Blue Moon Weekend / End of October 2020

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Blue Moon Weekend / End of October 2020

Postby sd » Fri Oct 30, 2020 8:21 am

Saturday Morning Perception

Most pilots will likely opt to launch from EJ today (Saturday). There is more offshore flow compared to yesterday so prime time will likely be shifted a bit later than yesterday. Yesterday worked good over the high terrain in SB from late morning through early afternoon. Pilots were flying later in the day, but some quenching ocean air pulled in enough to weaken the lapse rate as the day aged. I think there were 26 or 27 launches from EJ yesterday, but some pilots flew 2 or 3 times so there were only about 16 to 18 pilots. They looked like there were getting to about 5K over La Cumbre Peak.

The best potential for today (Saturday) but iffy might be to start at Pine and try to fly back to SB. It looks straight downwind back to SB, but the increasing NE wind with increasing altitude might be strong enough to be problematic. The lapse rate looks good at the mid altitudes, but only so-so up higher (above 10K), so combined with the increasing wind up higher the altitudes might be limited to 10 or 11K?

The best high probability potential today is to start from the Nuthouse and fly back to SB after an early upwind leg as far eastbound as you can get (Nordhoff Ridge?).

More east wind tomorrow, so if you don’t hike the Nuthouse today you can get an early start on Sunday… It is forecasted to be 10 degrees hotter today in Ojai compared to Santa Barbara. Today actually looks better for the Nuthouse on paper with less wind, but tomorrow should work good enough also.
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Friday Morning Perception

Weak offshore flow (increasing through the weekend) has squashed the inversion down low, so you should be able to launch above it from the higher SB launches today (Friday), but inland and higher look much better with a robust lapse rate and light wind.

For today (Friday) Pine looks like the best option with potential to get high and fly back to the beach. You might need to use the north launch but can likely get off from the south side if you aren’t too late. If anyone is interested let me know and I’ll try to throw together last minute logistics

Saturday (tomorrow) the SE builds some (down lower). Pine, Ojai and SB should all work. Pine offers the best potential but the SE on launch might be amplified so Ojai might offer the most reliability (but also requires a hike). SB should work with East flow early giving way to onshore flow from the west at the lower altitudes later in the day.

On Sunday and Monday the east flow notches up enough to warrant the hike up to the Nuthouse for flights back to Santa Barbara.
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