Plowshare Friday

[BobA]

Tony the Tiger called to say he flew Plowshare Friday - Cu's over the peaks, got to 9200', & Jeff Stevens to 11k...made the Barn after climbing out with a Golden Eagle from 3800 to 9k...on his Falcon...said he was going back today...wonder if he got it on video...

[Skippy]

Well, Tony will have to write about his Friday flight himself...

A bunch of us went back there on Saturday hoping for a repeat (Hammer, Aaron Laplante, DD, Tony and I). It wasn't quite the same as Friday, and not your classic Plowshare, but we had a great time nonetheless.

When we got there, it was blowing like crazy! Aaron climbed up one of the new towers on launch and did confirm that Yes, it was blowing even harder higher up... We didn't set up until 1pm or so when things started calming down some. DD was first to launch and climbed straight up to 7k or so. Hammer was next, followed by Aaron and me. Tony launched last.

There was a fair amount of wind, rowdy lower down, but quite smooth higher up. I wasn't feeling so good, and was almost going to land after 20 mins when I decided to hang in there next to the LZ, for the heck of it, working some small stuff, harness unzipped, ready to land. After going up and down, I recharged my batteries and was back in the game at 7k+... I was pretty stoked, as this was on the foothills, not on the range.

I went on glide towards Spanish Ranch, and got a few more along the way, but not clean stuff, and quite trashy. That's when I started getting airsick (bummer). I passed Spanish Ranch heading to the Gap, but wouldn't break 4500'. I was trying to get up to Hammer who was hovering above me at +/- 7k, so that I would feel good crossing the gap and keep on going. I was right at the gap, but I saw Aaron just ahead of me losing tons of altitude crossing the hills, so I decided not to risk it. By then, I was getting quite sick, and just wanted to land. I doubled back to a nice LZ just before the Spanish Ranch where DD had landed shortly before, and where Tony landed just before me. The air was quite awful at that point, and the landing approach was quite something! Uneventful landing in the end, but glad to be on the ground after 2 hours of hanging in there.

Of course, Hammer made it to the Barn. Aaron landed around the Arena. We all had a fun time even though the convergence never really came through (the wind remained mostly E-NE in the valley, with the West finally pushing through later in the afternoon). Hopefully we'll still get a few good days out there before the summer kicks in.

Skippy

p.s: the cops are our friends out there: DD got a ride back to our car with a Highway patrol, and Tony got a ride back to the Oak trees from the Barn the day before from the local Sheriff... Sweet!