RC Slope Soaring - 2012/10

In May 2012, I took a two-week
driving trip—a Slope Safari—from
my home in upstate New York to
the Midwest Slope Challenge, located
96 miles from the geographic center of
the United States.
This was a “see the USA in your
Chevrolet” type of trip and my intent
was to fly at as many Slope Soaring sites
as I could.
My first stop was a newly
discovered site, which appears to be
undocumented.
Almond Lake, Almond, New York
Slope Soaring pilots are forever
looking out the windows as they drive,
imagining that they might fly from this
hill or that, and bingo! Sometimes we
spot a new flyable slope.
Cruising westbound on the New
York State Route 17 Southern Tier
Expressway (soon to be known as I-86)
on the first day of the trip, south of the
highway I saw a small lake with a dam
facing northwest. We had 10 to 15 mph
winds from the northwest—a prevailing
wind direction for this part of the
country—so my next move was close to
automatic.
Roughly a mile past the lake, I took
exit 33 into the town of Almond. I
doubled back roughly a mile on New
York State Route 21 and soon saw the
dam. I turned left at the large Corps of
Engineers sign for the recreation area. I
flew my trusty Dream-Flight Weasel for
roughly 45 minutes from the Almond
Dam access road before continuing the
trip.
Almond Lake is located in the
Finger Lakes region, near wineries at
Hammondsport, and is open from
Memorial Day to Labor Day. A sign
posted notes, “Open 9:00 a.m.-3:30
p.m., Monday through Friday.”
The lake and dam are visible from the highway when heading west, and from
a scenic overlook on NY-17 eastbound between exits 33 and 34. Harris Hill,
the birthplace of Soaring in America, and the National Soaring Museum, are
approximately 10 miles from NY-17.
Pounding the highway for a couple more hours, I stopped and spent the night
at the Lakefront Motel in Conneaut, Ohio, reputed to have a flyable slope on the
grounds of the motel property.
I found the hill at the motel to be a pleasant place to view the marina and Lake
Erie, and it is tall enough to generate slope lift. However, with trees on both ends
of the slope and power
lines below, it was not
flyable.
City View Center,
Garfield Heights, Ohio
The forecasted 18
to 20 mph southwest
winds compelled me to
stop in Garfield Heights,
Ohio, (a southern suburb
of Cleveland), and do
some Slope flying with
members of the American
Airlines Gas Model Club.
This is a highly accessible Slope fl ying
site. Fliers park on pavement; you can
park close enough to lean on your car
and fl y if you like. Cars are close for
cold drinks in the summer and hand
warming in the winter.
There is a Steak ’n Shake for
breakfast and lunch, and an Applebee’s
for dinner in the same plaza. We fl y
from behind a Giant Eagle grocery
store.
On my visit, I fl ew with Mike
Gantner, Don King, Jeff Carlton, Ken
Stroud, Bill Snow, and Joe Toth. I fl ew
my Dream-Flight Weasel. Mike, Don,
and Jeff fl ew Slope Slayer KnifeEdge
Wings.
Others fl ew Dave Sanders Foam-51
EPP Mustangs, other 48-inch wing
designs, and some original-design Slope
airplanes. The lift was fi ne and the
convenience of the site was unbeatable.
Wilson Lake, Lucas, Kansas
Wilson Lake was as far west as I
drove—the centerpiece for this trip—
and where the excellent 19th annual
Midwest Slope Challenge was held.
There, with the wind blowing in all
directions, I fl ew from a grassy area
overlooking Wilson Dam.
For more coverage of the event, see
Alex Paul’s article in the September
2012 issue of RC Soaring Digest
online magazine and my article in
the September 2012 issue of Flying
Models magazine. See the offi cial event
website to get the details on the 20th
anniversary of the gathering.
Wilson Lake has fi ve fl yable sites to
handle fi ve wind directions, and Kansas
has plenty of wind.
Coronado
Heights Park,
Lindsborg,
Kansas
This is a
fascinating fl ying
site because of
its history, and
because the
300-foot hill
overlooking the
Kansas prairie is
fl yable in three
wind directions.
The Spanish conquistador, Francisco
Vasquez de Coronado, trekked
through the present-day Southwestern
and Central US on his 1540-1542
expedition searching for the mythical
Seven Cities of Gold. Although it is not
known if Coronado actually ascended
the heights now named after him, the
Spanish military artifacts found nearby
underlie the story that the expedition
reached this location.
Concluding the week at Wilson Lake,
I headed for the Heights after a fetching
National Weather Service forecast of
“south wind 14 to17 mph, increasing to
23 to 26 mph. Winds could gust as high
as 36 mph.”
When I got there, the winds were
a steady 35 mph, gusting to 39 mph.
Sand and dirt were blowing enough to
cause discomfort and I decided not to
launch and fl y on an unfamiliar hill.
The park has interesting stone
buildings and picnic areas and a 3.2-
mile mountain bike trail. The views
of the prairie in all directions are
impressive, and with an abundance
of cleared land for landing, this is an
inviting fl ying location. Local fl iers
favor northwest and south winds, but
the east wind is also fl yable. I’ll return
to Coronado Heights to fl y.
Brookville Dam, Brookville, Indiana
Brookville is a pleasant Slope fl ying
spot, with acres and acres of mowed
grass to land on. The U.S. Corps of
Engineers welcomes pedestrian traffi c
along the 2,800-foot road on top of
the 181-foot dam, and that’s where we
fl ew.
On the day I stopped, we had 15-18
mph winds straight into the dam, and I
launched my medium-weight Dream-
Flight Weasel. It immediately climbed
to 300 feet above the base of the dam,
cruising with the turkey vultures.
There are some trees out front, seen
in the Corps of Engineers website
photo of the dam, which caused some
turbulence for me when fl ying low. Up
high, the air was smooth and the lift
was strong.
There were more good Slope fl ying
sites that I would have stopped at on
this trip if the wind directions had been
more favorable. These include Sterling
Bluffs in Sterling, New York; Edgewater
State Park on Lake Erie, Cleveland,
Ohio; Sleeping Bear Dunes in Traverse
City, Michigan; Mount Baldy at Indiana
Dunes National Lakeshore; and Breezy
View Park in Columbia, Pennsylvania.
Maybe you’ll fl y at one or more of these
spots in the next year. I hope to visit
them on my next trip.
To fi nd out more about the locations
along my Slope Safari, visit www.
slopefl yer.com.
Smartphone Aids Search
My friend and fl ying buddy, Jim
Harrigan, found my lost RC model
using his smartphone.
We were fl ying together at a town
park’s model airplane fl ying fi eld
when my model stopped responding
to transmitter stick movements. The
polyhedral glider drifted downwind
gracefully because of its stability.
It traveled approximately a half-mile
while I furiously wiggled the sticks and
turned the transmitter off and on, to no
avail. The model crossed a soccer fi eld
and a cornfi eld, hit a tree line, and fell
from sight.
Jim carefully observed where he saw
the airplane go down and called out the
possible location—presumably to fi x it
in his memory and mine. “Sighting over
the center of those two soccer goals
points to where I think I saw the plane
hit the trees and fall,” he said.
Having the pilot or a fl ying buddy
observe where the model is last seen is
the biggest advantage in fi nding a lost
model.
We drove to the neighborhood on
the side of the tree line opposite from
the cornfi eld, where a homeowner gave
us permission to start from his yard and
search the tree line. On fi rst pass, we
found nothing.
We returned to the car to charge the
transmitter and see if we could hear
servo movement or other noise from
the model. At this point, we did not
know if it had fallen to the ground or
was still in the trees.
We made a second trip to the tree
line and I noticed Jim was looking back
and forth between the landscape and
his hand-held electronic communicator
device. He was scrutinizing a satellite
view of the tree line in Google Maps
on his smartphone. Looking back and
forth, he studied both.
Jim waded into the brush under
the tree line until I could hear him,
but no longer see him. Soon he called
out, “Found it,” and walked out of the
woods with the model. I asked how he
performed what seemed like a magic
trick to me, and he replied, “I could see
on the satellite view where I thought
the plane went in. I walked to that
point and started looking around. It was
15 feet away, on the ground.”
Jim said later, “The main thing that
helped me was it showed me where I
was actually standing so I could know I
was in the spot where I saw it go down.
Without it, it is hard when you are
standing in the forest to know you are
in the spot you saw from a mile away.”
“Any suf ciently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic.”—Arthur
C. Clarke.