Saturday - Mar. 28

[Bo Criss]

Pretty good day of flying in Santa Barbara! We were due, that's for sure.

I had the honor of taking one of my flying mentors tandem today. Todd Bibler pretty much taught me how to fly cross country 12 years ago along with Bill Belcourt. Today I took Todd tandem and Bill, who was visiting from Salt Lake City for Todd's birthday celebration, had his first SB flight. It really meant a lot to me to share the air with such great guys and great pilots.

We took off from Alternator around 11:45 and didn't catch much till we got to the slide. It was working consistently, but not booming. Patience was the game today. Eventually we were 1,000 over West Bowl and took a stab at Cathedral. It worked well enough to send us on to the R&R. Again patience was the game. It took 4 or 5 thermal cycles for us to get even with the top and we decided to push on to the Thermal Factory. Brendan was doing well on a tandem there, but the lift was getting blown from a WNW direction and it was work to stay in the game. We started to peter off down towards Parma. About 250 feet off the deck we caught the best lift of the day. Solid strong lift that took us up high with Jim Maddox. It was the thermal we needed to make a stab for the beach. We had a buoyant glide out, took it over the Pacific for good measure, and completed a very memorable tandem with the softest of beach landings. What a day.

Thanks to Todd and Bill for all their good advice early on in my flying career and throughout the years. It's been a real pleasure.

[andy dainsberg]

it seemed a little iffy at skyport launch 4 awhile but it turned out ok. kinda in and out of lift over the rr up to 35. over to tf where the lift was stronger and more condensed i almost scratched 4k. out to east beach in a nice tailwind cracking 30mph groundspeed. (it took a bit over an hour 4me to hike back to parma. walking the 144 stretch from the roundabout to 192 was like a stroll on a creekside country lane with no traffic due to the closure.) saw several pilots cruising over me toward the beach. fun day.