Bates Convergenceand
Stellar Potential from OjaiAyvri Group Link for Bates:
https://ayvri.com/scene/g0jg73pnjo/ckmmcw4420000256jhv3wzl04and
Ayvri Group Link for Ojai
https://ayvri.com/scene/g0jg73pnjo/ckmn95ly90000256j7l7md69sCloudbase started out high around noonish and continued to get higher, around 7K by the time I launched about 2 o’clock, eventually rising to about 11K and then starting to evaporate around 3:30.
Skew-Ts for Sunday are posted in the next reply
http://scpa.info/bb/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4009#p11079Sunday was a day of evolving expectations. On Saturday, Sunday’s potential looked promising. Saturday morning’s forecast for Sunday kindled hope of launching early-ish from the Nuthouse and going downwind westbound with a mild Santa Anna to tag Mitch’s 10/24/2017 Painted Cave turnpoint (from Nordhoff)
http://paraglide.net/amigo/mitch_riley/2017_10-24/nordhoff_to_painted_cave_n_back.htmSaturday’s forecast for Sunday was projecting an afternoon west push would progress from the west to overpower the mild east flow, so an afternoon downwind eastbound return leg toward Fillmore looked time limited rather than course limited? Saturday’s forecast for Sunday also looked like the Santa Barbara launches would work with wind from the east early before switching to come from the west.
By Sunday morning the conditions evolved to indicate more wind than initially forecast, and the direction was more NNW with less east. Santa Barbara looked iffy, but Ojai still looked protected from the wind. The lapse rate was strong with freezing level about 7K and the skew-t soundings showing the lift going potentially higher.
I was hopeful we could get airborne by 11ish, but tagging Painted Cave looked unlikely. I though we might be able to do a short westbound leg, but it looked like there could be too much north wind to venture west of Casitas Pass?
A dozen pilots went to the Ojai, but only 9 hiked up. Jorge Granier and I got there early because I need more time and prefer to minimize hiking in the heat. It’s common for it to be draining downriver early, and I’ve never hiked down from the Nuthouse, but I’ve also never hiked up in that much down river flow. It was blowing about 15 plus. We had a short go / no-go conference and opted to go with the expectation we would be early and likely need to wait a while on launch.
The hiking conditions were about as good as it gets. No bugs due to the wind and cool temperature. Oleksiy (aka Alex) Buynytskyy caught up quick and opted to be social and match our slow pace. Chris Lorimer stopped on his way up for a quick hello then powered by like we were standing still. Eric Stratton came along a few minutes later with an eye on his watch, to challenge Logan’s 18 minute record? Blake Hanson was happy to slow down to our pace and let Eric pump ahead. The professors, Dave Patterson and Sangwon Suh, started an hour behind us but caught up. Ajay Rajamani offered to carry my gear bag as he went by (I proudly declined), then he tagged the top and started down again with his gear because he wanted more exercise? I heard reports that Jeff Longcor was at the high school, so I expected him shortly. He’s a 20-minute hiker so after a while I was wondering where he was. A later inquiry revealed he opted not to hike up. A couple days later I also discovered that he was carpooling with Lynsey Haynes and Carter Crowe, who all had great convergence flights at Bates along with Angela Findley. Jorge and I had started up at 9 and crested launch barely sweating at 11. Others on the 20-minute pace had wet shirts.
The wind had let up a bit, but not much. Chris made progress clearing some of the brush in front that continually grows back. Others with time to kill relieved him, so the launch should be good for another season or 2.
The flow seemed to be coming out of Matilija Canyon from the WNW. Way more than forecasted. The Nuthouse blocks NE flow good because it is low and the mountains to the NE are taller. It doesn’t block a SE as good. I don’t have much experience with a NW because we don’t typically fly the Nuthouse in a NW. We like to see NE in the forecast. Sunday’s forecast for Ojai had evolved to project north flow up high, but light to calm (base wind) down low. Seemed like we had no protection from the down river flow coming out of the Matilija Canyon. Matilija typically draws up-river from the east even on days with stiff west. The forecast was calling for it to start blocking sometime between noon to 1 PM. Alex advised that we should be patient and wait. His assessment was the forecast was off by an hour.
By noon clouds were forming over the high points behind us. About 12:30 we started losing impatient campers. Eric, Blake, and Ajay all headed uphill toward the ridgeline in search of greener pastures. Eric eventually launched from Spine One. Chris was our sacrificial lamb and opted to hike down. 5 minutes later we got a big up cycle and our enthusiasm soared. We needed to wait another long 40 minutes for it to finally swing around and start coming in consistently. During the anxious wait the flow was mostly from the W to WSW, but our launch faces SE. With the clouds growing I wanted to get airborne and began scouting possible SW facing launch options. I started getting my gear out on the first big up-cycle 40 minutes earlier. As I began putting it in back in to relocate, we finally started getting regular launch cycles.
After waiting over 2 hours it was time to scramble. I was the only pilot present who had launched from Ojai. Dave Patterson had previously flown to Fillmore from Santa Barbara, but this was his first time launching the Nut. None of the other pilots had even seen Ojai before. My expectations and objectives for the day had evolved such that I would consider it a success if no one had to hike down. Getting off and up at the Nut involves different issues and tactics than EJ. It made sense for me to be the launch assistant, however, a problem was no one else was volunteering to go first. Fortunately, I pulled up in a weak cycle that was too cross and moved to the back of the line.
Dave Patterson was brave enough to step in for wind dummy duty. We were getting occasional robust to strong cycles, but also long (5 minute) lulls wafting from the west (we launch off the SE side of the spine which runs SSW). It went calm just after Dave took off about 1:20. He made a few passes on the front triangle face from spine to spine, bouncing off some small areas of lift, but gradually sinking lower to about 150 feet below launch. You can sometimes claw up the face from down low, but unlike the Skyport or EJ it’s not really a place to fly out front looking for thermals. We all cheered as he turned in toward the hill to center a thermal just before a robust cycle powered through launch.
By now the cycles were more consistent so no one else got below launch. Alex climbed out nicely, followed by Jorge, then Sangwan, and me. We could hear Eric on the radio launching from Spine One. I’ll comment on other flights at the end of my flight personal narrative.
Nuthouse to Lechuza Beach, Malibu / 39.6 miles SLOFD
Launch at 1:54 PDT, Land at 4:03 / 2 hours 9 minutes airtime
Start at 1:57 PDT / 39.6 miles / 2.1 Hr. ~ 18.9 mph average
Launch Alt 1.909 Ft MSL, Max Alt 10,495 Ft MSL, Landing Alt 13 Ft MSL
Climb out was robust. I’d been encouraging others to stay in tight and figure 8 up, however, the thermal pulses tracking up the Nuthouse spine on Sunday were a little away from the hill so no need to hug too tight. Got to 3400 on the Nuthouse spine, way more than needed for an easy dolphin over to Spine One. Overflew what looked like 2 canopies laid out on Spine One, but it must have been only Blake because Eric was already airborne, and Ajay didn’t get his canopy out of the bag. Pilots were reporting good altitude.
Cloudbase looked to be over 7K. My thermal at the Nuthouse drifted from the SE (typical). Spine One drifted from the SSW up the spine. There were clouds as far west as White Ledge, so I was contemplating a short westbound leg to maximize the course length because there was some east wind forecasted for the Santa Clara before the west pulled upriver later in the day. I continued to Nordhoff thinking I might be able to climb above the west flow into NE flow but my thermal to 6K had solid drift from the west, so I abandoned the idea of White Ledge and dolphined over to Twin Peaks.
I was expecting an easy climb. Perhaps I didn’t go far enough and turned before the leaning thermal field, heading up the Chiefs spine to the middle bump. It was dark and I had to come limping back out, then eventually tracked a thermal into the mid 5s. The wind was more than I expected from the west, so I dolphined over to the Repeater along the middle route, then over to Puckers (the spine coming off the south end of the Topa Bluffs). The big flat bottom clouds looked fantastic, but the lift was weaker than expected. The flip side is that on days with strong lift you often encounter strong sink and poor glides, but on Sunday the combination of lighter sink and a nice tailwind yielded good glides.
As I patiently climbed toward the rising cloudbase Dave was heading toward Fillmore from Santa Paula Ridge with good altitude. I got over 9K at Puckers but was still below cloudbase, which looked lower to the west and higher to the east. Cold was an issue, so I got out my eagle scarf and pulled it over my helmet to cover my stinging face. Got to 10.5K over Santa Paula Ridge, still below cloudbase, and assessed the options.
There was a lot of cloud coverage to the south toward Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley. Base was historically high, and the bottoms looked healthy. There were a few clouds trying to form on the ridge south of the Santa Clara River as far as Piru, but it was mostly blue east of Fillmore. I had gotten a late start and only had limited time remaining, so a long-distance flight wasn’t mathematically possible. I was also thinking there might be some east wind to the east. I opted to turn south and head across the river toward the clouds over Moorpark.
I was concerned about the Los Angeles ATC airspace. I’m not as knowledgeable about the details as our more professional pilots, but my recollection is that there is Class C airspace around Burbank that would limit an eastbound route into the San Fernando Valley unless you hold a more northern line toward Sylmar, which I wasn’t doing, but I figured I could squeak under the Class C airspace and terminate a flight on the western end of the San Fernando Valley, which wasn’t really much of a penalty because I sensed I was time limited anyway.
If I could get to the beach and follow the coast toward Santa Monica, then I would need to get under the Class B LAX airspace, but I might be able to glide downwind along the beach to near Santa Monica. Of course, that all depended on tanking up over Moorpark or Thousand Oaks.
My downwind glide was good out to and crossing the Santa Clara River, staying within about a 500-foot vertical range over 8 miles. I left Santa Paula Ridge with 10.5, got back to 10.5 over the river, and again over the ridgeline south of the river. The glide was so good that I wasn’t bothering to stop for much. My concern was that I was clock limited, and the clouds over Thousand Oaks were starting to evaporate from the west toward the east.
Seemed like the best line was straight south, targeting a little west of Hwy 23 toward Thousand Oaks rather than veering SE toward Simi Valley. Encountered a little lift at 10K halfway to Hwy 118 but didn’t stop for it because it was weak, so I opted to race downwind toward the evaporating clouds. Turns out I was already on my 22 mile final glide.
The clouds tried to give a final last pulse, and I flew right under some decaying wispies over the Newberry Park side of Thousand Oaks, but no joy. Crossing Hwy 101 with 6200 I re-evaluated my options. Seemed like it was straight downwind over the Santa Monica Mountains toward the beach, and my peripheral perception indicated I was getting the glide but only by a little. I would prefer a little more altitude for crossing because I didn’t want to come up short and have to land in the mountains in the wind. I did a probe eastbound along Hwy 101 toward Calabasas, but my airspeed dropped from 45 to 25, so I tried the other direction toward Point Magu with similar results.
I kept going south continually evaluating my glide while eying plateau fields on the north side of the range, contemplating throwing the anchor. From prior experience I expected there would be a lot of low-level wind on the ocean parallel to the coast. The mountains go pretty much right up to the water and with a north wind up high, at some point I would be in the lee. I didn’t so much make a choice as it was made for me as I got too far downwind of my anchor bailouts and was committed. My ground speed was ranging from the high 30s to the mid-40s, so I calculated the wind to be 15 to 20 at altitude.
A landing in the mountains would be scary and possibly ugly. I went through a buoyant zone approaching the upwind side of the mountains and had just under 5K crossing the north end of the 3000 foot Boney Mountain Ridge with about 6 miles to the beach. The math looked good, but I still needed to transit the lee side. I could see big white caps on the ocean a little offshore, but no caps in close to the beach. The direction started to clock around and come progressively more from the west rather than the north. I had enough altitude to fall off with it, pointed (glider heading) perpendicular to the beach but tracking SE. I got on more bar going through the sink and saw the ground speed ranging into the high 40s and occasionally pegging over 50 mph. The air had been smooth up higher but was now active.
My confidence oscillated but overall continued to improve as the angles got progressively better. I took it all the way out past the beach but then needed some crab angle back toward the mountains to hold the coastline. As I descended the lower level wind continued to clock around to mostly parallel the coastline, but I was still in sink and scooting along downwind with groundspeed readings into low 40s. I let myself drift out a bit, but not too far. Zuma beach was ahead offering flatter terrain and more beach. I tried to skip along but didn’t have enough altitude to get there. My options were the narrow beaches below the cliff houses at near high tide.
Not going to make the bigger beach, I turned upwind with 600 MSL for a penetration check and noted groundspeed in the low single digits on my Flymaster. Slid in with the intend of anchoring but didn’t like the rocky stretch below so I fell off downwind for a cleaner stretch of sand. I had 300 yards of usable beach behind me, so I let the speed bar drop and got upright. The canopy hovered without losing altitude for a dozen seconds at cliff top height. Backed up with a couple of mild surges, but not too bad. Was relived when the decent continued.
Looked up to grab the back riser and pulled as much as I could just as I was about to contact the sand. Fell backward but didn’t’ get dragged. Was able to scramble up and run to the side of the canopy, looping up my lines to choke the canopy as I went.
Packed up quick in the blowing sand, but it still got into everything. (Took the glider to Viola the next day to shake out the sand and beach debris.) Tried my thumb on the Coast Hwy while I waited for Sangwon. Traffic speed was fast, and I gave up after an hour. Checked on the other tracks and made some calls.
The rookie crew stopped at my house for pizza and a debrief.
Hopefully some of the other pilots will share their perceptions of the day, but I’ll make a few comments here. My intent is to mentor, not patronize, so I apologize if my comments seem blunt. I acknowledge that my perceptions are only an approximation and frequently not accurate.
Dave was 1st off and last down. He flew like a man on a mission, until Fillmore, where it appeared he wasn’t confident about his next move and opted to wander back and forth before eventually backtracking to land in Morepork. Had he followed the same direction as his thermal drift from Santa Paula Ridge and made a deliberate play for the main clouds downwind rather than going crosswind toward Piru he might have been on time to connect before the fat clouds evaporated? and been in position to squeak into Santa Monica Beach? Dave has made impressive progress in his flying since I met him less than a year ago, but he needs to transition from pre-defined routes to reading the day as is and making choices based on what he sees rather than following a script.
Alex (Oleksiy Buynytskyy from Seattle) was off next and had an impressive flight despite not knowing the area. He works for the Google Android team and utilized mapping software on his phone. After topping out at 11,145 Ft MSL over Santa Paula Ridge he opted to follow the Santa Clara River downwind back toward Ventura but ran into onshore headwind down lower as he approached the coast and landed at the new Rio del Sol School on the Oxnard side of the river just north of Hwy 101. I think he took an Uber back to his vehicle parked at the Nuthouse trailhead? Alex’s calm demeanor and patience was a group confidence booster as we anxiously waited on launch while it was blowing OTB with clouds forming overhead.
Jorge was 3rd off and had a great flight. Jorge has been flying for years but has made huge progress in just the past few months this season. He wandered around a bit as expected considering the entire course was new terrain for him. He pegged the max altitude for the day, topping Alex by a hundred feet as he hit 11,247 MSLa couple of times, however, there is an argument that he didn’t need to go that high. He got coated in icy frosting and a business jet zipping by was a reminder that as you get closer to LA the air traffic density increases. Jorge could have gone more miles and posted a bigger numerical “score”, but I see his flight as a healthy balance of pushing a bit but not too fast. I think he grew a lot as a pilot on Sunday.
Sangwon was our least experienced pilot but got off clean and had an impressive flight getting over 7K. He is arguably flying above his ability? They say good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from exercising poor judgment. Sangwon was wandering around in the back of the canyon between Chief’s launch and the Repeater, then tried to fly out the canyon against the canyon draw and came up short. Sangwon is building experience, however, anyone can learn from their own mistakes. Survivors learn from the mistakes of others. Sangwon’s approach to progression will result in him either advancing fast or getting hurt and our community is understandably concerned it could but the later. Our community is investing resources to guide Sangwon toward the skill and knowledge needed to match the flights he is striving toward, and Sangwon is doing the homework. So hopefully he will be a contender soon and not a causality. Sangwon’s enthusiasm and team contributions are impressive so in my book he’s a keeper. Ajay got Sangwon back to the vehicles and together they collected the downrange pilots utilizing the available 2 vehicles.
Eric used the Spine One launch previously pioneered by Logan Walters and Chris Lorimer. (side note: Logan and Dylan Laughlin have also launched from the ridgeline above the Nuthouse after launching from the Nuthouse and top landing on the ridge line. When Logan and Chris pioneered the Spine One launch they hiked directly to Spine One) Eric got up to or near cloudbase (over 7K) but opted not to go XC. He took some sort of extended “collapse” over Nordhoff that possibly influenced his mental state? The event occurred at the top of a climb to 7600 MSL over the front of Nordhoff Ridge just west of Bruce’s Point at 2:14 PDT where he plummeted vertically 1400 feet to 6200 MSL Fortunately he still had about 3K of AGL clearance over Bruce’s when he returned to controlled level flight. His Ayvri track also shows him doing an extended spiral dive (intentional) to get down and land across the street from Nordhoff HS. 1400 feet is a lot of altitude to burn through, leaving questions on the table? Perhaps Eric will share his perception with us?
I’ll let the Bates crew post their perceptions of the day. I reviewed all the Sunday Bates tracks but any comments from me would only be speculation because I wasn’t there, so hopefully the Bates pilots will post their recollections?
Ayvri Group Link for Bates:
https://ayvri.com/scene/g0jg73pnjo/ckmmcw4420000256jhv3wzl04including: