Ridge Soaring in Pennsylvania
In early August my wife Lori and I went to State College, Pennsylvania for our son John’s graduation. As we were driving in, he sent us a text informing us that he wouldn’t be home since he was spending the day at the gliderport (no surprise there). We pulled in to Ridge Soaring gliderport around noonish as I recall and found John and another young man pre-flighting a Grob-103. With his impending departure from Pennsylvania, John was busy giving rides to friends to whom he had promised glider rides. They took off into a sky full of cu’s but not much wind — at least not by Kansas standards. They returned after about 45 minutes and reported fairly decent thermal lift, but I don’t think they made any attempt at ridge soaring. So John asked if I wanted to give it a go. I am used to thermal soaring, but why not — it is always fun to fly at a new place.
The climb out from takeoff was interesting to say the least. Ridge Soaring gliderport is situated in the bottom of a narrow valley with a rather high ridge parallel to the runway immediately to the southeast. The runway is about 3000 feet long and while there are no trees at the end of the runway like Sunflower, there are trees just about everywhere else I looked. I am pretty sure that there are more trees in that part of Pennsylvania than there are in the entire state of Kansas. John warned me that there is a gap — where for maybe 20 seconds or so on tow, if the rope broke, you didn’t really have a viable landing option. I declined to have him elaborate on what the emergency plan was for an early tow termination. The towplane turned towards the ridge soon after takeoff and it appeared that we were heading right into the trees on the side of the ridge. But once we had a little altitude, we turned back towards the valley — though that tree-lined ridge sure looked close out my left wing.
We flew around in thermal lift for maybe 30 or 45 minutes, reaching a 6000’ cloudbase a couple of times. From that height we could see over into the next valley and several miles up and down the Bald Eagle Ridge. I could also see millions more trees. Eventually we decided to drop down onto the ridge and see if it was working. John was not optimistic since the winds were not too strong that day, but they were in a favorable direction. To my delight, the ridge was working, although it was not too strong. We were able to maintain our altitude while flying at 60 kts at maybe 100 feet above the ridge. On a good day, he said you can either fly much higher or, if you prefer, run a lot faster down low. We flew up and down the ridge 3 or 4 times. At one point we passed Mark Maughmer — a well-known aerodynamicist and one of John’s thesis advisors — coming up the ridge the other way. We flew over to Karl Streideck’s place, which is just a few miles down the ridge from Ridge Soaring gliderport. And as a final bonus, we passed by a bald eagle working the ridge. That seemed appropriate given that we were on the Bald Eagle Ridge.
It was an incredible experience. In my line of work, I am accustomed to flying and maneuvering below 100 feet, but I generally have an engine and there aren’t so many trees everywhere. I think this ridge soaring might take a little getting used to.
After flying I got a chance to visit with Tom Knauff and Doris Grove and Doris’ daughter Rosalie. I had met all of them years earlier and it was good to get reacquainted. Doris had nothing but high praises for my son who helped revitalize the Penn State Soaring club. They were all very sad to see him go and to lose one of their best CFIGs. Now if I can just get him to find a job in the Wichita area.
