Skyport Monday 3/3/08

[Dean S]

Usually on Monday's most of us suffer from the "going back to work on Monday blues..."I've got a solution - SCREW WORK - GO FLY! Some of us decided to test that idea today and it worked out sweeeeet!

On paper it looked like we would get to around 4500 without any problem with higher NW winds expected above that and that's pretty much what we got. Most of the get-up spots were putting us around 4300' +/- where you definitely started to feel the tickle of the NW winds. If you wanted to get higher you had go deep over the main ridge-line, tighten up your belt, and jump into the convergence washing machine. The lift was somewhat broken and you had to play a little tip fold "whack-a-mole", but if you stayed with it you were able to get up to around 5800' at the peak of the day. It was definitely a day for bump-tolerance maintenance. Launch timing seemed to be critical today as well. If you launched on a down cycle or took the wrong path out to the front points there was a good chance you’d find yourself on the deck early. I saw several gliders go down at St. Mary’s and saw another in the Snake Pit.

The North winds were just strong enough to prevent anyone from straying to far down range in either direction which kept us somewhat in a fish bowl holding pattern. Bo, Ben, I and a few others ran laps between the Thermal Factory and La Cumbre Peak and then pushed out to East Beach. VERY FUN DAY!

Just a handful of shots from today:
http://www.pbase.com/fllspdahd/santa_barbara_3308

[Ben H]

Good flying with you guys....those pictures do some pretty good justice Dean, except what happened to the "real" last shot of the day? HAHA!
Turn points: Skyport>Westbowl>RR>Peak>TF>Beach=2hrs or so.

A couple other shots I like:

http://www.flyjunky.blogspot.com

[irene]

Look at Deano's new helmet ! He is pretty proud of it... I will not comment on it on this forum....


http://picasaweb.google.com/irenerevenk ... 0408?pli=1

[Dean S]

Ireneeeee, you just can't leave it alone, can you

Irene made it extremely clear to me that she dissaproved of the graphic on my helmet. Where's the love??????????????

I don't make fun of her "Hello Kitty" flight suit...

[DBLD]

Just to add clarity, I may have been in one of the pix, but I didn't fly cuz I WAS WORKING. On my way to another jobsite I noticed a group of bums picking up empty beer bottles and I stopped to help them. You will notice that I picked up the soda bottle. After admonishing the group of bums to get a job I asked how the flying was and what I heard made me leave in disgust (and envy). Way to go guys! Maybe next time for me