Friday 4/2 / Big School Day Turnout

[sd]

7 AM Friday Update: Bumped the meet time back to 9:45 at Parma & 9:15 am at Ballard. I suspect we'll be a 1/2 hour to 45 minutes early. Not the same day as yesterday. Climbing Barometer, more Catabatic, but not a Santa Ana. More of a Sundowner with wind through the Tejon Pass. More wind on the water this morning, and both the Peak and Montecito have got some north that needs to block. Both the balloon and winds aloft forecast are showing more north, but not nasty numbers. The lapse rate is also dialed down considerably from yesterday, but ok up through 6K. There is a bit more haze down low on the front side, but the relative humidity is lower so hopefully we will have higher cloudbase. Don't need to dress super warm, calling for 42 degrees F at 6K this afternoon.

1 PM Thursday Post for Friday Meet

Plannning an early meet at Parma for the Skyport and Liminator, depending on the morning north, sometime between 8:45 and 10. Will update after the morning soundings. Dress Warm, it will be cold. Will likely be a bit strong for beginners in the afternoon. I plan to be at Rusty's tonight. SD

[Tony de Groot]

Sounds good. Thanks for the heads up. I was eyeballing today but the wind kept increasing to 13 MPH at the peak and I aborted and made plans to go to the zoo. Then I got Zippy's and Hammers phone message that it was on, checked the winds and yes it was backing down. Too late, I missed the bus and watched it get better as the day wore on. I saw someone gliding to Montecito Peak ...keep going to Secret bowl....then keep going to Romero without turning. I guess we're gonna here all about it at the meeting tonight. But, I'm looking for the lighter wind day and it's either tomorrow or Saturday. My gears ready. Let me know when your going up. See you tomorrow. I've got the WHOLE day off and am ready and pumped to fly as far as I can!!!

[andy dainsberg]

caught the sundowner express w/ susan our driver and sd, chris paul, art, tim and chuck. we checked out a few launches and settled on ejs. decent conditions; tagged la cumbre and just hightailed it eastbound. mostly ENE the whole flight. some edgy leeside approaches and a few tippers. at the powerlines i couldnt find much and altho there were a few hangies working it downrange i bailed for the hotdog stand w/ a nice tailwind. within 30 minutes it got fairly hazy and it seemed like a good call. max alt 43. super fun flying. EDIT: seemed like a good call until i heard @ Bob A's flight!

[Tony de Groot]

Unlike most people I decided to take off and go down instead of up. But, I didn't leave launch. I just went lower and lower, "o.k. I HAVE to get up in this thermal or I won't have the glide out. Didn't get up. Wait, a redtail is climbing up below me, a minute later he was looking down on me like,....what a kook. O.k. I have to make sure I have enough altitude to get to the snake pit. It's basically get up or land in the snake pit now. Im going over to the other side of the knob, hit a nice little thermal and crawled on out of that hole. That was relieving. That is by far the lowest I have ever been below launch. Then I got just over launch, went on glide and got hammered again arriving below the round house. Every time I turned I fell into a hole. Struggled and struggled and finally landed after 45 minutes.

[sd]

Pretty good turnout for a weekday. 15-20 PGs and 8 or so HGs.
http://paraglide.net/log/10/10_04-02/1_ej_vor_home.htm

[zippy]

Tony, everybody was stoked to see you climb out of that hole! I hope you could hear us cheering.

Yesterday was interesting because despite the hazy sky, it was still about as good as the day before- stronger climbs, but harder to find and track.

Tom, I hope you do go farther, but 1" and you'll still be in the prison property I landed in yesterday. Check WW later for the story on my blog.

[timobarker]

Best flight in SB yet. I started with the crew at EJs and followed them over to La Cumbra then out to the hotdog stand. Highlights: Coring up with a gaggle of hanggliders and paragliders over thermal factory; finally finding the thermal on Montecito Peak (SD showed me the way on that one), then skipping down the range ridge and peak by ridge and peak; figuring out that I don't need to max out my climb and stay super close to the terrain was good too, instead I stayed more out front; getting to the power lines early enough to see Art and SD head toward the hotdog stand. They gave me a little help with their knowledge on that one. I wasn't sure how high I should be before heading out. I left the mountain at about 4,100 and just made it to the field next to the parking lot. Touching down and looking back at the range was awesome. I just flew all that way! It was a great day. Thanks to all for showing me the way. Too bad the hotdog guy wasn't there!

[Tony Deleo]

I guess that Hammer is so use to flying to Highway 5 that it doesn't even merit a story. I don't have the details for thursday only to say that Zack and Hammer landed at or near the 60 mile mark and then did the same with me in "tow" on friday. (5) 60 mile flights in 2 days-that's exciting.

diablo

[sd]

Yesterday was interesting because despite the hazy sky, it was still about as good as the day before- stronger climbs, but harder to find and track. Check WW later for the story on my blog.

Zac, my experience flying with the Condors is they have a lot of confidence in their high speed glide, but they don't like it when you get an intercept angle on them. You can often get in pretty close as long as they are above, but when you have the ability to intercept, you are a threat and they are likely to glide away. We had a batch out there for awhile that were overly accustomed to humans and would walk right up to you on launch at Pine, but I think they took those back in house. When there were only 6 left in the wild (before they took them all into prtective custody for a total of 20ish), 2 of them were roosting at Pine, so we'd see them often.

I've also seen golden eagles at Santa Paula Peak. Like the condors, they are loaded heavy and very stable in flight. The eagles are pretty arrogant, at the top of their food chain, and don't seem to spook. The condors get harassed by smaller birds, but the condors can out glide most anything out there.

Here is the link to Craig's flight you were asking about.
http://paraglide.net/log/amigo/craig_wa ... sb_101.htm

I posted you blog entry at:
http://paraglide.net/log/amigo/zac_majo ... _to_i5.htm

Hope to see you zipping by soon. SD