March 1, 2003

Pilot Interview - John McClintock

Our flying community is comprised of interesting and colorful pilots. In an effort to better acquaint ourselves with these various personalities, each Cloudstreet issue will look "under the helmet" and glimpse into a pilot's pursuit of flight which bonds us all together.

Cloudstreet-"How did you get into Hang Gliding? When and where did you start flying?"

John- "Fortunately I didn't get to see my first hang glider until a few months after I graduated. I remember driving across Canada (July 74) to my first job, in Fort McMurray, and somehow I knew such a thing as hang gliders existed. The concept matched my childhood dreams, where I was flying but it wasn't inside a comfy little Cessna, there was more participation involved."

Three of us would go to Edmonton for the weekends, and sure enough, there in the classifieds was a hang glider dealer/instructor ad. We visited the fellow, there were the gliders in his garage (Muller standards) but fortunately again, just before my wallet jumped out of my pocket, he suggested we go check out Government Hill, there might even be some people flying there now! Wow, that looked great, and interesting that everybody had Birdman gliders (or should I say kites, compared to what we have now!) Back at the shop, Terry Jones showed us some video from the training hill, and commented on the good and bad habits seen on the screen. The wallet jumped successfully this time, and a week later, there she was, a beauty 18 x 18 standard delivered to Fort McMurray, complete with swing seat for $550.

But suitable training hills were nonexistent by hindsight standards, and after a few glides at the local ski hill …. the next spring it was good-bye McMurray, and on the way back to southern Ontario I happened upon a group of flyers at Little Norway ski hill in Thunder Bay. Deluxe, they stopped the chair so we could load with out gliders, and stopped it again at the top. My first high flight came, ready or not!

Tell us about some of the gliders you have owned through the years?

Once back in southern O, fortunately once again, the local flyers around northwest Toronto were former students of Bob Love, Sky and Earth Systems. Bob was into making gliders, and was most willing to assist anyone else who wanted to make their own too.

Those gliders we could see in the California magazines were hard to get, expensive, and would be obsolete by the time we got them anyway. Performance was improving rapidly in those days (when you're starting with 4:1 or less, the % gains are awesome), which was just another positive incentive to start experimenting.

I rearranged the 18x18 parts to something greater than 90 degrees nose angle, and taped on a plastic sail. Much to my delight, somebody even wanted to buy my 'old' standard sail. Soon there was the second version of the taped plastic.

The local harness is worth mentioning too. I had started with a swing seat, but the locals were flying prone and it just looked like the right setup. The transition wasn't easy, but the deciduous trees are short and soft at Blue Mountain, Collingwood. The ego was hurt the most. Back to the first prone harness, it was a sling with a foot-kicker, quite ideal for high wind flying on little hills. The pilot is not fastened to the sling, so if the glider gets away from you, too nose high for the 25 gusting 30 required for ridge soaring 50 foot bumps, one simply raises their arms, the sling slides up and away, and the glider tumbles away behind you without that embarrassing and helpless feeling of trying to unhook upside-down resting on the kingpost. But these are observations, as I only did a few of those sling things, because I had the knee-hanger-nutter from UP! But I can lay claim to flying a taped plastic homebuilt with an open sling from a 900 foot hill, more than once. Just don't ask me to do it again!

Back to the homebuilts. Next, there was stitchable woven plastic, two versions. But those factory built imported ships were hard to keep up to! On one of my trips to Chattanooga, I bought a Falcon from Chucks' Glider Supplies. It was time to spend more time learning how to fly instead of learning how to build!

The fifth and last version of the homebuilt (1977) was in dacron, and it still retained some of the 18x18 parts. This is the glider I arrived at Invermere with in spring 79. After bouncing around in big thermals at 10k plus, the idea of a certified glider was firmly fixed in my mind, but which one to choose? The Seagull 10M was very similar to my homebuilt, and while current in performance, it was a three year old design. Time to say fortunately again. After hedging awhile, word came out that this thing called the Comet was all the rave in California. My money was down, sight unseen.

Then there was a Magic III, soon followed by Randy Haneys' full race Magic IV, the world record Golden to xxx 202 miler machine. It was only 4 months old, but had over 200 hours and many many XC and highway miles already!

Ever since 1992 I have been on the heavy side of wing loading for a change, and it seems like the only way to go. Easier thermalling, shorter ground-effect, less climb-out if you flare a bit early, and more authority when self-launching are some of the advantages.

That's a long winded answer, for the relatively few gliders I've owned. The 137 Blitz is my souvenir from Australia 1993, and is still quite crispy.

If you were featured on Biography, what is the history of John McClintock besides being a pilot ?

The other John is a civil engineer, who specializes in construction management consulting. An earthmoving company with a problem job is what brought me to Kamloops, in 1981. A year later their problem was solved, and I started the self-employment route, following on the recent theme of evaluating $ changes to major construction projects. The mid eighties were great, because I had the summer basically off, with work waiting for me in winter, in downtown Vancouver. Those were the busiest years of hang gliding in Savona, oops, wrong topic!
Little of my consulting work is in the local area, so in the 90's I tried to diversify in order to stay around home more. The construction disputes thing can get stressful sometimes, which is another incentive for diversifying.

Ginseng was just proving out to be a huge winner for some of the local growers, so I studied and studied and took the plunge. Farming is disastrous for free flying, and ginseng ended up being disastrous for the bank account too.

Structural steel stud framing was the other diversion. More studying, more effort, another hat to wear. There were sales, but since I did not want the hassles of being an employer, with no installation crew, sales were limited. The liability is scary, designing does not pay well enough, thanks anyway. So, now it is back to only wearing one hat well, instead of three hats not as well.

Construction disputes have sent me across Canada, and to Indonesia. They have kept me up at night, and also given me generous amounts of time off. The best assignments are when it involves helping an honest family business survive some injustice.

The two step kids are doing well in their careers, and my son is half way through high school. What a challenge navigating through the teenage years, in these times. If it wasn't for ginseng (too few flights in those years), I'm sure I would have taken them all tandem.

Your home town of Savona has seen some world class flyers, what was it like to hang out with Jim Bamford and Randy Haney?

We used to rag on Jim for launching like a jack-in-the-box. Thankfully he always got away with it. I hope he gets out at Easter to wind-dummy again for us.

Randy was a great inspiration for what can be done in the sky. His dedication to going far and being the best he could be was something to witness. While the rest of us wanted beer after flying, Randy would be washing his glider and tuning the battens, and not having beer because of the dehydration factor. Randy was chasing the blue sky all around the pacific northwest. He got what he deserved, a world record. I ended up buying that glider, and it was in excellent shape and tuned quite special.

You have recently upgraded your glider to a Litespeed, how does it compare to your last glider?

There is no doubt that these topless machines are a huge step forward in performance. And how nice that launching and landing are as easy as ever. But roll and yaw no longer seem coupled, the glider is very sensitive to how it is being thermalled. In making the transition, it wasn't comfortable thermalling near the trees in the first moments of flight.
And the vg gets spooky too, the glider trims out faster and the bar pressure disappears, and I haven't had it past 1/3 yet!

The Litespeed has an incredible amount of adjustments possible with the frame, and I should have been more dedicated to tuning last year. It is a work in progress.

You have had some remarkable flights through the years, Tell us about your most memorable flight.

I managed to get a few stories in on the Oscars' site review, so I won't repeat them here. But 'remarkable', no, its' more a case of being at the right place at the right time, and having everything functional.

I remember the day Willi left us. I was the only pilot out that day, flying from Oscars. Around Johns' Jump the cus' were plentiful and most playful. I spent lots of time climbing above cloudbase, in-between cells, playing with my aura, etc. The air was gentle magic. I flew over the farmhouse and radioed that I would land near the highway. As I was pulling the battens, I was told about Willi. It couldn't have been 3 hours yet.

Tell us about some flights you have flown in other countries.

I was lucky to fly a small site on the north end of Sydney. It was a private residence 40 foot cliff launch, and Bob Loudon was able to get me in with the exclusive club. A wire launch from 40 feet ASL, a flat rock beach below and a gently sloped 300 ft ridge behind. The atmospheric conditions set up something wonderful, and we climbed to 2000 ASL. A local pulled up beside me and yelled, you are lucky, this is the highest we have ever been here. On the way to launch, there was talk of XC, and how nobody has gotten as far towards Sydney as the public flying site (15 or 18 miles perhaps). I think I could have made it, but I would have been so low, when I arrived there would have been no chance to check out the terrain. The pier looked intimidating, and the beach narrow and sloped, so I turned back and landed with the closest group. Excellent scenery, excellent people, classic air.

We have all had that Oh No feeling, What was your most scariest flight?

My longest flight ended rather scary. 103 miles up the north thompson, I was getting bold after Clearwater. I lined up with a cloudstreet that was one valley west from the highway, instead of flying over Avola way. But I fell under the cloudstreet, the lift was gone. That valley ended with a cliff over the river, creating a gorge to a hump in the junction of ridges and valleys at Messiter summit. The afternoons' tailwind had suddenly turned into an impressive headwind, bar back I was dropping like a stone. Getting below the ridge top, there was the option of tailing it over to the highway, but I had no idea what might be there for an LZ. Under me, and rising fast, was a log landing, it looked like the best option. The penetration got worse, the lower I went. I touched down A-1, in the clearest part of the truck turnaround. Just a few metres behind me, the knob dropped off steeply down to the river, creating the gorge. My flight couldn't have been any shorter! After 4hr45 minutes of awesome airtime, the last few minutes were intense. During that brief decision time, I did remember turning back to safe looking fields on most of my other long flights. I knew I was close to the 100 mile mark .. and I didn't know what potential landing areas were behind. Sometimes you have to believe in guardian angels!

Have you set any personal goals for the upcoming season?

April fools day will be 20 years without having to replace any glider parts! Jeff Remple did help me out at Sun Peaks once, with some fine craftsmanship taking a gentle wow out of the airfoil downtube, but hey, I didn't have to buy a new one! Stew and Mark got to see me 'arriving' with a wet Litespeed, but hey, there's an art to wacking without buying! So the goal is really, no parts for the rest of my flying days.

It would be great to beat my longest flight, partly to prove that it wasn't a fluke. A hundred mile flight in the interior is a challenge, between the large lakes and different valley systems it is easy to get pulled down early on days that look classic.

How do you envision our sport in the future?

I would really like to see us have a fixed base tow operation in the Interior. A place where we can have hangars, so that we can have ultralight sailplanes. Camping and a club house. We miss so many soarable days by having to guess which site to start from.

I love prone flying and running off a hill, but there are fewer and fewer of us every year. If we get some form of club, with a fixed base, it should help maintain our numbers and even help them grow. And over the next few years, I think we will have more options available for open cockpit high performance soaring machines. The same towing technology that works for foot launch gliders should also work for light sailplanes.
Whatever way, I hope to see you all at cloudbase!