Skyport Sunday

[SA]

We all talked about flying on Sunday as we raged at Zender’s birthday party Saturday night. The blazing fire and Glow Bocce Ball at the Mesa Casa was epic. Sunday’s forecast looked mediocre at best on Saturday night. Max had his Russian family in town and they wanted tandems. We lost an hour of sleep as we moved the clocks forward, and some must have felt a little thick this morning. We had a full load in the Eagle Van anyway, and 6 brand new Eaglets who are fresh P2’s and ready for some mountain flying. After the briefings we headed up to the Skyport, and found soupy conditions at least 500 feet below the Skyport.
As we finished up the pilots meeting and briefing cloud base lifted and it was time to fly. Ridge talker Rich was off first. He pulled a nice glide, and ended up in Parma. Johnny Lyon punched of next, and pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day. Nice mellow climbs around the Monastery and Parma for everybody on board with people getting to 2500+. Big Ups to Jackson, Kirill, Katya, John A, Kevin B, and Brad Bell for sticking their launches and enjoying the skies above SB. We had everybody make Parma with really soft and sweet thermaling happening out front. We couldn’t have asked for better conditions for newer pilots to do some soaring and get some air time. Roman and I punched off last on the tandem and we did some thermaling of our own.
I heard the training hill was really cracking today, and Wilcox was on for a couple hours as well. Hoping we get some good weather next weekend for Deano’s first So Cal XC League event of 2012 here in SB.