First high flight, Cornwall BC 1979

BC pilot Bob Krider sends this:

"My pioneering flight off Cornwall in 1979, after one year of flying. That was a rush. Sooooo high. I yelled insults at the tiny little cows below me for being stuck to the ground. The flight was heavily covered by the local press (front page news).


I got rid of that huge Electra Flyer Floater, which liked to spin at the slightest provocation. Moved to England in 1980. By then I had a couple hours total airtime, so figured I was ready for the new double surface fad,  and upgraded to a double surface Airwaves Comet in 1981.   I only destroyed one Comet before I got the hang of it."

Ashcroft Journal 1979-09-12 pg.1

Ashcroft Journal 1979-09-12 pg.2 

Early Prairie PG XC flights

By the late 1980s, it was understood by hang glider pilots that the days after a cold front were ideal for cross country flying. But in Alberta, at least in the area around Calgary, there were a few good north west or north facing sites. One emerging option was a 60m-high bowl called The Bridge along Highway 552 at the Sheep River near its confluence with the Bow River, SE of Calgary. The landowner had allowed  hang glider pilots to fly there on occasion , and they did. But the hillside was covered in bushes which made it difficult to walk up if you sank out to the bottom. Paragliders had an advantage in that they could fly in lighter winds and could walk up more easily with their gear. One pilot that was soon taking advantage of this was Sean Dougherty, an accomplished mountaineer that had entered the sport. After a few tries, the managed to get up and away and flew around 50km all the way to Nanton, a record. There, he landed in a wind that was so strong that he would have been blown backwards with a normal approach. Instead, he flew downwind till Close to the ground, then made a sharp, high-speed, High G turn, which momentarily gave him enough ground speed to touch down safely.

On a later occasion, flying at the site, he drifted away quite low and experienced turbulence that dropped him into a farm field where he broke several bones. He was lucky to be spotted by a passer by and spend sometime in the hospital.

In this photo, I've captured him flying an Apco Hilite at The Bridge site one fine October day in 1991.

Sean Dougherty at The Bridge

1982 HG Nationals

In 1982, the Canadian national hang gliding championship was held in Sicamous, BC. The roughly 2000 foot high south facing launch was chosen because its beach landing area and close proximity to a town.

The competition winner was BC pilot Jim Bamford. He flew a UP Comet 185 - a new, larger size that had just become available. With his light weight of around 135 pounds, he could easily have flown the smallest size, but in the light conditions prevalent at this site, he enjoyed a very low sink rate and a huge advantage over other pilots.

By the following year, many other pilots had adopted the larger size as well, including myself. By then, there was a newer model, the Comet 2. It had a better glide ratio, but was harder to turn, so having a low wind loading by then was no longer such an advantage. Eventually pilots all migrated to smaller gliders. But by then the competitions were focusing on cross-country flying, where the higher speed associated with a higher wing loading became an advantage.

Top 10 pilots at the 1982 nationals

1st Jim Bamford, 2nd Jeff Blake, BC; 3rd Rick Mercer, AB; 4th Tony Schmidt, BC; 5th Howard Vandall, AB; 6th Rob Sinclair, 7th Lloyd Matthews, BC; 8th Bruce Galloway, AB; 9th Bob Yarnton, SK;. Missing: 10th Ken Hiebert.

Flying at Wilmer, BC

Along the shores of Lake Windermere, near Invermere BC, prehistoric riverbanks rise up to 60 m or more above today's water levels. Just north of town, along the edge of the Columbia River wetlands, a section of steep riverbank sticks out into the middle of the valley. This hillside deflects infrequent strong southerly winds creating soaring conditions for pilots. Wind speed and direction have to be just perfect, however, since there is no real bottom landing area and few options on top as well. But in the mid-1970s, eager local pilots found the ideal times to fly this site. Here's a post from one of them, Jeff Blake, AKA "the king of Invermere".

"Testing the little rocket ship, a 140 Olympus at Wilmer BC --  and the crowd was wild, Great days."
Photo by Pat Morrow.

More from 1980 Canadian HG nationals

In a recent post, Doug Keller posted some pictures from the 1980 national championship. One of them was of me with beer poured in my hair to celebrate setting the Canadian duration record. I went back to my logbooks and found my log book entries for that flight.

At that time of that flight, there was no official Canadian log book. I used a surveyor's notebook because it was sturdy and with good quality paper. Many of us wrote at length about our flights, as each one was a huge learning adventure, and a real gift. In later years, I gradually wrote less and less, and eventually only made short entries in an online notebook. But I continued to log each and every flight, not just because it is required by our rating system, but because it was personally meaningful.

When I took up flying sailplanes in 1987, I noted carefully the soaring association's official log book design, and used it as inspiration for the first official HPAC hardcover logbook.

To the reader: did you use to keep a logbook and log every flight? Do you still use a logbook or have you given it up? If the latter, what led to that?

logbook entry for Cdn. Duration reccord

2 Electra-Flier Spirits; photo by Graydon Tranquilla

Here is an in-flight photo taken by Graydon Tranquilla. It shows two Electric-flyer Spirits, which were very popular with the Alberta team as Willi Muller sold them. You can get a good idea of how steep the cliff is below the takeoff spot. Launching in strong winds was exciting, to put it mildly.

Canadian HG Nationals 1981, Lumby, BC

Mt. Swansea, Invermere, BC - 1979

Flying at Mt. Swansea, Invermere, BC in 1979

The glider is an Eipper Antares.

Pilot is Doug Keller

Photos by Karen Keller

Manitoba - 1977

Flying at Russel, Manitoba in 1977

The glider is an Eipper Flexi 2. Pilot is Doug Keller.

BC's first Mitchell Wing

Information from Martin Henry:

"The Mitchell Wing B-10, The choice of George Worthington and his Owens Valley World Records.

Vern Tanner was the astounding craftsman that built this example way back in 1978 (Two of the shots are from his first high flight in Cawston, near Keremeos BC). Foot launched, 3 axis control, flying wing built primarily of Wood and fabric… Old School composites!"

Vern apparently was living in Lumby BC for a while, but the glider came to an end after a failed take off crash on the old launch site at Coopers Ridge, near Bolean. Vern later moved to Vancouver, and Randy Rauck could tell you more about him.

Vern at the training hill

Waiting to launch

Vern launching at Cawsten

The Mitchell Wing B-10 designed by a California based homebuilt Aircraft designer named Don Mitchell. It used a wing profile similar to that in the renowned Douglas DC-3 Aircraft.

George Worthington was a retired US Navy fighter pilot that had also flown sailplanes. He took up flying hang gliders in retirement, then took his Mitchell wing on a successful hunt for world distance records in hang gliding, setting four of them in the years between 1977 and 1980. If you're interested, here they are:

Early 1990s paragliding at Savona, BC

The Easter meet ran for many years and was always considered the start of the competition season in Western Canada. At first only hang glider pilots were involved, but soon the early paraglider pilots started joining in. Here is paragliding cross country pioneer Sean Dougherty with hang glider pilot Martin Henry at Savona BC. They are on the east-facing slope overlooking Kamloops lake, above some railway tracks. I recall it being very windy, and not many would fly. But that didn't stop Sean! By the way, Sean is flying an Apco Astra 27.

Sean Dougherty and Martin Henry

Sean soaring his Apco Astra

Lastly, I found another Photo of the same paraglider. In this case, it is one of me flying at the Cuchi Corral site in Córdoba Province, Argentina, in 1994. I had a couple of scares with large unexpected wing folds with this glider and decided to only fly European certified wings after that. (some other pilots referred to this model as the Dis-Astra!).

Stewart flying a similar Apco Astra in Argentina

Early 1970s in the Fraser River Valley near Vancouver

Martin Henry sent me a couple of pictures from his very early days flying hang gliders in the Fraser River Valley near Vancouver. He's even more of a dinosaur than I thought he was!

Here he is on Burnaby Mountain in a suburb of Vancouver in 1971 or 1972. The hang glider appears to be made of bamboo tubes and black plastic sheeting!

And here he is in a gravel pit at Fort Kells, near Langley along the Fraser River, probably later in 1972. He has the latest technology of the day, namely a real control bar and metal tubing! However, I see that he is still using plastic sheeting for sail material.

Early days at Wreck Beach in Vancouver, BC

Back in the 1970s, hang glider Pilots would soar on the cliffs above Wreck Beach, close to the UBC campus in Vancouver, BC. Here is a picture of Chris Florkow launching his Manta Fledge there in 1977.

The Fledge was a glider that used Weight shift for pitch control, and two rudders for turn control. The rudders were actuated by Twist groups on the down tubes. For those that flew prone, the twist groups were on the base tube. Deploying a rudder caused the glider to skid through the air, and the built-in dihedral then triggered a roll towards the deployed rudder. For those that were used to flying three axis control gliders, it was a strange experience.

The Fledge had a loyal following for many years due to its high-wind performance and impressive looping capabilities.There were actually several versions of the Fledge since the first one appeared in 1974. One of them was even motorized and became the worlds first successful ultra light (foot-launched, of course!). You can read a lot more about all of the Fledgling models at this blog.

Photo courtesy Martin Henry.

Georgian Peaks 1977

Chris Mills was my instructor in 1974, at which time I learn to fly hang gliders in the Gatineau Hills north of Ottawa Ontario. Chris and I both went to the same high school. Later, he moved to the area near Guelph Area and continued to fly hang gliders for a number of years. Here is a shot of him launching his Delta Wings Phoenix 8 off the top of the Georgian peaks ski hill, overlooking Georgian Bay in Lake Huron, in 1977.

As the aspect ratio of hang gliders increased from the basic standard rogallo design, gradually the length of the leading-edge tubes also increased and it became harder to keep them straight and not flex with slight loads. At that time, manufacturers used fairly small diameter tubes, perhaps 1.5-1.75 inches. Little stays and bracing cables were installed along the leading edges, called deflexors. If you knew what you were doing, you could actually tune cable tension differentially on each one of the deflexors in order to get rid of a turn in the glider.

1980 Lumby Meet

The winners. L-R - Don Miller, Willi Muller, Randy Rauck, Andrew Barber- Starky, Howard Vandall

1980 Canadian Nationals at Mont St. Pierre, Quebec

Stewart Midwinter - Just landed after setting a new Canadian Duration record of 7:56.

Doug Keller launching above the clouds.

Leo Salvas posing with the pig which was wearing a Lumby Airforce T-Shirt courtesy of Willi Muller

All photos taken by Karen Keller.