Mt Whitney from Hang Glider

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Mt Whitney from Hang Glider

Postby GrizzlyGuy » Wed Sep 16, 2009 9:31 am

Flyin Boy was flying down the Sierras last week and got this cool shot of Mt. Whitney while he was at 16,000 feet and headed north:

Image

Mt. Whitney is the peak directly under his left wing tip. It is the highest mountain in the lower 48 states with an elevation of 14,505 feet. He got the shot with his GoPro mounted on his wing and set to photo taking mode.

He flew by some other 14-ers that day, including Mt. Williamson, Split Mountain, and White Mountain Peak across the Owens Valley in the White Mountain Range. Ended up doing just over 100 miles on that flight and landed on a dirt road near the old Janie's Brothel over in NV along hwy 6.
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Postby EigerMike » Wed Sep 16, 2009 9:37 am

very cool! :D
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Postby Kodiak » Wed Sep 16, 2009 10:14 am

that is soooo coool!! i have the same camera thats what i took the vids for from sundays miyagi ride rock on GG
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Postby DAVE » Wed Sep 16, 2009 1:32 pm

COOL..........

I have been to the top of Mt Whitney.......it's a long walk :lol:


Where did he launch from??
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Postby ATV'er » Wed Sep 16, 2009 3:25 pm

WOW.........EPIC
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Postby GrizzlyGuy » Wed Sep 16, 2009 3:36 pm

DAVE wrote:COOL..........

I have been to the top of Mt Whitney.......it's a long walk :lol:

Where did he launch from??
He launched from Walt's Point which is a turnout at 9,000 feet on the paved road that leaves downtown Lone Pine and goes on up to Horseshoe Meadows. There's a gigantic boulder sitting in the turnout with a plaque on it. I've got video of us launching from there somewhere in my archives, I'll have to see if I can dig it up.

You probably know exactly where that is. For those that don't, remember the old Coors commercial that showed this nasty-looking switchback road going up the side of the mountains in the background? That's the one.

Hey Dave, did you happen to be up on Whitney when some yahoo came over in his hang glider and dumped his water bottle on the people at the summit? If so, sorry man. :P
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Postby auendave » Wed Sep 16, 2009 4:59 pm

that is awesome I wish I was young enough to try something like that

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Postby DAVE » Wed Sep 16, 2009 9:53 pm

Ended up doing just over 100 miles on that flight
seems like this would be a long flight??? I am sure there are many variables......about how long would a trip/flight take?
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Postby GrizzlyGuy » Thu Sep 17, 2009 12:26 pm

Yes, many variables.

I think he said he was in the air about 5 hours on this flight. Distance and duration depend on how good the conditions are, how strong the tailwind is, etc. He had a decent tailwind for most of this flight so it was pretty fast. It's not unusual to launch in the Owens Valley (where he was) at 10 AM and land at 8 PM.

You can tell it was a good day from the numerous cumulus clouds in the picture. Each one of those gets formed by a thermal, and thermals are what we climb in. Cloud base looks to be pretty high (maybe 19k+ feet) and that's a good thing too. You can climb all the way to cloud base, or into the cloud if you want to risk it, so the higher the base is the better.

The hang gliding distance record is now over 400 miles. The record duration is over 24 hours: some guy soared a cliff in Hawaii that had steady winds blowing into it.

Glider performance also matters. A typical hang glider will get a 10:1 glide. That means it goes 10 feet forward for every foot it loses in altitude. A "real" glider (sailplane) is up around 50:1 which makes things a lot easier. For example, I flew my sailplane from Truckee to Lone Pine (220 miles) on a day with similar conditions and it was no big deal. The flight computer said I had California City on a glide, but the sun was setting so I landed at Lone Pine airport to stay legal.
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Postby DAVE » Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:59 am

GrizzlyGuy wrote:Yes, many variables.

I think he said he was in the air about 5 hours on this flight. Distance and duration depend on how good the conditions are, how strong the tailwind is, etc. He had a decent tailwind for most of this flight so it was pretty fast. It's not unusual to launch in the Owens Valley (where he was) at 10 AM and land at 8 PM.

You can tell it was a good day from the numerous cumulus clouds in the picture. Each one of those gets formed by a thermal, and thermals are what we climb in. Cloud base looks to be pretty high (maybe 19k+ feet) and that's a good thing too. You can climb all the way to cloud base, or into the cloud if you want to risk it, so the higher the base is the better.

The hang gliding distance record is now over 400 miles. The record duration is over 24 hours: some guy soared a cliff in Hawaii that had steady winds blowing into it.

Glider performance also matters. A typical hang glider will get a 10:1 glide. That means it goes 10 feet forward for every foot it loses in altitude. A "real" glider (sailplane) is up around 50:1 which makes things a lot easier. For example, I flew my sailplane from Truckee to Lone Pine (220 miles) on a day with similar conditions and it was no big deal. The flight computer said I had California City on a glide, but the sun was setting so I landed at Lone Pine airport to stay legal.
THANK YOU...............very interesting
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