A Bad Time Was Had By All

[Faoro_Ron]

My phone rang yesterday and it was Annika and Arvid, two wonderful visiting pilots who come from Sweden originally, but have been working six years for Microsoft in Seattle. They are doing what we all dream of: Quit their jobs, bought a sailboat, loaded the Great Dane (Pluto) and the wings on board and are sailing down the coast to Mexico, happy to just enjoy life and meet new adventures until the money runs out. Chris Grantham gave them my number and Bob Hurlbett and I treated them to a grand sledder from Skyport to St. Mary's on Saturday in sweltering conditions. Despite the underwhelming day, we met for dinner at the Brewhouse (including Pluto, who discreetly ordered off the doggie menu), had great conversation and they generously paid for everything.

We apologized for not being able to show them better of Santa Barbara's soaring potential and promised to call in the morning, despite a poor prognosis for flying on Sunday. Well, it seemed like the Swedish saints (?) aligned when we read the forecast for Ojai this morning. A 29 degree spread with potential of getting up to seven or eight grand. OJ came to the rescue with a second vehicle in addition to Robin driving the elderly Suburban. Bob and I grabbed Annika and Arvid and met up with a large group of venerable pilots at Nordhoff. Now, when you get some older pilots together and somebody mentions the "P" word, the adrenal glands gear up, pupils dilate, the salivary ducts open full bore and it is hard to redirect the conversation anywhere else. I want to protect the innocent, but we all know it was Tom Pipkin who let the genie out of the bottle with his suggestion to go to Pine. How could we refuse? If only the Swedes knew what was in store for them. First of all, we were all expecting T-shirt flights and the wind chill would put it down to freezing at 12,000 feet should we be that lucky.

Hospitality, indeed.

OJ agreed to the venue switch and we rolled into launch an hour later. Light cycles. But the same guy who suggested "P" bullied me into taking off early, with half the cycles east or down. I ran out the launch to make up for the lack of lift and glided in the eerie sink over to the spine. Nothing. I crept over to the bonzai tree and got that feeling I was on the edge of something scary, kind of like lying down to sleep in a strange place. Then, of course, the fun started.

We have a lot of adjectives for crummy/scary air: "Trashy," "ratty," "uneven, "rough," " "bumpy," "turbulent," "violent," "nasty," etc. I have a different word for today's air: Evil.

I have flown Pine Mountain scores of times and today was the most intimidating. The wind screeched and howled, like early arrivals for Halloween. Our wings danced all over the place, absolutely possessed. High pressure, edgy thermals, demonic influence - call it what you will. There were half a dozen aborted takeoffs, precipitous falls out the sides of thermals and strong winds thwarting every intent. Four of us left the haunted house and struck out for Ojai with 10,500 feet. At first, we were making 35 mile ground speed toward Nordhoff Peak with the strong north tailwind. But nobody wanted to challenge Nordhoff Ridge in the spooky air with 12 mph east wind down low and risk a landing in Wheeler Gorge. We opted for CalTrans. Tom landed flat on his back on highway 33 when the bottom fell out; Bob had to make a 180 degree turn and dump it in the bushes when the wind changed direction while he was 50 feet above the ground and Arvid had his wing fail in the strong east rotor and dropped into the 15 feet deep chaparral 200 yards off the highway. I hit four figure lift twice over CalTrans, rising to 7,700 feet from 5.000, but was beaten back both times by Dry Lakes ridge from crossing over.

It took OJ, Tom, Bob and I two pitchers of beer back in Ojai before Annika and Arvid got his wing out of the brush and back down to the 33.

It sounds like the Chief crew also got the Halloween willies.

My wife was happy I missed our 1:00 PM BBQ get-together.

Respect for the mystique and power - and Halloween mischief - of Pine grows with every flight.

[DeVietti_Marty]

Wow, I leave town for one weekend (went to AZ for the Dixon Memorial Fly-in) and look what I miss! It sounds like there were no hospitalizations but still some impressive wreckage. Ouch. Glad nobody was seriously hurt, and what a bummer for the the Swiss visitors. Nice try, nonetheless, and to gallantly drink pitcher after pitcher until the rescue was complete, well, that goes without saying (wink).

I must say I appreciate the candor and generous nature of your informative post. It is good to keep up on the potential (both good and bad) of our sites.

Looking forward to winter weather here, and improved flying!

Marty

[Rich]

view upon landing

big mess

After waiting at Chief launch with the wind from the north occasionally gusting to 16 to 19, we headed off to Nordhoff peak, chafing to savor potential of the alleged 29 degree spread. Conditions there appeared to be flyable and Chris P. took off to the east and skied out in an apparent conversion. So far, so good. Then Andy D. launched and flew, but to the South, as east no longer worked whatsoever for launching. This should have been a clue. I then launched nicely and headed in the direction WHICH WORKED 15 MINUTES EARLIER.
Much to my chagrin, heading to the left from launch intending to follow the Nordhoff ridge, I encountered massive sink. As I headed down the valley, I had to deal with 2 massive asymmetrical collapses (of course from the terrain side) which both headed me toward the terrain and lost me a bunch of altitude. Hands up and then "flying the glider" toward the center of the canyon saved my bacon. And so, the massive sink continued and I finally was forced to land at 1600' in some low shrubs, dry mouthed, horrified but happily unharmed. It took me an hour or two to collect my wits and untree my unharmed wing in order to start the hike down which wasn't too far (200'!!!) from humanity. Interestingly, as I was untangling my wing, I was astounded to see P2 Jesus, (HeyZoos) visiting flier from Miami, following my same sorry trajectory as I watched him safely side land in trees 500' above/behind me. He had launched, unaware of my misadventure, and experienced the same "survival flight" for himself.
The good news, no one was hurt nor was equipment damaged. The combination of GPS', 2 meter radios and cellphone geolocation served us well. Happily Robin C. and driver Vince G. found us and by 6pm we were debriefing over a beer at NHS.
Lessons Learned: Don't assume the wind conditions in the mountains are the same from one moment to the next. I launched convinced that I'd land at the HS with altitude to spare - how wrong was I?
Carry a saw. I had to disassemble 2 trees by hand - quite a bit of work.
Fly with electronics fully charged. I had all electronics fully charged, my fellow bushwhacker, less so.
Have water. None of us were short, thankfully.

Although scary, this was an invaluable experience for a few of us. A good time was had by all!

Hopefully others can learn from the misadventure.
Thanks for peeps checking on our welfare and caring- it makes a difference...
Thanks again, Robin C. and Vince G. for collecting us at journey's end!

[Aaron]

Wow! Quite the adventures! Glad everyone is out of the bush unscathed. Thanks for the posts!! Fun reads.