Holy Updraft, Skyport - 5/6/07

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Holy Updraft, Skyport - 5/6/07

Postby faoro » Sun May 06, 2007 1:18 pm

It's lucky I have friends at launch. I need the help each time for the three aborted launch sequence that I always seem to pull off. But today's story goes back a bit further. Ojai John and I discussed the weather at 8 AM. Predicted light east winds in the morning and west to northwest winds of greater velocity in the afternoon. The call seemed to me to be launch Nordhoff Peak early and fly to Santa Barbara. It's lucky that Taliban Chris and OJ decided on flying Skyport. They said, "Ojai is too strong today with a spread of 35 degrees." Well, maybe for knee-knockin', yellow-bellies, but not for Topa pilots! But I let it go that direction; it's always easier to fly local. Once I saw the spread developing between Montecito weather station and La Cumbre Peak, I thought: "Wow, it's going to be big here today, too!"

So, we had a big crew gathered at Parma. Riss is in from Texas; there is a visiting pilot from Oregon and then there were many of the usual suspects. Riss and I took an early ride up with Diablo. Neal, who I used to fly with eight years ago from Skyport came up from Venice for the flying. He launched first. Then Art took off as the cycles started furiously ripping through the oak tree out on the front corner of launch. I've never seen stronger cycles at Skyport launch. Andy Dainsberg helped retrieve the Trango from the bushes a few times; Mike assisted in laying it out and Andy Palmer gave me help that finally got me off the hill. No house thermal, so I angled out front, fighting the strong southwest flow. Way out front - before the wires - I got tugged up and back toward the Thermal Factory. One had to just hang on today with the 15 mph west wind trying to spoil the thermals, spoil your wing and spoil the fun. After just minutes, I got nervous and tired battling the conditions and let myself drift toward Parker's in the strong west wind, thinking I'd pop on over to Westmont College to land. The air was extremely trashy. All sphincters were locked tight.

But I hit lift over the canyon and the hairpin turn and started riding it up. Two minutes later it built into a sharp edged, massive thermal that had me going straight up at 1,600 feet per minute - with zero penetration. I don't know if other paraglider pilots experience this, but it happens to me periodically, especially in the Trango 2. I am in such radical lift, that I can't turn. Not only do the wingtips feel mushy, but it just feels plain dangerous to change directions! So, I have to ride it up, fall out the back of the thermal, get trashed, then turn around to re-enter the lift. Good for bump tolerance, but rather intimidating to repeat over and over. Anyway, that's what happened in this thermal over the Antenna Farm, except I never had to turn. It was an elevator shaft straight up a thousand feet. I topped out at 4,000 feet - plenty to reach the beach - and announced my intentions of heading out to East Beach with diminished testicular girth. But then I thought about it. It was so much more peaceful, now that I was out of the lift. So I turned north and went back to challenge the Thermal Factory again. Andy Palmer quickly came on the radio to chide me about the decision. I watched Marty launch his new, beautiful, razor-thin wing. I watched Diablo scratch with the Atos like I had never seen before.

Unfortunately, the Thermal factory was just as I had left it. I struggled up to 4,200 feet against the strong west push and felt I had had enough. Slowly, I floated back down to the Round House, not losing much altitude at all. With 4K at the front ridge, I needed somewhere to go. So I pointed toward the Holy Hills and saw that my groundspeed was 18 mph. Perfect! I floated across the canyon and over toward the Tit. It seemed late in coming, but once I hit the motherlode, it was straight up again, trying hard to turn soon enough to not fall out the back side. This thermal ended at 5,650 feet, directly over launch. Having completed the circuit, it was time for a real departure. I could see my scary theatrics were discouraging anyone else from launching. But it probably wasn't a good day for going downrange. Art made it to the polo fields, but both he and Mike had trouble penetrating out front to land. Marty made the loop behind me and I marveled at his control of the ghost ship.

Freeway with 2K, Stearn's Wharf with a grand, a quick turn at the Iraq war memorial where I saw east wind in the two flags! But when I turned to head east to the LZ, I was skimming along at 30 mph. Hmmmm! Turned west and had a fast landing in the sand. There were different levels of airflow even at low altitudes over the beach.

Marty came in behind me and Carmen picked us up and took me back to Parma.

One hour of action-packed flying - chills and thrills.
faoro
 
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Joined: Fri Jan 27, 2006 9:21 am

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