Flight Articles from Saturday 9/2/06 (in order of posting time stamp)
[Chip Bartley] [Randall] [South Side] [Robb Milley] [Ron Meyer]

Robb Milley (aka Dirtfoot)

Pine Rodeo
Saturday, 9/2/06

Saturday was the most frightening flying I’ve ever had.  Finding myself doing a helicopter 400 feet above the church in Ojai was nothing compared to Saturday.

It started at launch.  According to Eddie and Randall, a dust devil kicked off just as I turned and began to run, causing a 60% asymmetric on the left side.  I noticed the collapse, but what I remember most was being plucked up in the air, holding for a moment with no forward motion, and looking down between my feet at the ground as I dropped.  I said to myself I’m going to break both my legs.

Well, the wing started flying and I got out away from the hill and made my way to the ridge.  I’ve had the rush for well over a year, and have 58 flights on it; it has never given me cause to wonder, doubt, or be scared.  I keep the wing pressurized, and I’ve never had more than a tip fold.  At the spine, all that changed.  I kept having tip folds and asymmetrics on the left side.  Then I looked up to see the leading edge roll under all the way to the trailing edge.  I was startled by how bright the top of my wing is, and went for my reserve.  This was the first time in five years I felt pulling the reserve was the right thing to do; my next thought was that I was too low for it to do any good so I should aim for a tree and trust the back protection.  The wing recovered and I moved east away from the ridge and hooked a thermal.  My barograph shows 12 seconds of 600 down, then 400 up until I reached 11,000'.

I didn’t know what happened, but I had ten minutes of nice right spirals and I was listening to the reports from the others going downrange.  Then my vario made sounds I’d never heard before; it sounded like five or six chirps, whistles, and beeps all happening at the same time.  The wing was everywhere you don’t want it to be, including showing me the bright colors of the top again, only this time all under my feet.  I tried to correct, to control, to check the surges but no chance; I was sure I was going to land in the wing and be a yellow and orange streamer all the way to the ground.  I couldn’t control it, so I went hands up, trying to push my fists through the pulleys when the wing was directly out in front of me.  Once more I was flung towards the wing only to pass under.  Then the sky is up, the ground is down, and my vario, when I can find my flight deck, is showing 400 up again.

Looking at the barograph from the vario, it shows 1,600 ft/min down on the averager, and –3,366 ft/min on the vario.  I’d been in the sky twelve and a half minutes, and had three major incidents; I was not having fun.  I was trying to balance the excitement I was hearing on the radio as people kept breaking personal records for altitude, and the look of the cloud street leading to Able, with my fright and confusion over what kept happening.  I just circled around for another two minutes trying to get sorted out and make a decision.  Then the decision was made for me.

This time I was more mad than confused, but just as terrified.  Wing on my left, check.  Wing on my right, check.  Bright colors below my feet with slack lines, check.  Dropping like a rock, check.  The barograph shows another 1,600 down on the averager, and when the wing loaded up I was in a left spiral dive, much more impressive than any I had managed on my own.  Once I got that under control I radioed my intent to land on the north side by the road, and pulled big ears for 6,200 feet to land at the monastery field.  It was an epic day, but with my wing doing crazy things for no reason I only wanted to be on the ground.

On Sunday I went to Oat in Fillmore to lay out, check my gear and see if there was anything wrong I could find.  I laid it out, check connection points, made sure my speed bar was not connected to my stabilo, etc.  I looked at line lengths and every thing seemed fine.  I put on my helmet and stepped into my harness making sure all buckles were correct and not tangled with the flight deck or radio harness or whatever.

I grabbed my brake toggles and there it was, jammed into the knot of the brake line where it ties to the brake toggle. This little bastard was right there.

For all you kittens who have never lost your mittens, this is the clip that you use to clip your gloves together so you don’t loose one.  I don’t know if it was still connected to my glove when flying, or if it caught another line, or what, but I’m sure that little bastard ruined my day Saturday.  After five years and who knows how many flights with those gloves, I think it finally hooked into the brake and who knows what else and took me for a ride.  So I put it in my pocket, launched, and had a glorious sunset flight.

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