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Sun @ Skyport

From: Hesham
Activity_Date: 1/6/02
Remote Name: 66.51.204.241

Comments

Mostly sleders today at the Skyport. We were on launch at 11. It was initially completely clouded over and the wind was light OTB. Then a blue hole opened up in the sky and it started to heat up pretty quickly.

There were descent cycles at launch. Navid launched and did not get up at the house thermal. Few pops at the RH and some bouyancy over Parma.

As I got ready to launch next, the clouds moved in and it was dead again. Waited for 15 minutes. There was a little bit of sun coming through the clouds and very weak cycles. I took it and did a forward launch. Just a sleder with the occasional pop that is short lived, sharp edged, and by no means enough to turn in. At Parma, the lower level southwest winds got stronger near the ground. I misjudged the approach and was about 10 feet short. It was good to practice the uphill landing technique !

4-5 other pilots eventually followed all doing forward launches. Most pulled good glides to Parma and reported zero wind at launch. The wind gradient near the LZ was very pronounced and a couple came up a bit short.

A visiting Swiss pilot launched the Brotherhood ! He reported it was strong enough from the north to do a reverse launch. He came in at Parma with about 800. There was definitely some north west drift up higher and he did very well on the glide. Enough altitude to do a spiral dive over Parma to about 30 feet above the deck (2-3 wing).

A few opted not to do forward launches at the Skyport and drove back down. The sun never really came out again except briefly over Parma.

Obviously the high pressure and the cirrus clouds didn't make for a great combination today.

Thanks to Rob for driving us up and giving us very useful pointers.

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