Booming Sunday in SB

[SA]

Another booming day here in Santa Barbara. I drove the fully loaded Eagle Van up from the T at 10am. Jim had room for the spillover…thanks Jim. We arrived at launch to find nice SE cycles. We saw a couple of pilots(Art, Andy , Faoro) who had flown over from Skyport climbing out at La Cumbre Peak as we got ready to start launching the Alternator.

Dave Bader launched first and got a climb on the way to west bowl. The rest of the 20 plus pilots got in line and began launching. It was very buoyant, and pilots were thermaling all over the place. I had some new students who were in town this weekend from Monterrey who had never really completely their P2 with the school they had started with. They have been flying Sand City for over a year, and after meeting them in Big Sur they realized they needed to get into the mountains. They all had great flights today, and are officially mountain pilots now. Jessica, Berkley, and Russ all had really nice launches and good flights. We hope to see you down this way again soon. Yevginy has been training with us for a couple weeks now, and he had his first high flight today as well. He did really well, and had the perma-grin going for hours after his feet were back on the ground. Kelly Scoggins, Rich Lear, Kevin, and Lauren, rounded out the eaglets that got a chance to taste some epic mountain flying today.

There is nothing better than getting epic conditions on the weekend when everyone can take the time to enjoy it. We were due for a good weekend of flying here in SB. Let’s hope we get more of the same in the next month.

I will see lots of you Tuesday evening if your one of the 43 people who RSVP’d for the Bob Drury Himalayan slide show presentation. Bring a beach chair for the slide show viewing which will be in Bob and Sara’s back yard.

[Dave Baldwin]

It was another spectacular day for Dilly too! She was scratching really low in front of West Bowl getting to know the power lines intimately. Her patience and persistence paid off and she worked her way up to the top of West Bowl and then up to the ridge in back of launch to over 5,000' She also finished off with a perfect spot landing at the T (just like the day before). 2 days in a row of great flying!!

John made it from Skyport to the training hill with room to spare. A personal first!

Someone was putting on a great show for us still at launch today. I am sorry that I cannot tell you who. Helicopters left and right, high wing overs, it looked great!! Very impressive for me to see in our own backyard.

Yahoo!!!!!

[faoro]

Much better day than Saturday. Andy Dainsberg and I made the scenic loop from Skyport to the R&R/La Cumbre Peak at 5K and tagged Alternator and West Bowl before returning to Cathedral Peak and heading downrange. There was a west tailwind down low (under 3,000 feet) and an east headwind above 3,500 feet. We did well in booming thermals until Castle Ridge where we got the stuffing knocked out of us. It's always jumpy there, but yesterday it was nitroglycerin. We landed at the practice polo field near Padaro Lane after one and three-quarters hours.