Skyport Saturday, 2/18

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Skyport Saturday, 2/18

Postby faoro » Sat Feb 18, 2006 12:17 pm

You know you flew badly when you barely make St. Mary's! A crew went up in Andy Palmer's rig on a day that looked pretty good despite the overdevelopment. I launched first at 10:45 and went straight up to cloudbase - only 3,300 feet. I swung over toward the Thermal Factory only to hit a sinkhole. As I turned to fly toward the Round House in the sun, I noticed I had already lost five hundred feet and was having a hard time penetrating into a southeast wind of 10-12 mph. It was time for some praying at the Holy Hills. Caught a two-turn thermal that lifted me enough to clear the powerlines. Then it was all kinds of weird air and rotor as I tried dipping into the crevices on the west side of Rattlesnake Canyon. The wing went where it wanted, often pinning me backwards in a draw. But there was just enough convective heat to barely clear each successive ridge. At the third draw, my wing took a small assymmetric and as I dropped in a turn out, my harness pushed through the top four feet of a small scrub oak. A few S-turns on the last bump above St Mary's allowed me to reach the LZ at all and avoid a tree landing.

Everyone else did much better!
faoro
 
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Re: Skyport Saturday, 2/18

Postby irene » Sat Feb 18, 2006 6:45 pm

Of course we all know that Ron is not a bad pilot! It was just a yoyo day, some went to St Maries, some not.
I went tandem with Bo today. We launched at about noon, and went straight up, but when I decided to cross toward the thermal factory, we hit major lift as well. Really major, we passed the power lines fine, but after it that was a scary dive into the canyon. Behind the round house, in the rotor, I told Bo I thought we were doomed. I have landed a tandem at St Maries already, but never in a tree yet! But we cleared the ridge. Luckily, as soon as we passed the ridge, we found some moderate thermal. I decided to go to Parma, feeling already lucky. But when we arrived above Parma, we found a nice smooth adorable thermal that gently lifted up back to cloud base. And we got enough altitude to fly to the beach, with plenty of altitude. What a day!
irene
 

Re: Skyport Saturday, 2/18

Postby andy » Sun Feb 19, 2006 9:03 am

Went to the skyport with 5 others and found snow on the launch. We were commenting on the drive up about the absurdity of shoveling snow onto your vehicle and proceeding back to town to show your neighbors. Anyway at launch Ron was off and went straight up <EDITED>. I was trying to get some warm clothes on to prevent the frostbite that happened on thursday. Then came the commentary as I was laying out-oh my god look at him sink-oh jesus he's not going to make the lines -shit did you see his wing, so needless to say I was anxious to get off, after a huge pluck-starfish-dump, I reset with help and was off. The lift was good at launch, at about 300 over I headed to the west and got to base at the tit, then tried going to Cathedral but after getting in the down elevator I turned tail and went back to the tit and recharged, I felt the draw going uphill but didn't want to enter the white room that close to the R&R, so I went across the gap to the Round house mostly at base untill almost there then HUGE sink and was only about 500 over when I arrived, but was able to get a little out front. It seemed pretty unlikely that I could go anywhere and nobody else was moving so I went for parma. On the way there it was sink alarm city and found myself approaching the monastery at about12 mph ground speed and going down, finally found a little joy at the decision point and made it to Parma. Pauly had been having some of the same and reported that he to thought parma might be hard untill he found that last bit. We did go back up for round two after seeing the hangies and cloud base going up. Greg Brown took us back up in a d-ride with his HG and we relaunched to a little better flight but still lots-o-sink. Went out and got a nice thermal east of launch which Pauly had just taken to base, but I decided to fly out of because of the stong south push. Just after I landed a hangy reported the west pushing through, he had made glide from west bowl to montecito losing only a couple hundred feet. As he was riding the convergence eastward the clouds were also evaporating into the warmer air and the whole range opened up. Oh well.
andy
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