Decision-making points to ponder

[zdashamber]

This is an amazing hang-gliding story, and I think the conclusions Camacho draws at the end are enormously applicable to non-hang-gliding endeavours. This was posted three days ago; I've copied it over here from the Sonoma Wings bulletin board so it's easy to find.

Quick jargon orientation: XC = cross country; LZ = landing zone; PG = paraglider; "bag it" = pack their gliders back into their bags; "sled ride" = no going up (thermalling), just straight flying down like you're on a sled on a hill; "vario" = variometer, a gadget that beeps when you're going up or down and lets you know how fast you're rising/falling and how much altitude you've gained/lost; "flare" = when you tilt your wings up to make them into big air brakes to slow yourself for landing. The "No Fly Zone" was because Bush was in town last weekend, and heaven knows, a hang glider might kamikaze into Air Force One.

Setup: The Sonoma Wings are an active group; I think they have money and time, and most beneficially to their flying, they live near 3-4 really great hang gliding sites, in the area of California about an hour or two north of San Francisco. I did hang gliding for a few years a couple years ago with the Berkeley Hang Gliding Club, and I met some of the Sonoma Wings guys, who seemed very friendly. I'm not sure if I met Ernie, the president of the club, or not... All the guys I did meet were 40ish guys with a bit of a pot belly; sane, reasonable guys, with a bit of the love of the daring: like most hang glider pilots. So that's who I imagine is telling this. Here's his tale, in his words.

Ernie Camacho
Club President
(4/25/06 4:36 pm)
XC on Sunday

Well, not the XC you're thinking of.
When we arrived at the LZ in Knights Valley, there were clouds on the Mt. but it looked like it would lift later, as has happened before. On the drive up, the north side (Middletown side) of the Mt. was clear, but as we came over the top we could see that the south side had a cloud up against it. Again we figured it would clear so we (most of us anyway) hiked our gliders out to launch and set up. The PG pilots stayed back at the vehicles since setup for them is so much quicker. As the afternoon wore on and we came to the time when we could launch legally (No Fly Zone until 2:30 because of da Prez), we'd seen only one hole open up, then close again. The PG pilots (Gregg, Anthony, Andy, Kurt, Justin)decided to bag it and drove my truck down the Mt. Leo went with them.

At launch were: Kurt, Jon, Greg, Mike, Bob, Donna, Charley, Scot, Ashley, Tia, in no particular order.
I was back in the line of parked gliders, but I had a 5:30 dinner appointment that I didn't want to miss so I moved into launch position and waited for the next hole to open. I figured that I'd get a sled ride down to my truck and be off to dinner in time. In the LZ Leo reported that the cloud was just covering us and that the sky out in the valley was about 50 percent clear. All I had to do was get away from the Mt. and its cap cloud and I'd be fine.

Along about 3:30 a hole did open enough for me to see out so I took it. Unfortunately, right after I got into the air the cloud closed in again, and then Leo reported that the whole valley was going OD. Not nice. I found myself enveloped in the cloud, but I had my vario with its built in GPS. I could just fly straight west/southwest and get into the clear.

This part of the story is where I give you some advice about NOT doing what I did. There's this rule you learn in general aviation about trusing your instruments. Seat of the pants flying in whiteout conditions is bad. Trust your instruments. What did I do? I didn't trust my instruments. I noticed that I was drifting off to the right of my heading so I turned back. I became a bit alarmed that it took so much turning to get back on heading. Then I drifted right again. Instead of thinking that the glider had a turn in it that I had to compensate for, I started distrusting my compass - a GPS compass at that. So, instead of heading a bit south of west, I let myself drift until I was heading almost northwest.

All of a sudden I saw trees, then rocks, big rocks, more like a cliff. At the same time I felt the glider go quiet. I knew I was in the wind shadow of the ridge that comes down from the Mt. peak. I only had time to prepare for impact as a big rock face loomed. I flared and half turned my body so that my chest wouldn't take the impact.

I found myself hanging in my harness, with my glider flat against a rock wall, kind of like a picture hanging on a wall. My radio antenna connection had pulled out so that I couldn't talk to the folks on the Mt. And, it took me a while just to get my breath back, determine that I wasn't broken and that it looked like only the downtubes had broken on the glider.

Eventually I found some toe holds so that I could take my weight off my harness and unsnap the buckles. I didn't know it but the left lens of my eyeglasses had popped out, screwing up my depth perception. As I lowered myself down the 10 ft. or so to a ledge below, I misjudged a step and slid down to the ledge, luckily not injuring myself.

After some time I managed to get back up to the harness, fix the antenna, and let everyone know I was OK. I couldn't get a GPS fix 'cause I didn't know how to get to that screen on my vario (I've got to re-read the manual). I went off air, worked my way to the top of the cliff face and saw that the glider was hanging by its nose wires from a small bush at the top. With a bit of branch breaking I got the glider loose and let it slide down to the ledge below where it lodged in a scrub oak.

Three guys (Bob, Kurt, Jon) worked their way toward me as I worked my way up the mountain side. We finally hooked up by yelling back and forth (carry a whistle next time), and got to the top of the Mt. around 8 or so (I think). When I got home I found that something had poked a hole in my arm near the elbow. I suspect it was something on my glider since the hole looks nice and clean, rectangular, even.

Monday morning I was pretty stiff and thought I'd wait until Tuesday to try and retrieve my glider. I'd called the sheriff's dept. to tell them it was there. I didn't want a 911 call to get a helicopter out searching. But Scot called me to say it was supposed to rain on Tuesday. He proceeded to call around and get a posse together while I downloaded my track from my vario and plopped it on Google Earth to see where I'd "landed" and how best to extract the glider. I made a few waypoints and printed out some pictures to help. It all came together around 12:30 at the LZ and by dark we had the glider out. I was amazed at the stamina of Scot, Kurt, Jon, and Greg. I thought it would take several days to get it out. On the way in we discovered some of the wreckage of the Navy AD-5's that crashed on the north side of the ridge in the '50's, and closer to my glider we came across a wooden sailplane that we later learned had crashed, killing the pilot when he stalled while thermalling over the ridge. It looked like I'd crashed into the "St. Helena Triangle".

So, I got caught in the clouds, crashed into a cliff, and extracted myself and the glider, with a lot of help from my friends. What did I learn? What can I pass on to you?
1. Don't let your thinking get clouded by outside considerations (an appointment).
2. Don't let your supposed experience cloud your judgement.
3. Don't trust your judgement. Group think is better - get some input and give it weight.
4. Trust your instruments instead of your "seat of the pants"
5. Breaking down and hiking back is a hell of a lot cheaper than flying and crashing.
6. This is a big one: I could have been killed. Easily. Those who let me fly would have had to deal with their not trying to stop me more aggressively. I'd hate to leave them with that burden. It's not worth it.

I want to thank all those who helped me. I couldn't have done it myself. I love this group of friends I have, and I love this sport. I shouldn't say this but I really enjoyed my flight, right up to the point where I didn't.

Ernie



Edited by: Ernie Camacho at: 4/25/06 7:43 pm

Aside from the lessons, one thing I really loved about the story is that he found his glider again by plugging it into Google Earth. Living in the future is hella neat.