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.
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| Sean Dougherty at The Bridge |
The photo above is August or later in 1991, after I bought the Hilite III in June.
ReplyDeleteJust to be clarify the stories about the XC and the broken back, the XC was on 14 April 1991. My log book says it took 1hr 29mins to go 48.6km. "Got away in the edge of a huge thermal, going up at 950fpm. Flew to a point 12 miles west of Nanton. Covered the 1st 25km in an hour, the last 25km in 30 mins. Av speed=32km/h, max altitude= 7598 feet = 4200 feet over. My first of hopefully many flatland XC's". James Van Leeuwen picked me up. At that point I has flown just shy of 50hrs and it was my 356'th flight.
The broken back happened on the 1st of May 1991. Log book entry is "Soaring - tried to get away - landed in a dust devil - 7 days in hospital. Fell out of a thermal at 250 ft agl. Full leading edge tuck, horizon blocked out! Corrected flight soon required. Coming into land, a dust devil formed (probably the thermal I fell out of) - high energy turn into deck from 20 feet up. 2 compress fractured vertebrae (sic T11-12). Spent 7 days in hospital. I won't be flying for some time!!!
I must have been keen as the next log entry is 16 June 1991, and on July 7 managed the 101.1km flight to goal with Chris Muller from Golden to Juniper Heights, a WR at the time. Willi landed with us, but hadn't declared or flown with a barograph so he didn't get a piece of that WR, but he and Chris set a new record a little later that summer to just south of Swansea.
Hard to believe today it was possible to fly those wings as far as they didn't have the greatest glide. Fun times, exploring what was possible in those wings.
Sean, I remember catching up to you on the Edgewater Cliffs after almost 6 hours in the air. We didn't cover the ground very fast in those days! We both continued on to radium, but I got a bit nervous when you went deep into a bowl to try to get up, so I glided away from the mountain and ended up landing soon after. I did have a barograph, so I missed Sharing in that world record by 10 km!
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