Saturday Going to Pine

[Tony Deleo]

Leaving Ventura at 8:30 if anyone needs a ride.

Tony
701-3619

[dteal]

How was it at Pine Tony? I saw lots of cumies in that general direction today.
DT

[NMERider]

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[Tony Deleo]

It was an unusual day. Climbing directly at takeoff to 11,300 and pretty much on glide to Frazer. There were "ratty" convergence clouds at the west end of the Libres. Stayed to the windward/north side of the clouds. Cloud base was a different levels. Just south of Quail Lake I entered strong lift, my first impression was that due to the nature of the north wind that I/we were entering weak wave from the Tehacapis. As long as I was maintaining I just kept gliding. Looking back I probably made a mistake my not stopping to work the wave? lift. I left the convergence at Fairmont Buttes and headed for the closest decent cloud. Never got a bump and landed? in gusty southwest conditions(10-25 mph) where I lost control of the glider near the surface and got turned partially downwind and flipped upside down. Like "the Masetro", Eddie, said "you never could land". I was fortunate not to get hurt-the glider was not so lucky. Looking back I should have taken my altitude north and cross the Antelope Valley to the base of the Tehacapis, of course then you are in the "lee" of The Tehacapi Mountains, and then turned quarter downwind to east of Rosamond Dry Lake where the develop looked much better. The conditions had more north and east in it than northwest. The day still looked as if it had 200 mile potential, figuring out the nuances of the convergence lines was something else. Oh well you live and learn!

[Aaron]

Nice Flight Diablo, i too turtled last weekend.. i was flying funston and got cocky and walked out in 25+ without a wire guy.. oops... luckily for everyones entertainment i had a video cam on my wingtip.. thats my buddy dave flying overhead,, he said he was laughing his ass off,, what are friends for.. no harm no foul, checked her out, dusted her off and kept flying.. enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwoE6IFeJ94

aaron

[NMERider]

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[sd]

Nice Flight Diablo, i too turtled last weekend.. i was flying funston and got cocky and walked out in 25+ without a wire guy.. oops... aaron

Aaron. I'd recommend getting down the hill further into the airflow before hooking in. Kite the glider from the front wires, then hook in. The following comment referes to Bates, but the principles are similar. Funston is a more gradual drop off and has cleaner air, but you still want to be far enough down that the glider can fly away when you crack the nose.
http://paraglide.net/comment/04/windy_b ... ch.htm#lip

[John Fritsche]

Regarding these comments about getting flipped while hooked in: an Arroyo Grande pilot recently (maybe six weeks ago now) didn't get away with it as well as you guys. He landed on the beach at Cayucos and was walking his glider to a preferred break down area. He was still hooked in, got flipped, and sustained a pretty major elbow injury requiring surgery. Obvious morals to these stories: 1) unhook ASAP upon landing 2)utilize a wire crew when launching or while hooked-in near launch if there's much wind.