Late Sunday, 10/15

[bhurlbett]

In between games at Ron's house, Benson, Ron and I decided to give Skyport a try when cloud base lifted enough to see launch. On the way up, I was skeptical but the sun broke out at the top and cycles were good. Ron and Benson laid out ahead of me and, since we arrived in my car, I seriously considered driving down to avoid the return trip. The cycles continued after Ron and Benson left the ground, however, so figuring that a late afternoon sledder might be a nice way to end the weekend, I joined them, launching at 4:15.

The sky was generally overcaste almost to the beach with cloud base around 3000.' There was very little sun except at launch but the air was buoyant. What lift Ron and Benson found was lite and they soon landed, Ron on a trail near his house, Benson at Parma after searching below me near the AF.

I managed to pick up a little altitude at launch and enough edging past the TF to come out above the antennas. That was just enough elevation to get me back to 2800' feet or so. From there I followed Benson toward Parma where I began picking up what felt like yesterday's convergence over the Monastery. Unlike yesterday, however, the heavy cumis were sucking all the way to cloud base and in just a few minutess, I was at 2900' over Parma and headed south. From there it was a silky ride to State Street where I finally dropped low enough to cross the freeway with 1400.' My vario started beeping again over the beach and if Ron hadn't been waiting for me on Cabrillo, I could have cruised the water front for who knows how much longer.

This was not a day any of us could have predicted from a casual glance at the conditions. SB winter flying has indeed arrived!

[Tom Pipkin]

If I was a betting man I would have bet both saturday and sunday would have been a wash.

I guess thats why nobody ever calls me for my take on the weather.