Pine Sunday

[Pegg_Brendan]

Meet at NHS at 945.

Brendan 805/302-4151

[andy dainsberg]

oj volunteered to drive (thank u) w/ brendan (his truck- thanx again) randall and i flying. easy launch conditions before noon~. brenden led us otb @ 10K. fished dry canyon for thermals w/ brendan venturing north toward the road while randall and i stayed back @ the ranch. brendan ran into sink by the road and randall got to 11k. as they ended up landing dry canyon, i stumbled into a nice smooth fatty that drifted me over most of the badlands toward lockwood and back up to @ 11k. i found the rattiest, strongest lift of my last several flights over the high point of the badlands south of the road and got jolted up to 12500 or higher taking a couple 30%ers. went back for "just one more 360" twice then left it early. cruised over lockwood valley at 30mph staying over 10K turning twice for weak lift. with a few cummis stacking west of frasier- i flew straight under em and bumped cloudbase @12300. flew over the center of frasier and spiraled down to the truckstop with frozen fingertips to be greeted by a delicious corona.

[Mark Miyahara]

So bummed I slept in a missed out. Maybe next time.

[Randall]

Second flight at Pine in the past couple weeks (after a LONG lay-off), second landing at Dry Canyon. Conditions looked promising (as Andy proved), with super easy launch conditions and a quick climb to around 9600. Then yo-yoed up and down a couple times before hitting the big smooth wide one that took all three of us over 10k. Brendan and Andy left before me and I stuck around to try and milk some extra altitude to make up for my inferior glide ratio and inferior piloting skills. Finally got over 11k over the Chute, but by now I was feeling a fairly strong drift from the west-northwest that was pushing me deeper along the range as I thermaled and farther from the road and the 50-50. Around the same time my gps battery died.

I probably could have just pointed towards Lockwood and made it on glide but the consequences of hitting some sink on the way would have left me with a nasty hike-out from way back behind Mutau Flats or some such. Didn't like not having a gps either. Opting for the safer route, I burned much of my altitude trying to get closer to the road, fighting a stiff headwind from the north-west. By the time I was over the road I was down to about 7k and never able to get high enough again to attempt the jump to the 50-50. Put the glider down in a strong west wind with bumpy, gusty conditions over Lockwood valley Road. As I sat waiting for retrieve under the shade of a pine tree I watched the cloud street forming out over Pinos towards Frasier and thought of what might have been, as motorcycle after motorcycle blew by me, giving me strange looks and no doubt wondering what anyone was doing just sitting out there in the middle of nowhere.

I had attached my new HD helmet cam prior to the flight and got some great footage (I thought) of thermaling with Brendan, watching a small plane pass a couple thousand feet below me, incredible views from 11k, etc. only to discover that the damn thing hadn't recorded a damn thing. Problem with those Hero cameras is you have almost no way of knowing what you're recording, if anything, until you get it home. I'll try again next time. Congrats, Andy, on a great first otb Pine flight.