SB Sunday

[andy dainsberg]

Rode my Triumph to parma and was almost hit by a lady running the stop sign at salinas/coast village. She and her passenger both covered their faces with their hands; expecting impact. Wonderful response, I thought... Launched skyport fairly early in light up cycles and got up to 45 at the rr. Winds were SW most of my way to alternator but switched quickly to stronger East and it was fairly blustery at the launch. Back over to la cumbre and up @ 4650. Flew over TF, found nothing - and out. Over the reservoir I had a nearby Cessna at my altitude turn, straighten and fly directly at me @ 15-20 seconds away-I dove deep and it veered off. So, no harm no foul but I honestly felt like I was about to be prop chop or wake bait. I stopped at Bates on the way home to fly the cross East. You could make it down to the oil pier with ease but getting back was a different story.

[Chris G]

Fun to get the Dainsberg flyover at Alternator! Looked like you were ridge soaring LaCumbre! We had a severely over-capacity van heading up from The T and found a fairly stiff base wind at Alternator. Not really predicted and most of us were a bit skeptical of the glide to the slide. A few intrepid die-hards punched out and showed us what was possible so our 3 tandems and a handful of others had a go. A bit of wind and sink on the way to the slide, though a few folks had epic rides up over the top of WB later in the day. Conditions out front were punchy but doable. We had an East wind all the way to the LZ which was shredded things a bit but everyone had fun, stayed up, and landed safely. The tandems had a blast! I heard a few folks made it downrange!

[Bo Criss]

I was skeptical at the T, lacumbre was reading 10 gust 13 from the south. At first it looked like we were going to attempt 24 + a dog in the fly above all van, but we only ended up with 19 and the dog . We had a steady moderate base wind on launch probably 6-9, with la cumber reading more. I didn't want to be the first wind dummy off launch. Andy was just making lacumbre look pretty good as he rounded the corner from skyport when Ron farro launched. Andy and Ron ridge soared launch together for a short while. Ron pushed out to west bowl with mixed results yo-yoing up and down with some good surges - about what I expected and the reason I had been reluctant to launch. Andy took another tack and ridge soared his way back to lacumbre with a very good result. That was all the inspiration I needed. As I took off I immediately turned left and headed straight for lacumbre peak. Great lift the whole way there and even more at the peak. 300 over and I pushed on to the RR as Dave Bader followed closely. I worked a bit over the top of RR but Dave had a better piece over the spine out front. I joined up and we climbed nicely together probably 600 over. Not too much love at the thermal factory, but I was still high from the last climb so pushed on. Nothing at shadow, and only a few turns at montecIto peak. At Romero it seemed the game was coming to an end. The foothills produced a bit and the flats some more as I attempted to reach the beach in summerland. A moderate east wind spoiled that plan as I landed on Ortega ridge about 2 blocks from downtown summerland. Dave landed close to the golf course very close to my lz. Dave's wife Gigi picked us up for a very easy retrieve. Big thanks to Andy for inspiring launch and the blueprint for getting out of a windy launch area. Big thanks to Dave and Gigi. It's been a fun winter flying season so far.

[SA]

Sunday turned out to be really good at Skyport. We passed on heading up to EJ Bowl with the crew in the Eagle van after looking at the observations figuring the Skyport would not be as breezy. We arrived to find really sweet soft cycles blowing up at launch. You could feel there was still some chill in the air, but we knew we were close to the inversion layer. Andy took off and worked it a bit before climbing out. He was followed by Ty who also climbed out. Those guys did some touring as we managed to launch all our students and get them some thermaling experience on the high flight. Most of them were able to work the lift at launch before heading out on glide. There wasn’t much love once folks left the skyport. The wind was light out of the east, and the glide was buoyant so everybody expect one pilot made Parma. Great fun to have Jesse, Kate, Tom, and Colin down from the bay area representing Lift Paragliding. After we had almost everybody off a group of 6 pilots who had been skunked at the Alternator arrived at launch. The cycles had picked up but it was very manageable. Seems like the atmosphere had stabilized a bit and there really wasn’t much for these guys to work. Half of them managed to gain a little altitude in the house thermal, but there wasn’t much to hang onto, and half ended up heading for Parma, and I grabbed two of them from Saint Mary’s and delivered the to their cars at the T. Great day, all the new eaglets were stoked to spread their wings and get some high flight experience.