lord and Aspect of the Primary Directions, second son of the Lord Navigator, great-grandson of the Seeker. As such, he can Find Anything – a useful skill if you happen to be looking for a set of car keys, a lost memory stick, or The Answers. Cailyn Asher appears to be an ordinary mortal woman, though I’ve begun to wonder about a few things. Such as her canny intuitions about the world into which she is plunged. And that knife. The other characters could have stepped straight from some work of the Master, with a few modern twists. Death, for example, is a goth chick. Of course!

The art is superb. If I drew even a fraction as well as Mr Graham, I’d be a happy man. The lines are clean, the composition is excellent, the poses are realistic, expressive, or both. And unlike many webcomics, the action scenes in Finders Keepers actually contribute to the action! You can figure out what’s going on – a welcome change from the anime-like swirls so many artists use as substitute for clarity.

My only complaint is the update rate. To call it ‘glacial’ would be an insult to the blinding speed of glaciers. But it’s a price I’m willing to pay for something this good, and it gives me a chance to go back and linger over earlier issues – something I’ve done more than once.

You will notice that I’ve said nothing about the story. This omission was deliberate – a stratagem on my part to get you to read it. It’s quite good, and it has only just begun to unfold! I urge you all to check it out for yourselves.

These things are the very devil to write. Providing a summary of recent events without having this seem like a tedious laundry list (e.g. “He dove into the equatorial trench leveled out dodged the laser cannon heard Obi-Wan’s voice telling him to use the Force switched off his targeting computer fired the torpedo into the exhaust vent and blew up the Death Star”) can be a bit of a challenge. But for an online serial drama, it’s a challenge that must be faced.

One reason is as a courtesy to readers, to help everyone keep track of what’s going on. So many things have happened, spread out over so many different episodes, that it would be easy for someone to forget some vital clue. Another is to help me keep track of what’s going on. So many things have happened, spread out over so many different episodes, that… oops… wait a second… I think I said that already

But the most important reason is to summarize what the characters know. This is one of the problems with cliffhangers. For reasons of suspense, an author may reveal some tantalizing piece of information (“Unknown to Lord Credulous, Sally Wholesome was actually Treacheron the Slayer in disguise!”). A half-dozen episodes later, readers may wonder why the hero is behaving in such an unwise manner (“Here, Sally, could you hold this expertly-forged and extremely sharp battle-axe for me while I take off my armor?”)

For better or worse, ‘tis done. We’ve hit the Summary of Recent Events Reboot Button. Now we can get back to the action!

[Yes, I admit it, that’s the same hand that appeared in Episode 35. I’d roughed out a sketch of a North Australia Railroad train chugging past Larrimah, with some predecessor of the Big Stubbie looming in the background, and was about to start penciling, but then I thought, “Hey, this would be a good time for another Monopoly card!” That leaves me with 58 to go. Any suggestions how I can work Saint Charles Place or Virginia Avenue into an episode?]

It has just been pointed out by people who claim to have my interests in mind — their true motives remain open to question — that the Paul Gazis’s Aviation Page now shows up at the very top of a Google search for ‘Adventure Gazis’, ‘Gentlemen Gazis’, and ‘Gallant Gazis’. Ho ho! I cannot help but feel smug. All of those Ottoman warriors can eat my dust

But I haven’t dared check other two-word search phrases based on the same underlying principle. The possibilities are too numerous. And some of them fill me with very real twinges of fear…

In 1991, a Frenchman named Gerard d’Aboville rowed across the Pacific Ocean. Alone. With no support crews. Or weather routing. Or Mission Control at Houston Space Flight Center to monitor his vehicle through the Tracking Data Relay Satellite system. It was an incredible accomplishment: one that prompts astonishment, disbelief, and two distinctly different reactions. People who Get It say, “Wow!”. People who Don’t Get It say, “Why!”

Both of these reactions are quite reasonable. But the gulf between them is vast. In an effort to bridge it, I offer this quotation from d’Aboville himself, in an interview with Paul Theroux:

“Only an animal does useful things. An animal gets food, finds a place to sleep, tries to keep comfortable. But I wanted to do something that was not useful, not like an animal at all. Something only a human being would do.”