Sunday Skyport

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Sunday Skyport

Postby Dean S » Sun Mar 19, 2006 9:46 pm

Those of you that decided to go to church today instead of making a run at Skyport made the right call. To sum it up it was just plain windy. Got to launch 10:15, cumi's popping at 5k everywhere, hawks skying out, freight-train cycles coming up at launch and Debbie reporting very light winds, sounds good...right? It was even light at Parma before we drove up. The clouds did show NW drift but we've all flown SB before with the NW influence up high with no problem. John Scott was off first, Ron Faoro next, Brendan and I followed soon after despite observing the stiff West winds.

As soon as I conected with Thermal Factory below Brendan it was very obvious that it wasn't the day for paragliders. I took my altitude and headed straight out to Parma. The lower I got the more stiff the West winds became. 300' short and a few hundred feet over Parma I was on 3/4 bar cruising along at a blazing 3-4 mph. On the windward side of Parma palm trees were bending over and crows were getting tumbled. There was absolutely no way I was going to make Parma so I turned downwind and found an extremely turbulent West facing slope low in the lee to put it down on. The last 100' was white knuckle and full of prayers as I was getting trashed. As soon as I touched down I was dragged back 10-20' but I didn't care, I was just happy to be touching mother earth. A few minutes later Brendan found himself on the same path as myself and put it down close to me. I'd like to call our new LZ the "Washing Machine LZ"; it's a great place to throw your laundry. I think all 4 of us that flew today were very happy to get down safely. For me today was a "note to self" day.

Some shots from today:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/fllspdahd ... b7&.src=ph
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Re: Sunday Skyport

Postby Parma Chris » Mon Mar 20, 2006 9:28 am

Dean, perhaps you didn't read the sky properly.

Image


Parma Chris
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Re: Sunday Skyport

Postby Dean S » Mon Mar 20, 2006 9:39 am

Yea, I saw it but there must be something wrong with my new sunglasses because I could swear I saw two fingers (in a V shape) instead of one...

You know...the more I think about it...YEP, your right, I did see the single finger just before I entered the lee side washing machine.
Last edited by Dean S on Mon Mar 20, 2006 12:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sunday Skyport

Postby Forger » Mon Mar 20, 2006 10:01 am

I was wondering how things turned up for you guys. It was howling in the desert. I flew some sailplanes at Tehachapi and top of lift during the best part of the day was only 7600ft.
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