Grouse Mountain Meet 1976

In late summer 1976, I tagged along with a group of pilots from Calgary (one of whom, cam Wilson, decided along the way to start calling me 'midtoad') for the long drive to Vancouver BC, where the international invitational Grouse Mountain Meet was about to start. I didn't have enough experience to enter as a competitor, but I sure enjoyed watching the pilots and taking pictures. It seemed like all the loyalty of hang gliding was there at the comp. This was the first time I met Larry Tudor, among others.

On the first day, the clouds hung low around the Summit launch, but the sun began to breakthrough in late afternoon. This gave me a great opportunity to capture on film the variety of wings as the pilots launched.

waiting on the ramp

Crowded setup area

Gord Acri plays banjo for Larry Tudor, ?, Gord Savage

Edmontonian Larry Croome resting up

Larry Croome and Birdman MJ-4

Albatross Sail Gliders ASG-21

Swansea HG Corp pilot Jeff Blake and Oly 160

Invermere pilot John Duthie and Phoenix 8

Kaslo, BC pilot Randy Cairns and UP Dragonfly

UP Spyder

Invermere pilot Dean Kupchanko and Oly 140

Australian-made Lancer 4

Electra-Flyer Cirrus 3

A bearded Don Miller advising pilot on ramp

Spectators en masse

Seagull 7 in evening flight

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 

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.