Just in case...

[Southside]

...you haven't been paying attention to the weather forecast and can take the day off (I can't) on Thursday -- it's looking UNBELIEVABLE! You just might need to bring oxygen. Also, if NAM is correct the SW wind turns south near Garlock and funnels straight up the Owens Valley.

[Kabir]

Nice job forecasting the event!
We could see this HUGE cloud developing and just getting BIG all the way here in SB.

I wonder if anyone flew it?

kabir

[faoro]

I just kept looking at the towering cumulus development visible behind Montecito Peak from my clinic this afternoon and kept wondering: "How could no one be calling...?"

But there's still Friday.

[Dean S]

The weather looked outstanding on paper for today, but all I could think about was Robb Milley's story from Blackhawk a couple years ago when his boot soles melted off in this kind of heat. Can you imagine if you landed out in the boonies today, you'd be toast!

Okay - so I'm wearing a skirt today...I'm okay with that.

[andy]

I saw clouds from Pinos north to Fresno with base somewhere in the high teens, they were even forming over the Valley here.

Just walking around on the pavement here my soles were melting. I was daydreaming at work about flying at 20k and freezing my nards off, then landing out in the desert and dieing from heat stroke. On a day like today I would want a damn good chase and a road to land next to.

It is supposed to cool down to 101 by Sunday here in BF, what a treat.

[JimmyZ]

Yup... unbelievable development. It prompted me to go east and check out the Zaca fire from up close. It almost looked as if the fire was adding to the development.

Our local environment is amazing...

[diablo]

Thursday, according to the sailplane pilots, was the best day that anyone could recall. There were over 100 sail planes flying from various locations. There were 9 1000 km flights- an unofficial record, with the longest flight being over 1400 km by Jim Paine out of Rosamond. Dan Armstrong flying out of Tehacapi flew 30 miles north of Bridge Port then back to Darwin(southeast of Lone Pine) and could not get back into Tehacapi at 7:20 landing in Inyo Kern airport. Another pilot flew from Crystal Aire to Bounday Peak and back and was home by 4:00 p.m. According to Dan Armstrong at one point he flew 1 hour without turning and at times his ground speed was 180 mph+ In the Owens Valley and up into Nevada cloudbase was reported at 22000'+

[Randall]

Did nobody from SB or Ojai fly? I was ready to give it a shot, until I woke up hung-over on Thursday morning from a July 4 bbq party.

[JimmyZ]

Ouch!!!

The Owens is burning!!
http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_current

Hammer confirmed it yesterday with a phone update during the SBSA club meeting. It's going to be a sketchy fire season.

[BobA]

While in Mammoth last week Thursday, I heard of a 183 mile flight from Walt's, straight line disatance...then I read the OZ Report:

New out and return distance record

Sun, Jul 8 2007, 12:13:18 pm EDT
George Stebbins sets a new flex wing out and return distance record in the Owens (Walt s Point / Horseshoe Meadows, CA)

http://records.fai.org/hang_gliding/cur ... =o-1&id2=1

George Stebbins stebbinz@pacbell.net> writes:

On Thursday, July 5th, I flew 206.6 miles out-and-return from Walt's Point in the Owens Valley. (Turn points were 103.8 miles apart.) Task time 6:55. Flight time: 7:54. Launch at 10:25 am. This beats the old record set by Rohan Holtkamp in December, 1998 on the cliffs at the Australian bite (Ecula) by 1.8 kilometers (the minimum distance requirement is 1 km greater than the previous record).

Air time: 7:54
Task time: 6:55

Launch at: 10:25 am at Walt's Point
Task start: 11:10 am SE of Walt's Point over the edge of the Owens Lake
Turnpoint : 2:24 pm West of Janies and North of Boundary Peak
Task done: 6:05 pm Same location as start
Landed at : 6:19 a bit north of the start point. (The LZ was better there.)

I overlaid Rohan's record flight into the terrain in the Owens and saw that there was room to beat the record, but not too much room. The big problem is the strong south wind that happens almost every afternoon in the Owens. The final glide would be across ten miles of dry lake, into a crossing headwind of some strength.

To make the task longer, I would either have to do a longer final glide or at the north end of the task, go farther away from the White mountains. Usually getting back to the Whites from that far north is kind of iffy. So, rather than do the 210-215 miles that I thought might be possible, I took the "easy" way out and set the flight plan to the minimum necessary to break the record with a tiny bit to spare.

I assumed no lift north of the Whites and none after I left the Inyos on final glide into the (almost) certain headwind. I also wanted the turnpoint to be in Nevada, so I moved it a quarter mile. Silly of me, but it just seemed more fun that way.

I was surprised to find that I arrived with 3200 feet AGL at the goal. I expected to get there with about 1000'. I guess I could have made the flight a bit longer. Oh well. Maybe next time. Of course, landing a hundred feet short would have really sucked.

Bless Dr. Jack. I was able to cherry-pick the day and only made three trips to the Owens to get the record. And only three flights.

One report states:

You gotta hand it to him. He hung in there even after nearly being tumbled at Black.