quicky report

just a quicky - all is well - landed at the ranger station but kept it safe - big day.
posted most of my flights on leo except last two days.
Having a great time and learning alot.
Fly home on Sat
One more day to try and make goal. - We will see

What a wonderful day Tuesday. – Sun, Sun, Sun.

A fine crew came from the wet side and were treated with Sound of Music fields on top of Selah Butte. A couple of short retrieves and a couple of hours of flying in active air added to log book and practice hours.

No one went very high, maybe 5.5k or so, I think the high pressure kept us down, a counter perspective blamed winds. Whatever the cause we didn’t go high but had lots of fun. I finaly got to fly Selah Butte and met the owner of the treatment center at the south side of the canyon. He asked that we not land in their nice green grass or the large field just North of their facility. Be advised.

Now I fly to Dunlap where my wing and I meet for the first time tomorrow evening. We have much planned.

I am not even taking my OZONE. Let us hope the new relationship goes well.

New Wing - New SPOT

"Uadjet"

The wing is in the Air - Hope to get it by Dunlap. Rob thinks I will get it in time so we will see. I wonder when they put the rest of the lines on it this pic seems a bit light on lines.

I have a new web site for linking all our SPOT pages. The link is new on the right of this page. Make a note of it and submit your "SPOT share" page to me and I will add you to the list. The more the merrier. Useful on retrieve as you never know who you will have to find.

Preacher

Scratch and Save

Saturday was very busy - A number of issues for work took the morning then flying in the afternoon and football ref for a semi pro game in the evening. Busy Busy Busy.
Flying was great - Mer cranked a masive flight for the conditions - high presure kept us under 5K most the day.
I took two flights on baldy and the second was the rocker. - Launch and scratch nothing working well the ridge was sparse and eventualy I went out after being tired of risking my life for 10 feet. -
All the way down the ridge to the South LZ - just 500 ft over road just enough for a clean landing and I got 0's and 10 feet up on a pass and 3 feet down and back up and back and forth and 40 minutes of hard hard work and I was on top again.
The reward was a lift to just under 5K but the deep pleasure was cracking the mountain.!!! - GREAT STUFF!!!!!!

SPOT on Nuvi

Thursday was SPOT On!
Flying with the big boys and girl was great fun for Mike and myself. 11:00 at the rock confirmed by text and cell. - It was a day for technology to shine. Dave W., Mer, and Myself all had our SPOTs on.

Nice lift and great looking skies provided a wonderful day of flying at Baldy. Everyone went XC except Chris A who was testing out his new pod and arriving late took a toplanding option. Mike took his first ride to exit 11 - nice work. I had a Big up and Big down dusting on the top of Manastash ridge while Mer, Dave, Stefan and Steve P went toward Windmills and points north.

This blog is more about retrieve technology than flying. 7 minutes after landing on top of the ridge I got a phone call from Bob Bunger who had noted my landing on my SPOT page. He was checking to make sure I was ok and was able to answered a critical question for me: "Is it a shorter walk down the ridge or hike along the ridge to the north?" I didn't know but he did because he had me on my SPOT map. The answer was to go down the ridge directly to I82.

My phone was low on power so when I got to I-82 I turned it back on to find Mike 10 minutes away and a text message from Mer's SPOT with her Lat/Lon - I punched it into the her Nuvi on the dash and we followed the line right to her. Stefan was on the same road and we picked Mer up just as she got to the road after a 20 min drive right to her!!!

A couple of phone calls and once Dave forwarded his SPOT Lat/Lon to Mer we were off with a new target on the Nuvi and got to him 14 min later just as he finished packing his wing. - Next catch was Steve P who got a ride to E-burg and his Lat/Lon was a Texaco station and the finish line on the Nuvi brought us right to him. -
For No Brainer Retrieves:
Get a SPOT, a texting phone and a Nuvi!!!!!

LEO seems down - will post flight when it is up.

Check out this little video of Mike McIntyre from the day before.

Baldy Season Begins

Mike Over The Tower

So much for a winter of cold ridges an solo launches in freezing winds. The sun is out and the laps rate is climbing. Thermal season has begun. Last Saturday a crew came out and flew their hearts out. Lift was not great but the North flow kept many in the air as long as they liked. 4 pilots went XC - no great distances but fun nonetheless. Clouds streets were in play but they wanted to play over the firing range.

Wednesday became the day of wondering - On again, off again, calls for wind - to much wind- just the right amount of wind. The final morning call was it should work and work it did. Steady flow on the hill of 7 to 14 north on launch from 12:00 till almost 4:00. Mike McIntyre and I took turns flying, only one 4wheeldrive between us. I went first and had a very uncomfortable time on the east ridge catching ratty air to about 1k over then sinking out back and forth for about 40 min before I lost it and sank out. I left the hill just a bit to early.

Mike hit I just right 40 min later. On launch and big air catching cloud suck and playing till his heart was content.

The final flight with winds increasing and clouds growing the toss up went to me.

The launch was fine and lift instantaneous. I was up and over the back in 2 minutes or less and the primary thermal was laying over at an angle I couldn't believe. But, the vario was screeming so down wind I went and up toward base.

The same problem that faced us on Saturday came to bite again. Wonderful street going right over the firing range. I opted to hang a right and hope for something on the much less hopeful mini street forming to the west. It was not productive and the sink in route was massive. I should have stayed with the primary street all the way to 82 rather than heading sw. I would have had much more altitude and might have been able to make the corner near Rest Haven. Ended up landing south of the canyon about a mile or two. Nice air and a very fast ride total air time for the screemer was 28 minutes average speed 21 mph max ground speed over 40. Today and tomorrow will be good North and then West. Come fly with us at Baldy

Baldy Spring & The Pink Panther

Bob Bunger and I got a treat Friday afternoon. A Badger Pocket customer of his drove my rig down for us so we got a free flight at Baldy. - Winds were great, NNW 12-16 on launch. Thermal pockets when the cu's let the basin heat up. Top for the day 4.7K. Lots of fun and a good hour or two were left in the air unflown. I got an hour and a half - Bob's fingers were colder so he dropped out a bit sooner.
Enjoy two videos. The first one is just a fun search for Bob in flight and the second is my attempt to break my JVC camcorder on launch.

April Fool

I spent a couple hours late Wednesday looking for wind that would work. This is what I found. And an extra video also just below.

I promised video from Kiona Spring Lift - here it is: