Sunday at Henniger Flats

[Robb]

How about this: a flight report on the south coast forum, about a flight starting in Pasadena, from a guy living in San Diego! Since you didn't take away my password when I moved, and I don't know who else to tell, here goes:

Aaron (AaronColbyPrice on Twitter) put out the call for a Sunday flight from Henniger Flats, a hike-up launch he has pioneered in Altadena. Faiz and I answered the call and we met at the parking lot about 10:30 Sunday morning. Faiz (ParaFaiz on Twitter) and I started hiking while Aaron was getting his gear ready at the car, knowing he would catch us pretty quickly. The hike up was way better than the Nuthouse (what hike isn't?) and most was on a dirt road with loads of other hikers and campers. I'm sure some of them called our bluff and googled 'X-Alps'.

Launch is a grassy meadowhttp://twitpic.com/1bl6x7just above the road. I was a bit nervous about the power lines to the left and below, the tree and bushes to the right and left, the drop off to the road, and everything else about flying. I haven't been out much in the last six months, and the east wind was howling in the trees – just like Pine. Just line Pine, when you hear it in the trees, move down onto launch where you can't hear it and go fly; that's why you drove two hours.

Launch faces south with views of Pasadena, LA, Santa Monica, Long Beach, and the channel islands. Sunday the wind was from the east and we waited quite a while for it to move around to the south. Aaron pulled up first, and we found the east was still too strong for Faiz and I so we chilled while Aaron checked out the Mount Wilson observatory.

Faiz waited for the right cycle and had a perfect launch into a lull. He disappeared from view while I was setting up but popped up 1000 over just west at the next ridge. I launched, did the worry and panic thing while sinking and searching, and crossed the lower power lines thinking I'd get to drive retrieve. A little something-something came along and I managed to pick up 1k feet and it was game on!

At this point Aaron was so far gone I couldn't see any sign of him. 'Thermal Spotter' Faiz, however, was being my lead-out man and showing just where to go. As I chased Faiz, I caught a boomer at 1000 fpm http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/309342and climed up and up – directly above the spinning blades of the NFS helecopter. The 'copter was just hovering ~50' above the ground and as I turned circles I was looking down at the silver disk of his rotor. I spent some time contemplating just how stupid this was, being the strawberry on the edge of the blender, and convinced myself that as long as I was going up, there was no need to panic.

I topped out about 6,500 and chased Faiz to the west. The east was creating quite a bit of drift, but I didn't realize (I'm new at this) the wind was stronger near the ground and less at altitude. As we headed towards Sylmar, I saw two separate hang gliders heading east – diabolical bastards, how can they fly into the wind?

So I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed; about 10 miles from launch I watched as Faiz went over the waterfall ahead of me. We had hit some west pushing through, and that nice, rocky river bottom we had picked as a possible LZ was five miles back.

Next time I'll keep going; I think we could have gone another 5+ miles to the west, maybe even made the Sylmar LZ. However, being the little girl I am, I pulled up my skirts and headed back towards JPL and the river bottom.

Just as seeing Faiz drop over the waterfall spooked me, him seeing me turn tail and run gave him the willies and he did an about face as well. He was lower when he turned, and I was sure he was going to end up landing in an elementary school playing field. I was standing on the bar working to get a 4:1 glide in any direction when I bumbled into lift and circled. I picked up about 1800 feet and had the Rose Bowl made easy. Faiz, mr good citizen, made it pretty clear that wouldn't be a good idea to land on THAT football field, so I followed him in to the wash to land.

So I saw the little grassy spot Faiz was headed for, and it was filled with bodies running around, almost like a soccer game. When I looked back, the field was empty except for Faiz, and when I looked again it was packed with people. I landed nearby, and found we had dropped in to a birthday party; two six-year old girls were celebrating with all their friends. Faiz and I were the greatest thing that could have happened to those kids. Not only were they wound up on sugar from all the cake, but two guys had dropped from the sky right into their birthday party. I finally had to accept a giant slice of chocolate cake – just to be polite!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Aaron had landed further west. He called up one of the couch surfers at his apartment and got a ride back to his car. He came to get Faiz and I with cold beer, and another perfect day of aviation was complete.

[Tom Pipkin]

Robb, your post was 1 hour, 43 min early. But nice try.

[Dizzy]

Hi Robb,
Good write-up, your sweater still waiting for our next meet. Should I give you a call when going to Torrey Pines next time?
We also had a good time at Marshall, big boys did out-and-return and I flew straight distance:
http://skydizzy.blogspot.com/2010/03/marshall-to-calimesa-22-miles.html

Alex

[Faiz]

Hey Robb: I tried to repeat last Sunday's flight today and had a fairly similar experience, except this time, I was dodging clouds at 5,500 feet, trying to keep my hands warm and looking for those birthday kids in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory LZ. Instead of cake, though, I got busted by the Pasadena PD. Apparently, some frisbee golfers narced on me, and that nice green field is actually city property. Next time any of you want to land in Pasadena, go for the county land in the wash, not the nice green fields to the side of the wash.

All you all are invited to fly Henninger with us, but you gotta teach us Pasadenans how to get the cops to ignore phone calls about parachutists dropping out of the sky.


By the way, in addition to a PPD greeting, I also met Mike Blakely (CSS Treasurer) who happened to be on a run in the wash. That was a plate of shrimp.

Faiz