Pine on Friday afternoon/evening

[robinc]

A bunch of us went up to Pine this afternoon for glass-off, once the french fry spill (!) on Highway 33 had been sufficiently cleaned up for one lane of traffic to get through. There were eight pilots in the truck - me, Chris G, Bart S, Chris C, Stan, Linda (from MN), Brad (one of CG’s students doing his first high flight), Tony (one of CG’s students, from England, doing his second high flight), Tony’s wife Fiona (non-pilot), and Chris’ dad Jesse was kind enough to drive. We left Ojai about 2:00, and it was still a little strong by the time we got up to launch a bit after 3:00. We all got ourselves organized, and soon after it was mellow enough to launch. I launched first, and got an excellent glide over to the Pine spine to the west of launch. Once on the spine there was plenty of lift, some of which was as strong as 600fpm, which was a little stronger than I expected for glass-off, but it was pretty smooth. Not too long after I topped out at a bit over 10,000 right over where the spine meets the ridge. Chris C went fishing over the back a bit, once he was pretty high (over 9000’?), and found some good lift there too. The two newbies (with CG on the radio of course) did great and really enjoyed their flights. Everyone else got above 9000’ (launch is at 7000’) and boated around in more buoyant air than we expected for between one hour and two. A subset of us spent a good 45 minutes milking the lift from over the rocky escarpment just north of Highway 33 and the Sand Pile LZ. It was a really nice afternoon of pretty exceptional flying, with great group of people, thank you all!

We’ll be going up to Pine again tomorrow (Saturday), and probably Sunday as well. Now that the government shut-down is over the road to Chief is open again, so we’ll get up there again soon too, although probably not ‘til next weekend.

[cortfly]

Glad to hear youre going again...same meeting time ?

[robinc]

Yes, we'll meet at 2:00p today, Saturday, at Nordhoff High School in Ojai.

If anyone has someone who could drive a vehicle part way back down, on an easy paved mountain road, let us know.

Robin
five one zero - three three three - eight four eight seven