Preacher's Wing

More Rampart

2011-11-07T03:01:00.000-08:00

Condition report: Thanks Matty, Gordon and Milroy for making the call (I actually don't know who got it started)- Those wanting advanced warning should have picked up my tweet just after I heard rumblings at 9 or 10 Sunday morning. - I don't tweet everything but if you follow me @ewpg you will get heads up on some great flying. - We met up at the Gold Creek bridge around 12:30 and rocked to launch to find two hangs set up and just about ready to go. (Tom and Brian) - Some snow on road but no problems whatsoever for any rig that can make the run when it is clear.

Cycles were coming in west when we got to launch so I made a "rapid" departure following two botched launch attempts. The first Hang just couldn't quite scratch it out. (ten minutes too early, I figure) - I found lift very light early and with aggressive efforts, gain 20, loose 10ft. for the first 15 min to 25 min I was able to push back to the base of the ridge proper and up to about 5,000ft. From that point on it was nothing but lift in all the right places. Dave M and Matty beat me to the top of the ridge and then booked for the West side of the valley for one of several circuits.

By the time I made it back out to 1/2 way between launch and ALTA all 6 bags were making their appearance in the air, Heather, Gordon, Matty, Dave, Dave and Jeff and me (Dave), 3 Daves, what's with that, a very fine crew and everyone got as much cold as they wanted. I flew about until I had to come down due to an appointment back in Yakima at 6:00. Everyone could have flown easy an extra hour or so. We flew back in to ALTA and I think everyone busted 6k or better, I didn't get very high at ALTA, when I went back the valley was shady which kept things quiet until it opened up later. - The video is at about 1 hour into my flight. Boy do I love my mits. -

Bottom line, Cold, Beautiful, Lifty to Base at 6,500 or better. - Wisppys, Smooth and fun. - All bags landed at the bridge to the best of my knowledge.

Video is around 3 min, unedited and simply to provide a condition report
Preacher.

Lucky day

2011-10-29T20:42:00.000-07:00

Rampart is one of the more challenging sites we fly and when winds are up it is down right dangerous.

I almost always rely on XC Skies ground level wind speeds. They were showing 7 mph, (I double, plus a little, that number for launch wind speed which gave me 14-17 on launch and for Rampart that is a way way no go prognosis) I would ever think to fly based on those number, revising strategy now. - But it was Saturday and Gail was working so with a gaggle of Hangs declaring their intent I figured why not check it out. Part of my reasoning was to build more data points in my own mountain WX synapses.

5 hangs in the end and when I walked up to paralaunch who did I find but Dave M. and Jeff Spear. - Yippee it was a lovely day. Max Altitude: 6060ft.

The Season is Wraping Up

2011-09-27T00:51:00.000-07:00

or

I GUESS IT IS GOING TO BE A LONG LONG TIME

Over the next few days I will be doing some writing - Already have one article thumbnailed on safety issues and wing upgrades. - Stay tuned. -
For now just a quick fun one from this summers video archives.
Can you guess the pilot?

Shoulda Woulda Coulda

2011-08-21T02:25:00.000-07:00

Rampart to Stevens pass, my first attempt. Conditions looked to be excellent for the effort. XC Skies was calling for lift to 11,400 to 12,000 on route with generally low pressure and South winds over the Cascade crest.

Up pass winds from both the West and East on the surface were to be 4 to 7mph. This is a little strong but you get that with good lift. The conditions on launch were a bit challenging - nothing new there, but a bit of a stronger East push kept us sitting on our hands until the West face really started to move. Until then we had cross winds out of the East.

3 minute video above, 1hr 45min below

When cycles started to come from the SW it was after 2:00. I really had hoped to get off by 1:00. Next time I think we will launch East just below the Hang launch.

Climb out was fast and easy and the crest was boaty and lifty. - Strong windy lift with undetermined, lea and windward sources were the name of the game all day. For one who is not use to mountain flying it was quite disconcerting to not have a clear read on either the direction of the lean of the thermals or their actual source. - After a couple of turns I could figure it out but I was never sure when they kicked off and some were as strong as 5.5 m/s up.

The view up there is just amazing but to give you an idea of the work involved I can honestly say that I spent almost no time looking about and almost all of my energy flying and working for best lift and line.

After my initial climb I got a nice lift in the bowl just south of Alta and then flew on a lift line just east of the peak. I didn't have to turn again until past Chikamin where I was back to ridge level. This is at the back end of the major bowl that you see when you look up valley from the freeway. From the freeway it looks like the last high hill but it is a ridge / bowl that has a S and SW face.

Chickamin faces S and I had to push past it to its West face to begin to pick up my next lift. It was slow to develop but eventually really took off and was my first climb that had a strong SW to NE lean to it. This one sucked me farther into tiger country which was good and bad. It was forcing me to make a call and with the extra lean I began to imagine valley winds in the back of my mind.

Flying high in the mountains is easy, the big problem is at the end of the day and you have to make your calls way before you have all the information. This leaning thermal told me that the West winds were winning and going to pick up. - I was facing a push now to the North that had about 20k left (though I didn't know the distance for sure).

I was certain I could make the next transition to Chimney Rock having over 9,000ft at Lema Two. But it was becoming the point of no return and I just didn't have the guts or other apparati required to continue on. I was already at a point where I wasn't certain I could make it back but thought I could. In hind-sight I should have pushed on.

Back to the challenge of valley winds. - When you get low they can be very strong and I was worried that if I got stuck in big sink I would not only have limited landing options but they would involve major winds based on the lean of my last thermal. So I turned about and ran like a little scared kid hiding from the bully.

The return was quite nice, though I wanted to go West side of Mt. Thompson, but again didn't have the guts. I dove in for the lea side ride back to the mid section of Alta where I knew safe lift was waiting, assuring me of the LZ.

ALTA ALMOST HOME

It was there that I caught the best lifter of the day cranking all the way to 10,300 or so. On the way past the summit I chatted with a hiker who had a dog. Didn't get the dog's name though. (6,250ft) From Alta I pushed West along the crest over Snoqualmie peak and on to Granite Mountain thinking about making a run for North Bend. I was at 6,500 when I decide to play nice and join the crew back at the cars and turned back to land about 3k West of Hyak. (parked in West winds by the way)

I don't know if I would have made it back to Mailbox, the Winds at ridge level were not bad and the sun was baking the ridge between Bandera and Mailbox so I figure it should have been easy but those are more might-have-beens. It was a great day of flying.

Next time, maybe.

Preacher

Short video of Mt. Si from the air

2011-08-07T15:41:00.000-07:00

Mini Adventure to Switch Ridge

2011-08-07T11:15:00.000-07:00

Always fun to try a new launch. A site near Imbler Oregon was on Doc's bucket list and with high pressure dominating the region, well why not.

We trundled up our wives for retrieve adventures celebrating Doc's Birthday and Gail's and my Anniversary (29 year for both). We hooked up with an old school local hang for a site-O and we committed aviation. Doc got about 35k and I came up 10 short of that. - Nice lift to around 7,500.

A lovely day. - We still have to find a less frustrating launch however. We will be doing this again, the place is just 2 hrs from the Tri-Cities and sets up lovely from NW to SW.

Dreaded T-Boomers were well South - we kept our eye on them Dr W.

P
(Switch Ridge is the name I gave the launch - Switchy cycles made for a very frustrating launch - fake straight up, then blown launch with a North cycle, then same to the South, then finally straight in again and off into the sky - 4 or 5 wing setups on a hot and steep slope)

Planning an adventure

2011-08-05T22:43:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow Doc, Mag, Gail and I will head for a spot east of Pendelton for a bit of mountain flying. The T-boomers that set up are due to line up sw to ne on a track that should give us nice lift out in front.
The boomers are due to reduce later in the afternoon so we should be fine regarding OD. - We will see.

Random Ramblings from the Red Rock Race

2011-07-26T21:16:00.000-07:00

Flying at the Nationals here in Utah has been a mixed bag so far. – The “practice” day was split into a short afternoon shake out flight and an amazing glass off. Monroe is a wonderful site with big air. Thermals are quite strong and plentiful. I had sustained lift to 5 and 6 m/s which is 1,000 to 1200 feet per minute up. The thermals and edges were nice but the transition prior to entering the thermals were extremely sinky and often quite turbulent. In addition there were bullets mixed in so I got quite a ride when down low. (not a good idea)

The launch is also quite far back in the hills and if you don’t get up it is quite a long glide before you get out over the valley floor some 5-6000 feet below. I think it may be a good mile or two.

The place is just very BIG.

The past two days have been thunder storm days and the gust fronts yesterday were quite impressive. Big CUnims all over the joint with massive cloud structures sitting right on top of launch and over the hills in the region.

The first day of the comp was a nice flight but my head was only half in the game so I left the race before the start and headed back to HQ. – My mind was on my father who ended up in the hospital during the flight. – He is doing well now but at the time I couldn’t focus on the race. –

I was about 5,000 feet or more over HQ and figured I would give the Anti-G another run. My flight deck makes a perfect holding spot for the Anti-G. It fits well and extracts without a problem. A quick toss over my left shoulder and it is deployed. – This time I took two drives into deeper spirals and sustained 8 m/s or 1,500 ft/min down. – I could have held that indefinitely and will try to push it even deeper next time. – At 1,500 down the pressure on the drogue increases and it felt like I was pulling 2 or 2.5G’s (no way of knowing that one.)

With the increased pressure on the drogue the knot that attaches the apex retraction line to the “retraction handle” popped through the guide grommet. This was not a big deal but it made it so I couldn’t retract the apex and the drogue remained deployed. – Once on the ground it was easy to fix and were it to happen again I could easily fix it in the air now that I know what the pop was. My solution at the time was to just bring the drogue in and stow it in my jacket.

As part of the two day no fly we had longer pilot meetings where there was extended discussion regarding pilot safety and the dynamics that allow us or may cause us to be at greater risk. – The consensus has been that while 2liners may pose some problems in terms of their recovery characteristics they are by no means “THE” problem. We talked about task planning and the competition pilot mind set. Serial vs Comp wings and what might happen depending on various ruling body decisions. Nothing has been resolve but it was good conversation.

Big Flight off Tibbitts

2011-07-03T11:36:00.001-07:00

Saturday was a call! - Tibbitts looked best for launch winds and it worked. - A slow start due to issue on the hill took an hour but that let the flats develop so it was likely a blessing in disguise.

Once again I have to thank Dr. David Wheeler for much of the flights success. - He is one of the site gurus and knew right where to go for the river crossing. -

I will post a longer recount of the flight but for now the high points were:

1. flying team with Dave for most the day.
2. Getting up and out from Tibbitts and making that call
3. a mega low save just short of Brewster on the flats
4. Big gift boomers over deep bandlands
5. gliding in and getting out of a locked encampment with Dogs.

I will fill in the details on these stories and more but just one for now.
The mega low save happened after I sent Dave on as I wasn't getting any and the day was late near the end of the flats. - I got up but then got drilled again and was comming in about 1 mile in from the rim in flat flat flat country. I was over a dirt plowed field and was hoping to make a green field just over some low power lines to the West of me. - On final death glide I noted a small dust devil forming to my 9 O'clock. Small it was but its dust was still higher than I was. Then another and another and a line of Dust devils set up perpendicular to my path but one field to my right.

Trying to explain why there were 4 mini Dust devils off to my right all in a line the line concept took over and I figured "convergence" (rim lift vs East Flow). If this was correct then it should continue over the field I was headed for only it was green so no dust. - Hang on this could be bad - flying low into this kind of lift, well anyway - very active flying and sure enough rather than turning on final I turned into a cranker that took me to 8,000ft msl. - And it was off to the races - transitioned over the river and into the high bad lands. - Then on glide with a 17 mph tail wind with nice lifters when needed. -
Amazing gifted flight.
Dave continued on but didn't get as fortunate in the badlands and landed half way to Omak or so. - Great flying with you Dave - And thanks

Forgot to mention: New Personal Best and Site Record 135.3k or 85 miles.

BTW we shared the air with at least 12 Sailplanes - 2 made close hauled fly bys.
Preacher

On TV

2011-05-17T00:35:00.000-07:00

Deb Did it!

LOSING IT FOR FLIGHT

2011-05-14T21:49:00.000-07:00

Am I crazy or what? - At age 52 I have finally tipped over the edge of obsession. Never before in all those years have I EVER gone on a diet. - As a kid I was bony thin. - I got married and put on 15 lbs and over the next 30 years added maybe .5lbs of fat and .25 of muscle a year or so till I landed at 240lbs.

At the end of each flying season I am back down to 225 from to the lack of lunch and regular hikes in the heat of the day.

This year is different - I need to be at 225 or 220 at the start of the season so I can fit into my new weight class "L" on the M4. - 120k is top end and at the moment 227lbs I am at 130k all up.

My hope it to be down to 125k for my first flight. - We will see.
All I have done to loose my first 13lbs was to cut out beer, bread, and candy. - LOW Carb ho.

Personal Best- 6hr 40min, 81miles

2011-05-03T22:30:00.000-07:00

The doldrums and frozen winds of winter have abated and the flowers and thermals of spring are rising from the desert floor. For those of us fortunate enough to fly this month we have found amazing clouds at the top of most of our climbs.

And it has been those clouds and the associated lift that have been different from prior years.

This spring the air at cloud base has been very, very cold. Our spring flying started almost a month earlier than last year. When we look at April 2010 in our league flying, there was only one flight of significance in all of April. This year, however, there have been nearly 20 flights worth more than 100 points on Leonardo. We have been very fortunate to have a number of exciting days and a lot of great flights.

In the midst of this month, I was fortunate enough to get my longest flight ever, both in terms of distance and duration. The setup for the flight actually began two days prior when I decided to take a chance on a somewhat windy forecast for Chelan on a Sunday afternoon. I arrived at launch around 1 o'clock, there were three or four other pilots standing about contemplating the conditions. I don't think I have ever spent as much time on a launch considering the go no-go decision. The sky was menacing, and, as I have learned, springtime skies change very rapidly. This sky seemed to have the potential to blow up at any moment. The cumulus clouds were changing rapidly; the winds on launch where near maximum.

On the one hand, I really wanted to be up in those clouds to see if the lift was good or not. On the other hand, I was afraid of being blown over the back and rotored behind the towers. After a great deal of consternation and discussion, I made ready a launch to Lakeside. Penetration was not a problem; but lift was not particularly prevalent. I eventually left the high wind bowl soaring experience in preference for a landing at Lone Pine. On the way down, I pushed to the West seeking lift and finding none until I set up for a Lone Pine landing at which point the LZ provided a cranker to 6,500 and subsequent lifting line to McNeil Canyon. All this is being recounted as a foundational report for crazy spring clouds. I didn't get to cloud base that day; but with the wind being strong and everything being as bad as it might have been the air was benign. I had been fearful of being sucked into oblivion; yet those massive clouds were mostly frosty mists of fluffy puff. Very cold upper air creates very big clouds that actually have rather minimal lift potential. It was the new understanding that I took into the big flight day on the next Tuesday.

Watching the weather on Monday for what looked to be a very active Tuesday took my emotions and thoughts to a height where I was almost unable to sleep Monday night. Initially it was difficult to get my flying partners to even commit to flying Tuesday. The weather just looked to active. But I made assurances or rather promises that it would be just fine, and a group of seven were finally aligned to assault Baldy midweek.

While big fluffy puffs of cold cloud did not present danger in terms of lift, they did present the potential for precipitation and overdevelopment which can shut down lift. Because of this I encouraged my partners to get to the hill as early as possible. Our earliest prior launch had been one o'clock, and I hoped to be on launch before 11. The best I was able to negotiate was rock at 11, and so it was plus about 10 min.

We drove as fast as we could to the top of the hill, and as we were climbing I was looking about at these massive and threatening clouds thinking I've got to get off the hill. I am not sure, but I bet my buddies were thinking what I had thought on Sunday, "damn I don't know if I want to fly in that." This was my advantage; I had flown in it and knew it would be fine. I was able to leap into the air without the normal cautious mental preparation and launch decision cogitation and associated expenditure of time.

It was that move, made possible by my experience on Sunday, that made all the difference on Tuesday. When we arrived on launch, there was a light northerly flow which normally switches around Southwest at about that time of the day. There was also a large cloud drifting our way from the Northwest. It had the potential to shut everything down. In very short order, I was ready to launch and with the last puffs of the northerly flow I made it off the hill. I made two or three passes on the north side gaining only a little bit before I dove over to the Southwest thermic generator. I knew there would be turbulence in this transition, but I was surprised by the size of the frontal I took as I passed through what I figured was rotor wash from the North slope. My happy little DHV2 handled the event without concern; but it was a little low for my comfort. A quick turn to the right and the house thermal just down ridge provided its normal energetic lift to 7,000 feet or so.

On Glide To Menashtash

The big cloud to the Northwest was drawing closer, and I was at the top of lift leaning towards Menashtash - so it was on glide for me. I had a nice lift line to exit 11. I found the thermal there a little difficult to track down; but once I found it, it worked just fine right up against the boundary of the firing range. Again, I say thank you to Dr. Wheeler for his map in my Garmin. It kept me clear of airspace violations at least my body, if not my wingtip. At one point right at the corner my best guess is that I was 13 feet away from airspace violation, but I was crabbing so my wingtip may have stayed clear. In any event, the track was clear; so I posted the flight.

Menashtash to the Boylston's over Badger pocket was fairly lifty with a thermal mid-crossing; and again and airspace "catch me if you can" along the northern edge of the pocket.

Snow on Baldy

Badger Pocket

I had one or two good lifts crossing to the windmills; but when I got to the other side of I-90, I just missed the thermal which is usually easy to catch. Down, down, down I went in the big sink that is often associated with being near big lift. Right over the windmills, down through the windmills and down below the windmills until I was scratching at 180 feet off the deck. The windmill towers are 222 feet high and their blades have a circumference of about 260 feet. The windmill save was one of the coolest parts of the flight. I'm sure I was at least 150 feet away from the blades. They didn't seem too close; but they were close nonetheless.

Clouds looking East

Down to the Windmills

The Clouds didn't look promising enough to cross the Big Badlands North to Wenatchee

The climb out and subsequent climbs to cloud base were actually fairly straightforward. I chose northerly terrain as I moved closer to the Columbia. I find that the lift generated off the valleys to the North more consistent and easier to find. By the time I got to the Columbia I had found wonderful lift all the way to cloud base, and I crossed about a mile and a half north of the bridge.

Bundled up and Still Cold

Now the cold began to set in. I can't say for sure, but someone said it was to be 8 degrees at base. If this is the case, then wind chill put the experience at -12. All I know is that with a down jacket and long-johns, my legs were violently and uncontrollably shaking due to the cold.
On the other side of the Columbia there was a very large cloud. As I watched it grow I could see dust devils in the fields below and to the south of it. At this point during the day, as expected, there was a light flow from the South.
It was fairly easy to find lift under the large cloud on the flats to the east of the bridge, and I got up high again. At this point, it was a matter of flying the clouds, and they were reasonably easy to work. Although if you look at my track, you'll see that there was a bit of meandering. After leaving the large cloud east of the bridge, the best of the clouds that I could see and get to were to my South, and the winds were not particularly oppressive, so South it was.

Big Cloud acros the Columbia

Just prior to the crossing of the Columbia my video died so there are no more vids or pics to share, sorry about that.

At one point I did sink out and began to look for terrain features which might indicate lift triggers. I noted a fairly sharp bend in the road and wondered to myself, "why does the road bend there?" This was the first time I clearly realized that bends in the road in the midst of the flatlands indicate terrain anomalies also known as lift triggers(duuhhh.) And so it was that I got the next climb from the bend in the road.

By this point I was about halfway to Saddle Mountain. Immediately to the North of Saddle, running its entire 10 to 15 mile length, are sloping badlands that have a southerly face that generate nice lift. On my way to them I floated, above an unplanted crop circle and drifted into lift coming up out of one of the ravines from the badlands. This West to East badland terrain feature carried me 10 miles east.

About 15 miles West of Othello, I needed to choose between staying on the Badlands or tracking east-northeast with the farmlands. While the Badlands offered potentially better lift, they are also part of a wildlife refuge. I was concerned about landing in prohibited land space and voiding my flight. The farmland also had slightly better clouds set up over them; so I went east-northeast. The lift was reasonable; but it felt like the day was ending.

As I neared the end of the farmland bounded by more badlands to the east, I found myself setting up for a landing. I hadn't yet chosen a field; but was looking for one when I noted that in the next field to the east, three seagulls were soaring in a very large circle and rising. Now I have been saved by raptors, eagles, hawks, crows and such but never by a brace and a half of seagulls.

My seagull thermal was a nice big one to 7,000 or better and definitely enough to clear the rather menacing looking badlands to the East before the safety of the fields of Othello.
The badlands were lifty and a line to Othello cost little. The city itself provided my last big climb. By this point in time, I had been in the air over five hours and my brain was beginning to fry, my ability to focus had waned and I just tried to float.

For some reason my biggest concern was the Spokane airspace some 80 miles away. I really had not considered going due east on this track, and hadn't placed in my mind the reality that Spokane was not a concern. Following this last big climb was a gentle slide to about 1,500 to 2,000 over where the equivalent of a late afternoon glass off provided a consistent continuing lift that held my flight level until it finally died off some 20 miles past the settlement.

I landed in a very nice, unprepared field right next to the road which had been my guide to the East. A press of the SPOT and a call to my friends resulted in the news that retrieved was on its way. Ten minutes of walking and a ten minute hitchhike ride got me to the truck stop where a 20 ounce beer quenched my thirst as I anticipated reunion with the living. Chris and Frank arrived right on schedule, and we enjoyed a nice meal at a bar in Othello.

Long flights like this make for very long, late retrieves, and without friends it would be very difficult to endure. Getting a big flight changes things in my head (just a bit, that is what to shoot for and all) but I expect I'll be on the hill this Friday to try for it all over again.

Quick note - 1:11am - Othello and beyond

2011-04-20T01:14:00.000-07:00

Super big thanks to Frank and Chris for driving out to pick me up. It is a great feeling knowing friends are on their way even before you land. Kudos gentlemen
Yesterday was a great day to fly if you got into the air and away from the hill early. - Luck had it that I did and it was amazing. = After my quick exit the winds died on the hill and the snow began to fall messing with the minds and plans of the whole crew.

Well I don't know for sure about minds being messed with but I am certain it messed up the plans. Anyway, the thumbnail is: 6hrs 40min and 130km (81 miles for our friends in Rio Linda.) Leo gave me 149km xc miles with all the turns and such. - 6714H was open helping me get to Ryegrass. You will see I needed all the help I could get on that transition. (see video)

I had a supper lucky save during landing set-up at the Windmills. Near froze to death with temps around 8 degree at max altitude adding wind chill figure -12 on glide leaving the top of lift or at some points just cruising the cloud base. I stayed clear of clouds - never even whispied but definitely based it several times near 9,000ft.

- I will post a blow by blow in a day or two but for the immediate satisfaction of the curious here is the track log and a fun video of the windmills close up.

Once again I would never have been able to fly the route without Dr. Wheeler's wonder map for Garmin keeping me clear of the fireing center air space. Easly 30 feet to spare. Thanks David. -

My Flight on Leo
Off to bed now
Dave

Good early Spring day

2011-04-08T00:05:00.000-07:00

Amazing Day - Lots lots lots of CU - OD to the west. - tricky to get off Saddle together- most of the crew was 45 min or so after my launch - I got off in an early lull. - But they caught up. - Thermals reported by everyone - very skinny snake like - hard to stay with them - seldom to base then look for another one. - Lots of good pilots were dusted early with a massive sky. -

That was a key challenge and why Conrad's flight was so special - It was very tricky flying - Steve P. took an aggressive pitch and ended up ridge soaring the hills due south of the Dam, - top landing twice in a valiant effort to repeat his Vol Bivi exploits in Nepal. - (unsuccessful)

We all found it almost impossible to make it to base - some lift was screaming, some gentle - I had one full on waterfall 4 k over launch. - Just a great day - On retrieve Randy picked me and Steve TBo up in a chase effort to catch Conrad - we caught him in south Sunnyside and chased the afternoon away all the way to OR. -

Steve P had nice maps in his Big Rig that allowed us to assist as the big C slid into home, just inside legal air space. - Three great low saves - we watched two of them - He can tell the rest

The XC season is off and Running - Until Conrad posts I get to hold his first place cup. - But he IS in the lead - Make sure you post all your flights - top 6 per pilot per month all season long - Build a pile-o-points and see where you end up. If your not on Leonardo then sign up, it is free - If you need help figuring out how to post flights give me a ring and I can help. - If you post flights to LEO but don't find your flights as part of league please e-mail me your leonardo pilots name and I will add you to the NW league List - Remember only US flights count - A part of any flight must be at some point in US Airspace to count.

Last Year's Final Standings:
All the best - Great Crew today and great assist from ground spotter who helped with retrieve. Thanks

Conrad may be home late.

Sorry about the 911 from Steve - don't know what happened but it was distracting in the air and at least one local responder left a note that they were looking. - Don't know the story but would love to hear it.

Preacher.

Pequeños huevos

2011-03-17T22:55:00.000-07:00

So, - this was the deal, - 1:00 P.M. - As Jeff and I got to launch we had light cycles inbound from S to SSE - There was a light to medium light cirrus layer and a fair Cu development at around 5,500 to 6k. As we arrived there were three nice cu and 3 corresponding shadows between Baldy and exit 11. - By the time we were set to launch - 5 - 10 min or less the full flats between Baldy and 11 were totally shadowed out.

In front of Baldy we had a small blocking/shadow creating set of Cu-s - Timing was the trick -- there looked to be an opportunity in 5-10 min. with openings expected as the clouds in front looked to slide east for a bit. - This was the case - We both launched into nice easy cycles and pushing right out front caught 100-300 up 1/2 way out to the airport.

Lift wasn't super solid but was regular enough that we didn't go down. - Winds were S not SW and that effected the lift / thermal shapes.

After a few minutes of play we were up and over the towers and as the core took us up the clouds over the flats to the NE were very dark. Nothing was above us directly but at about 4500 to 5000 I took a whack on the right and felt my wing dragging me up and to the left. - Looking East the clouds were obviously very lifty but not friendly looking - we would have had to go lea side as the windward side of the street was in firing range airspace. To the West we had verga and snow between Uptanum ridge and Mt. Clemmons.

The combination of dicey potential - a windward wack aka rowdy air - rapid changing conditions and being between fronts on the day was enough for me and I pulled in my ears and headed west to clear sky. - I continued to climb for a 2-3 minute or so which confirmed my decision. - Jeff followed my lead and we landed by his rig.

Fun stuff - Bigger balls than mine were needed to make the run - I am sure it could have been done - but I keep hearing Gordon's words: "I could have died" and Mer's "That wasn't any fun" when I look at making runs at big ass streets with certain but rowdy lift.

Spring time is energetic and changes very quickly - It all dropped out by 3:30.

P

Doc Icarus

2011-03-12T09:15:00.000-08:00

The good Doctor, Curt, Gary and I spent Friday afternoon playing the ridge at Eagle Butte. A great deal of my first flight was spent parked in trashy air but the high wind disabling technique worked great to finish off my vertical approach and landing.

Method as follows. -
1. Identify left A riser at 50 feet over
2. 5 feet over with toggles in hands grab your left A riser
3. The instant you touch down make a sweeping move with both hands down and to the left creating a left side frontal with your A riser and a full stall with your RIGHT brake. In the same move spin your body around to the right and move quickly to the wing.

It is a bit like a self defense move. It causes the wing to fold in half on its self with the top half nose down so even if it catches wind it just lays in a lump.

The wing drops non-dynamicaly so there is no injury to the leading edge.

Try it next time you find yourself landing in high winds.

Allegedly Flying!

2011-03-05T21:24:00.000-08:00

Allegedly Flying!

Today we had a wonderful set of flights at Eagle in the Tri-Cities. - Doc, Curt and myself hucked into gentle lift to 4,000.

Curt and Doc reported cloud base climbs with a pair of bald eagles - What a treat!

I think there was some early hang action but it shut down right after I launched so I don't think the non-inflatables got much in the later afternoon.

When I arrived at 1:10 there were three hangs sitting on launch. Curt was chatting with the boys and as I launched Doc was already up and over the back on his second big flight. - Normally 4k is nowhere near high enough for XC but one might recall that when the ceiling is low the spacing between cores is correspondingly short - a direct correlation. So glide to next lift was short.

Doc made a bee-line for Temple View and had he not been out there floating at 2,300 over, I never would have left at 3,000. I caught a lifty line and when I got to him I was lucky to catch my next lifter - lift was light but solid as I watched my alter-ego land out at a local football field. - Sorry Ralph.

The rest of the flight was then a combination of down wind frizbees and light lift maxing at just over 4,000 ft. Cloud base was maybe 4,800 or so.

I knew I had airspace issues but I had violated one of my cardinal rules: I failed to replace the batteries in my 76S, which I normally do before every flight. Driving my wife's car rather than my truck left me two AA batteries short of ready. - As I floated down wind I needed to know where the class E extension at Pasco would become an issue. - It seems that my batteries died as I neared the air space so I have no way of knowing from the 76S if I violated or not.

This is both a reminder to keep your batteries fresh and to make sure you know your airspace whenever you fly.

Had I been able to post my flight from my 76S it might been worth over 40 points on Leonardo, a new "posted" site record linear distance of 25.4k, XC distance 27.1, duration of 1:07, max vario 2.8m/s, min vario -2.1m/s, max altitude 1242m, altitude gain 841m, max speed 55.5k/hr, mean speed 33.0k/hr with two major lift cycles and lots of convergence flying - but that is just a guess. It was a very, very cool flight for so early in the season.

But the post was not to be. I know I landed clear of airspace based on spot. But sad to say, I don't have a 76S record of a very cool, gift/surprising flight. - A similar thing happened to Doc flying DD2 last season as he neared Yakima's class E. - This is a good reminder for the up-coming XC league that we must stay clear of controlled airspace and it is an absolute reminder that ALL posted flights shall demonstrate no violations of the same.

To help us make sure we are clear of airspace while we are flying the tools are available:

I have used Dave Wheeler's map in my 76s for two years now and use it regularly to skirt the air space in and around Yakima, the firing range and Wenatchee - great map and it works great on the 76s - Highly recommend this Garmin map at the bottom of the following page:

http://www.tigertag.org/Downloads.html

XC League starts in April - Rules the same as last year - except I will do the admin work rather than Matt.

Details:
1. All details on the league will be posted on the league information site: http://sites.google.com/site/cloudbase/pnwl
2. The league is open to all Pacific Northwest Pilots
3. The season starts May 1st and ends Sept 30 with winners announced in the Fall of 2011.

Best of luck for the 2011 season!

Cliffside fun

2011-03-04T23:18:00.000-08:00

At Cliffside by noon and the crew came over from the coast to fly again. - They are getting great air time. - We got off early and had a nice intro extended sledder. - Following the reload when nothing was going up and we decided to sled to the river giving enough time for a third flight.

We launched high on the 3rd flight, that is from the high launch. It gave us another 100 ft or so and that along with stronger winds kept us up for over an hour just ridging the lift. - Caitlin is going to make a great pilot. She has the natural lean and good enjoyment of both sky wind and even cold.

More tandems in Yakima tomorrow. -
Dave

Brrrrr.

2011-02-25T21:46:00.000-08:00

Wow, now that was cold. - Got to hand it to Doc he kicked my frozen patootie. The projections were right on target.
Temp on launch was 18, flight speed wind-chill=3.

Both Doc and I dressed to the nines, my outfit from inside out included polipro long john bottoms and long sleeve top, pants, snowboard bib-overalls with wind proof outers and quilted liner, poli-pro heavy socks, chem-hand warmers at the toes inside insulated boots. Long sleeve shirt, medium weight wool sweater, down jacket from North Face with down hood, balaclava and helmet. For gloves (still not enough) $250 outdoor research expedition over mitts modified in claw formation. (never failed me till today.)

Details of Doc's clothing are unclear but his mitts were not only wind proof but were so thick that they seemed to need installation into his toggles as part of pre-flight. - a Hang glider trick if I am not mistaken.

I guess you get the idea that it was coooold. It was also very windy. - Winds at RC launch at Kiona were 20 - 25 all day. We don't really think Kilowna is a good launch spot so we launched from a point just up hill and round the bend that we are calling siif for "screw it I'm flying."

Launch was easy in 15 mph winds and it resulted in a catapult to 1,000 feet over in just moments.

We both ran the ridge once, I was 1/2 a ridge in the lead. On my second pass outbound or east bound I was getting very cold and my frozen fingers were fighting with my competitive spirit. - Lift was very strong and the edges of ice cold dry air rising through even colder air were quite turbulent and not much fun. - It was almost like flying in July.

I decided give in and to push out and land in the LZ just to stop the freezing. - It took forever and I had to push way out to get in front of the lift band and the imbedded thermals.

Doc flew over and then I think completed his double ridge or maybe just set up to land as I did - in any event his report was about repeated frustration and inability to get down so he ran east to find a place to sink. - Crossing the canyon he went on out to the winery and found a nice patch of sinking air and "warm" ground.

It was just sooooo cold. - And soooo fun. - Dress warm and join us next time. - Curt also soared his speed wing and Greg through down some kiting. A good day had for all.
P

New mark set - Down and back max

2011-02-08T21:54:00.001-08:00

Set a new best for time and distance on a double down and back ridge run at Kiona today. - 1hr 27 minutes for the full 30k flight. Got 46.42 Leonardo points also a personal best while keeping on the ridge. Not XC - landing at take off.

http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/410691

Fun but cold - Didn't turn a single circle either.
Boring? What did you do this afternoon?
P

Last day - Nice flight - a thorn of a landing.

2011-02-05T17:09:00.000-08:00

Last entry for the comp.

Today looked bad and turned out great. – At the start a number of us looked at the clouds / winds and projections and determined not to fly. – But as the launch window progressed it looked better and better.

The start line had formed and it was looking like it might take more time than I wanted to wait so I checked in with the launch director who confirmed the priority line was for the top 50 pilots. Cool – I was 47th at the start of the day so I got to slide right and move ahead of the line. – It made a difference – I made the start gaggle just fine and had a great start.

The glide across to Kings was fine and a very easy push in lots of lift avoiding clouds and pulling big ears on occasion made for an enjoyable Divisidaro run – 2 k cylinder there and then a push to the 4k at La Pila. – Lifty line to start with then cratered near the tag.]

My next call was the mistake for the day and the only one I got. – I dove for the ridge at 3kings. Those who stayed out in the valley with the light sun got up but I didn’t on the ridge. – After a valiant effort I bailed for a ridge top where two other pilots had landed.

I didn’t give myself enough height to land with the boys and I slid a bit farther down the ridge top. – No problem with the terrain but it was covered in bushes – let me put that a bit different covered in the El Diablo’s thorns. – These bushes which reach 15 feet in height are covered with spike like thorns about that are about an inch long, tough as steel and sharp as a needle. – they are so sharp that at the thick end they are less than 64th of an inch in diameter.

How do I know these details? My right ring finger has intimate experience with the little buggers. It entered in the top flesh center left of the middle phalanx. – It skewered the flesh to the thumb side and almost came out the anterior side of the finger. – 2/3 of an inch and fully buried.

Ouch – but not near the pain one would expect. – We tried to pull it out on the hill with my Leatherman with no success. So we hiked to the road where the first rig to come along was the event ambulance. – They were so excited to have a patient that the truck behind which had the recue crew had their lights flashing as we drove a few miles looking for a safe place to stop on the mountain road.

The E.M.T. wanted to work on me with the rig moving but after a couple of shots he gave up and waited till we stopped. – We worked on it for 5 minutes until while trying to pluck it out the sharp end started to hurt against the EMT’s fingernail. I complained and when I did both EMTs realized at the same time they should be pushing from that side against the sharp end and the dull end which was what they were trying to pull out would pop out. – Sure enough – pop it went and my finger was whole again.

They kicked me out of the ambulance – I didn’t pay – so it wasn’t professional medical attention and I was now on retrieve at the side of the road like everyone else.

Flight home now – Took my penicillin which I always travel with and will get a good night sleep.

Think I finished about 50th or so.
P.

Windy with OD skies

2011-02-04T20:24:00.000-08:00

Last night the walk round town was a community thing. – As the band played walking by our hotel all ears & eyes had to see what was up. Looking out the window a good 400 people maybe 600 walked in procession, the priest and crucifix, candles and banners in full regalia.

I almost always join in in such events and yesterday was no exception. I learned a couple songs fairly well and a couple I could humm. – It ended in a lovely mass and more communidad.

Today many thought it would be canceled or – I don’t know – I say go to the hill and fly, after all, it is Valle.

Nice task, I jumped right on the gun and was first off the hill just as the launch window opened. – The director, at just seconds later, was running to launch to say – “wait wait wait, has anyone launched?” - just as I launched it started to rain – I flew right into the beginning of a little squall and he wanted to hold or push everything back 15 or 30 minutes – but nope – I was in the air and it was too late.

It turned out great because had we delayed it is doubtfull anyone would have made goal. –
The afternoon really developed into an active system and most were happy to be on the ground in the later afternoon. –

I had to make a tight little save right after launching – it was just starting to work and a hard ½ hour of work paid off giving me a wonderful flight – I was very close to not scratching out and was the only comp pilot in the air so all eyes were on me at that point – nothing else to do on launch till the rain stopped.

Once it cleared and I got up it was routine – Made it to the very end of el spina for initial climb into the start gaggle and it worked well – The glide to the first point was easy and my line gave me a boomer right at the tag which made Meguey easy. Got some friends there and had a convergence line back to SerGordo.

Out front of that I found myself distracted and lost some very nice lift. – I never really got back into it or got high again – just sorta bebopped along in what seemed like boaty convergence but it kept letting me down and next thing you know I was looking for an LZ.

I landed with JC in a nice field and we had an easy walk to a cab for the ride back. The landing was a bit vertical – setting up over 130ft trees then dropping in – reminded me of my landing at Lion Rock. Anyway I slid in through a gap in the trees and set down sweet.

Tomorrow I have to do well to get back into the top 10 US pilots in this XC flying event with waypoints. – No competition only fun and good landings.

P

Bang

2011-02-03T19:57:00.001-08:00

Not much to report - task canceled - I thought about throwing in the towel but hadn't yet.

Had one masive colaps sliding down the back side of crazy hoping to make the rim - at about 300 feet agl - I was thrown - my instraments detached from their velcro morings and I had to reorent myself before I found nice air over and in front of the rim.
Sorry bout the spelling - blogger thinks this is spanish and it is all wrong.

maybe we will fly tomorrow maybe not.
P

Day 3 of comp

2011-02-02T20:35:00.000-08:00

Day three of the comp.

Today I was much more relaxed. Launch line was not a problem and I decided to take off at about the same time as yesterday. 11:30 – This gave me an hour to get set for launch at Crazy. – It worked just fine. – I wasn’t in great lift at start but I caught some about 20 seconds later and took it up and then followed, watching the pack for the best line.

I happened to be about mid way between El Spina and Crazy so as I headed out the majority of wings were to my left. – Few if any left from El Spina as yesterday. – The effect of this was that I was just about the furthest to the valley side of all the wings.

I kept looking in to see if anyone was doing better than me but I was getting the best of it and just continued on. – I tanked a couple of turns at 3 kings and continued with a valley line that worked great – I took it all the way to Divisidaro and tagged with lots of height. – then I went back to the ridge to gaggle up to tank up for the push to La pila.

I had a couple chances to join some crews on the way out but they just didn’t seem high enough for me so I stuck around till I tanked up to 11,400 or so. Then I left with a group of 4 or 5 and we worked together to get to the 4k cylinder. – I tagged first I think and it was mega sink at the end and on the way down the canyon. –

I just hoped it was going to work – the ridge slope to my left that is. – It did and well – The ridge is a wind break and hot looking – Up I went and took a ride all the way back up 3 kings. – It was a joy to fly that ridge and it worked great. – At the top the ridge is the saddle to Meguey and I expected no problems but it was a feisty little bugger today and it took multiple efforts of pushing out and back and up and out before we caught a climb that would work to put us on the rest of the course.

At this point my lack of local knowledge killed me – I went for the convergence line which was great for flying but not for the task – I should have headed direct for the way point and then back tracked to el spina but I went out towards the convergence over the hills in the front with the idea of getting stinking high and doing it that was.

It worked for the 500m tag of the way point back near el pinon – I had 11k or so to start but the tag cost me some altitude and the move back to the convergence didn’t work. I figured to catch some lift near Jovans but it didn’t come together so I tagged the 6k cylinder and scratched for a bit and then landed for a great lunch.

Good day – but no goal. – More XC flying with waypoints.
P

Goal - one of many (pilots)

2011-02-01T20:07:00.000-08:00

Day ? – task day 2

Goal for me today was goal and goal it was. Never thought about racing only about staying high, finding the convergence line – staying with other gliders who were climbing and having fun.

I thought my good flight yesterday - 18th place for one day would let me avoid the line. They gave us priority launch based on number of turn points. So I could step in front of the line if I wanted. Too bad the whole bunch had amost launched by noon and by the time priority opened the line was gone. -

It was all good - I made it out, up and over and mid gaggle for the start - I am getting better at waiting and watching and using other wings for lift lines, convergence and thermal spoting.

The run to the first turn point was fairly easy, got to Meguey medium high and several gliders were marking the lift. - I took it for a couple of spins but it was realy drifing back so I pushed out front and found the next lift down stream which took me quite high -mayby 10k or so. This was enough to push along the rim and then punch back to catch the turn point and glide back to the lift at the 3kings saddle. -

Up and off from there - got high and headed out with a group of wings below and with me. Got over or near Sergordo(sp?) and found some nice lifty stuff and had a partner at that point. We worked it up and back and pushed forward for to the next lift for a while. - At some point we seperated and I was tailing a couple of wings above me to the second waypoint.

Spotted a group climbing out in the flats and joined up with them, climbing to over 10k and it was play the convergence game from then out. - Realy quite easy flying - though I was worried all the time - realy for no reason - just was tense. - I forgot my beta-blocker this morning and felt a bit stressed with high BP and low energy.

After the 4th turn point it was just up up up - on glide to turn point 5 and goal I kept going up in the convergence even though I was on bar for most the run. - Nice job if you can get it.

Hardest part about today was my shoulders were hurting from the long flight yesterday and today was over 4 hours – task time 2hrs 51 min.

The other challenge was getting down at the end of the day – it was lift all over and at Valle I had to go out over the lake, find light lift and spiral down. – It was something else, the convergence was just so strong it was real hard to get down. – After 4 hours I wanted down.

Just a great day. - With the second day points posted I am now in 35th - lol - but I made the top 10 of US pilots. - Just fun to be in the game.

Tomorrow – more XC with turn points. – though the difference for 3 minutes into goal was almost 50 points, enough to cost me 5 places - though I wasn't racing right, it is XC with turn points. - I am coming home safe.

Dave

A Day for the books.

2011-01-31T19:53:00.000-08:00

Fly day 3 - Task Day 1.

Crazy launch – with lots of wind – folk just before me got hammered and thrashed. – They will have to tell the story. I got lucky and when I was on launch it was mellow and no worries.

Launch was fine and initial lift was fine as I went out to find that my right speed was not connected. I pushed out and got away from others and connected up and headed back and caught lift to 8k or so. At the top it was out to the Rock and I just made the corner. – A little save and then lift to well above El Pinon level and over it. I passed over El Pinon and was just a bit low to go direct for the wall so I went out into the middle of the space between El Pinon and Crazy and caught a nice thermal up and onto the mesa.

With the late launch I was scrambling to get up and get high to join the gaggle before start. – The start was the Piano plus 5K which meant that you could be near the edge of the mesa and leave to Divs from there. – There were lots of gliders in the start gaggle and I just got up to the base of them as we moved into start configuration.

This worked to my advantage because there were enough gliders behind me and enough in front for me to top off the climb and then head for Meguey. On that track from high I could see all the crew and where the lift was and it was inland rather than on the majority line which was out and closer to the Kings. – I just cruised along mega high comparatively and made good lift over the rim near Meguey. – From there it was a textbook run down the ridge using the “above the rim” line. – Been there several times so I was very comfortable and topped off all the big lift cycles.

Divis was nothing – I was high at that point and I topped up as well then back but now the pack and pickings were getting a bit thinner. – By the time I was at Meguey on the way back it was an R10 again that teamed up with me. – We took a deep line over the peak where it usually works but it wasn’t there. – This required a dive back to the wall and a bit of close work and pushing out until we both got it. – He had headed back first but I could crank closer to the wall and got to lead the way up and back.

At about 9 to 10k above he peeled off and I kept climbing to 11,500 or so before the end of the climb – by then a couple of other wings had joined me and I let one of them head out first – I just stayed high and kept someone below me as best as I could. By this time I was starting to get drilled and I was hoping for a bit of lift in front of the hills but didn’t find anything and had to bail over Saint Agustine at treetops plus a couple hundred or so.

I remember hearing from someone that if you don’t get up there just bail over because it can be lifty lea side and it is down wind and down hill so you will make Jovans for sure and maybe find a bit of lift. – That is what happened – a bit ratty but lift here and there and I drifted with a couple of others as we worked it as best we could till light lift and drift began to consolidate.

Now the fun – A nice big – likely the biggest of the day thermal developed right up and out of the flats just south and west of Jovans. – This boomer – Not mega lift but solid rocked all the way to 13,850 according to my leo track with compensation for launch altitude. – This was a new max height record for me! Yippee. It also made for a great high line for the second turn point almost 12,500 at Salcos and glide on return.

Even with that height and a bit of a lifty line/ convergence just before Jovans I wasn’t able to tag La Casa and had to settle for (not that I am upset – I am jumping off the wall) a landing in the soccer field by Jovans. – A quick fold up and pack and as I got to the road the van was just loading its last glider and up mine went and a quick retrieve to the lake.

At the lake I had my required beer and food. – The flight lasted almost 3 hours and 40 minutes with over 50k - 49.5 official score I think. We will see what tomorrow brings – Chances of getting as lucky two days in a row are slim – I will keep pushing but try to remember it is a XC flight with way points not a race – right Steve – keep reminding me.

All the best to all of you
P.

One more time to try round the lake goofy footed.

2011-01-30T20:47:00.000-08:00

Day 2. last day to free fly.

Today was very nice for flying – the wind was a bit strong but not overpowering. Launch was fine as was climb out – again up and out. I was with the early birds at El Pinon and dove right back to the wall after a couple of passes back and forth at the rock. – The wall had some nice sharp action and it took very little to get up and over and back – This climb topped out around 10,600 ft.

A short little trip to Crazy as the wall climb ended up mixed with the G spot. – Crazy was – at least in one spot – man did that thing rock the wing. Final climb was to over 11,400 and I figured with the big gaggle that had formed we would blow over to Maguey – but nooooo. It was only 11:36 and the task start was at 12:00 so everyone just hung around.

I had no interest in hanging out so when a couple of gliders bugged for Maguey I did as well. – I had lost over 1000 feet in the mean time but that was ok. – Got to Maguey with lots of height and after a little futzing about we found the boomer that made the ridge run much easier than it might have been. – It was still a challenge – particularly at the end of the ridge – I ended up lower than I would have liked at Divs but climbed out just fine.

Only one other wing went out there – of course it was an R10-2 but we played nice. – he got nice and high while I groveled then pushed out west. – I hung on the ridge got up a little bit then took the dive over to the hills north of Santo Tomas & Colorines - this is kinda a no fly area because of power lines and canyons but with height it was no problem.

This dive was part of my on going effort to make it round the lake from the west side. This was my second try and I am not done trying.

A long hike out left me tired and sore but I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

Valle day one - practice - very fast

2011-01-29T20:54:00.000-08:00

I just didn’t know any better.

Day one in Valle, - my plan was to get established between Divis and Megy (sp on both bad) and then work round the back side of the lake.

Best laid plans. – I also heard about the task – which was to go to Agula via espena etc. – then Divis then the lake.

On launch I helped Doug get set up and that put me back just a bit which worked out to be perfect. – From the time I put my helmet on to leaving espena was less than 30 minutes – I was on glide to El Pinon less than 5 minutes after launch – One fast climb and I hit top of the stack just as the big boys were leaving for the task. Perfect. – nice line to El Pinon then straight back to the wall – two passes maybe 2.5 and I was up over the lip and with nothing but R10’s - worked up through G and pushed forward to Crazy then up to about 11,200ft and it was off to the races down the spine and round the circle.

You can only keep up with R10’s with a dhv2 if your thermaling - - now it was glide and I was soon with a small gaggle of wanabees – we pushed on toward Agula and I eventually lost them and I started to go into XC mode. \

Where to go – I had no allusions that I could make it back to Divis with the thrashy windy air so I figured if I could make it home to the Rock it would be good and I might be able to get up and dive towards town. – Oh well – not a clean enough line to the Rock and I landed in spicy land.

More tomorrow

New Twitter

2011-01-16T22:45:00.001-08:00

For my current friends and future friends I have set up a new Twitter account. (EWPG) I will use it to provide current and predicted updates on Eastern Washington Paragliding plans and expectations. I will post my weather calls and any known plans by local pilots including myself.

The main reason I am setting this up is to notify my list of Tandem students who want to fly. I needed an easy way to tell them all to call me if they want to Tandem on a given afternoon.

It will also work well for those who want to use it to keep up todate - very current on a given XC day this spring and summer. - If someone asks: where are you flying? I can tell them - arn't you following my tweets at ewpg? - That is where I will post current plans.

Hope I get lots of followers and lots of flying as times goes by.
Preacer.

They all want to fly now!

2011-01-02T00:07:00.001-08:00

With the blessing of 10 grand kids my family tandem days are just starting. - While only 5 have told me that they realy want to go(two can't talk yet), I am betting that 8 of 10 in the end will take to flight.

But Timmy is the first and at age 5 he said yes when his older brother and sister wanted to go horse back riding with Grandma. So it was a day with Grandpa - SUBWAY, Hot Chocolate, McD's and all.

The drive to Cliffside for us is 1hr and 10 yet I had never flown this amazing place. Conrad didn't want to waste the trip to eburg when the calms set in so he joined the crew on the way down. Total pilots on the hill was a bakers doz or better. - a couple tandems and lots of smiles.
Many flew as long as their fingers could take it - Doc nurced it to a thousand over.

Timothy was amazing - he whooped and weeeeed all the way - starting off, after getting his grips relaxed he spread his arms and flew like a bird. - Later you will note he was steering with weight shifting feet. - True natural.

At the end of the flight besides asking to do it again he wanted to know when he could do it by himself. - End of the summer I guess - depends on how many times he comes back for lessons after I get my ticket. (btw anyone worried for his safty check out the HIGH Gs landing he had to endure.)

Enjoy your Grand Kids or Kids or friends - such enjoyment is even more important than flying.
It is great when you can do both at the same time.
P

Kiona New Year

2010-12-31T20:27:00.000-08:00

New Year's day at Kiona 2010. It was very cold but the wind was light to medium so it gave us an opportunity to practice our light lift and kiting skills. - Everyone flew till their fingers were cold. - Well except me because I traded Mark for his mega gloves so he could do some kiting practice with my light leathers.

Good work Mark - nice job in committing aviation at the sweetest ridge site in the world.

Winds were too light to launch at 11:30 and by 1:30 they were just right to surf paraglider launch. - No ridge running today.

Timmy!!!!
Tomorrow I will be flying my Grandson Timmy for his first flight. - A day with Grandpa for my 5 year old buddy. I think he will do just fine!!!

Good Morning Ralph

2010-12-16T22:50:00.000-08:00

Good Morning Sam,
Good Morning Ralph.

Memories of childhood cartoons. - Ralph E. Wolf and Sam Sheepdog would come to work every day, say good morning, punch the time clock and then get to work doing battle over protecting or poaching sheep depending on their respective roles.
Doc and I have felt like Sam and Ralph - I thought the Sheep dogs name was Fred until I looked it up for this post. - Will have to correct our mutual greeting as we pass each other tomorrow at Kiona or Saddle, Eagle, Baldy, or at the boundary on the way to Chelan.
Morning Ralph.
This vid is from today at Kiona Dec 16th. - Winds were perrrrrfect 18-22 NNE. - Racked up 38 points on Leo and and hour and 40 or so in the log. Tomorrow should be just as fine.

E.W. flying when it is blown out North

2010-12-05T22:48:00.001-08:00

Finally something to write about. If the truth were known, I have been over-full with things to write about; but they will take a bit more chewing before the click click open occurs. (I was going to say before the pen meets paper; we do need a colloquialism for the modern age.)

The flight log continues - need to update it - one new launch and a happy hour or two of flight.

Today was one in a series of flight adventures where the internet woke drowsy souls with the thought of flight. Bodies began to stir and the will gained traction until a caravan, of sorts, assessed cost and benefit and the pass is crossed. To my knowledge two full rigs made the crossing, maybe three. I was not checking helmet stickers. - Not that it is an insured site anyway.

First let me include mega kudos to Rick (Doc) Shallman for his silent but precise scouting. Rick was at RC launch early to call the blow out, transitioned to the back side of Temple View and to its summit. Leaving soarable conditions, he came back down to shuttle others up, then returned to Kiona to join the fray. All in all, Rick mounted his chains thrice. Thanks for the gift of options, my friend.

As Rick called it, it was blown out at Kiona, until Ross, first on scene, failed to get the word. Now I don't know how truly sly Ross is, but with the following information he stopped 1/3 the way up launch hill to discover what he is calling "KiLOWna."

First point was that only chain clad 4wd should have attempt launch road(and that had been communicated), second point KIONA IS BLOWN, third point - I don't know maybe his rig started to slide without chains about there. - Anyway great call on the spot for launch.

About launch: Kiona, the site proper, is a NE facing ridge and often takes a N to NNW wind - the stronger the W or NW the more we get mech-turbulance scrubbing down the ridge. Up high and away from the ridge it can be quite strong turb. We try never to fly low in the "lee" of the fingers that protrude from PG launch, Dead Dog and the West side of RC launch (technically in a similar lee").

KiLOWna, the new launch, is at the NE base of Dead Dog or in the alluvial plain/washout near the mid base of the rivulet between Dead Dog and PG launch. - 46.240800 119.500048 double click image above for better view. It sits right where I would predict the most violent of mech-turbulance would occur given today's winds. This is where the crew flew all day. Active air, but no violence - the old boys rocked and rolled it to their hearts content and others danced in and out and avoided spending too much time "at risk."

I don't think anyone had any problems; it was just a great place to play.

After watching for a bit, I flew my daughter tandem and told the grand-kids that we would try another day for them.

The road was super slick - I think 3 falls was the max on foot, I only fell once.

After the tandem, I went back up for a solo run as Doc was testing the West end to HG launch. He had pushed up and out front on the edge of the lift band.

Today was a day that if you didn't manage your altitude it would manage you. Pushing out and big ears on occasion allowed us to stay in control. The wind was laminar and very consistent in terms of velocity. If you pushed too far out too low you couldn't get up and a few folks had that happen. - Nice hike up ya all.

My flight was fun. I slid down the ridge to PG and used it to bench up. It just felt so light; but, after a few passes 35mph to the East and 5mph on the West tack I got up and out. - (Chris was on PG just at that level - I flew past him at about 15 feet. - He said his wing wouldn't lift him where he was; but when he hiked up the 15 feet to where I passed he could get up, very tight little window.)

Doc was up and out as well, and after a short conference we decided to run the ridge to the East. Doc had already run West to HG launch at that point. We banked off East like a couple of jet fighters making a strafing run. I was 23 feet up and behind as wing man to the Baron.
As he headed into terrain, I held back to assess his success in making distance against penetration.

The further back Doc went the more convinced I was that I needed to push out (North) first - this I did and it made for a very fast and quite nice run to the East. Doc tracked me after he pushed out of his hole, but by the time he made it out to assess his options I was pinned at the East end. - He noted my pin-dom-ness and recalcitrantly remained in recon mode near PG launch.

The East end of Kiona fades off into McNeil canyon. It plateaus first, then drops over. To complete a "ridge run" the local rule is that you have to make it over the road that drops down off the NE corner to the North. If you do this your "over the back East" and have completed the ridge.

The problem today was that after making the NE corner turn, I realized no penetration West or North. 2/3 bar kept me parked as I descended at about 40fpm. Slowly after loosing most of the ridge I pushed out and West. I made it to the first shape in the hi1l and began to nurse lift and gain distance at about 300 over. After a while, I had climbed back up out front and made progress West. Varios are very helpful in this game, you need to know when your just dropping or just rising at the front edge of the lift band.

The shape of the lift band on Kiona is just way so cool. One works just at and in front of it, it flows the whole ridge like a log in a log rolling pond. Surf the leading edge as it rolls up.

By the time I made it back to launch, it was getting dark and I shot into that "rotor hole" for a "top" landing. Not a big deal, I am just not comfortable with the place yet.

Cold feet, good friends - smiles and flights all around - almost all around but smiles everywhere.

Thanks for coming over and helping me and Doc discover Kiona all over again.

Feet warm now.
Preacher.

Laminar Flow in Eestern Washington

2010-10-01T01:31:00.000-07:00

Today I was able to collect on one of the fringe benefits of my new "job." While some may think it is work I still consider myself retired because I am doing what I want to do. For those who don't know I retired at age 34 and have been living a dream every day since then - but that is a different story.

Today's story is that of flying a perfect evening. First hats off to XCSkies. As we move from the thermal season to the ridge soaring season the eye start to focus more on the little arrows and wind velocity than on the color which represent lift above the ground. XCSkies had it dead on - Both Saddle and Kiona were predicted to be great and they were. CJ and George will have to give us a report on Saddle but I can tell you that Kiona was 12 to 18 NNW.

We like winds to be NNE but it was just fine. When I got to launch, just after making a "work" stop in Benton City - now I am getting paid mileage to drive to my second favorite ridge site. (that is the fringe benefit) - I found Curt twisting his hiking poles ready to hike.

He put the poles back in his Toyota and jumped in for a ride in the Tundra. I was planning on RC launch for a nice double ridge run but on the way up I learned he had his speed wing. PG launch it is. We came back down the ridge top to PG and found winds just at the bottom of his soaring range and wonderful for my XL - Ooops no 76s - no track log and the Vario still remains dead so I just flew - dang what a pity.

I had forgotten what laminar felt like, easy lift to 2-300 over and a nice big cushy band to play in.

Back at the ridge I played hover over the mouse games and held position 6 feet over and 8 feet to the right of the boys as we chatted about the wind - Curt had his go pro on so I hope to get some video to post. Curt pushed off and we soared and top landed and hopped about until dark. 30 minutes before sunset all wings were out and got some great "high" wind launching and kiting practice - by sunset we were down to 10 to 15mph and we played with kiting, working D's until well into the flashing light time period.

If there are any FAA inspectors reading this post you can check my SPOT ok time with the official 30 minute after sunset rule. = How late can you go - or is it how low can you go - I always get confused.

I followed the good Dr.s advice, practicing my snake charming arts. I finally got one to lay down on it's back all the way till I had a a 5 foot head held frozen in place and then a rise to overhead with a smooth transition to launch. Is that considered a double cobra when you do a cobra with a cobra?

In any event it was just great fun to hang out in smooth winds with a good group of guys - all while Doc was enjoying a special evening with his wife.

All the Best
Preacher

Sun Valley

2010-09-06T00:46:00.000-07:00

Nat were a lot of work, travel and only a couple days of flying.

Some made amazing flights but I couldn't pull off the transition and had a couple short flights. - Sad days -

I did fly a bit and had a tandem just for fun.

Dave

No flying - well - jumping not flying

2010-09-01T21:47:00.000-07:00

Pavil the observer and a small fellowship headed to twin falls for a little bridge action.

Sunday to the Nats

2010-08-29T22:28:00.000-07:00

The morning began with a rush - everything ready before worship. Off a little late but the sermon was well in the oven by then so it was just a process of flowing it into the pulpit.

Good chats follow worship and then off on 8 hour drive. - Not knowing where I would sleep tonight.

To my surprise we gain an hour on the way to Sun Valley so I don't know I figured it took 8 and 1/2 hours but I could be wrong.

Anyway the HQ was still hopping so I got my downloads promised to pay on line and bug for bed - but what bed. That is where good friends come in.

I have my own bed in the Tamarack styling with the view.

Class A digs and all full of grace.

Tomorrow flying is unsure but we will be in the air at some point.

Dinner, also a graced event, was the best food I have ever eaten. A work of art in presentation which fulfilled the expectations of the eye with the experience of the tongue.

Joy, Wish you were here Gail. - You have to come here.

Entiat and Doug's New Tow Rig

2010-08-21T21:39:00.000-07:00

Today Chris A and I got signed off on our T3s with Doug and Denise from Aerial. Winds were up at the Ranch so we went out and rung out the new tow boat and did tandem tows.

This was a first for Chris and myself, we traded being victim and pilot. - Both of Chris' launches and landings were great. My launch however left a bit to be desired. I didn't check the wing as it moved to my left and we almost caught a tree on launch. - Lots of excuses are available if you want to query me but I was PIC. Doug did a nice job of training me during the debrief.

It is very challenging to tow tandem due to high launch speed and we were doing no wind forwards. Both Chris and I dislike being victim but ya got to do what you got to do.

Once in the air the pilots enjoyed the spirals but neither "student" felt as happy about the experience. For those of us who fly a lot - being a passenger is disconcerting.

That said - if you have a friend who wants to fly - let one of us know.

Dave

Simple Lift and a short XC

2010-08-17T23:07:00.000-07:00

A good day - not planned but good none-the-less at Baldy today.

6 of us were at the rock around 11:45. On launch cycles were solid and ready. No one wanted to be first and I was working with Bart so I needed to wait.

Finally Chris launched and top landed - conditions were strong and "not to much lift." I saw stuff that looked good so I launched figuring to top land as well and then work with Bart. - But after launching I found conditions strong - really too strong and it took most of my skill to keep my wing over head and climbing so I phoned in the apology and cranked it up.

Lift was nice round 900 fpm to about 8500 and leaning over to exit 11. - High and easy - lift to over 10,000 at Menastash. - Cross the pocket no worries and top at 11,000.

What a day!! - I thought I had a shot at going round the Firing range. - Took a hard East line but it was all sink so I pushed North but found myself in no-persons land.

Winds were East and South. - just right for a run North deep in the wind mills but I was too far East by that point and I didn't want to go back so I headed North but it didn't work and I ended up with a mega hike - 2 hours of hot walking. Temp on the ground 102! and I ran out of watter 1.5 hours in.-

By 7:00 I had made the road and Chris picked me up, providing a much needed beer and gaiter aid.

Enjoy the video.
Dave.

Cashing at Kiona

2010-08-15T21:48:00.000-07:00

Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon were both stellar at Kiona.

Saturday was very high winds and only Doc and I flew - Lovely lift with easy ridge run in play.
I landed to try to give Mark a tandem but it was too strong.

Sunday we were on the hill at 3 and flew till 6:00. Mark and I had the first tandem then Curt stepped into the victim roll and we set up for a great afternoon

The first top landing was not real pretty but safe. After that we landed and launched at will winds were a bit NNW but fine on PG launch. The total for the day: 7 flights two victims and 5 top landings. - only 5 to go - a great way to spend the afternoon.
Dave

Into The Lion's Mouth

2010-08-13T14:50:00.001-07:00

When I talk with people about Rampart I tell them that Rampart only has two problems: first there is the launch and then there is the landing. Lion Rock does not have Ramparts first problem, Lion's launch is super sweet. There are several choices of directions and no shortage of flow generating mechanical lift or cycles for thermic lift.

The view is stunning and if you go this weekend you will be joined by 800 star gazers. Speaking of which they were out in force Thursday. Driving to launch we had to go through a gauntlet of lovely, yet a bit wacky looking folk who had flung their telescopes all over the mountain meadows. Geodesic domes, popcorn and tee-shirt stands, music and seminars dotted the fields. The experience reminded me of when Jody Foster, in Contact, returned to her telescope field / research station 3 days after the announcement of First Contact to find her path nearly block by thousands of nutty, space alien loving, telescope wielding gawkers.

Back to the flying. - Exploration crew #2 came together after the club meeting on Tuesday. I didn't get to go on last Sunday's "initial" run at the site. - Yes I know it has been flown before. Like Matty, I have been looking at the site for some time - not as long as Matty has but with a similar focus and certainly desire.

The core challenge to Lion Rock is the weather. - Lion Rock weather dynamics and suggestions deserve a right up all their own. From what I could see Thursday was shaping up to be just about right. - CU development needs to be minimal and heating needs to be strong and winds need to be light. - We had two of the three with the winds being a bit stronger at altitude (6 - 7,000) than would have been optimal.

Matty launched first around 11:30 or so and found light lift, climbing to about 800 over. On his magic wing he was able to push into the wind, which was either South or West depending on how high you were. He pushed South over the next ridge and then came back in front climbed up again and then over the back to the fields behind the sky gazers. I would guess his flight was in the 45 min category an appeared to require a good chunk of his light lift talent.

Both Armon and Conrad took their shots early as well - Both made admirable efforts but gravity eventually won out over the early light conditions. To say light conditions does not mean it was easy - The thermic mountain wind dynamic is very challenging and both pilots along with two of the three that landed in the LZ's in the valley Sunday described the landing and or set up effort as challenging. This includes Matty and Frank - I present these names as a warning sign - If our best pilots found these landings, on two different days, to be challenging, we should listen carefully to the experience. I add my flight to the list not claiming best pilot status but as one who affirms the challenging dynamic of the landing Lion. - More later.

Heading into the Lion's cage - or cave, or mouth as the case may be I had only one goal in mind. I want to fly Blewett Pass and land at the Ranch. To pull off that flight I knew I needed more altitude and better lift/wind conditions than the early launch group discovered. I waited till just before two to set up. Around 1:15 a strong blow came through - likely the upper level West dropping in for a visit. When I launched it was mild up slope cycles with a 7 mph West base flow.

I pushed out and found a little mechanical and a little thermic lift in front of the rock but not enough to get up so I pushed on down stream until I caught a drifter that took me up and back to the ridge North of the Rock. There I played the lift game at Table mountain. - Good and very good pockets of lift combined with stronger and stronger West base to drive me back and challenge my commitment to the effort.

Ridge running in the mountains is normally a blast but when the prevailing is too strong then you really set up a bad situation where you just can't stay out in front. - I exited my last climb at 7650ft because of building West as I got higher. I just pulled out in front and then took the elevator down all the way to the ridge in front of the lift. - It was pin city.

Flight over but not on the ground as I knew the West would only get worse. I pushed for the LZ and making 5 to 10k an hour inching my way to goal. I was about 3-500 over when I set up to land and "enjoyed" very poppy lift coming off the LZ field. The upslope valley flow was about 4k under my trim so I just parked it in in 2-300 down.

At tree top plus 50 it was up and down reading the cycles in the tops of the trees. Check out the last video below for the final approach and landing.

I streamed the whole flight to YouTube for those with nothing to do or a keen interest. - Make note of how little turning I did toward the end of the flight. - Just punching into the flow.

I really enjoyed the flight but staying out of the trees wasn't a certainty until the very last.

Till next time with lighter winds.
P

The flight in Youtube segments 1 though 7.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFid2nFAgwk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kN1UVB25uA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuVvWD68qwM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U18Sm5hDOAA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8tPySFv76E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1RHMk3FEJY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bLgKEcQ8Xk

Eastern Washington Going Off

2010-07-31T15:16:00.000-07:00

Thunder with all the clouds to match. - 360 degrees, building all day and now letting loose. Big Exciting Storm!

None-the-less:

Two days ago, looking for tandem sledders, Bob and I went to Bill and Nancy's new place.

Bill is a PG & Hang pilot who has not been flying all that much of late but is getting back in the game.

Their house on the hill sits right in the middle of the Needle in Yakima. High on the hill behind Bob's it has always tempted, but rotor worries and access has kept us from flying, though lots of flying was done round-about in the past by others - here? Don't know.

The face is classic ridge with a rounded top, a cross between Eagle and Kiona. Textured topography out front including a gauntlet gap make for some touchy exploration issues. It is generally a bowl with great SW heating and stands as the highest wind break ridge of the Yakima Ridge.

This morning before all the heat broke loose I made the calls and arrived at what we will now call "Nancy's."

Bill has been thinking lots about the best launch but I figured I would just use the hill in front of his porch. Sweet stuff - launching from you own "lawn." Not me yet but soon for Bill.

The flight, starting at 11:30 was increasingly thermic - flow speed was 5-7. Lift in the low 100's - defined house in SSE to S winds. Clearly a launch site on big Thermal days for those who live close. - where to go? West to 410 - North to Baldy and around. - ESE to Sunnyside(not often from S facing launch. And top landing sweetness. Pure ridge days will be a whole new story.

I flew for maybe 15 minutes and then slid down the gauntlet and learned some stuff. All in all a neat new site. It will take some careful exploration due to the topography, but slowly worked it may prove a very fun place to fly.

P.

Wenatchee take 4 - kinda.

2010-07-29T21:35:00.001-07:00

1hr 45 minutes of battle at Baldy left three pilots on the ground and one lucky bugger still flying. - It happened that I was the bugger. Many times I have been on the other end of this crap shoot but today - well after the battle, not clearly won but ready to stop fighting I gave in and left on a frizbee at 5,000ft.

I have never left the butte that low, but there was lift, strong in places we just couldn't break through the inversion. I knew that if I kept fighting the butte had a better than average chance of ending my day as well so I figured take the frizbee and roll the dice at exit 11.

There are a couple of tricks that I know on the way to 11 and they were working and the low trigger just South West of the exit worked as expected. The problem with that lift trigger is that the thermal goes right into the firing range airspace.

Thanks to Wheelers maps I could track how close I was and play the corner. - I took the low trigger up till I had enough to push deeper. The second lift step really took me close to the corner but it worked and I scooted around and up. This gave enough altitude to push back to the ridge to the primary house. This took me up to well over 6,000 but I decided to wait until it developed more or I got to at least 7,500ft before leaving for the pocket glide.

This came sooner than expected and the glide cross the pocket had a nice surprise, a thermal mid pocket. Up and out with now easy glide to the Boylstons. A couple of sniffs and then I hit it. - What a Rocker. This was the first mega lift stream of the day. Entry into this thermal was the most dynamic and frightening I can imagine.

My inside wing lifted so high that I pendulumed way inside then swung back to the outside as I entered with a big pushback of my wing behind me then a surge forward as I snagged it. And add 50% to that description. I had at least 3 events like this during the flight from that point forward. The lift was so sharp and strong that it just gave me the willys.

Cloud streets set up at this point and they drew me back over the dreaded tiger country. Lift was so big I had to stay to the West of the clouds and it was a real battle of will between going deeper onto the Clockum(sp?) which meant going back into battle with the lift and clouds or giving in and sliding into Eburg. Each lift and cloud made me more committed. Mer was on the radio and kept track of my progress as she headed first toward Quincy then on the Wenatchee.

At one point I had an easy glide cross the Columbia NW of Crescent Bar but a cloud street was setting up back up into the hills just south of the Wenatchee air space. The line was lifty and I pushed back into it but it wasn't strong enough to grant me the clouds so I had to abort but that killed my slide to the easy retrieve side of the river.

I made it back to roads but way south of Wenatchee on the West side requires a bit of a drive for retrieve. Landed nice and had a quick pickup. Good fun but lots of work.

2010-07-23T08:03:00.000-07:00

As a child I dreamed of climbing “My” mountain. We lived in Federal Way with a wonderful view of Mt. Rainier. My great grandfather’s proudest achievements was climbing that mass of rock, snow and ice.

In 1982 I created an opportunity to make a go of my childhood dream. I trained all winter, hiking the hills of Berkeley CA, I was completely wired to the task when our little team of three started out of Sherman on the Eastern flank at 11:00 p.m.

Eight hours later at 12,500ft. we were passed and became the last rope heading up the mountain. As a result of our slow pace, not because of me, but our leader, we had to go back down. I was heart broken. My despondency led to 30 minutes of unbroken tears in the tent at base camp. – That day I learned a lot about disappointment.

On Wednesday I experience disappointment, nearly the level of that day on Rainier but having many more opportunities for disappointment over my life I have grown a bit and Wednesday I smiled all day long. While I wanted to fly big on the biggest day and was in the air at the right place and right time, that I didn’t go big didn’t result in tears.

I have had so much joy flying the past 10 days and with two yet to come I just couldn’t get upset. The cause of my poor flight was the loss of my vario due to a software glitch. – I will be flying with a back up from now on.

The day was as massive as expected. Steve P. went 90 miles off Baldy South. The 90 mile task much of which was into the wind was completed by 4 pilots one of whom did it within the time window, validating the task. – Amazing, the biggest task in US history.

After my short 10k flight with quick retrieve I did another tandem, number 10 of the required 25.

Thursday was called due to winds and today should be very nice though not as big as Tuesday and Wednesday.

Below I inserted a bunch of photos from Tuesday for your viewing pleasure. – Top for me on Tuesday was over 12,000ft – very high.

P.

Monday

2010-07-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

Wheeler and Me late in the Day

Monday was fantastic. Weather says that today and tomorrow may be even better.

Yesterday we had the same task, almost, as the last day of the Nats two years ago. A very big triangle from the Butte to Farmer and Leahy and home.

Lift was the best I have seen in EW. I launched near last do to standings. Prior to launch some of my fellow end of the liners pulled off our kits and helped fluff.

It worked fine except for a double riser twist that the dismount and mount caused. Launch was fine and climb was strong and I was at the top of the stack with 8 minutes to go to start.

Great start – and early climbs. On the way out from Farmer I took a West line aiming for a few clouds. Did not get under the clouds but did find a dusty that was just forming.

It was a big one and I was in the light dust when I got close, easily 2,000 agl and dust. I gently worked edge lift until I was about 2/3rds the way around it with lift getting stronger, then, kaboom – I was weightless my wing was down and I was falling with my instruments hitting me in the chest.

My wing had exited the thermal with such violence that the move is called by some going over the waterfall. – Wow first one for that. – Nothing to do but hang on.

Once things settled down I had a great climb to the clouds which had returned and topped over 12,000 feet.

The rest of the flight was uneventful and I flew until Glass, landing West of Mansfield after tagging Leahy.

P

Keep reading - More from last night about yesterday.

2010-07-19T23:19:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update - I finished 87th today - boy would you all feel so sorry for me because it also was a personal best x 2 - Longest flight ever in terms of time and longest flight XC with doglegs. - total Distance by Leo method 58.7 miles and 141.90 leo points - 34 seconds under 5 hours.

The amazing thing is that tomorrow will be 10 - 15% bigger and the 21st 10% more than that with top of usable nearing 14,000. Now that is a day for ya.

More tomorrow

PWC Day One

2010-07-19T07:56:00.001-07:00

PWC Day One

For my blog readers who don’t have all the skinny, the PWC is the Paragliding World Cup. There are two major international events the PWC and the Worlds. In the Worlds each country is allowed a team of 4 PG pilots. The best of each country comes to the Worlds which makes for both very good and very bad pilots in the air at the same time.

In the PWC you have to be in the top rankings,world wide regardless of your country so PWC events have much higher quality pilots on average. The Worlds is a one up event and the PWC is a tour of a number of events culminating in a final. The total number of pilots per event is cut off around 115. If enough international pilots do not come then local pilots will get in – again depending on rank or in my case because of exemptions from organizers, aka Aerial Paragliding. (Thanks guys)

The first day seemed windy in Chelan but once on top it was quite nice. We had an extensive pilots meeting with the “start time” held untill the very end to keep pilots at the briefing.

The task was very similar to the first task of the Nats. – A down wind run to Almira about 100k East past Coulee City. The start cylinder was 15k at farmer which is about 18 miles down wind so it was gong to be important to get an early start so I suited up even before the meeting was over.

Wind tecs including Doc and Doug H. were already skying so getting up wasn’t going to be an issue.

As expected the launch was opened 10 minutes after the meeting ended. It must have been quite a scramble at and prior to the gate because I went out on launch 3 minutes before launch and by the time the window was open for 4 minutes we had already launched 15 pilots.

I took lower launch green monster which was fine but there wasn’t a flow when the bell rang. I had to wait and Doug called down with the – “you going to go" call. - I needed a little puff. – then it came on nice. – I pulled up and caught a twister and couldn’t stay under my wing as it ran West. – I had to put it down – First botched launch this season if you don’t count one tandem.

While resetting, wing after wing launched / jumped over me. – Finally clear, launch was fine as was the climb out.

Top of lift at that point was around 7,000 feet which is just at the edge for an early day crossing. Very few of these pilots were on low end wings like mine so I expected to be by myself on the rim and knew I needed every foot of advantage, but at the same time wanted to stay with the crowd.

With the lead gaggle I headed out from about 6,800 and around 1/3 the way across it was clear I wasn’t going to make the rim with certainty. The lead gaggle was going to be the most difficult to stay with so I retreated back to launch and teamed up with, by that time, the third gaggle.

This crew was solid but anxious. Again we headed out at about 7,000 which is marginal for me and a little bubble got me circling 1/3rd the way across, though it only gave me a bit. By the time we were cross the river none of the leaders of the gaggle had found anything and I knew I would dust if I had to glide as far as they had already.

There is a field I call the cauliflower field because of its shape. A regular thermal pops out of the canyon just South of it and I saw no problem making that field so I left the pack and went for it. Unfortunately the lift I found was too small and too light to sustain and I ended up rimming the first day.

Retrieve included an hour hike and a 45 minute wait. Not a bad day all in all, but I would like to nail one when it counts.

Next Three Days look to be amazing for lift. – Get back up here soon Doc and throw one down.
P.

Rest Day

2010-07-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

Friday was the day in between and Saturday was official practice for the PWC.

Friday we got up early and did some tandem training. - I got two more flights thanks to Sam C and friends. Then I went home to visit Gail for the day and returned in time for practice launch.

Saturday was one of those days you want to go forever - but we had a meeting at 7:00. The task was set - Butte to Mansfield to Soccer. This out and back about 55k total giving about 100leo points. The day was easy if the timing was right.

I launched late and had no problem skying the Butte in smooth thermals. - We broke for the rim as a crew of 6 and had no problem climbing up to over 8 on the rim. Our crew stayed together and picked up Chris A, who had waited for us, as a leader.

Four or five climbs with wings as markers made Mansfield a cake walk. We tagged the cylinder and headed back. Hear I hit my first sink/down. I got just a little worried till a dusty arrived to save the day. - Back to cloud base which was about 10,000 - 10,500 was top for the day. I had a buddy for that climb and the next glide.

On glide I saw two small dusties disappear and then 45 seconds later one BIG dusty appear. - Hmm. Well that one took me to over 10 again at the power lines and then I picked up the rim thermal to boost again to 8,500.

The soccer field was way down there so I figured I try a top landing at the Butte. I wasn't sure if my truck had been brought down so I hit three trees with 400 to spare and worked easily over launch. Yep the truck was there and I thrashed around in lift from all sides trying to fined a way to set up for landing.

Patricia called up that they had a driver (her) so I didn't have to land. But I wanted to see how it would go and it went fine. My final move was a bit lea side and Thibault called me to push out front which was the right call. - a little side slipping and I set down gently less than 6 inches from where I launched. - Right on launch just below a prepping pilot.

Thank you CJ b

2010-07-16T22:27:00.000-07:00

The final day of the comp was a challenging day to fly. Similar to other moderate to high wind days in high pressure conditions the launch cycle produced a cramped sky. That is, lots of gliders in a small space.

Some who worked the tight quarters got up but I don’t feel fighting tight conditions when the air is bubbly is worth the effort. I would rather go to an alternate lift point and hope, than to fight and risk a big cost loss. Mid-airs are not fun.

I launched a bit too early and the slog fest was on. Leaving the gaggle I went lea side a bit and worked reasonable lift at three-trees. The wind was just a bit too strong west for me to feel happy working trees for long and once I was 400 over I pushed back to the west face.

That push didn’t pay off and I ended up sliding down the ridge and eventually landed river side a quarter mile west of the LZ. No worries though it was not a great day to fly and only a few pilots made goal.

The wonderful thing was, however, that CJ B was in the LZ and took me up on my offer of a tandem. I had to admit that it would be my first full on, off the training hill, tandem flight. ( I need 25 or so to get my T3 ). CJ is a rated pilot and I am allowed to fly such folk. The interesting thing is that Pilots understand the challenges of tandem and are rightfully wary of being a passenger with a new T1. Landings and takeoffs have a bit more risk.

On the way up to launch we met Frew on the way down in my truck. Thanks Frewzy – He said he didn’t fly due to the winds which were “Nuken.”

We got to launch and sure enough winds easily 25mph were blowing through. But on launch there were very clear cycles. The wind would blow for 2 minutes then go calm to light for 40 seconds then back to blowing again.

We watch and waited until the pattern was clear, with the intent to launch in the lulls. The plan worked great and we had a lovely flight. The landing was sweet with a strong wind making touch down as simple as pie.

Thanks for trusting me CJ you’re the cats pajamas.
P.

Blue Sky - No Photo - Day 5

2010-07-15T08:32:00.000-07:00

Day 5

Wonderful day of flying on Wednesday.

The task was essentially an out and back from the Butte to Leahy and back via Withrow. Making it to Leahy was a challenge but not as hard as making it back. While the wind was light, it was out of the West/Northwest making the return trip a “slugfest” as a friend called it.

The conditions on launch were very nice, though we were capped at 5,000 until just before start.

I decided that I would take my chance with the launch line yesterday. In the past I have launched first or near the first in order to avoid waiting in line, but I figured 15 minutes on the ground wouldn’t hurt and as long as the line wasn’t huge. As it turned out that line forms real fast when it starts forming and I was lucky to be 20th or so.

The launch crew was doing a bang up job getting folk off between the rocks. They were offering Ants as an option. No one in line wanted Ants because Rocks was working so well there was no need to risk the rotor. By the time I was second up Rocks began to get light and I switched to Ants which worked great. The launch cycle was light but a strong run to the bottom of the launch hill worked fine.

I was in the air by 20 after noon and start was an hour and 10 minutes down the road. We went up and down in good thermals but didn’t get high until just before start. Often there are multiple thermal cores on the Butte and they can alternate. I happened to be further South when the main gaggle boosted up and just before start I caught the cycle to make top of the stack even though the stack was 400 meters North of me.

It is quite a site when 100 gliders all turn to start as a flotilla. I joined in a bit higher and 200 meters back. This was perfect position, giving me the ability to watch other gliders for lift lines and the rim thermal. At the rim the big gaggle North found lift quite far up Farnum and we found it in the next draw to the South.

This lift eventually took us to 7,000 feet and began the trek east. There were plenty of partners helping find lift on an all blue-sky day. On an out and back the line stays quite busy until you turn to head home. After the turn the number of gliders in your area drops off fast.

When I got to Leahy we were in light lift and I took it up to around 6,000ft. I should have milked it to 7,500 or so but with only 3k to go I figured I could tage out and back and regain my thermal without problem. BUT it was a problem. As usual two mistakes back to back usually ends a flight.

Heading to the turn point on the South ridge that defines the Leahy draw I saw an Orange wing on the North ridge and he seemed to be doing better than me in my mega sink. I headed more toward tat wing but that just pushed me further down into the valley and the sink. By the time I wised up I was very low, but just then I tagged and bugged out.

I did get back to the location of my previous lift but fairly low.

I flew through it looking for the strongest point of lift but missed it. I had a visual on the lift trigger but the thermal was leaning more when I got back so I ended up sinking on the windward side of the lift. Eventually I figured it out and returned to the bubbles but it was too little too late.

I couldn’t work the light stuff with the winds building and my flight ended right there.

The cool thing was that a retrieve crew from Colorado was following there own and waited for me. We had a great afternoon chasing Greg Kelly back to near the rim for a sweet retrieve.

Today is the last day – Should be great flying and a party to go.

Totals – Time in air 4hours, 34 XC miles and max altitude just under 9,000ft.`

Camera – I messed up my SD chip and lost two days photos.

Nats Day 4

2010-07-14T08:27:00.001-07:00

Day 4 was a great day of flying. The conditions were some of the strongest I have flown and by far the strongest for me at Chelan. The cloud streets and lift were very big although not over developed.

I launched second or third - Thanks to Doug Hoffman for being a wind tec for us - great pilot and he showed us it was safe to launch.

Climbing above the Butte with a bunch of R 10.2s is quite exciting. - They are so fast you just have to get out of the way. The lift on the Butte was a bit challenging because of the strong lake side flow but the start cylinder was 10K so you didn't have to worry about getting blown too far down wind.

My start was ok - maybe 5-7 min late but I was just worrying about staying high, staying warm and staying out of the clouds.

I was with the second gaggle until it dispursed or headed down wind and by the time we were 20 minutes into the race I was very lonely. - Lift was everywhere with lots of cloud markers and dusties. I left my last lift at about 7,500 or so and had a long way to go to the next cloud.

About half way through my glide I noted a couple of wings catching light lift to my right and I turned to join them but by the time I got there they were gone and so was the lift.

Two trys for lift is all I got and my slide to the ground continued until its completion.

No compaints - I think I flew well and made ok decissions - got unlucky as far as timing and clouds but that happens. - All in all if I have a similar mental and performance day today it should pay off. We will see. - Today likely a triangle.

Day 3 -

2010-07-12T12:29:00.000-07:00

Day three, a Recap

Comps take so much energy and there is so much yackn with friends the blog is often an afterthought.

Today is an off day due to winds so I figured I would give a bit more robust report for the wondering eyes of this posting place.

Day one was very good flying however as I mentioned before I decided to forgo a great flight and make a stupid decision and cut my flight short.

The start cylinder on day one was 5k. This is about 2 k from the house thermal on the rim that I am use to flying. I figured that a big lift on the rim say to 8k would put me in great shape, maybe even above the flock when we met in the center at start time. The problem was that the Butte was giving 8,000 and the rim was only granting 6,000ft.

The result was that when I finally returned to tag the start and bug back for the rim I was too low to sustain the rim and I landed down by the river. –

Lesson learned: stay with the gaggle – Well that’s the lesson, I just can’t seem to learn it. This is at least the 4th time my arrogance and stupidity have ganged up on me.

Carnage report for day one: One R10.2 balled up and the pilot hucked with no injury. One asymmetric in front of the rocks resulted in a trip to the hospital for observation – injuries appear minor if any.

Day two – that is yesterday – was held down by inversion/ high pressure and west winds right at the max. Mer, Doc and I flew the very same day at Chelan two weeks ago and the results were just the same. For most of the launch cycle, from Green Monster, there was a ridge/thermic soaring fest right out in front. Very crowded, once or twice Doug called a hold on launch for safety to clear space in the air. Very hard to get high.

I didn’t think I would fly at all and spent most of the hour before start walking round and taking pictures. Most every one else was at least in line.

Finally a cycle of reduced wind with good lift flipped my decision matrix and I launched. After about 35 minutes of fighting I got to 5,000 ft but was drifting back fast and had no hope of staying with the comp wings. I pushed forward to get back to lift but it was fruitless. I just stayed safe and ended in the LZ.

Carnage report day two: – One hard impact near Sims with possible serious internal injuries. More info as released.

Day three called due to winds – I assume – I came home for a night in Air Conditioned bliss. – My bungalow in Chelan was one hot place Saturday night.

A VISIT TO DUMB Land

2010-07-10T21:39:00.000-07:00

Today was a simple task - Follow the Leader 88 k out to Almira.
I made it hard by trying to be the leader. - This is the best way to get to dumb land and I got there fast.
Launching early because of my distain for lines I was at the top of the stack at 8,000 feet with 55 minutes to go to start - Not fun but doable. -
Rather than wait I crossed the river figuring I could return and tag rather than glide and time it. - Amazingly stupid.
I got across and was well esablished at 6,000 MSL over the rim but that wasn't enough to glide back to the 5k cylindar and then back to the rim lift so I dusted at the LONE PINE cafe and had a beer. -
The rest of the day was spent mopeing with a fellow competitor who also was unhappy with their day.

tomorrow - fly with the pack.
Dave

Day One

2010-07-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

Winds look to be up a bit but we will likely still fly. Thanks to Karen for use of her bungalo. My fellow pilots don't want to talk with me about lodging. - It is expensive round here or crowded at Bee Bee campground.

Friday's flight was short - inversion cap at 4,500 to 5,000 - Doc made exit 11.

Wednesday at Baldy

2010-07-03T08:02:00.001-07:00

Wednesday shaped up to be a wonderful day to fly. Winds were just a bit out of the North but generally quite light and variable. Baldy at 1:00 was flowing up on all sides. As we were waiting for the South cycles to kick in a number of small dusties ran right up the spine from the West. This condition can make launch quite challenging - at least launching to the South on the main launch. What happens is that the main house thermal to the West of launch just cranks straight up and spins off the dusties up the ridge line. They run right through launch but a cycle flow never gets established from the South.

I continue to be a proponent for the West launch in all but strong South and SSE conditions. While it is a bit lower and less conducive the communal aspects of gear prep the cycles on light and switching days come right out of the house thermal. I will keep encouraging West launches on light days and hope it catches on.
When we got to launch the flow was North but it was getting lighter and we knew it would clock around to the West if not full SW by launch time. On South launch we got ready an the small black bag from the convenience store that held my water and candy bar was grabbed while we weren't looking. The water and candy were on the ground but the Bag was at 300 ft AGL and climbing - We watched it until we couldn't see it any more. - Obviously it was working.

I went down to West launch, set up and after about 5 minutes caught a cycle that worked just fine. The lift was very solid in the ridge house and after a simple slide down the ridge to the West in 300 up, back again I was in the core and easily 300 over before my first full circle. The house was strong and smooth, it was big and I only hit an edge once or twice and they were not sharp. We launched late, almost 1:45 if I am correct, so the thermal was full on and with almost no overcast I didn't top out until almost 8,000 ft. This was the highest house thermal at Baldy this year.

By the time I topped out the rest of the crew were still frustrating there selves on the South launch and I wanted to fly team. I knew it would take at least 15 to 20 minutes before they either caught a South cycle or gave up and went West. I didn't want to hang around at the top of Baldy, not a nice place to fly so with no prevailing direction I pushed out for West Selah Butte figuring I could get there, top off from the Selah lift and then return to Baldy to team up when the rest of the crew was in the air. - In the process I could get some extra LEO points for a short leg.

The plan worked just perfect. The Selah lift was as strong and located spot on expected. I topped it out at 8,000 again and turning around I saw a couple wings in the air and at least one on West launch.

By the time I got back to the hill two of three were above me and my flying buddy was at eye level. We climbed out well and headed for Menastash together.

Cloud dynamics were in play most of the day, not marking thermals but casting shadows over lift triggers and collectors. There was a fairly thick, transient overcast that played with us all day. When we headed East the North end of Menastash was shaded and there was just a bit of sun on the South end of the ridge's collector.

The South end worked very well and the boomer that we caught near the firing center boundary was nutso. Ralph was scratching both sides of the hill and eventually got higher than me. Mer also got up high and headed out before me into a sink fest in the pocket. The middle of the pocket is usually a good line but not Wednesday. Both Mer and Ralph lost a ton as I was dottling on the South end of the ridge. Mer realized the sink was going to make the Boylstons tough and returned to the thermal I was in and cranked it up with me. Ralph continued on and ended up scratching on the Boylstons and I think his day ended near there.

Mer and I continued deep into the pocket. Thanks to Wheelers maps on my 76S I was able to take the biggest thermal of the day right up to the airspace boundary without breaking it. We had 7 m/s lift, at one point the pitch and frequency was just crazy and when I looked at my 5030 it was stuck at 6739 and not moving the altimeter couldn't keep up with the rapid change in altitude - never seen that before.

After topping the Boylston lift I headed due North 500 ft or so outside the airspace line for better part of a mile and when I cleared Golf I headed over Hotel and overflew it's 5,500 ft cap on the way to the Black Spot.

Lift was plentiful and strong transitioning to the Windmills but heading East didn't seem in the cards as a very large N/S cloud had set up over the Columbia. It was easily a mile wide, and looked like the Morning Glory convergence. It was too high to catch lift at it and I figured once near it and crossing the shaddowed ground would result in certain dusting just over the East rim of the river.

The other options include going South toward Saddle but the cloud really made that option unlikely as well so North by North West it was and work round the hills North of Kititas and Eburg.

The last of the windmills are quite far North and at the top of the hill marked nice lift. The lift kept pushing me deeper and deeper up the Colockum. But by that time, almost 5:00 or so I was certain that the plateau wouldn't sustain a run to Wenatchee. I skirted the lovely fingers about 10 miles North of the farm/hill transition At the top of each canyon was a lift zone, each encouraging me to go deeper and farther but I needed to stay South for a glide out to retrieve.

Uuugh one more lift and, can I make the next ridge? - yep made it but too low - this isn't good - the last ridge I got to was too high or I was too low and I slid all the way down the back side of the lift till I was maybe 300 over. To the South was a West facing ridge I could work down but it was steep and more trees than I wanted.

A quick decision was needed. - Either land on top of the ridge right there or roll the dice and see if I could slide down the ridge catching lift to keep me out to the trees. Last time I faced that call was at Woodrat and I didn't like the sliding into the trees option. So I decide to land way up in the hills. The flow was upslope and as I set up I found myself too high as the hill dropped away precipitously. 180 back up the hill and down wind. - Now the hill was approaching so quickly that I couldn't turn back for a up wind landing.

Down wind and upslope - dam - well a little road rash on my right forearm and hip are a simple reminder to make those calls a little sooner.

At least cell coverage was good until I got lower in the canyon, but it was still an hour hike down to the road and then a three mile ride in a helpful neighbor's Miata to the gate that was keeping Dr. K from and Jill from getting to me. Boy they had a long retrieve, and Jill missed her daughters birthday - what a sweetheart. Thanks for the mega retrieve.

Sunday at Baldy

2010-06-27T21:47:00.001-07:00

Next year I will be at Tiger to do my share tandem. But as my T1 is just newly minted I figure the best I could do is throw one down with the XC crowd.

Sunday is a trick for me, my day of work as you may know. Making the hill in perfect time is not always possible. Today I was lucky and made the LZ by 12:20 - in time to watch Mer launch along with CJ and Martin. - Dave and Tim were already in the air.

Baldy was at its normal best in SW conditions. The wind was up a bit so it did help to wait. Dave fought the good fight staying above launch until the boomers really kicked in.

I was last off and had to play catch up but that isn't all bad. Later is better in terms of condition development.

Initial thermal was strong and topped at about 5,500 or so not real developed at mid altitude. Dave, Mer and CJ were above me and heading out and I lost the core which required a restart.

Down I went until I was well below launch, pushing out I began to wonder if that would be it. I was well high above the bumps in front the Airport and the pounder was waiting to kick my gluteus maximus. Normal bullet for the time of day - Now around 1:30. Rock and Roll to 5,800 and then a departure thermal to around 6,500.

This set up a lifty line to the normal route over the NW corner of the firing range (careful not to touch) and a set of clouds took me to the Boylstons.
The far left lift hill has worked in the past, though it is not the highest it seems most reliable. (check my track log if your interested) A real screamer took me very high almost 8,400 in two pops.

By this time the clouds were setting up for a great run. One after another they lay in wait up the Columbia. It is very common to see a convergence line right over the Eastern edge of the river running all the way to Quincy. This is the same line I took on my first flight NE of Wenatchee. Today however the clouds over the hills and West were really shutting things down and it was a race between OD and sun.

I pushed as best I could over Quincy and to the hills just North of there. The hills had just a touch of sun on them by that time, just enough to get a little bit of lift that cast me off for the next valley.

Not much more was left but a hope and a prayer - neither were to pan out as I dusted, but dusted just far enough.

One of my big time goals was to get a 50 mile point to point and a coveted USHPA XC award, what ever that is.

It was a great day of flying all around. - Both Dave and Mer had very nice flights, flying together most of the day which is one of our XC goals. Thanks to Martin for the retrieve and Mer and Dave for dogging it up the hill for the truck. -- You all are the bomb.

News from Pine is that Conrad nailed 115k and two others including Brian Webb bested 100k with a 4th going 60 or better. - Way to Go ya all.

Next year Tiger.
P.

Rat Day 4

2010-06-16T19:49:00.000-07:00

Today was a great day to fly. – We had solid lift to cloud base at 6,000 and it was often a challenge to stay clear of the clouds. I left launch first, two seconds after launch open. Early paid off as I was able to climb to full on base and ride it all day long.

We never got low until the last of glide to goal. – Two or three gliders were in front of me as we came near goal. – A bit of sink set us down 2 ridges short of destination.

Now we had to work for the glory. Frank and I found a screamer after about 10 minutes of scratching. – The gap to Goal ridge was lifty and we had tons at goal.

Cold fingers early gave way to warm sun – puffy clouds and 50 points on LEO.

As for the comp check out the results at: http://visionparagliding.com/scorekeeping/

P.

Wood Rat Day 3

2010-06-15T18:45:00.001-07:00

Windy day - a bit more than what we wanted.

Today was not my day. - While I launched 3 seconds after the launch open time I never felt synced up with any of the gaggles. -

Eventualy I made start after a bit of work and then taged Burnt after a save low but when I went over Burnt I didn't commit to down wind and tryed to retreat. BAD MOVE - I ended up scratching on a lea side second ridge.

I tried but couldn't get my wing to take out a low level set of trees. Below me were bigger trees and power lines.

I don't know but my best guess is that there may have been divine intervention that took me to a nice back yard.

That was no fun!!!

Tomorrow.
P

Woodrat Day 2

2010-06-14T21:50:00.001-07:00

Amazing, Fun, Saves and Work – Just no points to show for comparitive success.

The day was so challenging that 90 pilots or so only got minimum distance points. There were 11 in goal and only 4 or 5 of us spread over the course line. This kind of scoring day produces a very low total points and the spread between those who dust and those who make task is almost funny.

If you made goal today you got around 180 to 200 points and if you only made the LZ you got 89. For those of us who worked all day and almost cracked the nut we got around 130 to 140.

So having a great day coming in 11th over all and 3rd in class only gave me 45 more points that just launching --- well it sounds like I am whining – It was just such a great day of flying that not getting points makes it seem strange.

To the flying. – Continuing with the plan, all things equal, get off early. I was in line 3rd and after a launch hold I ended up first in the slot and launched 20 seconds after launch opened.

This worked well. I was able to sky to cloud base which was about 5,200 at that point. Over the next 20 minutes or so the best pilots launched and were up with me. We boated about made moves to Rabies and I went with them once but retreated to the hill to tank again. I just didn’t think we had enough altitude to get up at Rabies with the strong West flow.

When the second gaggle got established on Woodrat I let them go and followed. However, I made a tactical error on the top off of the thermal. We had been working well and it seemed that the core was leaning to the South so as I came round I extended South. I didn’t get much lift but didn’t go down so I just tracked South figuring I was wining against the rest of the gaggle. I knew they weren’t getting higher but they were behind me so I couldn’t tell for sure.

When I finally turned I found I had left them in the dust – that is, they hit their top and pushed out front. – Now I was higher by a bit but way behind as they pushed across. By the time I got back to the center of launch they had found a bit of lift out and to the NW of launch and were working it and I was further behind than I wanted.

I had to top off again and then finally left for Rabies with 3 or 4 others. – We were behind and a few from the early gaggle made the hill just before us. The problem was that a lot of folk just were getting crushed. – I found a lifty line that got me to the hill well above ridge top but it wasn’t great. – The wind was strong from the West so the thermals from the West face were ripping off and most of the wings in the area were really struggling and most fell off lea side. – I kept forward figuring that lea was a total no win proposition but the windward wasn’t much better.

There are few landing options on the West side of Rabies and my worst landing ever was up there last year so I was not happy as I surfed the ridge just maintaining. I watched as one yellow wing frizbied windward side up the ridge to the North but I just couldn’t get there so I pushed out and to the South.

This worked for a bit – Nice strong lift when it pushed but then thrashing. Just wasn’t working. – Now the call was to push all the way out to the South and give in to the winery or give it one last hope for glory scratch and swing deeper into tiger country. – There were a few LZ up high so – well you guessed it I went deep and with a great deal of effort I finally scratched out. When I finally crested in lift I found a naked sky. There were no wings on Rabies any more except my Cobra.

On top of the ridge I just skied – I found some of the best lift of the day and after topping at 5,800 or so I pushed back for an easy tag of RAB-PK 2K cylinder. As I did this I caught site of Matt Cone coming back from tagging the same.

Now back to Woodrat to get the big rock. – On the way I relocated the Rabies boomer and punched through the inversion nailing 6,177 to get what I figure was likely high for the day. – remembering that my figuring is seldom right.

The naked line back to the peak was nice and lifty and I was at least 400 over when I got to launch. – The thermals were leaned over to the extreme at this point and the many high wind thermic days over the last month paid dividends. As I surveyed the situation it was clear that most pilots were just not going up and most were loosing ground.

The day was getting long in the tooth – More wind, less lift, so it became a do it now or die very soon. – I may have touched 5,400 on my last spin off the Rat on the way to Burnt. I knew it was a gamble – Matt Cone was already over there and was low, if he didn’t make it I figured my chances were slim. I made my best line and got to the ridge just over which was key to getting a bit more. If you come in below ridge you are just toast on that Burnt piece of rock.

There were two other wings working above the ridge at that point. They were together and a bit further West. – They had been there for a while and on one frizbe back the red wing – think it may have been Chris A. pealed off and went town wind. The other wing was the same color as Mer so I figured it was her but it wasn’t. As “she” was coming back to push windward I figured – toss up – lets work together.

As it turned out it wasn’t Mer but rather a Check pilot who I didn’t know. – We tried but didn’t work well together and after a few tries I just didn’t see it working. I caught a little bubble as he was pushing forward and loosing ground and I split. (this turned out to be a major mistake as he eventually made goal and I didn’t). But we were not working well and I didn’t know who he was.

The rest of the flight was just frizbee down wind toward the Cemetery waypoint. I was looking at the hills and trying to guess what would give lift. – They all had a bit but none had enough to build on. I ended up getting low with a down valley flow coming from – I don’t know where but it was exciting.

I tried to get video because it was just a cool dynamic end to the flight but the camera was not on and you will have to take my word for it that I threw down some serious scratching effort before landing sweet as a bug in a huge LZ.

The only problem with the LZ was the gently grazing cattle some 500 yards up wind. They caught sight of me as I was packing up and the game was on. The first contingent was 4 or 5 mommas and a similar number of 2 month olds.

The biggest of the mommas came close but I was able to bluff them off with a few fast movements with my wing folding arm. Eventually something I did spooked them enough to get them running away from me. Back to folding.

Just about the time I was loading the last of my gear in my pack – having already called my GPS coordinates into retrieve, a much larger contingent of cattle was heading my way. This time they brought the big boy. One BIG BULL who was not looking for a fight but clearly willing to back up momma if a fight were to ensue.

I learned that I have a strong growl that seems to stop approaching cattle for a moment but they were winning, much like the day over most of us gliders. It was the most sketch part of the day as I sideways retreated toward the big 5 line electric fence. – I made it to a post set that might provide an escape route but no guarantees.

I learned that while all cattle are bovine not all are benign!!

Rat Race - Day Won

2010-06-13T20:15:00.000-07:00

Home Sweet Home

Well not realy "won", but for me it was a good day - I made my goal and that was goal.

Our Northwest Team of Doc K, Steve Thibault, Chris Amonson and myself, AKA as the Baldy Bast...ds did well Chris was second to goal, Steve and I made it as well and Doc K on his 1-2 came in just a few hundred m short.

It was a fabulous day of flying. The conditions were perfect and the task was set to give everyone a chance. Some folk got unlucky on timing and were flushed but a large number of pilots made goal.

Top of lift was between 7,400 and 8,000. My best was in the neighborhood of 7,400. As planned both today and yesterday I was near the front of the launch line. Even so I had to wait for a couple of wings to fire off before I was up on launch.

The cycle I took was just enough to get my wing over head but that was it. – I ran down hill backwards keeping my just inflated wing as dead center over my head as I could until someone yelled “Turn Around.” – I did and timing was just right, I threw my hands up to give the wing just enough speed to get it over the lip and off I went loading the wing as I ran off the lip. A smattering of applause was heard as I headed into the blue. BIG GRIN.

The lift on launch was strong and steady and about 20-30 wings topped around 6,300 and headed for Rabies to set up for a LZ start cylinder. – Lift was easy to find with that many wings in front of me and we topped that around 6,500 thermally in the cylinder at start. I was a bit further North than the crew and was about 300k from the waypoint on the way to the second waypoint as the start bell rang on my vario.

That would be the last time I could fool myself into beleaving I was in the lead as the next turn point was crowded with the lead gaggle when I was still topping off. – My strategy for day was simple: STAY HIGH – never leave lift and never leave first. It worked like a charm.

We took a direct line to Burnt and that was only one of two times during the day that I even thought about not having enough altitude. Even so we had no problem finding windward lift from the NE flow and were soon high on the way to a short glide to Woodrat. More lift and topping in gaggles and off for Rabies again and more climbs.

The last 1/3 of the task Martin and I were best buddies centering every lift we could find. It wasn’t until final glide that we took slightly different lines and ended in goal within minutes of each other.

I am not sure either of us realized how high we were over goal. I was at least 2000 over when I looked nearly straight down and saw the crowd and vans and I looked at Martin who, about the same distance from goal, was across the valley turning circles in lift. I should do a better job of altitude management at the end of the task.
Landing was uneventful and the beer was cold.

Tomorrow day two.

P.

Details of A Big Flight

2010-05-17T23:08:00.000-07:00

Badlands at the End of the Day

A blow by blow account of Saturday's flight North from Chelan to 5 miles shy of Okanogan.

All good flights begin with weather. Wednesday through Saturday all looked good. More importantly the regional pressure was softening. Wednesday we had high pressure 1024hPa. This was the day the early bubbles of Baldy kicked me out of the sky and Mer and Frank went long with their launch 45-50 minutes after mine. (I'm learning)

Thursday looked good but I was bummed and winds looked a little strong so I took a pass and Mer went to Banks lake off Chelan, while Doc went to Bridgeport. Friday was also a bit strong on winds at Baldy and my flight to exit 11 was the best for the day - thermals were just getting thrashed and I may have gone a bit early.

Saturday like Friday was lower pressure in the neighborhood of 1012hPa but winds still looked a bit strong at Baldy so Chelan became the target. But it was Saturday and my wife and I really needed to spend most of it together. I asked and she was game for retrieve. We love driving together and Chelan sets up 5 hours together in the car and she seems to like the retrieve challenge. Yes I am blessed.

I put out a limited call for other pilots - I couldn't go for too many folk as the retrieve dynamics and Chelan could overwhelm my beloved driver. - The crew still grew to a posse of eight.

There were 3 or 4 hangs on launch when we got there. - A bit of a mess on launch because we forgot some stuff in the rig at the bottom so my truck left the butte and I had to switch from working out of the truck to out of my kit. No real big issue just a minor snag. The truck was back up in no time and we all got set for launch, it was coming on 1:00. Armon launched first and had no problem skying out early - He went due North for a nice flight.

Next I saddled up. Mer used a nice ploy setting up behind a hang making it set that she would not launch until good cycles were on deck. Quality move. - I set up for between the rocks and miss timed the cycle getting a limp wing mid run for the effort. I shut it down and hiked back up with nobody wanting to jump in. So I set up for second try.

Wing popped open just fine but I had a brake line snag on a rock. Helpful hands cleared the snag but I missed the tip cravat now waiting for me. I assumed the tip was clean but pulling up it became clear I had to shut it down again. Dam Dam Dam. - I swung over to Ants to see if alternating cycles would catch but they didn't - Sooooo - give in.

Now I was frustrated, hot and tired. - Best move now is let everyone go and deal with launching last or near last. - Took off my wing, coat, helmit and gloves and decompressed. - I watch while just about everyone launched and skied. - It was working out front and I could step into the game. - K and I were left after all had gone - now the launch was very straight forward as a number of cycles made a sweet set.

I had a wing climbing - think it was Steve, as a marker right down the ridge and caught the thermal even before I got to him.

A clean climb out ensued with a wing man at the top of the climb - great flying with you Mr. Thibault. - We topped about 7,800 with Thibault getting the last little pop. - He noted Mer breaking for the rim about 400 above and decided to take chase. - I took one more 360 and joined in from below.

Mer found a nice lifty line and we were all at the same flight level though separated by 1/4 mile each, as the three of us slid to the flats. - We were nice and high when we got to the rim due to Mer's great line. Got the rim at about 5600. Mer and Steve kept pushing in looking for lift but not finding anything. - I was in a bind at this point. - If I follow and they don't find lift soon I am doomed. If I turn back to the rim I might be on my own for the rest of the day.

Neither Steve on his 2-3 or Mer on her spicy wing found anything by the time I had to turn back to the best terrain on the rim I could find. - I had been there before so I thought I had a chance. - By the time I was maybe 300 over and heading for a dive over the rim with little chance of recovery I caught some soft lift.

Mer and I took a thermal at the same spot together last year. - This time I was on my own to start with. - I took a nice climb at this point staying happy till about 7,000 - I noticed that Mer was up and about 1000 over me and to the south of me by 1/2 mile or so climbing under a great cloud.

I called for her to not get too far ahead but we later confirmed that that transmission didn't get through. - We need better radio setups or I do anyway. As I was still climbing in that first thermal Mer headed out East way sky high. I couldn't follow her from 1000 below so I just worked up and over to her cloud.

A little slide down then into a massive good house thermal that took me to 10k - This was the thermal that found Todd Udd and myself thermaling tip to tip. At about 8,200 I saw Todd's Discus 18m sailplane about a mile south. After about 4 more 360 he had slipped into the same thermal that I was in now about 9,000 ft. Got the video going which is in the blog below. After the video shut off Todd and I took it to about 10,200 where he pushed out and headed due North.

North was the call for the day but the last time I saw Mer she was heading due East so I pushed out at 10,300 for points East with the hope of finding my guide. What I didn't know was that she had gone on glide East and didn't find anything and then went back to the rim. So I was left on my own. - I don't have very much flat land flying experience. Really this was my second or third flatland flight of note. I have been to Farmer and Eniat but that is it. I started to scan for terrain features like a farm house or draws in the flats whatever. - I headed for Nelson's Ranch and it worked catching a nice little lift from 6,500 to about 8 or so.

Pushing out further East still no Mer. This is going to be interesting - Ahead the flats are ending and I have no clue what to do. - More texture to the land, but will it work or what?
At the transition from flats to draws is the big farm - think it is the Douglas ranch. I figured a nice search around this ranch would pay off. - I caught some zeros but not much. - Hanging out long enough though let me pick off a dusty coming off a diagonal associated with the ranch. - This dusty provided targeting for finding a very nice but quite north leaning thermal to 8 or so sending me on the north track for the rest of the day.

The thermal leaned enough to get me half way to Mansfield. - The line was not bad, a bit boaty, but it was all blue sky flying at this point. As I passed 172 about five miles west of Mansfield I was getting low. - Not real low maybe 2500 over and spotted another very nice dusty. - Caught the thermal on this one but it was not well formed as earlier thermals. Things started to look a little grim as I headed back toward the rim noting a cloud or two and terrain with texture and power lines. - Nothing worked real well until I got under the cloud. -

This one was sweet - Took it big and strong - the cloud was actually top of two or three lift cores in one. The cloud had 3 different masses and at about 8,000 feet in a solid core crank I took a surprise dynamic asymmetric deflation. The cool part was that I had video of the wing to capture cloud effect when the deflation occurred. - ' I topped this one round 9,000 and could see that I had Bridgeport on Glide so I pushed North.

By the time I got to the rim just South and West of Bridgeport I was a bit worried about diving into the town which sits in the lea of the whole flats. Winds felt to be about 10 to 15 from the South based on dust trails and I was a little worried about rotor. As I slid over the rim I felt a bit of lift which made me very happy because I felt I needed the lift to stay safe, - I figured the day was done but just a bit more lift and I can be safe from rotor and just then it went off nice and solid.

The rim thermal took me well above Bridgeport and I topped close to 10k already leaning way over the river.

The hills North of Bridgeport are perfect - It is a ships prow that faces due south with a nice collector for heat to the West - No question there is a boomer here - I just have to find it. - And I did - Best climb of the day then set me up for what turned out to be final glide.

I tried to take the "liftyest" line I could but never found another thermal. -0 It felt like glass off at this point and I knew I would just have to be as smooth as I could. - Half way through the glide I had to decide to stay near 97 or go into badlands - Nasty ground near the end - Mer had taken it straight badlands 30 minutes prior and got a little climb mid tiger country - a very bold line in my estimation.

I had to stay river side and just slid north till I was on the side of the hill with power lines below and a simple swoop and turn to land into the wind. - Good field choice gave way to crossing 97 at about 50 feet, over a wet field on final and a final correction that put me over Railroad tracks at 10 feet for a perfect landing in median between the highway and the tracks. - Just sweet.

Good cell phone coverage put me in contact with Mer who was already headed south with Steve and Bill. Gail was headed North to get me so the crew stopped, gave me a beer (thank you) and left me for Gail's retrieve. - She did wonder why the kiss smelled of hops. - LOL - What a great day.

P.

Sailplane and a Couple Personal Bests in my logbook.

2010-05-16T01:13:00.000-07:00

It's All About the Money Honey

Everything Looks Better in Black and White

Today was a great day at Chelan - Lift to over 10,300 and a flight East then North that popped 140 on the Leo scale. - Personal best for duration of 4:45 and XC over 58 miles with dogleg, almost 40 miles point to point. - All that good stuff and Mer still flew further. Anyone ever have that happen?
Some fun events included two botched launches, a nice rim save and even better flats save. - Soared with a sailplane and had a fun asymetric colaps under a great cloud.

Best part of the day was that Gail, my lovely wife drove retrieve.
Happy Camper
P.

XC - Making the call, Payoff and "Loss"

2010-05-13T09:42:00.000-07:00

In poker there are good lay downs and bad ones. A good - that is winning or profitable poker player is one who is able to calculate the odds of his or her hand winning against a particular opponent's hand and play or betting on those hands while laying down or quitting on the rest.

You can win a poker hand with a bad bet - putting money into a pot when your sure your friend has 4 of a kind and you are hoping for a one-outer to make your straight flush and win by getting that one card you need but it was a bad bet. On the other hand you can make a very good bet or call getting all you money in with the best hand only to loose on the river.

Yesterday I made what I felt were 3 good calls and walked away from the table without much left in my pocket.

Good call #1: Baldy - as the weather was shaping up it was clear that Baldy would work but possibly East which is not good - hard to fly and routes are interesting. Then in the last 24 hours it turned North and possibly stronger. I spent at least 3 hours working weather to make the call and was still 52/48 coin flip on Baldy by the night before.

Good call #2: Stick to your guns. Play tight and aggressive. All morning was spent texting and talking with the crew who wanted to go to Chelan - or most did. I reworked the weather including very current trends and came up with the same call and at the coffee shop decide I would fly Baldy regardless the crews decision. (at which point I got the message that they were coming to Baldy as well)

Marginal call: - Weather was just as I figured - backing off to light and variable with lots of high pressure. On launch at 12:15 - good times and all the prevailing North was backing down to the heating up of the South bowl - It is going to be very hard to get off soon. We wanted to launch together so we call 1:00 - I am ready and feel the last of the puffs and go at 12:50.

This was marginal on two accounts - first, launching first you never know and it was a mega sink fest all the way to 500 over the North LZ - I have never had that much sink on a North launch at Baldy it was so bad that my right leg couldn't stop shaking for 10 minutes. When I hit the lift it was hard and nasty. - So launching first I got to fly for 45 minutes waiting for everyone else to get their puffs - rather their first puff, I flew alone for most of my flight.

Which was the second marginal part of that call - by leaving first I was worn out fighting the low pressure lift bubbles by the time everyone else was launched.

Good call #3 - well I think it was good - after 50 minutes or so of flying in the most disturbing lift, sink and winglessness I can remember - except one other very High pressure day last summer I had had it. Toping at 5,500 and remembering that prior bad day I decided there wasn't a flight to be had that was worth another 2-3 hours of this kind of struggle. At least it wasn't worth it to me. So I decided to land. Even though the others were in the air and struggling to get up just as I had - two made it big and 3 didn't in the end, I would top land (if safe) and drive down.

It was a good call but the river hit and Mer and Frank took the pot. Mer worked a long time at Baldy then went South late toward and eventually to Sunnyside and Frank took bold lower than usual line to Vantage working all the way, had a save at the crossing then boated all the way to just short of Moses Lake.

In the end I walked away putting 6 hours into weather and 6 hours of driving to get a 17 point FAI triangle and one lesson - Keep making good calls and maybe add some patience to the mix . If you walk away happy with your calls and all-ins it is not a loss in the long run even if your friends scoop the big money on a given day. Great flights you guys.

Baldy Spring - Ya all come on in the water is fine!

2010-05-06T17:33:00.000-07:00

Today the sky gods rolled their cumulative dice? (how do you spell the possessed object plural form of dice, die? di? dye? hmmm.) Anyway the gang was nearly all there including a Baldy newbie and score keeper of renown Bill, he,having never flown the site, with new wing in hand out flew us all.

Several in the neighborhood of the truck stop others to Thorp - some in the LZ and one fool went south. - Everyone was ducking boomers and all had great tales of how their cloud was the most menacing.

A little vid of what the sky looked like. - Launch at 11:15 out of the sky by 12:45 or better.

DD2

2010-04-26T01:50:00.001-07:00

Doug on Launch

While Doc and Mer were flying amazing flights to the North from Chelan, Doug Hoffman and I took on a site which has tickled our fancy and mostly Doc's fancy for a long time.

DD2 - the name you will have to ask, AKA "Sunnyside" is a marginal peak for launching PG's but it sits on a major SW facing solar collector between the tri-cities and Yakima so it has some convenience factors and as Doug showed today can be the start point for North flights toward Saddle and beyond. -

Doug took the Route one which is Due North toward Mattawa and I went West toward Yakima.

We got a bit of a late start (clouds shut us down an hour after we got started) but for a first thermal flight from the site it was great. (Doc was first off last week during a Paradriving day)

When things start cooking for real it may be a quick alternative launch site for Tri-Cities pilots who don't have time to go to Baldy but do have a driver.

That is one of the problems - 1/2 hour or better off road to launch. 4wd only

Great Air though, great collector and lots of room to fly!

Tomorrow - SADDLE for Some wimpy points for the XC league - Lots of ridge early in the morning.

http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/league/US/2010.04/brand:all,cat:1,class:all,xctype:all,club:0.6

Check out the standings - quite a race and Mer hasn't posted her big one.

Kiona Works - Big Smiles

2010-04-11T21:46:00.000-07:00

Today was a great Kiona day - winds were a bit strong but for those who like such things it was great.

A crew came via Saddle which was blown and I think most flew - some benching up from down low.

Rick and I continued our battle for bragging rights. - LEO is down right now but we both gave a run SE after 2 or more down and backs - and thanks to Bob B for the retrieve.

Thermic conditions were quite exciting - lots of strong lift but it stopped near 3,000 or so MSL.

Good lift band out front and another on the ridge top. - best lift was out front but you needed to be 3-500 over to work it well.

John K had an amazing tandem. - took it low and skimmed all the way to the LZ from way low in front of TOY BOY - I would have given 10 to 1 that he would dust, but he pulled it off - Amazing.

There were a couple of draggs and snag with the winds - - My only advise is start lower and make sure your wing is dead into the wind on launch. - HANDS UP!!!! - and have total stable control on landing or abort. - If you are even a bit off balance you WILL get dragged.

Hope everyone had fun and got a feel for how fun Kiona can be.

No video today - but Here is a Kiona video if you haven't seen it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQW1gswQz3o

P.
Check tomorrow for points. - I think we topped at about 3400ft msl - don't know if I got that high but it was just soooo much fun I am still giggling.

Baldy Fires Off - OD

2010-03-31T19:45:00.000-07:00

Today a toe was dipped in the thermic waters of Eastern WA. - A small happy crew launched.

We were early - My fault - three of us paid the price and one went too near the Columbia. - Guess who.

My second flight (video) was seek and avoid. - Lots of lift - but to go above 5,000ft was to commit to the clouds and 25,000ft or more. - By the time I made it to 82 sliding in and out of the edges of lift I was in the only blue except the firing range. -

Nice looking clouds, right? - Well.

Even in the blue I had nothing but "suck" - two sets of spirals - see below - got me nicely down to a LZ with great access for a ride back to E-burg and Mexican food.

This kind of flying is not for the faint-of-heart nor those who haven't been "sucked" and survived prior flights. - Flying skies like these is not recommended.

More Lift Than I Wanted

2010-03-22T20:32:00.000-07:00

Spring has Sprung and XCSkies indicated a window of moderate winds and conditional instability today. - The next week or so didn't look good - or at least I won't be able to fly for a while so I bit the bullet and went to the only West facing hill that would get me up in the STUFF.

I waited on the hill for an hour and a half to give the freight trains a chance to calm themselves and then with much trepidation and a bit of "damm damm damm" I gave it a go.

As soon as I was off the hill I knew it was a bad call. - Big sink - big lift back and forth and Selah Butte is not forgiving. - I pushed out hoping for a smooth one but got a rocker instead.

If you watch this video note how my feet go up as the wing rock backs. - And I was giving back to the wing as I rocked into the big T. -

It may be that winter has shaved my bump tolerance down a bit but I just was not ready for this much activity.
P.

Fly as much as you want

2010-03-15T22:10:00.000-07:00

Today was a great day at Kiona. - Bill flew early -
Winds pick up and created very strong conditions. - I even broke my speed and had to land to fix it.
Second launch was highest wind I have taken on yet apx 22 - Pluck straight up and onto speed. - Great fun if you know what to expect.
Mini video for your enjoyment:

Total Air time almost 4 hours

Parked and Climbing

2010-02-12T20:17:00.000-08:00

Just remember, just because you can launch high winds does not make it a good idea.

No flying - lots of rain and a window late in the day with SW winds just about max.

Off I ran to beat sunset and launched Bob's bump low.

UP I WENT - 1/2 bar and so little forward motion my vario recorded 5 short flights each less than a minute because I was parked!!!

Actual likely better than 20 minutes start to finish and happy to be down. I never went backwards "for long."

Dave

Mixed Bag - Speed & Saddle

2010-02-06T21:10:00.000-08:00

Today was a mixed bag. Saddle was a hard call; first it looked great then as time went by wind projections and measurements indicated blown out city.

This was the second time in a week that early hope-filled projections turned into fringe flyable conditions. Very frustrating.

Friday night I was in Seattle for a meeting so it was on the way home at E-burg that I needed to make my own call for the day. Just before heading South and home on 82 I got a call from launch with a 10mph N report. Redirect and check it out. Off to launch.

Sure, it was OK early, but when I got there it was top-end and NNW which is not good. I set up for launch but couldn't control my poorly stuff sacked wing in the high winds and almost fed it to a barbed wire fence near the towers. (Back she goes into the stuff sack)

Two hangs took off while I was thrashing about and by the time I was back on launch two other friends (Armon & Mark) with speed wings were ready to huck.

I don't know, those little critters just seem sketch - They had a great time and I packed it in. (late report of a break in at the LZ - Armon's rig)

On the way home just past the Sunnyside cutoff in the burn area South of HWY 24 at Black Rock a new "fire road" had just been cut up the hill. Only the cat had traversed, no 4-wheel tracks yet. I always wondered about that hill .... - Up I went - no signs - just no hunting "public use of private lands is a privilege not a right." The hill took everything my Tundra had and at the lower NE facing ridge I found it soarable, just. - Future will tell if I go back but as for today I flew. Think I will call it "Black Rock One."

You can go to Leonardo if you want to see site details.

After I flew I went to the top of the ridge where it was blown out, but the shape is great - just access and permission issues - also if it is working on this ridge it is likely Saddle will be working as well so I don't know how useful a site it will be. Watch this space for future site reports.

P.

Ridge Soaring

2010-02-04T23:17:00.000-08:00

Back from Valle and back to the hills.

On my return as part of my welcome home Gail took me to Bob's for a sledder and then it was day on and day off ridge soaring.
Check Leonardo for the details but basicaly it has been 2 flights a week. Most not worth noting even a full on day of parawaiting with only 10 minutes in the air to show for it.

Today was another good one though - as with the long flight at Saddle last week, Kiona was predicted to be good this Thursday afternoon. - Actualy too good. - Winds were a solid 18 to 20 out of the NW.

Now NW at 12-14 is ok at Kiona but 18 to 20 - Launchable but not landable. The points for toplanding were covered with nasty lea rotor from finger ridges. - Kiona faces NE so NW is a bit nasty. - Lift was great and strong but lots of Parking.

On my first pass East I didn't go all the way down the ridge because the cross would clealy not sustain a return. - Pushing NW was almost stand still till 1/2 bar. Then the issue was where to land - I worked up to the Hang launch and nothing - not even low on toyboy would work - As soon as I approched ridge the rotor started to kick up.

Back to the East - If it wouldn't sustain before maybe it would also be less rotor - well it was - hovering over the ridge top 3/4 mile from my truck I settled in for a full on shutdown with C/D's in a tumble to land stop. - Work just as planned and with a bit of a hike I was back in my warm truck - another hour in the log book and looking for more.

Can anyone say "crack addict."

Good thing I have never tried it.
Dave.

Till we meet again.

2010-01-21T21:44:00.001-08:00

Well that is just about everybody. When I count my XC friends, they are almost all here or have been. – If you weren’t here, you know who you are. (dangle away)

Last day and it seems like the party is just starting, though it has been going strong for several weeks.

Two contingents of big boy sky gods arrived in the past 36 hours, or so, and they have been and will be tearing up the sky.

Today's flight began with a relaxing wait after a minor wing repair. Then the flight was on:

It was a "fair thee well" for me as I said good by and explicative deleted to Crazy.(If I ever suggested you go there, don’t, we can talk later) That wall tried to kill me – three times!!! Finally, I said enough and ducked around the corner and had a pleasant ride to the rim.

Next, a bit of a battle at the wall proper but nothing too extreme. The main gaggle arrived as I was popping the wall and we gained 1200 or more above as we worked on a clean climb. Just about mid climb a Green snake (Boom or N) blew past my right wing at mach-one, a bit lower than me to "join us." As he(she) did, I was waked to kingomcome and ended below the bottom of the stack, never too recover. [Curse You Red Barron].

Anyway, it blew the climb and I had to reengage. At some point I ended up on the way back past the rock and climbed back to position to assault the upper mesa again.

Chatter on the radio called(ended) the task (another story) so we were “free.” Poised to strike I figured with my altitude I could give it another try so I dove back in and cranked the wall and back to G. Not bad, enough to transition to the spine and worked the prevailing and lea side stuff till crazy had me again. Ratty, good lift but not enough for the transition to Maguey. Got up a bit, maybe 8400 or so but only enough to rock a ride back to the rock where lift was sweet.

Over the back and toward Sacamacatie, nothing - so a slide to the field East of the little rocks. = Out past me a wing looked to be climbing - so rather than think about landing I thought about climbing.

I hooked in and slowing moved into a nice ride up! After 4 or 5 turns in clear lift I noted a wing on my quarter inbound. My though was - “here it is,” just as I realized it was Mer.

Nothing better than a friend showing up to show you the way home at the end of a hard day’s work.

We floated the convergence and hooked a few on the way back, Mer having gone to Salcos first. Pushing further looked dicey so I held back as Mer checked out the Westerly ground – not much happen there so I called Lake and I soon had company home.

We both had plenty, Mer took the lake side and I took La Torre. I got to play the ridge/thermal game and watched as she floated like a dandelion puff, back and forth cross the city.

On landing, with a comic tackle, a perfect two weeks has come to an end.

Thank you all for doing what you did to help me be as happy as I am.

P.

hmmmm.

2010-01-20T17:12:00.000-08:00

Well, much has been learned. - The effort round the lake was fun but not completed yet. Today was another day for it but due to my own stupidity my vario died mid effort half way between Megui and Divs

Without a vario I should be very happy to have made it back which I did but it feels like I went to a great play but the lead had a second for that night only. It was just a great day with potential and I had to quit mid stride.

One day of flying left. Then massive depression - Friends should call me on Tuesday and see if I am alive.

Love.
P

They Say Ya Got to Call it.

2010-01-18T17:11:00.000-08:00

Round the Lake on Tue.
We will see.

Today it was Div and step one.
P

Today was the day - Not Yesterday!

2010-01-17T20:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was trash - good lift but everyone wanted out of the air due to wind layer shear at several levels. - no fun.

Today was more fun - 20 or so miles xc up east of a town called Almonarco. - Nice - Lots of flying and thermaling in the clouds. - Got wet and had a wild landing in thermic valley winds.

More flying tomorrow.
P.

Eating Humble Pie

2010-01-15T15:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a tight little window with a flush in the middle. First off, “launched it” and the second gaggle did well as well – Not amazing but nice convergence.

On the other hand I launched into the flush and just could not get up, landing just short of the piano with my tail between my legs.

Later we launched La Tore(sp?) the town site and I got a great glass flight with thermic lift to 9,000 feet, nowhere to go but a nice flight and a lake “landing”. BTW Don’t talk while landing.

- That was yesterday – and today was totally Blown Out!!!
- Tomorrow We Fly

Too Laid Back - You Decide.

Div.

2010-01-13T21:36:00.000-08:00

Best flight yet - Out to Divisidero(sp?) at the end of the mesas. Then back to the lake. About 25 miles total. 1 hr 50 min. No photos, I forgot my SD chip in the computer.s

You can not do a flight like today's without good friends. Thanks Stefan and most of all Mer for showing the way.

P.

Don’t Leave Too Early

2010-01-12T21:46:00.000-08:00

Always responding to fear I left early again. This time I was worried winds would get too strong on launch so I wanted to bug out before it got nasty. Good Idea – It got nasty a bit. But BAD IDEA I had to scratch for about an hour.

Great lift in front of El Peńon took me high with a friend direct over the mesa, high and East of the wall transition. – Ran the ridge way above and lost a bit near G spot. Gaggle of Norwegians were past the G spot working the NW corner. I couldn’t shoot the gap at first (too low) but then caught a nice one off the wall and eventually we all ended up in the same gaggle.

Ran the Spine. And watched as the Norwegians popped off the end and find nice thermal from the town trigger. – Tried to catch them but couldn’t – hung out on the spine till a ripper took me above the G spot again to over 10k.

I was now in the position to go or no go to div. or the lake. – Just flip for it in my head and decide my position was good and went for the far wall should have went for the hill but I will never know. – worked the inner wall and failed – found new friends at the bottom of the wash out who packed me out and gave me a ride home.

Might be a business for them. They seemed quite happy to see me.

More tomorrow.
P.

Great flying

2010-01-11T21:08:00.001-08:00

Day 2 of flying.

Overcast but nice lift with low cloud base. Again I left early and topped house at 8.4k or so and bugged out for El Penon. Worked the wall and up over the Mesa. This time I was at the transition to 3 kings too early so I worked back and took the Mesa route back to launch.

– Gave a good Kaa, Kaa to my Eagle PG friends and cored back to departure altitude. One of the best parts of the flight was that climb. About half way up I hooked up with Tre or Ty or one of the Eagle Guys whoever flies a Orange and White UP comp or 2/3. – Anyway he was cranked over and was moving FAST – I put my wing on end and we went tip to tip for about 2 minutes right in the center of the core. No one was around us and it was just amazing to be cranked over at least 60 deg. Going up and going very very fast with another fast glider at close range. – What a kick. He was hooting as well – We Just had a blast.

Second best part of my flight was Ralph B. who really kicked it running the ridge and ending up with a fantastic flight. As Ralph was landing I had left the clouds and was in route to 3 kings. – Just prior to this I had been totally white out trying to keep a compass line but not to well and worrying about a gray and blue mantra below me. As I headed west for the hills behind 3 kings I made a good effort at keeping in the clouds and maximum lift but my initial heading was off by 90 degrees or so so I lost some initial altitude for the gap.

Had I know what the other pilots plans were I would have gaggled up but I didn’t so I struck out on my own and ended up on the far ridge scratching unable to maintain. The other pilots were Norwegians and their plans were the same as mine but they were working together.

Eventually 7 of them ganged up and went for the kings. – 4 made it and 3 ended up with me. I found a nice little field and within 10 minutes I was sharing with my ancestral kinsmen. One of them told of telling the other to land where I landed because he knew the owner.

Great call – I was lucky, they had the experience – At this field a nice young man named Juan loaded us up in is tricked out truck – drove us to San Pablo for lunch and then all the way to our hotels in Valle – 100 p. What a great place to land. Maybe tomorrow I will go over the back at some point and see if I can make the lake. All is well –

Waiting for Doc to arrive. Preacher

Valle Day 3 - great flying - quite quiet though

2010-01-10T21:39:00.000-08:00

Day two was much more like what we had hoped for.

The day began with promise of 11k cloud base and overdevelopment. There were at least 150 pilots on launch and as soon as I figured I could stay up I boooggied.

It turned out to be a great call - the lines started and it took a long time to get off launch. I just bugged out. 30 seconds after my launch I found my vario not working - no known cause but it meant flying all day with no audio indication of up or down. This is good practice but it makes coring thermals very difficult.

Even with the loss of my primary instrument I was able to punch a hole in the sky that made me happy.

No one else was really heading out for El Pinon and I looked at my GPS and it said I was at 9k. and El Pinon was on easy glide so boogied out and I took the rock to 10k or so near and over the wall - never pushed back into the g spot cloud base was sooo low on the mesa that it was not the place to go. So I pushed strait for crazy and found nothing. I had to go back scratching below the G spot and worked back to El Pinon at near treetop for a save to well over 9K.

Now push back again but this time the clouds were socking in. Took a nice street all the way to the end of the ridge but ended up quite low - had to scratch and finally snagged a thermal thanks to a local. Got back over 8 and pushed south of 3 kings hoping to get to the mountains. But I was too low on the crossing and landed about 16k from launch - a very nice 1:45 min flight.

My driver back a bit of the way was 12 years old - his mom seemed ok with it. Then right into a pickup that got me to Jovan's by 3 - a quick lunch and 2 beers and back to launch for a glassoff.

The air was very active and some of our crew picked landing rather than flying 3 or 4 made it to the lake.

Great Job Ya All. I know Ralph, C.J. and Paul made lake landings. - WAY TO GO

More later.
Preacher

Phaze Two

2010-01-09T19:44:00.000-08:00

RAIN

Phaze One

2010-01-08T22:44:00.000-08:00

The Scandahovian effort began with a couple of very cold 30 min flights at Saddle. Armon, Doc and I flew and top landed and Lori took the speed wing for a run down the hill after playing with it a bit. - doc where is your tracklog I wanted to see how much you tacked on to my 5k out and back. No video from the air - the camcorder came back with error - too cold. Realy there was "too cold" message on the screen not just ice.

After the cold it was off to Seattle for a meeting and then 6:00 AM flight out of SEATAC. - Got here just fine - Valle is in the middle of a big front and flying tomorrow is not looking very promising but you never know.

GAME ON!

2010-01-07T01:43:00.000-08:00

Ok - The Packing is done - I will have to do two bags, no way the new pod and the xl cobra will come in under 50 so - Split-m and pay the extra 30$ for two bags.

Off to Valle De Bravo - Mer has groved the air and it is prime for flying.
First a little Ridge soar at Saddle to frost up the mug and get it ready for Cervesa(sp).

Watch this space the new net book should send off some nice pics - just bout everyone is going so we will have quite a party.

Till I post from Eliza's
Preacher

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T22:43:00.000-08:00

Christmas 2009
This year we had some of the grandkids, some of the kids, all of the traditions and lots of fun. The first video is mainly for family but if you would like the Gospel account read too you by yours truly then click below, it is a Norwood family tradition.

The other tradition is holiday flying and we got a sweet one. Doc and K went up Kiona round 2:00 and I joined in about quarter to four. Nice little lift, we all had nice flights, Doc and K froze for an hour or better while I kept my freezer time under 30 minutes. Everyone landed at their respective trucks to complete a perfect holiday outing. After a nice chat it was back to the home front for more Christmas Chaos and Cheer.
Preacher

Avitar - Didn't do it for me.

2009-12-21T22:37:00.000-08:00

All the hype got me to use my late Friday afternoon to experiance the new Techno flick.
While the plot was reasonable there were two problems with the big effort.

1. from the perspective of a Pilot I wanted to see the flight scenes from the Pilots perspective. - This was only 10% of the flight sequences so it left me unsatisfied.
2. What was with J.I.Joe the evil commander. - WAY B movie!.

See it on dvd if you have to.
Preacher.

Plans

2009-12-14T10:04:00.000-08:00

Cold and Dark - The flying window is very narrow these days. - A sledder here an hour there on a cold ridge - keep an eye out for nice light North days.

This is the time to get those projects done - yuck. - Need to repack the reserve - got my new Niviuk toggles from Doug - They are the Bomb.

Already starting to think about packing stratigies for Valle on the 8th of Jan.

I hope to get and take a mini computer so I can upload video and stories from the trip. Let me know if your reading the blog.- It helps me want to write more.
Dave.

Kold Kiona

2009-12-07T18:36:00.000-08:00

Cold Cold Cold.
Had a very cold flight at Kiona Today

With WIND CHILL: -12

Set up on RC launch at about 3:15 today. Winds were too strong on top but down the hill about 150ft they were just right.

Kiona is a great hill for high winds from the North - they tend to be very smooth and consistent. This was just what I got. - Pushing out front with no need for speed bar I ended up about 1k over and flew till I froze. - It was just about sunset when I set up for a nice set down and a cup of hot coco.

The only thing worse that cold fingers is when they warm up again. - Ouch!

Looking forward to Valle De Bravo
Preacher.

FYI these are the corresponding wind tables for my favorite Kiona predictors

Weather Conditions for:
Hanford Emergency Operations Center, WA (HEOC)
Elev: 1240 ft; Latitude: 46.392; Longitude: -119.537

07 Dec 4:45pm 13 NW 10 G12
07 Dec 4:15pm 14 2 NW 9 G12
07 Dec 4:00pm 14 2 NNW 9 G12
07 Dec 3:45pm 15 NNW 8 G10
07 Dec 3:15pm 18 5 N 12 G17
07 Dec 3:00pm 19 6 N 13 G20

Weather Conditions for:
Rattlesnake Mountain, WA (HRMTN)
Elev: 3560 ft; Latitude: 46.394; Longitude: -119.593

07 Dec 5:15pm 5 -20 NNE 33G41
07 Dec 5:00pm 5 -20 NNE 32G38
07 Dec 4:45pm 5 -19 NNE 31G36
07 Dec 4:15pm 5 -19 NNE 29G33
07 Dec 4:00pm 5 -18 NNE 28G33
07 Dec 3:45pm 5 -18 NNE 28G33
07 Dec 3:15pm 5 -19 NNE 31G38
07 Dec 3:00pm 5 -19 NNE 30G38

More - nothing better on TV - Video

2009-11-30T19:07:00.000-08:00

Well it seems that 15 to 20 of you have nothing better to do than watch PGs go round and round. -

For your viewing pleasure a 6 installment video of a flight from Baldy to Boylston Ridge in Eastern Washington. -

Humm..... - That was Interesting!

2009-11-28T21:29:00.000-08:00

After a long week or so of watching grandkids - doing turkey and only flying a sledder or two I was ready to bug out and fly as soon as the last little one was buckled into my daughters minivan.

Rick had called to give a heads up on Eagle - likely to be blown out, but anything to clear the head and get out with a chance to fly. On launch an hour later two hangs were thinking about folding up and Rick informed me that it just really started to blow 5 minutes prior.

We chatted and waited for the sun to set hopeing that the lack of sun would have a calming effect on the excess wind. This is a common scenario at Eagle and a 30 minute flight with a flashing light seemed in the offing. Just before the sun went down I had my wing kitting over head - except for some strange reason I was kitting away from the hill - 180 degrees over the back. - - Next moment a South flow got strong and I was hop hop hopping down the flats working c-ds as I had a good time high wind kitting in the "correct" direction. - Hmmm switchy winds. - Strong winds - What is wrong with this picture????
-
Off goes the wing into a bundle and further assessment - use your head and listen to the wind some more.

While I stood at the lip Rick was setting up and the wind simply calmed down slowly to a gentle 8-10 and held. - Rick is going to fly! - Winds consistent now - getting lighter now - Ok back in the saddle and let us see.

Rick is ready - wing over head - looks good - I pull up as he sets his down. - Good wing clean pressure - two hang buddies willing to pick us up if we bomb out (likely scenario as winds seemed to be dropping in route to calm)- - Turn and aggressive launch.

Clean launch - Winds from South South West - a bit of a problem at Eagle but if you push into them to get round the corner to the South face and it should be fine. - Nice lift - 150 over and out front - Big wind increase - still holding my own not getting blown back and no speed bar required, THEN Whack - wing tip - on the right - pump it out - Lift Lift Surge - Whack 20%er on the left - Push out a bit more - get further from the hill - Whack - Surge Back - big surge forward - Brake to Catch it - Almost frontal - Right left I am getting WORKED! - Push further out and now, I guess, run - But run from what?

I am not over the back really - This could be rotor from the south face but I am 1/4 mile out now and not in line with anything. -

Later analysis suggests that I was in the lea-side of a strong East / West convergence. Winds had been strong WSW at altitude and we were experiencing strong South to South East on Launch. - Out in the valley where I was now 2k over it was East vs West and I was in the middle. - The East was blocking and I just got thrashed as I flew away from the hill on a SW heading. What I was doing was flying along the convergence line but just in the lea - If you want turbulence do this it will work every time. - As I pushed further West/North I went through the blockage climbed strong and continued to get worked but less than on my SW heading. I made an initial efforts to get down via spiral but that failed (more about that later).

I pushed further West and it finally settled down just a bit and I was able to get I nice spiral started and got down. 400 over - push further out - still a bit rocky but under control - Nice big field with winds from 2 or 3 directions and a soft landing. - Finally on the radio "I am ALIVE."

14 minutes of high adrenalin and a few lessons learned:

1. Let your buddy launch first! -You will live longer.

2. Eagle can throw real curve balls.

3. If you kite in two different directions prior to launch - See #1 above, but consider cutting your buddy's lines as a second option.

4. If you are flying to fill an emotional need those emotions might mask the correct go-no-go decision.

5. I love my DHV-2; please never sell me a 2-3 or above.

6. Learned a wing control dynamic that was interesting: On my first attempt to enter a spiral to get down and through the turbulence it just wouldn't crank in. - I tried for at least 30 seconds leaning and pulling but it only turned and wouldn't crank over. - At the time I just figured the wind / turbulence were in control and I was at their mercy. - Later, as it smoothed out, I cranked in just fine. What was up? -

On the first attempt I had been and was still carrying a good amount of brake which I needed to have to have something to give back to control the big back surges I was catching. - When I tried to turn spiral left I was still holding right brake and the wing wouldn't crank in. - Lesson learned:if you are going to spiral to break through turbulence don't forget to let up on the outside brake. - Duuhhhh!!!! but - at the time - well that's what I learned.

7. Let me have it!

Dave.
nb: Rick had already learned #1 above and didn't launch but enjoyed the show.

Nothing To Do - No Good TV - Watch This

2009-11-25T19:30:00.000-08:00

Last January I flew my brains out in Valle De Bravo - So much flying and so little time to process videos and stories.

As the winter sets in and plans to return ramp up I figured I better get something up from last year - soooo. - After watching a long video of a nice Rampart flight I figured I would grab a Valle flight and throw it up and see if anyone watches.

Youtube limits us to 10 minute videos so I split a 85 min video into 9 segments. You should be able to click through them in sequence as their names end in 1 - 9. You may need to click on the YouTube Logo and go to dnorwoodxx videos to see them all.

Hope this works - the first video is almost all on launch - Good memories for those who have flown and an introduction to the gaggle for those who haven't been. - Unfortunately the last 10 minutes of the flight are missing but so goes paravideo efforts.

Enjoy. P.

Beauty

2009-11-11T13:39:00.000-08:00

Something about this video just gets to me.
Thanks for Shooting it Mer.

Bob's Bump in November

2009-11-08T21:12:00.000-08:00

Saturday Bob and I went out and put in our time in High winds. - No Flying just an attempt to get draged. We were not even successful in being draged putting the wing away before it had a chance to win.

Sunday was the pay back for our showing on Saturday.

Winds were perfect S to SSW at 12 - 14 - Just what the bump loves.

When the sun was out we got extra lift from little thermic bubbles.
Back and forth and in the end we had a total of 5 flights between us one each lasting over an hour.
Great early turkey day gift.

Saddle - Flying in Fall

2009-11-05T22:41:00.000-08:00

After a couple of very long weeks the schedule loosened up just when the winds shapped for a perfect Saddle Day.

XC-Skies winds at surface were NNE 6-8 in the AM and 6-4 in the afternoon clocking N. Winds at 6,000 were S @ 14 - this cross over raised my eyebrows but 6-8 NNE tends to translate to 12 to 14 on launch.

We got to launch at about 11:30 and flew till 3 or so.
Lots of Touch and Go's and Mer got a nice 5 mile out and back.

Rampart - 48 minutes of beauty

2009-10-27T02:26:00.000-07:00

Ben just caught a great flight on Video - I love video and my readers do as well.
Here is what it is like to fly at RAMPART!
Nice flight Ben!!!
Click Here to View!

Need to Fly

2009-10-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

No one had had any air time - or very little so!
Break away Thursday Afternoon for some light stuff.
Baldy worked enough for Dave to get a top landing after 30 min or so working bubbles.
The rest of us just sledded or extended sled.
Then we went to Bobs for another sledder and a comp.

Aggg - 3 days and no flights

2009-10-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

I just don't know how my friends in soggy land do it.
But the weekend is looking up.
P.

Doing the Windows

2009-10-12T16:22:00.000-07:00

Sunday at Saddle was an example of a mini window.
XCSkies put ENE on the table and light - With cold air in from the North heating would kick off mini thermals with hard edges and for just a little while. If figured 1:00 to 2:00 would be the best of it if at all.
Doc called me at about 12:10 and I was already on my way. - We yaked it up and finaly decided Saddle was the best shot as Kiona was blown.
On launch were 12 or so Bags and a hang. I saw dust rising from the LZ and that was all I needed to throw in. With Bob and Doc and others if figured at my back for a ride up. So I was off in search of the baby T lift. Out we went - Jeff the Hang beat me off but just by a minute or so, I don't think I was on launch more than 5 min before I was in the air.
The sled to way way cross the road was not hopeful as Jeff didn't realy find anything much searching where we both new it should be. I went further west and was a bit above him in 0's as we continued out in broad circles looking and sniffing then as I moved to where he was scratching it began to come together.
Finaly we were both climbing well and topped at about 3700 or so. - He went a bit higher.
Then out of the lift and back down to 2200 or so for a second climb this time topped at 4,000 after CJ and others had gaggled up with us. - At the top I pushed back to the hill and side landed the west hill and Bob picked me up.
Bob and Doc were clear to launch and I went down to pick up the boys in the LZ.
A good day of window spotting and cleaning but just just just enough and just the right time.
P

Baldy Fly In

2009-10-01T05:48:00.001-07:00

Friday was fun - Saturday was blown out and Sunday we moved to Saddle
Check it out:

Baldy Ridge Soar

2009-09-10T23:41:00.000-07:00

Monday we gave it a good old try and about 10 folk - many at the site for the first time gave it a go.
Early we had rain.

Later we had wind.
If you had your wind skills together or got lucky then it was very nice air though hard to penetrate.