March in the desert

[diablo]

According to resident weather man, John Scott, Black Hawk is looking decent for Saturday (10-14K) depending where your at. Hopefully we will be able to fly up Highway 15 into Nevada. If the weather holds Southside, Herb, and I, with "the Princess" driving, will be headed out there. I plan to leave town Friday afternoon and camp in the area. We have room. 701-3619

[Southside]

Just wanted to say that tops just above 10k seem more realistic -- although the Blipmaps are showing 13-15 tops deep into the San Bernardino Mts and 13k tops near Frazier.

John

[Chiopy]

Why blackhawk

Doesn't Pine look just as good or better, with better height along the route?

Are you guys looking to set records

From the data and BlipMap Pine looks like it "may" be where the convergence lines up (looking at the winds).

How about Crestline to Sylmar (the back route)

Chippy
aka ........... Jeff Chipman

[Chris G]

I'm pretty sure the road up to pine is still closed.

[Southside]

Why blackhawk :?:

Doesn't Pine look just as good or better, with better height along the route?

As Chris writes Pine is probably closed. But I 'm seeing WNW winds anyway. Perhaps Abel might work? Since it's a long hike if you don't get up maybe the PGs can take a chance on that one.

Are you guys looking to set records :?:

I think that best we can hope for is a flight out to Baker; it looks like the heights drop significantly as you get closer to Nevada. But I'll take an 80 mile flight anytime, especially in March.

How about Crestline to Sylmar

I'm seeing west. We were actually looking at a Kagel launch fying down to Cuc and then going OTB from there, but there seems to be low level inversion on the front range so we are thinking the high desert might be the safer call. The general forecast for the Lucerne Valley is saying NW so we might end up going to ORD rather than Blackhawk. But NAM is saying W turning SW near Twenty Nine Palms, and GFS is saying SW. That might be a problem for Ord, but if we can get off there it might be easier to get to the 15 east of Dagget than it would be if we started from Blackhawk.

John

[Chiopy]

As it turned out in Sylmar we had better than expected conditions but still capped below 4500. We had very little problem staying in the air after 1:30 (earlier pilots had some difficulty).

Thermals were abundant and regular with OK glides, but getting out of there would have proved difficult (no records were going to set from here).

Later in the day (about 3pm) we could see some cloud development over Lockwood valley (about 11k - 12k). The consistency improved as the day progressed. Plenty O smiles in the LZ.

How'd it go in the desert?

Chippy
aka ........ Jeff Chipman

[Southside]

Forecast turned out being mostly spot on. We managed to get one pilot, Herb Seidenberg, to Baker (around 80 miles). Most pilots reported tops in the mid 10 range, but Herb managed to get up to 13K at about 25 miles out. Not counting one of our pilots that launched unhooked, I ended up the low man of day at 21 miles. I'm using the excuse that when I was low at a critical spot the area was shaded in by some high cloud cover...yeah, that's the ticket. Bob Anderson landed a couple of miles up the road from me and Diablo made it to just east of Dagget, somewhere around 40+ miles.

re the unhooked pilot: Took some gashes in the leg, but otherwise was OK. Apparently the glider wasn't so lucky. This happened after I launched so this is secondhand information, but the glider flew out by itself and then backwards back to launch where in dove into the ground from about 20 feet, nearly hitting Carolyn's dog.

[diablo]

More "March Madness" on Saturday my flight was actually closer to 33 miles(thanx any way John) Having encountered my last substantial thermal at The Ord Mountains. I was on long final for the last 15 miles of the flight and landed northeast of Barstow Daggett airport. Of the 4 times I have flown this way I had trouble getting established until I have gotten to the Mojave River near Highway 15.

On Sunday the wind was out of the southwest 10-20 miles per hour at Lucerne-this is generally not a good sign, indicating a marine influence. At takeoff it would cycle in 5-15+. Herb and Bob Anderson opted not to fly. That left myself and Atos pilot Rex. The high point of the flight was 7300' at take off. The majority of the flight was spent trying to stay in the air with alitutudes between 4300-6300'. The majority of the local desert pilots I have flown with aren't real big on radio communication, sporadically communciating their alitutudes or location, which I guess is their prorogative as long as your not driving for them nor are they in your group. At the east end of Johnson Valley I noticed a glider a couple thousand feet below me up on the foothills of the mountains to the south of me, keep in mind that I was at 6K and that the valley floor is 3000 approx. and that the glider was up in the foothills, the glider appeared to be parked out in the wind which at altitude was 15+ out of the northwest. The next thing I notice is that Rex has pulled off a "fly on the wall" landing on the side of the mountain. Looked like a pretty good landing to me but one I had not seen before. Fortunately Herb was Rex's chase so we were not subject to that retrieve fiasco(which only lent more credence to the fact that having multiple chase is the way to go,this was discussed once again on the way up the mountain) While concentrating on forwarding Rex's gps coordinates I lost focus on flying, lost 500 feet, and was on the ground about 14 miles further at the 33 mile mark near Landers landing in a light north wind. Anyway it was a great "tune'up" for the summer soaring season unfortunately the desert has not received any rain and the vegetation is already browning.

[BobA]

Nice St Patricks Day flying. I enjoyed the sunshine and nice camping. Here are a few photos flying Blackhawk:

http://bob-shots.spaces.live.com/