Santa Barbara Monday

[SA]

Monday lined up to be another great day of flying in Santa Barbara. We’ve got a handful of visiting pilots who have been in town the past few days who are loving this place. Saturday was some decent flying, and Sunday was epic. We had three new eaglets get some decent airtime on Sunday for their first thermic high flights in Santa Barbara.

It wasn’t quite as cold at the peak today, but the lapse rate looked decent and the winds were pretty light. The lapse looked better up high on paper, but since the peak was reporting North wind most of the morning, and the winds aloft was forecasting increasing north after 1 o’clock, we opted for the Skyport even though EJ bowl looked better on paper with respect to the lapse rate.

We decided to meet a half hour later than yesterday to let it heat a bit, and we pushed off from Parma at 10 AM sharp. We got to launch to find nice south cycles. We had 4 tandem passengers today and Marge, Marty, B. Howell, and I handled the paperwork and got ready to fly.

The group who had made a play for EJ bowl earlier and been denied because of the North wind on the ridge arrived just before Neal “Pigpen” Parrow hucked himself and showed us all it was working just fine at Skyport. There was plenty of time for everybody to get off of launch and enjoy another beautiful day of flying in Santa Barbara. All four of our tandems were treated to plenty of tasty thermals and mountain scenery, and a glide out to the beach. Marite was excited to have her first flight to the beach. There was a good posse at the beach, and we grabbed Willy just as he landed before heading back to Parma. Cracka and Cade had great flights getting down to Padaro.

Thanks to Cormac who I believe drove the eagle van down to Parma for us, and Leeside Lee for cruising a couple bodies back to Parma early so we could get Marty’s ride to him at the beach.

[DeVietti_Marty]

Thanks indeed! It was a nice day and the ride help made it all the nicer. Now I know who to thank! Thanks Cormack, Lee side, Bob Diggidy, and congrats to Marite "para el primero vez al mar" Muy bien Marite!
http://t.co/P0b8EO4xLf
Big thanks too, to Brian H. (in the above link I tweeted) for the launch support with my passenger up top, even at the risk of being left behind. Way to send it to the beach! Good Karma coming your way!

What a privilege to fly to the beach. Let's keep working together to keep the City of SB happy with us. Cheers,

Marty