Oat Mt HQ, Saturday the 21st

[Simon]

Conditions are looking good for a day of fun, flying, and frivolity here at Oat Mountain on Saturday the 20th. Meet at the Goodenough LZ at 11am for a ride to the top. Please find ways of carpooling, we don't own the LZ, so treat it well and lets not leave too many cars at the bottom.

Weather wise, if the sun warms things up like it usually does, the thermals will block the Easterly flow that comes through the Santa Clara River Valley. At about 11am the convergence line will be at Oat Launch (the day before yesterday it happened at 2:45pm, yesterday at 10:30am, and the wind, by my observation, is converging right now [11:26am] in Fillmore). So on Saturday as soon as the clouds begin to break and Nitrous gives the thumbs up, Launch.

From 2pm to 5pm the onshore wind will be at its peak, have your speed systems set up and fly actively, the air gets lively out here. After 5 the buoyancy will begin shutting down, and staying in the air will involve using the ridge lift. Since we are on the edge of a large valley, near the Sespe river mouth coming out of the North, the Westward wind always shuts down very gradually and has an element of South wind in it. The wind at the LZ itself is always South and is near the Sespe river.

Let me know if the text messaging is annoying for those of you who received them. I am trying out different systems, and since I couldn't verify whether some messages went to certain people, you may have received multiple texts from me. (Robb and Andy D, let me know whether I sent you 3 messages or not.)

I will not be able to fly with you all, I will be at Oat Mt HQ making these

Caffè macchiato

Feel free to stop by my coffee shop afterward and tell me how it went.

[twgonder]

I got a call from Mark about flying Oak Mt. I think I'll go, care to share the ride? I think we need to leave the T (in SB) at 9:45. I'll be there and offer to drive the big white diesel hog, which means 4 others go in comfort. Please call and let me know if you plan to come. (831) 5 eight 8 nine 1 zero 1.

[twgonder]

Looks like the fog decided to extend to Fillmore. No go.

[Simon]

Soarable.

Just got off the phone with Nitrous, Mark Miyahara has just taken an extended sled ride. Wind is coming in from the West and is building.

[Nitrous]

Early it looked like launch would be in the clouds for the day. At 11am launch was covered with a thick layer of clouds. As Mark (tree man) and I were complaining about the situation at the LZ, the clouds lifted to just at launch and a lower layer of clouds were forming just in front of launch and then would drift onto launch. We decided to drive up and evaluate the conditions at the top. At the top conditions were about the same. Mark launched and was finding some lift bit not consistent enough to maintain and slowly was dragged to the lower LZ. Conditions at the top were getting better, so Mark decided to come up for another go. The condors were showing me were the lift was, so I was off. Cloud bases was just a couple of hundred above launch, lift smooth, condors flying in tight formation with me. Difficult to top land because of low base and lift close to launch. Top landed to talk with my brother who arrived a launch and was taking pictures of the condors. Mark also top landed after his second flight, with frozen hands. I talked Mark into coming with me and my brother and going to Ron's camp. After a hike we drove up to launch to find it in thick fog at about 5pm. Great day of flying and family.

Nitrous

[Mark Miyahara]

Nitrous was spot on with his prediction that he thought it was going to be flyable inspite of the way condition looked at 11:00.
1st launch was at 12:30. Some small pops but basically a sled ride. Nitrous's brother came to pick me up at the LZ for a second try at it. By the time we got to launch Nitrous was ready to launch, the lift was much better. He flew for about 20 min to allow his brother to take pictures of him soaring with the Condors. They were playing around at launch often 20 feet overhead. In one top landing attempt Nitrous actually had to abort because they were so close in front. Awesome birds...great wind dummies.
He top landed and I took of at 2:00. Cloud base was about 300 over launch and lift was very good and the air smooth. I flew near cloud base and went south down the ridge and out over the end, lift was good there as well. I worked back and forth a few times and was having a blast! But I didn't have my warm gloves on so I thought I would top land after 35 min and thaw my fingers and give Cort and Wade a call. Couldn't reach them to tell them the flying was awesome and probably going to get better. I'm pretty sure I could have stayed up for hours more. I then made a call to Oat Mtn HQ (Simon) to see if there might be any other pilots that might be coming to fly. But he didn't know of anyone.
So instead of waiting to fly with someone that might be coming up...I went down to see Ron's lower camping place. (Wow...impressive is all I can say). What a fun day.
To the pilots that couldn't make it...bummer...maybe next time.

[Simon]

Poor communication on my part, I was not at launch myself and it was hard giving a forecast second hand. My apologies to Cort, twgonder, and whoever else was available. I am still working on an effective system to organize meeting times & places out here.

I am open to starting a discussion on the best way to communicate. For now, I will work with SA, Nitrous, and Chris G more closely to make this happen.

[cortf]

Thanks, Simon and Mark, for keeping us in the loop....it sounded a little too iffy to justify the drive out there that morning. Glad it worked out for you.... Wade and I ended up at Happy Canyon in the afternoon, which turned out to be fairly epic. He gave me an impressive demonstration of high wind ridge soaring techniques..... Keep us in mind next time Oat is on...
Cort