Saturday and Sunday

From: Benson
Activity_Date: 8/6/01
Remote Name: 208.3.185.12

Comments

Saturday Saturday Bob H and I decided to hook up with the XC course taught by Jockey S; we will be in the class next week. We headed for Pine, saw W at the Sand Pile and continued up anyway. Just a few weeks earlier we had experienced the same condition and had a good day of flying. At launch we found it blowing down and W, so we headed for Chiefs. On the way down we hooked up with Tom P who had a Chiefs permit so we were on our way.

As we arrived at Chiefs Jockey was just finishing his morning discussion, and getting ready to launch. There was wind at launch about 8 to 12, and everybody launched in short order. Jockey was second in the air and got up on the second knob, went to Chiefs, W Repeater and back before half of the pilots were in the air.

Bob ridge soared to the spine, got up to Chiefs and headed down to the second knob gaining altitude all the way. He got a great glide to East Repeater, got up there and landed at Summit School with Jockey, Bill B and other pilots. I was anxious to catch the group at WR when I launched, so as soon as I got up to 4300 at the second know I tried the glide to WR, but came in way too low. I flew down the ridge to the bomb out field where Christie was making an approach just below me. I thought I could make the field east of Bocalies and possibly find some buoyant air so I pushed on the speed bar. The air was ratty out front and I thought I was finding the edge of the convergence. No convergence so I tried a test glide into the wind, towards Bocalies. I was moving with 7 to 8 mph ground speed on full speed bar, but loosing very little altitude. Flying near the Upper Ojai foothills there is often some lift. I made the glide with 50 feet to spare; Johnny joined me shortly after landing in the river wash.

Sunday Local flying didn’t look great so I checked in with the class. They had decided to head for Blackhawk, just east of Big Bear. They stopped for breakfast in Palmdale where I caught up with them. We caravaned to Big Bear, drove around in circles looking for the access to Blackhawk, and decided to cut our losses and head for Crestline. By the time we got Crestline the wind was coming up at 14 to 20 so we decided to head to Marshall, just down the road. Jockey launched first around 3:45, and the rest of the group were in the air within half an hour. There was some fumbling at launch with the wind blowing from 10 to mph. Dan put his glider in Helmut’s lines and I followed by putting my wing on top of Dan’s.

When we were all airborne the conditions were a little tight as all the lift was above the house thermal. Brendon, Christie and Johnny got up before Bill, Dan and I launched. They transitioned to the Antenna. I got up to about 5200 in the House Thermal, and saw Jockey and Bill B below me by about 600 feet getting ready to head east. Jockey took Bill to the HT and they both got to about 5600 and immediately headed east. I flew back to the HT to get a few hundred feet more before following, couldn’t find it and decided to follow. When I passed the Antenna, the other pilots were working zero sink nearly a thousand feet below. I flew past the Ant thinking I wouldn’t be able to get any higher there, and then I asked Jockey what altitude I needed to continue east. He suggested 45 to 48; I only had 4000 so I headed to the Ant to see if I could find anything. I was on the ground shortly, followed by Christie, Brendon, Dan and Sharon.

Days like this I remember what Diablo told me when I started flying, always try to spend more time in the air than driving to the site.