Pine Today 10 am

[Chip Bartley]

room for two more going to Pine today 10am Nordoff. call to book spot

[Chip Bartley]

number is 805-844-0058

[faoro]

Chip, Art, Doug, Fast Eddy and I left the old smoky mountains of the coast for the summer allure of Pine Mountain today. The lapse rate wasn't spectacular, but the BLIPMAPS said we'd get up to ten or eleven grand. The forecast called for light and variable winds from 3 - 9K in the afternoon. There was absolutely no wind at the Sandpile on the way up, but the cycles were howling at launch, the wind whistling through the trees. We could see the smoke filled Ojai Valley and the top of the Gap Fire in Santa Barbara. The air was fairly clear around Pine Mountain.

I took off a little after 11:30 AM and got some ratty lift over the ridge. The edges were sharp and the SW wind made the thermals bend up and over the back. I could barely get above the back ridgeline and the headwind made the highway look far, far away. After 20 minutes of struggling, the rest of the crew radioed that they were driving down to make a play at Chief Peak. I was alone, getting a 3:1 glide with a groundspeed of 13-15 mph as I made my way out front. Fifteen hundred feet evaporated before the ridge below the bonzai tree. But then I found a small seam (convergence, I think) that pushed me along with a small tailwind and no loss in altitude. I reached the rocks above the Sandpile and hooked into a steady thermal that lifted me two thousand feet. It topped out around 7,300 feet, not enough to go anywhere. So I landed on the highway, balled up the wing, threw it in the back of the pickup and we headed off for Chief.

Strong cycles were coming in at launch and we all got off fairly quickly. The air over the middle hump made Pine look like a training hill. Art and I got yanked around until we were at 5,500 feet and we left for Stooges. We had a ten mph tailwind and lost very little altitude westbound. We skipped Stooges and settled into the rowdy air at Bruce's. It didn't take long to get above Nordhoff Ridge and we left the nasty air for the high school. A five mph north wind turned into a ten mph west wind below 2,000 feet. Art and I landed at the high school. Doug landed at Matilija School and Chip squeaked into the propeller field with some equipment malfunction.

Two 45 minute flights in the testy summer air.