Flying Saturday or what?

[Tony de Groot]

Took Kirra up to the snow today. It was a blast. Snow and slush. Man, was it cold, but tomorrow it's sunny. What's someone supposed to do when it's cold but sunny and not too strong nw winds. I'm thinkin it could be a good xc day. Anyone else got a prediction for tomorrow's flying???????????????

[Chris G]

I delayed my trip back to Utah specifically for Saturday so it better be good but it looks like there's some NE aloft. 31º spread though which is thermalnuclear.

[cortf]

So what 's the plan ?????

[JimmyZ]

Count Me in for Sunday! Gotta work tomorrow....

James Z

[faoro]

Vandenberg (0000Z 23Jan) balloon doesn't look good for winds, Debbie's broken for the last 24 hours, already some NW at SBA and it's socked in with overcast up top at 5 AM. Maybe Sunday, unless things change.

[Rich]

wind 20mph over the back at 6 AM. better improve drastically by 10AM. i'm all over flying today and tomorrow.

check speed and direction here:
http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/wxpage.cgi ... 11&last=24

see you all out there!

[Southside]

If I had to guess I'd say that we should be alright with regard to cloudbase; that leaves the wind. Been checking since 5:00 and it's been a steady 20 N. Of course it's still dark; I guess we'll have to see what happens when the sun starts heating up the south side.

[Tony de Groot]

Winds are still up. I think it should drop down enough to fly today. I'm looking to fly only one day this weekend though and I want to choose the nicest day with the least wind. The 24 hour winds aloft says it will be 9900 at 3 and 6 thousand feet for sunday which is zero so for winds tomorrow looks better. More warming for tomorrow though and another system will approach or move in by evening so maybe winds could turn SE late tomorrow?? I've also seen killer flying with lots of cummies late in the day and glassy, ocean conditions all day with this type of forecast for Sunday. If we had more spacing in these systems I would say tomorrow would be the sweeter and less turbulent day but with another system approaching who knows. Since I only want to fly one day and I like flying on the least windy days I might have to guess for Sunday flying and stick to my other obligations for Saturday.

[Chris G]

Turned into a really fun day despite the early predictions based on launch conditions. A lot of pilots didn't get up at launch and had limp glides to the antenna farm, which was actually working well. Those of us that launched later had it easier. Cloudbase was about 3800 which was a bit low but the lift was good. Sinky glides across canyons but all the usual spots worked. The lift was mostly smooth but if you got into the wrong patch it got nasty fast. Definitely a mixed bag. We had a large crew head down to Padaro which made it fun. I counted Dainsberg, Chris P, Faoro, OJ, Chad, myself, and <yellow Hook> making his debut. I'm lousy at remembering names. I'll have video as soon as I get settled back in Utah. The scenery was spectacular.

[Southside]

Well, I was wrong about cloudbase not being a problem. Early dew point temps were below 30 F and the soundings were indicating a strong inversion at about 8k so I thought that we only had to worry about the wind. Anyway, since I hadn't flown since September it felt good just to be back in the air.

Left from the west side of the Thermal Factory at cloudbase. Since, as Chris writes, base was below 4k I figured I would first have to stop at Shadow for a little tank up before continuing on. I don't know about anyone else, but I usually find Shadow only good for an one or two 360 skip, but yesterday I found the strongest lift of the day. Nothing beats screaming to cloudbase with the glider banked up on its ear.

Came into Montecito above the peak, but ended up having to fall off to the east spine, which worked perfectly fine; as did Romero. But I missed it at Castle Ridge and soon found myself floundering above the house on the east side of Castle Point. As I was searching around for lift I noticed a hawk flying in from the spine leading out from Mobile Point. Figuring that he must have tanked up there first I retraced his flight path to the spine. I was cutting it close because I was well below the top of the ridge when I arrived, but the gamble paid off as I was able to take the lift back to cloudbase and continue on.

If you want to make it to Ojai and beyond you have to give yourself a chance to do it, and that means that even on low cloudbase days you should at least try to make it to Noon Peak where you give the Pass an up close and personal look-see before deciding what to do. Usually things open up at bit from Noon on, but, unfortunately, that wasn't the case yesterday. However, cloudbase was above the peak. Coming up to the power lines my plan at Noon was to try to step back to the back ridge where it was clear and then continue on down the back side in the prevailing north flow. But conditions forced me out way out on the front point where I soon found myself getting whited out. Giving up on plan A I decided to take my (low) altitude and head for Divide with the idea that if I didn't find anything there right away I would head out. Well, I didn't and so that's what I did.

With wispies overhead on my way out I kept thinking that I would blunder into something that would keep me in the ball game, but, alas, it didn't happen. Since I made all the way out to Bailard I probably could have given Divide more of a chance, but it's an awful long glide and it's usually against a headwind.

Since it was still early Tony (who ended up not flying because of glider problems), Eddy and I doubled back to Santa Claus Lane for lunch. Meeting us there was the Axman himself. It's been a long time; it was great seeing him again.