Saturdays flying at Pine

[Tony Deleo]

I spent 2 hours in front of takeoff watching the paragliders climb out in the convergence above me. It was nice to have some company. With clouds forming in "the chute" I went on glide to Haddock thinking that by getting up there it might be a little easier to connect with convergence by jumping over there on to the north side. Didn't happen that way which left me at below 7k and with a long glide to any place landable. Arriving at the Rocky Ledges at 4700' and had to work it up a couple of times before I could intersect the ridge to the left of takeoff. The other pilots were on course, I will let them tell their stories, when I jumped into the chute with 10K and immediately connected in "the chute" On glide to Frazier where the convergence seemed to be setting up. Just northwest of the towers I went to 12500 and was on glide for the first cloud which was forming in front of The Raytheon Radar facility 25-30 miles from the Towers at Frazier. I arrived at the windward side of the clouds on final at 4K and climbed out. The cumis were dished indicating wind. Dan Armstrong an avid soaring enthusiast and sailplane pilot friend of mine who lives in Tehacapi said that the forecast called for substantial Northwest wind until you turned the corner at Mojave. I gave the Tehacapis wind berth and turned at the strip mine near Tehacapi Spring Rd. The next set of clouds were northwest of the glider port at Cal City once again I went on another long glide just reaching the clouds and what I thought was final began to climb out from belong 4k. The drift the majority of the day in the desert was southwest 15-20. I had given thought about flying in the direction of the clouds which were forming at going to Telescope Peak on The Panamit Range and then jumping over Death Valley and heading to Ripley, Nevada. Unfortunately Telescope Peak is 12000" plus or minus which is the near cloud base. The working alitudes would not have give me enough altitude to make that jump and I had been to Ballarat too many times (150 miles) Instead I opted to head north bound to the Owens Valley and went on glide to Black Mountain south of Inyo Kern and north of Garlock. Once again I was on a long glide from the Honda Test Track. The southwest wind was stiff down low and I was not high enough to intersect Black Mountain and still make it back to a landable area. There were no roads as I continued northward. Down to 4900", please keep in mind that once you leave the Mojave Desert you step up on to the plateau north of Red Rock Canyon which is approximately 1000' higher than the desert. I wasn't more than 600 agl, and was flying north ward to try to land in an accessible area, that I again got off the deck and up to 11K. Heading northward I needed one more thermal to cross over to Little Lake. Unfortunately at Pearsonville and blue skys it wasn't to be! Down to 6K and with the landing areas getting "sketchy" I pulled the plug and land on the east side of 395 at the turnoff to Kennedy Meadows ATOS VR 5.5 hours 116 miles. Congratulations to all the paraglider pilots,apparently the conditions were too strong for the "hangies", looking forward to hearing your stories

[faoro]

It's been awhile since we've seen five numerals on our varios, especially those starting with an eleven or a twelve. So there was a lot of excitement on Saturday morning, studying the BLIPMAPS (12-14K), checking the lapse rate (7 C per 3K) and seeing all those 9900's. Bob Hurlbett and I came from Santa Barbara; we had OJ, Tom Pipkin (his first flight from Pine in over a year), Art, Robb and two new inductees from down south: Dietrich and Jonas. It's always fun to watch a baptism at Pine Mountain.

We didn't have a driver. Diablo kindly offered to have Fast Eddy bring his rig down from launch to the road summit to trade up to OJ's shiny Suburban - the "Gas Whore." Big Cumis had already been visible from the highway when we crested the 33 at Rose Valley. As we sat in the meager shade of the few non-burned pine trees left after the Zaca Fire, casually swatting flies and trading the usual insults with Tom Pipkin, we worried that we were getting a late start. South wind whistled through the gap and we discussed whether or not launch would be blown out. Finally, a bit after 11:30, Eddy roared in and we lumbered up the road to launch. A freight train of a cycle ripped through as we unloaded, but there were long pauses between cycles. Diablo promptly took off in his Atos before 12:30 PM and I started to slow my usually frantic set-up pace when we saw him struggling at the bonzai tree. OJ suggested that we might have better performance in the weak conditions and I punched off ten minutes later. It was easy to get up to 9,000 feet. The view over the back was a bit intimidating, as all of Lockwood Valley was already shaded in. But the friendly white faces of the cumis poked out front to the chute and looked plenty inviting. Diablo had already tried Reyes and could not improve on the 9K, but I went there anyway since it was close to the big development. As I worked my way back up from 7,500 to 9,000, I stared at the bases of the cumis to the east looking for that hang glider. To my considerable dismay, I watched him cross from left to right below me at the base of Haddock and Reyes, as low as you can get and still call it flying. But he crossed to the rocks above the highway as I made my way back to the main spine and the good karma from sharing the driver paid off for him as he slowly wiggled back up after a few attempts.

Meanwhile, Bob and I had broken through 9K and Bob dipped over the back with 9,600 while I squeezed some more out of that thermal we were in. Bob got a fantastic glide for the first two to three miles, actually getting higher in the convergence as he made his way to Dry Canyon. Then he lost the convergence and I saw him disappear into the big sinkhole. Art was the only other pilot to have launched; he was just above the main spine. Diablo was still taking a sauna above the low rocks. I topped out at 11,240 and chose the shortest path toward the cumis in the chute and the cloud street to San Guillermo Mountain. The view over the back was somewhat surprising. There was an inversion that seemed to be around 12,000 feet and everywhere you looked it was thick with haze. My altitude slipped down to 8,200 feet before I hit something at the top of the chute on the north side. This one gave me 12 grand, cool air and a better feeling for the day. Cloudbase was 13K; I never really reached it all day. It seemed to take forever to get to San Guillermo - like it always does (duh, it's a paraglider) - and I dipped back down into the nines as I looked at that siren trap of a meadow on the south side of the mountain at 9,500 feet. Lockwood Valley was still all very dark. The glider followed the shade/sun line just south of the peak. Guillermo was generous today and I hit my second thermal OTB and reached 12,400 feet. The third thermal was over the road to Mutau Flats and again I was cruising along slowly at 12K toward the shadow line on the south side of Frazier Mountain. There were big sinkholes in between lift. (My sink alarm is set at 1,000 fpm and rarely goes off. But it did today several times.) Which was odd, because the lift usually matches the sink. And today, all the lift was very slow, most of the time around 300-400 fpm, which made progress a bit slow and tedious. There were a few times that the vario screamed and popped up an order of magnitude, but you could only latch onto those for less than a minute. I was trying to decide between the more committed - but often better - south side versus the friendly north side of Frazier which was showing better cumi development than the dissipating southern line of clouds. Sure enough, Tony came on the radio right about that time advising the north side and the shear line as opposed to the alternate where he had gotten hammered. Tony offered great help and advice all along as he sped off in front of me by an ever-increasing distance and I really appreciated it.

Three more thermals and I left Frazier with 12,650 for the big blue hole of the Antelope Valley. Diablo had advised coming in over the 138 at Quail Lake. I poked along the considerable glide and 7,000 feet of elevation disappeared. I had the lake made, but the air got nasty and mortality crossed my mind as I stared at the patchwork quilt of high power lines that seem to come and go from every point on the compass to that substation at the north end of Booster Junction. While my wing whipped every which way (the Trango 2 misbehaved a lot today) and Sink was my partner, Booster Junction came through when I was about 600 AGL. A nasty little thermal, but better than high voltage. I ascended a thousand feet. It drew me over toward the cement plant and the Tehachapis. That two miles of baking small hills and (I knew) high winds looked uninviting. So I left the little monster and made my way to the foothills south of the lake. Sure enough, the hills were making whoopie, but it was ratty stuff and I couldn't get higher than 7K without committing to go deeper toward the Liebres. So I went on glide toward Neenach.

The cloud development looked impossibly far away in the Antelope Valley; gotta get me one of those hang gliders. My groundspeed was now 35 mph eastbound, up from 30 a few minutes earlier. I kept hitting hot little thumpers that would pop me up to 5K or so. But, at 3:30 in the afternoon, a little tired from all the fun, I refused to head south into the hills with this wind and only a thousand AGL. Just short of the California Aqueduct, my groundspeed hit 40 mph and I put family and future ahead of distance. I turned to face the wind and found out there was a bit more fun in my future, courtesy of the ol' lady: Mother Nature. As I descended, the strength of the wind increased and I started going backwards toward the aqueduct. I had set up next to the road in a big pasture, but it had a barbed wire fence at the back end of it, downwind. Full speedbar brought my glider to a halt, but the convective heat had my vario beating a slow tune and I found myself absolutely motionless in the hot desert air for several minutes. About four minutes later, the lift abated for a moment and I prepared for an interesting landing. I was standing as hard as I could on the speedbar, my feet directly below the harness, with my brakes in hand and my hands on my B-lines. At five feet above the ground, I released the speedbar and started to yank the B's. That resulted in a pretty fair whack as I hit the soft dirt in a cloud of dust. But the wing obediently killed itself and folded forward behind me. Four PM.

Crew was there in five minutes. First, Fast Eddy who let me cool off in the AC of his cab before he chased Diablo who was already 30 miles ahead of me on his long flight. Then the "GW" with cold Coronas a few minutes later. Bob and I were back in SB less than three hours later.

43 miles. Three hours twenty minutes.

[BobA]

Killer. Nice Write ups ! Low saves, landing backwards, convergence lift flying...! Wish I was there.

[oj]

Pine was very hit and miss for us. The early launchers had slooow climbs to the top while later pilots zipped right up. The early otb pilots connected while the rest of us (except Tom) floundered.

I enjoyed a one thermal ride from the Bonzai to the mid-nines. Anxious to get on course, I started to go with 9600 but slowed in some convergenge just over the back and finally committed to glide with 10,300. Arrived over the nose of the Badlands with eight-something and Art right on my trailing edge. Bob reported he was on the ground at the 50/50 so I didn't want to commit to the Badlands low. Flew over all the spots I've climbed out before near Dry Canyon and found nothing.

Down to 500 agl I slowly headed S/W back to a straight section of road to land. At 100 agl my ground speed quickly started increasing, 7..13..22..28.. I was pumping the brakes trying to slow down but skidded in on my harness for a downwind landing. Stood up and reached for the radio to warn Art who was still with me but he was already picking himself out of the bushes. A minute later it was blowing West again at 12!

Great fun today: Watching Tony crawl out of the hole and go far. Trying to find the Spin Docter while avoiding the speed traps on the 138. Seeing Sparky have a great flight to Frazier then wisely backtrack to Lockwood to land. And seeing the permagrins on the faces of our two guests.

Vario log: 920 fpm up, 920 dn, max alt. 10352, only 47 minutes.

[Parma Chris]

Full speedbar brought my glider to a halt, but the convective heat had my vario beating a slow tune and I found myself absolutely motionless in the hot desert air for several minutes......I was standing as hard as I could on the speedbar, my feet directly below the harness, with my brakes in hand and my hands on my B-lines. At five feet above the ground, I released the speedbar and started to yank the B's. That resulted in a pretty fair whack as I hit the soft dirt in a cloud of dust.43 miles.

Flight Log: Three hours twenty minutes.

Oh Ya, Well I flew Oil Piers on Saturday, and there was GREAT WHITE SHARKS and KILLER WHALES trying to jump out of the water to eat me... But I managed to maintain flight in the 12 kts of SE ridge lift and top land to safety.

Flight Log: 20 minutes 160 ft Above Sea Level

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Nice Job Ron!

[Tony Deleo]

How much does scratching at takeoff for 2 hours cost you? Apparently on the Inyos and The White Mountains it was "all" time with the sailplane pilots gliding at 120 miles a stretch. Dan Armstrong-ASW 27 out of Tehacapi had the second longest flight in the world and the fastest yesterday Dan Me. 2 hours earlier prior to the west blowing thru and the conditions working until dark Mina was possible.

[Tom Pipkin]

Despite some rookie mistakes I made from being rusty and not quite making my modest goal (I-5 truck stop), Saturday’s Pine flight was a blast
.
My flight started with low batteries in my GPS. I had been razzing Faoro all morning about changing dead batteries in flight and now karma had come full circle. I’ve been flying long enough to know better. To conserve the batteries, I turned the GPS off on the glide away from launch.

I was 2nd to last off launch with a fairly easy climb to 8500’. Since the air was somewhat nasty above 7,500’ and the 5 pilots in the lead struggled in the weak lift to go OTB, I figured I’d leave with 9k. That was until I took a good wack right over launch.
8’500’ was good enough and I was out of there.

The rough air that I had been fighting over launch turned out to be the edge of the shear line behind the range. Nothing but up all the way to the ranch topping out at 11’000’.

4 pilots ahead of me had already dirted near Dry Canyon under blue sky. The Badlands eastbound through Lockwood had sweet cloud development and was obviously the place to be. Fishing around at the western edge of the Badlands, careful to stay within glide back to a friendly LZ, I stumbled into weak lift at 6’800’. Worked a weak thermal up to cloud base, 12,800’, occasionally turning on the GPS to check drift. Took the easy glide through the Badlands and Lockwood near base.

An hour earlier Diablo advised Faoro to stay on the north side of Frasier Mountain where the convergence line had set up. On this tip, I angled north across Lockwood Valley to set myself up for the north side of Frasier. Northeast of the airport I could see nothing but blue skies over Frasier and a defined cloud street to the south. Figuring that the convergence line had moved to the south, I took my 12’500’ and the down wind glide to the southwest spine of the mountain. Big mistake, apparently the cloud street had formed further north and had been blown to the south side. (should have listened to Tony). That’s when the big fizzle began. Realizing my mistake, I tried to backtrack upwind. Without a functioning GPS I had underestimated the strength of the north wind.

Landed at the lockwood Airport in a stiff north .

A big thanks to Diablo and Eddie for retrieve and OJ for the ride. Congratulations to Faoro for his big flight!

[Chip Bartley]

i new i should have picked Saturday

sounds like you guys had a great time and congrats on your flight tom. way to get back on it. Great job Faoro!