Flying Thursday 6/29?

[Chris G]

Yo guys! I'm in town and I need airtime! Who wants to fly Thursday? Give me a ring in the AM after 8:30.

[Chris G]

How about Pine?? It looks HUGE!

[faoro]

Tom Pipkin called me at work to let me know a crew was headed for Pine Mountain. The BLIPMAP said 13-15K and the wind was negligible. Andy Palmer, John Kloer, Chris Grantham and I met at the high school. Fast Eddy provided chase. We got to launch around noon; Chris Grantham had to be sedated for the ride and he still wet his pants. Things are that slow on the East Coast.

The cycles were blowing in regularly and they were strong - but just right. Then the scuds came in. Then Faoro couldn't ground-handle his Trango in the little bit of east wind on launch, blowing four consecutive attempts. Andy and Chris gave me some pointers and finally I was off at 12:40 PM. I had to scratch way below the bonzai tree (which is dying, unfortunately!) before I finally got a little 100 fpm thermal that slowly took me back to the top - all the way to 11,300 feet. Cumis were developing west of launch and I cruised over there to test it out. Most of the backcountry was scudded in, especially over toward Lockwood Valley, and there were lenticular clouds all over the desert and over the Badlands. A fire in the Cuyama Valley showed the smoke bent flat from a north wind. But we were getting strong south in our location. The thermals would carry you over the back and at the inversion ceiling of 11.5K, we would fall out and immediately hit big sink and a headwind of 15-20 mph.

Thoughts of OTB left with the lenticulars, so we headed off to Ojai. OJ squeeked in to the high school and Chris and I came in with thousands to spare. Andy tried an easterly route and landed in Rose Valley.

[oj]

After my Sunday sled ride to the Sandpile I felt like Pine owed me one so I got on board with Taliban Chris, Acro Andy, and El Presidente Ron for another go. Ron was first off and it looked as though he was going to do a repeat of my Sunday flight but he found something to work with out front and got back in the game with Andy who was well over launch.

Third out of the gate, I found some lift right at launch and went after the other two which were already 4k over and still climbing. It seemed more like bumpy convergence lift than single thermals, taking me on a fairly steady climb to 12k. Meanwhile, Ron and Andy had made a play for some cumis off to the West that didn't pan out and were limping back for a booster shot.

Feeling that I had hit the top of the lift I aimed South for Ojai. Big sink and a poor glide for the first five minutes had me at 10700 before even crossing Hwy. 33. The gps indicated a 6 to 1 glide to the high school lz was necessary but my actual glide was more like 3 to 1. Taliban was at altitude by that time and was drumming up support for a run otb, but my radio report of improving ground speed convinced him to go South.

Down to 4300 and even with Bump 2 off Whiteledge, it was looking pretty iffy on the glide straight in, I opted to turn 90 degrees left and run for Nordhoff Ridge. Came in at 3000 on the Pyramid but it was working well and one thermal had me up to 4200 with a 4 to 1 glide to the lz.

Chris and Ron took a more Easterly route out and found a much better glide. They both left with less altitude but came in over the lz much higher than I had. Andy tried the longer path that leads through the saddle behind Stooges but it didn't work out and he opted for Rose Valley.

Vario Log: 1000 fpm up, 840 dn, max alt. 12000, 1 hr. 25 min.

[Chris G]

Oooooh man it was good to be back in Ojai. Started out slow at the Bonsai but got better and better with 500-1000 ft/min climbs. Got a bit lumpy up there too. My vario had a wacky altitude setting so it was at least 400 feet short. Once at altitude I left with what I thought was 11.6 though my GPS track shows 12,100. Got a super buoyant but VERY slow glide to 33. Once past the first ridge and dry lakes ridge it improved greatly. Ground speed was up to 23 and my glide ranged between 8:1 and 28:1. Crossed the nuthouse with 5k+ and arrived at the HS really high. Heaps of fun, great day and good to be back, if only briefly.

[andy]

Good to fly with the taliban, ( I wonder if the FBI is monitoring our forum?) OJ, and Faoro at our local mecca. Last few runs up to pine kept me under 10k, today was up to 12k, and also felt some nipping of its teeth in the mixing zone.
We saw cumis all the way to Tehachapi, but as was stated the path was littered with big lentis to the east. Wind direction was hard to figure-lost my shuttlecock for the second time-so I had to use the old fashioned way, which proves I'm an idiot because I flew straight into the wind on the glide out and was looking even with the top of the gap ridge between Chiefs and Nord when I crossed the old RV landing field so opted to land and work on my lee side thermalling some other day. I had a nice 4-6 mph head until 30 feet then Xwind then tail, but I stuck the fast landing and ran it out.

Got a couple of big WO's in before landing. Hope to see the conditions extend into the weekend. SBSA is camping out at launch over the weekend, maybe we'll get to fly with the greyhounds OTB.

[Robb]

I know the real reason Chris came back...he wanted to hook up with Rhonda! Did you guys scout out a new mountain hideaway for her? I'll be traveling all week, but want to get her moved so next time you're scratching low see if you can find a good spot.