SCPA & SBSA Discussion Board

Is anyone going down to Torrey Pines next week? They are going to have a bunch of wings and harnesses and stuff to try out. Sounds like fun. Hopefully I'm going on Thursday, but the event is from the 19th to the 24th. Come on down!!!! If you can get away during the week it would probably be best as the weekend happens to include Memorial day and the billions of people that come with it.

Morgan...Torrey Pines over Bishop, SHAME ON YOU ; )

Yeah, but I get to try some different wings and I'm gonna take booty on a nice long flight. Hopefully I'll be able to tackle Bishop before you leave.

Morgan, are you still going down to TPGP? I'm thinking about going on Thursday.

Well, I made it down to Torrey Pines late yesterday 10 minutes before they closed and got two hour long flights in the smooth air of the glass off. As I was packing up my wing to leave, I heard an unmistakable voice say "Booty." It brought images of the Bates launch and the training hill...I knew who it was before I turned my head. My buddy, Spring Shoe Dave. The guy who's picked me up form the beach at Bates more times than I can count. The guy who always says "yeah, go for it" I'll pick you up if you bomb out. It'll be entertaining to watch." The guy who's given me some some of his most precious pears of wisdom. So we talked for a minute and promised to meet back there the next day.

The next day I demoed a large Rush 2 and took a prep flight to see how the wing handled before I took Booty up. It was sweet. I fly a medium Rush. I got to the top of the lift band quickly. It handled nicely.
I landed, which is really fun there...that little j-hook you do right before you slam into the ground. The death spiral for dummies, I call it. Then I hooked booty up and we had an awesome flight. It was the first time we didn't just do a sledder. This was the real reason I wanted to go down there, to take a long flight with Booty. I just needed a larger wing to feel comfortable with his added weight. He settled in quickly. We bobbed up and down north of launch. Then the wind kicked up a little and we got another hundred feet or so and Booty happened to be positioned so he was looking out over the water and I guess it got a little high for him cause he tried to bury his head in my harness. He was finally scared so we landed.

Anyway, had fun on my own wing trying some of the things over the ocean that I learned in the SIV clinic. Experimented how deep I could go in my brakes, and actually, when Dave and I were flying to the pier to the south and he was ahead of me, I tried full speed bar for the first time. I caught right up with him.

Another flight on the large Rush and it was on to the Addict 2. It was a lot of fun, but still in the future for me.

After that I surfed at sunset with my brother and Jackson had a nice little barbecue and came home. So that's my day and a quarter down there. Sorry If I forgot to call you. It was a little slice of heaven and back to work.

Morgan - Thanks for letting Comet and I use Booty's harness. (next time I'll remember to clip her to my side so she doesn't end up behind me)

Torrey was a lot of fun! Robin is doing a good job of making hangie's welcome at Torrey, though he bit off a bit more than he could chew with the size & scope of the event. We had 2 rounds of Air Races on Saturday. Johnny Durrand Jr was third, I came in Second (by a second or so), and Kraig Coomber was the big winner.

There wasn't any official award ceremony, so I can't report on how the PG races went.

Sounds like next year it will be earlier in the year (not in conflict with Owens/Memorial Day).

Zippy out

Yeah, that was pretty funny watching her climb up on your back. She seemed pretty comfortable when she finally settled though. Good job on the race, I wish i could have stayed longer.