Friday, 2/5/2016: Holy-Crap-It-Worked Hills

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Friday, 2/5/2016: Holy-Crap-It-Worked Hills

Postby gracecab » Sun Feb 07, 2016 8:03 am

Fun flight out to NoName from Skyport, then scratched up from Holy Hills. Lunch hour friday.

Launch: 12:10 am, Fltime: 1:31 min, max a: 4400 ft, mx vario: 8oo ft/min

SkyNoNParm.jpg
lunch hour circuit


As i'm getting way low from coming down the front of the range, lower, lower...

btw: looking at the trigger icons afterward shows me I should have stayed out over WestBowl much longer to try to snag a thermal ... at least a couple passes more would have almost suredly given me a thermal high enough to get back to LaCumbre... i gave up too fast...

catehderalimpatienc .jpg
should have stayed out front longer

This photo shows no less than 7 pretty yellow tornado icons (trigger points for us)... and I flew by them all...duh...

I see I can glide to St.Marys... so I get real low and point for the opening there to land... and announce to Dave my flying partner for the flight (who was much higher and a little behind me more around West Bowl)..."i'm heading to land at St.Marys"...

When I hear Mr.Truax on the radio to the effect of, 'hey don't give up yet, there's a spine there you can get up on it... keep going'...

So, thinking to myself "I know it saw a yellow tornado icon on Aarons Google Earth trigger point chart", I know Matt Henzi had a great low save there last year, and it's been really lifty this whole flight and pretty light/smooth wind so being low over terrain for this scratch session should be pretty mellow...

Putting these things together in about 2 seconds, I decide to make a turn over the spine, low and behold the vario starts beeping slow, very slowly. So, I say what the hell, i can still get to St.Marys if this doesn't keep going... but it DID... and the GPS below is the proof... lol.

HolyCrapItWorkedHills.jpg
2/7/16


Gained about 800 ft in the climb up the spine... Since it was my lunch hour, I decided to get back to Parma, but could have kept working probably back up to thermal factory, which would have been a fun circuit.

Anyhoo...

Also, had a fun experience watching a single sparrow over No Name chasing bugs, and chased it up the thermal... that got me into enough height to move back East down range. That was a first, to use the bird to get into lift... cool... and in a tight spot at the time so thank you mr.sparrow.

(Interesting to note that in Aarons description of No Name trigger... he mentions specifically using BIRDIES to find lift... maybe there's a colony of sparrows down there... :lol: )

Read Aarons descriptions of all the points, and the routes he mapped out... may save your bacon some day. :wink: (also read any flight logs of any detail to glean more facinating insight and improve your flight, no charge)

BirdieatNoName.jpg
watch the birdie


Saturday (yesterday) the tops were low and I spent most of the time circling around Thermal Factory not getting over 200 feet over ridgeline, but still good practice. Getting used to the Kantegas limits... loving this wing... great speed bar range too.
Chris Ballmer aka gracecab
Ventura, CA
UP Kantega XC2 / Gin Verso
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