Plowshare 5-17-09

[JimmyZ]

Needed to dust off my wings before heading to the Owens next weekend and thought it looked pretty good to head up to Plowshare this morning. Made a few calls and didn't find any takers so I decided to make a family day for some airtime.

Adena, Duke, Shaka, and I packed up the car, and headed north. I was planning on the convergence happenning around 1pm (like it did on Sat) so arrived at noon. 103 degrees on the deck and 94 on launch. Strong cycles were coming up the launch and the clouds were forming quite a ways down the range so I thought I had some time.... Set up the fam.... then set up my wing to find that it started blowing up the back at 12:30! By the time I realized that it wasn't a fluke, the window passed me by and it was blowing out of the west with 0 cycles coming up launch. The back of launch is pretty overgrown but I thought with the stronger cycles I could make a play at it a bit down the road. Dicey... but doable.

With Adena video taping, Shaka trying to find some shade, and Duke not knowing what to think (this was the first time he has seen me fly at an age where he understands what is going on), I pushed off the back of launch into a pretty strong cycle. Smooth..... In a few minutes I managed to weave my way to a couple hundred over launch and played around for the video camera. Flew up to Miranda Pines and back hoping that the cloud street would make it to me as I missed the convergence.

After about 30 minutes of playing around I made the mistake of falling out of thermal behind the ridge (on the Cuyama Valley side....), and wasn't able to penetrate the strong west wind enough to feel comfortable making it back over the ridge and bailed to see if the valley was working.

800fpm+ sink greeted me most of the way to the valley and I was a bit concerned I wouldn't make it to the riverbed but it smoothed out once I was over the valley floor. The cloud street was getting close and I was hoping to find something low to take me back up but found nothing but ratty air. Feather landing next to the roaad east of the Oak tree LZ. The family came shortly after with a cold beer and smiling faces.

59min flight
4612 max altitude

[BobA]

Way to go James !

[Skippy]

Dude, that's pretty ballzy... Glad you got to fly Plowshare though; I'm jealous. Sound like you ended up gliding in the rotor on your way to the LZ (watch out, people have tumbled there before!).
So, are you going to post a video of your launch? I'd love to see it... I don't think I'll ever have the nerves to launch the backside, but I love to watch others do it...
Skippy

[JimmyZ]

I'll post the video tonight. Duke was getting a kick out of the whole experience. You'll see it in the video.

[JimmyZ]

Ok... here are the vids from Plowshare. There are more, but this kind of tells the story.

Analasys and decision to launch the back...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTvWVCo7hII

First launch attempt aborted due to Duke wanting to say bye...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrCwgB5v1sc

The launch and first couple of passes...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy3Pf-MiF-s

Duke chasing me down the road and waving good bye. Cute....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWzKVKNsQlg

And for comedy value.... Duke laughing his little butt off on the drive home while rocking out...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLYT7dgQzkk

Enjoy!

[James's Fly Girl]

Hey Pilots, Air-lovers, and all other happy people in the sky... CHECK out our little home vids of James flying and Baby Duke's response to Daddy with wings!! I mean, seriously, I set up an account, just to get you guys excited!!! Have fun and we'll see you in the air... or, I'll come pick you up somewhere