PG Record for the Taking?

[Southside]

For those lucky enough to take off during the week the forecast doesn't get much better than what they are calling for for the desert for tomorrow and Weds. Because of the predicted light ENE winds Blackhawk looks like the place to go. Sure, its a long drive out there, but you just might be able to fly all the way home.

John

[Tony Deleo]

I will be headed out to the desert this afternoon 805 701-3619

[Foster]

For those lucky enough to take off during the week the forecast doesn't get much better than what they are calling for for the desert for tomorrow and Weds. Because of the predicted light ENE winds Blackhawk looks like the place to go. Sure, its a long drive out there, but you just might be able to fly all the way home.

John

Maybe the site record - Blackhawk to Kagel at 90 miles may be doable. Further west looks more troublesome.

[Randall]

Any pg'ers heading out there?

[brendanpegg]

Possibly on Wednesday. I recall Eddie saying he's booked all week. Know anyone that could drive?

[Randall]

Nope.

[Foster]

Possibly on Wednesday. I recall Eddie saying he's booked all week. Know anyone that could drive?

I won't know until about noon today, but I may have a driver for Wednesday. Today's RASP BLIPMAP is looking better for continuing west of the San Gabriels.

[Southside]

Just stay above 10k :-)

[brendanpegg]

Assuming that Tony doesn't object to giving us a boost to launch, Randall, Brad, and I will be driving out with Eddie early tomorrow (Wednesday). Sounds like there may be room to squeeze one or two more in.
Brendan 805/302-4151

[Southside]

Just in case you didn't check, the Blackhawk record -- held by the Axman, btw -- is 61 miles. Good luck.

Btw, most of the models have indicated ENE winds until sometime late in the afternoon. Sometime later in the day the models indicate that the winds will turn light WSW below 6k or so (they remain ENE above that). However, the zonal forecast for Palmdale, for example, is calling for strong SW winds with gusts in the mid 20s. The wind forecast is pretty much the same for today and tomorrow. For what it's worth, I just checked the actual winds for Palmdale (3:00); it's blowing NNW at 10 on the deck.

[Edit] At 4:00 it was blowing N at 5; at 5:15, SW at 18.

John

[Southside]

Well, almost.

Tony made it back to the north side of Pine (145 miles) where at 6k he found lee side conditions that put him on the ground. Talking with him he felt that if he had taken his altitude (12.5k) at Lockwood and headed to Decision Point rather than going over to the Chute he might have been able to get that one last thermal that might have gotten him to the coast.

John

[Southside]

Whatever reputation I had with regard to calling the weather just took a major hit. I guess I'll apologize now before the first write ups get posted.

John

[brendanpegg]

No apology necessary John, your help with reporting on the conditions was very appreciated.

We got to launch around 10:30. Foster, Eddie, Randal, Brad and I in Foster’s Toyota FJ. There was prevailing east wind at launch with reasonably strong cycles. I thought Tony had launched at 11:00 AM the day before, and so I felt like we were late when we still hadn’t spread out at 11:20, but the minimal cloud development was indicating that it just wasn’t happening yet. Then Tony called and said he had launched at noon, and I thought that confirmed that we just needed to wait a little more.

Brad and I pulled up a few minutes before noon. The launch cycle wasn’t a freight train, but it wasn’t a Thomas version either (anybody with a small child will understand that reference). We got ripped back a little, and the wing jumped to the west, but we got under it and it was full and solid when we stepped into the air. An instant later it was half there and squirly. It takes a pretty big hit to get rid of half a tandem wing, and even though it came out okay, the ensuing dive and pendulum had us buzzing a Juniper tree about a 100 feet below launch. Nice start.

We found small, sharp, violent lift over the pile of rocks at the house thermal and we did battle. I’m willing to put up with that as a necessary means of getting up and away on a big day. But it rapidly loses its appeal when it doesn’t get you up and away. We fought the stiff east wind in an effort to stay over the pile of rocks, but we would consistently lose the lift (through a dramatic process of falling in and out of it) after rapid gains of a couple hundred feet. So we would hit it low again, get our asses kicked some more, get yanked up a couple hundred feet, get spat out, grope around for something better, come in low and repeat the process.

I also tried to step back up over launch, but whatever was kicking off of launch was worse than the house thermal. Thinking it was the same force that tossed us when we launched, I yelled some pretty tough sounding insults at it over my shoulder as we were running away and going back to the house thermal. My last tactic was to try to take the drift with the house thermal. Instead of fighting to stay on top of the rock pile, I let the wind blow us to the west and tried to stay in the lift. That didn’t work either. Got about the same altitude gain (about even with launch), but we were too far west to make it back to rock pile (and we burned it all trying), so it was off toward the gun range.

Rough, low, and windy. We got bounced around all the way to the deck. Brad hadn’t been speaking up too much during the flight, but when he realized that our final approach was taking us directly into the fireline of some hillbillies with high power rifles, he began shouting, “COMING IN!! DON’T SHOOT!!” And he remarked something to me about this being a danger of flying that he had not anticipated. It turned out that the target we were landing next to was not the one that they were shooting at (or maybe they just switched directions to avoid killing us). And we landed softly despite the big red bronco jumping around above us. 16 minutes of variable levels of terror. Brad’s first words after he unbuckled were, “Did you happen to bring any toilet paper?” After I handed it to him he disappeared for 10 minutes.

Back on launch at 1:30 the freight trains had definitely arrived. I couldn’t stand anywhere near the edge without losing my hat. My gear was not stowed, but I was not willing to wind dummy a second time. Foster decided to give it a go. The cycles were easily at 25 with launchable lulls between. It took some major stones to pull up in those conditions, but he made it look easy with a perfect launch. His flight, however, looked pretty similar to ours. Rather than stepping back up to launch, he looked out front, and he did manage to climb a little as he was blown westward. Ultimately he weighed the options of skipping along the rotor strewn ridges into no-man’s land, or landing at the gun range, and he chose the gun range.
Randall, quite wisely, decided not to launch, so we folded up and fled.

We did, however, stop by Crestline on the way home. Launching after 6PM we enjoyed smooth, laminar air and almost soarable conditions. It took Brad and me 20 minutes to zig zag our way down from Regionals and then enjoy a perfectly smooth, soft landing on the grass. Folding up in the shade with a cold beer was a nice way to end the day.