memories of summer

feeling lucky.

You never know when your lucky day comes, but some day, your first Tam flight occurs. I got my first flight to be a sunset flight. Woo-hoo. Priceless footage follows.

Cleanpants on launch.

Cleanpants in the air.

Me at launch.

Me in the air.

And the mandatory handstands on the beach.

Land to this sunset ... what else could one possibly want? Feeling lucky.









Flight log: cookie girl (first sledder), cleanpants (2 sledders)
Camera duty: cookie girl and Cristina (thank you!)

AMS-SFO-DalyCity-Funston

Subtitle: She who thinks hard does not fly.
Subsubtitle: Karen went to Westlake again.

Ok, birdbones may hold the record for the shortest time between a hang gliding flight and high altitude cross-country, think trans-Atlantic flight, but I have a new one for you. I thought that after an 11 hour flight from Europe, I'm going to take the Bart, stop at Trader Joe's, grab food and then go take a nap. I did all that. I took the Bart to Daly city, went to the local Trader Joe's in the Westlake mall, and took a nap on a bench at Fort Funston, my head promptly on my harness. All thanks to cleanpants and Karen, who left a message on my phone, that Funston is in the cards today. Ah it was. But we didn't play the cards right.

Early on, it was north-cross, with a shear setting up, white caps here and there, gusty. No good, even if you didn't wake up on a another continent this morning. Karen scored a tandem (twice!), which involved a wet landing (ask her!) and going to Westlake for a nice long voyage ... And she was the only one who took to the air today. About 4 pm the wind straightened and softened up, and cleanpants and I walked back and forth, wondering. Should I, or should I not? I thought too hard ... I didn't fly. Another ground school day ... met some folks, got everyone's 2 cents on rotor, angles, approaches, beaching it and rolling paper. 

Flight time: 10 hrs 30 mins but it doesn't count.

October Dunlap Trip

From Mike L

I drove up from LA saturday to meet Kurtis, Anthony, Karen, Robert, Clay, Andrew, Zach, George, and Jesse at Dunlap.  Most of us flew saturday with a few locals and most of us except for Kurtis (I think) essentially had ~10-15 minute sled type runs although kurtis and the locals made a decent day out of it.  On the bright side, we had dinner at Pinehurst, which was impressively delicious, full of beer, had free pool, and included a variety of songs like 'rock lobster' on the digital jukebox.  Sunday we started with morning sledders, which were mostly uneventful, and then proceeded with flights after lunch.  I launched as wind dummy and stayed up for a while, getting over the launch (~400 over probably), then surviving the first flush cycle to a point but then getting killed in dirty air at north point until I decided to head out toward house ridge and the LZ.  I probably netted 35 minutes. Big thanks to Zach for finding a good thermal that I pimped.   In any case, most of us agreed there seemed to be an inversion not too far above launch as all the lift just seemed to die up there.  Anthony did well on his U2, soaring well over the southern edge of the ridge, before returning to the launch bowl and finding The Flush to End All Flushes.  The club sonic I was flying flew decently; in any case a big thank you to you guys who fixed it over the last year (?), as I collect it was in a much worse shape when it was 'inherited'.  The hang point on it has been fixed such that the trim is now more or less correct (depending on how you carry the glider bag) but the hang straps are....uh.....deserving of replacement.  There's some other things as well but that's for another time   All in all a fun weekend although the flying wasn't the best.  We got to fly, and it was a safe weekend, so that's what matters.  Hope to see you guys in the mountains more often. Michael

My Video:

Copy of my report for best Hull flights this summer

Anthony, Karen, Leon, Caely, Myself, Angela, and Gleb (yes, 4 pilots, 3 drivers,which sounds crazy) took two cars to Hull saturday morning. We met an older pilot, Joel, on timberline (and offered to drive down his car, given our smorgasbord of drivers on this trip). The winds were rather southy with even some total shit cycles over the back, and none of us were particularly enthused, but some goo cycle started up the hill around 2. Leon launched first and got thrashed by some dirty air around launch before heading to the house; after seeing this we nearly decided to tear down, but upon seeing him then thermal up above the peak while telling us how nice the air had gotten, we decided to launch as well. I launched followed by Gleb, then Anthony and Joel in some order. Gleb and I got flushed but we made the lake LZ easily as everything near the airstrip was very bouyant. Anthony and Joel thermalled for some time (anthony on his new U2, joel on his sport 2) before landing at the Lake. Leon landed last after getting a personal record flight for Hull (something above 9k.) Great job for the wind dummy! ;) 

The next day we found ourselves at timberline around 12 with most winds blowing south with even some east component, and decided to head for the top. I radio'd on the sonoma wings frequency and found mike kunitani and John in the lake LZ, and told them we had an extra driver if they drove up, but also of our plans for upper. We went to the south launch at upper (which goes straight into rattlesnake canyon) and the cycles were pretty constant, blowing up the launch at about 15 mph. Mike and John soon joined us and agreed that this was the correct launch to use (the large one at the turn in the road, not the one next to the SW launch at the very very top, which had dirty air). John launched and got over the peak immediately. I launched next, followed by the rest in some order. We proceeded to all have record flights, with Gleb getting the award for highest out of our group at making 11.7k; Leon and I found ourselves around 11.5k, under a cloud base of about 12k. I likely would have stayed longer but, upon realizing that my fingers were saying something between "ouch", "cold", and "I cant feel anything" (wearing no gloves, yay me), I decided to stuff the bar and head for the lake LZ, regaining feeling at about the red spot. Anthony also made 5 digits, easily breaking 10 and playing with VG some. None of us tried to tag sanhedrin; Mike kunitani did a couple times but said nothing was really happening there so this was probably wise. Again, all cars were driven down, although one had to go back for some camp equipment (we were going to have a group staying for monday but we decided that we had all gotten the flights we had wanted; I had no choice to stay as I had to be back here today). We stopped for mexican at super taco in ukiah before heading home. An excellent Hull trip, if I do say so myself.....hopefully Owens is treating everyone nicely.

slide | sweetwater weekend

We've been flying more than writing this month - the way things should be? In August we did the second safari of the summer - a week long meander through flying sites in Lakeview and the California/Nevada border. Before we hit the Owens Valley, the weather fairy sent us home with stable, stable, terribly stable skies. I was hoping not to be the scribe for Safari II of 2011, so I left a blank draft, for yes, you, papirtiger :-o) 

Cookie girl style, I've been learning more valuable lessons this summer. How to deal with turbulence and how to pull off of launch and still have a good day. Couple of good stalls while falling out of thermals made me rethink my flying style and what's next - but that's not what this post is about. I had the opportunity to do the photo shoot of a life time this weekend.  So spread the word, hang gliding is one of the most beautiful things you can do. 

I flew an incredibly sinky sledder at Slide on Saturday, hitting 900 ft down for a minute and then 800 down for another minute. Stomach in a crunch, I was happy to land, after another LZ thermal tease. LZ thermals are becoming my specialty. Other pilots had better fates, with two or so getting above 10000'. Sunday we woke up, paid Slide launch a visit, but did not pay Slide visit a launch, and made a slow decision to drive down to Sweetwater for hopes of late afternoon flying. Those hopes paid off. 

By the time I climbed out of launch, without too much effort, [see pic], two pilots had left on XC, two were soaring launch and the peak down south, and the rest of the crew was lined up to go.

After about 20 minutes of ridge soaring, and a few rough patches, I chose to go thermal closer to the LZ. I recorded clayble's landing from the air, lined up my approach right next to him, then broke down quickly (thanks for helping Karen!) and went to chase, along with Karen, the XC crew. They made it to two different sides of Topaz lake, which took us awhile to figure out. Handheld radios do not work well inside cars. Errrggghm.

The night brought some hot tubbing, and whisky which resulted in me walking in thermal-like patterns on the ground.

Forward to Monday, I chose not to fly, but do driving duty. Given a somewhat promising and scary sky, I chose to drive, but instead mostly fulfilled camera-duty. Launch was soarable, but due to prevailing wind from the west, or south-west, without much thermal activity - so all pilots congregated on the launch ridge, high and low, low and high, standing between me and some drop dead gorgeous sierras and clouds. So there you have it.

France vs Cali 1:0

After successfully fulfilling Grandma-duty in Germany, i headed directly to France to join a bunch of Swedish pilots, mostly newbies. We spent a couple of days at Chindrieux, a beginner-friendly site where they could get as many sledders as they wanted (and some of us some nice thermal ridge soaring flights). As the rain approached, we decided to pack up camp and move southwards to Saint-André-les-Alpes - a great site! I had to do some fighting and convincing in order to be "allowed" to launch mid-day. 'Cause girls can't fly (of course, how could I have missed that?), and three years of flying is nothing (well, at least in Sweden). But then I had great flights together with the other more experienced pilots under a beautifully cloudy sky. I flew a rented Atlas, an old single surface glider with pretty poor performance, so unfortunately I wasn't really able to fly anywhere far from launch and LZ, but at least it handled nicely and didn't try to kill me...

Another rainy day came and we went on to the next site. Too late for my taste, we missed a day of flying because the guys weren't able to make up their minds in time and get out of bed in time to be at the flying sites when the winds were good. So we drove around trying to hit a bunch of different flying sites just to see the wind being either down or too strong and found a small, small ridge soaring site at night. I didn't really get any lift and decided I was nervous enough about the landing (a rocky, uneven, small ridge with trees all over it) to go land immediately while the others got a nice sunset flight.We then camped at Laragne, a real hang gliding mecka. At least 50% of the people at the camp site were HG pilots and the LZ was also directly there. Pretty nice... :) But Mistral was blowing, a strong northwind which made the site unlaunchable. We drove to Saint Vincent, a little town on top of a mountain with a castle and a small ridge. The main LZ is above launch and the place is crowded with PGs, so only a few of us got to launch into weak lift. Three pilots made the climb away from the ridge and over to the main mountain, while I and another pilot scrambled around at the ridge, trying to avoid the PGs and still staying up in hopes of eventually making it to the LZ. I tried for two hours without a single second of relaxation until I couldn't master the strength for turning and dodging PGs anymore and had to land in an angry farmer's field below. The prettiest place I've flown, I just wish I could have enjoyed it more.The next day, it was still pretty Mistral-windy, making our attempt to fly midday a bumpy, windy, turbulent, extended sled ride into a turbulent LZ. At night the wind had died down a little and turned to be perpendicular to the rim and I got the most beautiful flight so far in my flying career. Really smooth lift, both ridge and thermals. I took the last thermal up to cloud base at 8:30 pm and then just enjoyed the amazing view of the sunset over the Alps all around me as I glided over to the LZ and slowly circled away my altitude to land 10m from my tent after three hours in the air. :)The next, and our last, day, most local and visiting pilots launched mid-day for windy sledders as we had done the day before. Almost nobody seemed to be getting up so we decided to wait. After 4pm the day suddenly turned on, I launched and had no problem whatsoever to get up. Went straight to cloud base and had to make sure not to get too close and high to be sucked in as I flew around for about an hour. I eventually landed as the sky turned darker and darker and went back in the evening for a calmer ridge soaring flight. It wasn't quite as nice as the night before and my arms finally failed me, telling me that enough is enough and now we need a couple of weeks break before flying again. ;)I got 18h of flying in only 12 days, I got to fly with clouds as I've never really done before and managed to show some people that you don't need testicles to fly a hang glider. Well, I also got a mild concussion from jumping into the car door frame just as we were about to leave the place for a 27h-drive back home to Sweden. :p Here's a nice video summary which one of the pilots made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71HYjy4MNg4&feature=youtu.be


I'm in the blue and white glider with my light blue/yellow harness.Maybe we should meet in France to fly next spring?? :) Until then I'll hopefully have managed to buy myself a decent glider of my own...

Low Cloudbase at Hull

Cleanpants here. Went to Hull on July 16 with Karen, Ryan, Justine, and papirtiger, hoping to get a good day trip in. Just before we leave the night before, Kurtis, Jeremy, Bill (an east coast pilot now in the bay area), Andrew, Katie, and Azul (Katie's friend) decide to come as well. Anyway, in the morning, Karen, Jeremy, and Bill take a sled run and all of them do very well. They all came over the LZ very high, especially Karen (though she is very light on her glider).

At noontime, as I'm setting up, Barry, Mike L, and Angela show up, with a glider falling off the back of the truck. Fortunately, only the mylar inserts were damaged, which were going to be replaced anyway.

With conditions looking good, I decide to launch first. I realized that it had been a while since I'd played wind dummy. I used to do it all the time. Anyway, I launched and immediately made my way down the ridge. A combination of light lift and me hanging about 5"-6" higher than usual (and thus changing the feel of the glider) left me sinking out pretty quickly. Anyway, Jeremy was waiting on my report on the conditions so he could launch. I told Ryan that the conditions were mellow enough as I made my way to the house. Once I reached the house, I found choppy lift, but it was enough to get me back up the ridge. I made it back to the hairpin before Jeremy actually launched. Unfortunately, Jeremy didn't soar for very long- it takes time to learn how to thermal. After I landed, he told me that Justine offered him an apple on launch so he would have something to eat while waiting in the LZ.

As for the rest of the day, I did laps up and down the ridge. I made it to launch somewhere between 3-5 times. I reached cloudbase a couple times, and I saw whispies forming beneath me. Mike L tells me that he touched a cloud for the first time- a major goal he had been working towards! Congrats!! I eventually made up over Lower Launch, but I couldn't get any higher because the cloudbase was soooo low (~6500'). I had been hoping to fly over the peak....but that will have to wait until later in the summer.

After about 2.5 hours, I was getting pretty tired, especially since I was hanging higher. I changed my hang height in the hope it would help with my flare authority. Apparently, all year I had been flying so low that my parachute could rest on my base tube if I were to go fully prone. I hadn't even realized it! But I did notice my bad landings. I was actually considering going back to the Pulse, which I landed perfectly. Anyway, hanging higher meant it was harder to control the glider, and it got me tired quicker, so I went to land. I eventually got 2 hrs 50 min out of the flight. Not a bad flight for me- I look forward to the next one!

A different safety margin (probably good to not do what I did either)

So having been asked to contribute.....(this is mike L btw)

I had a pretty epic scratchfest at hull on saturday a week ago (and it looks like ill be going back there tomorrow). So here's how it went. Judge for yourself how bad my judgement was then (I am pretty much totally wasted now so whatever).

I launch. Not much lift at launch. Leave launch to red spot. Not much lift at red spot. Leave red spot toward switchbacks. Not much left at switchbacks. (Leon has already landed--didn't find anything and I am seeing why). Leave switchbacks toward house.

I finally find a thermal at a couple dead trees adjacent to a mild valley near the house (above and northeast of it actually). So I need to decide, will I stay up in this? I either go toward the rest of the house ridge or straight for the knob/LZ (airstrip) and I don't have a lot of time to make my choice as it is obvious to me that, if this lift is like the rest of the day so far, it sucks ass. So I decide I'll try to thermal in it instead of heading out.

One of the things that pushed me in that direction was my knowledge of the glider. The Sonic I fly now has a lot in common with the MarkIV I used to fly and pulses generally but, in addition to an improved max glide ratio has something far more important: It will turn smoothly and well-coordinated in almost any condition, including a stall. So when my nose enters a thermal and the 'correct' technique on some gliders may be to pull in to max glide or greater and then turn, I can just push out and left or right and begin thermalling immediately as the handling on my glider up to stall is perfectly acceptable.

So there I am, somewhat low but still with acceptable turning height, near the house and entering a thermal (weakly but its there). Do i leave? No, fuck that, I turn. And then I turn again. And again. And then I realize a fascinating reality: I am gaining elevation but getting CLOSER to the hill since the thermal is both weak and slanted. Well, I think to myself, that kinda sucks. But at the end I return to my original longitudinal/latitudinal location and see I am indeed higher despite and height lost in the return to the horizontal location I had been at previously. So I thermal again. And again. Always coming back to the same thermal ( a weak one but one that was there) and always turning back toward the LZ when falling out of it. In the end, after 1.5 hours, "it got easier"; I got high enough on the ridge behind the house that I decided to make a 4-hop or so trip from the house to the red spot.

I got to the red spot and was thermalling comfortably but when I tried crossing the fingers to the launch bowl could not find lift. I eventually got back up over the red spot but could not get above launch so I said fuck it and headed toward the knob/LZ. I crossed the knob with over 1000' of clearance (my scratching paid off in the end!) and landed comfortably in the airstrip a bit later, followed by some tasty beer.

I fucked up my landing the next day but thankfully Leon was there to grad by glider and turn it around..........lift in the LZ for the lolz.

-ML

Hat Creek and the Bionic Badass

It's been a thoughtful few days since our annual Hat Creek adventure as I recover from my fractured humerus in my left arm. 10 screws and a metal plate and I have now joined the elite and exclusive "club of broken arms the name of which I forget". I was not exactly angling to join any time soon.

Positives:

*Wonderful support from friends and the hang gliding community
*Shorter recovery period as I didn't break any joints
*Wicked, cool scar
*Bionic woman
*Random people tell me how awesome it is that I broke my arm hang gliding and not something lame like slipping on a curb
*Get to slow down
*Cute PT named Max
*Prescription to drink a lot of hot chocolate, and consume other milk products e.g. ice cream!

Negatives:
*Need not dwell on.

So, what the bleep happened? I had been enjoying a glorious glassoff flight, completely magical with the launch and traffic not worrisome, as I patiently waited for a few pilots to go land in the main LZ so I could observe their approaches. After about an hour, I was deciding between the two LZs, thinking the small LZ would be a good choice (less traffic), but I hadn't yet landed in the main LZ and I wanted to try that if I could. My height was above launch before I started heading out to the main LZ so I knew I had the glide, but as I was cruising along, I noticed 2 other gliders coming in at roughly the same time. This unnerved me a bit, but I held it together, did a tiny box (just shy of being too low), to get my glider into the wind (the wind sock was showing a slight breeze, but I now know it was relatively insignificant), and came in on approach. Initially, I was pulled in, but for some reason (read - mistake), I didn't keep the pressure on and as I came towards the ground I tried to run it out with out much of a flare, and the wheel caught on a lava rock, and I didn't let go. My nose didn't hit so observers thought it was a belly landing and relatively benign. I assure you it was not. It was bad luck and simply a mistake for not going fast, rounding out, and flaring as hard as I could. Some of us end up learning the hard way.

Another item of note: radios:

Honestly, if Dan had had his radio (he had loaned it to a H2 pilot) and I had mine turned on (was on my person), he would have gotten on and told me to speed up on final. Would I have hurt my arm then? Maybe, maybe not. Lesson learned: it behooves us to have our radios on just in case we need that extra bit of coaching now and again.

I need not go into the sordid details of getting to the hospital and all that, but I do want to send a big THANK YOU to all of those who helped, in particular Dan (sorry I couldn't enjoy the post flight beer you were bringing me), Henrik, Eric, Justine, Gergana, Anthony, Karen, Zach, and I'm sure others who helped. Thank you from the bottom of my heart - you guys are awesome.

Flight Log:

Aircurls - 3 flights, 1 hour, 58 minutes

'bout that safety margin

Subtitle: Don't do as I did.

I learned a cheap lesson this Monday. Really cheap. My lesson is done, but I'm adding my two cents here so you don't do as I did. I am the analyzing type, so post-crashing, there are two things that worried me - shock of the crash itself, but most importantly not understanding why it happened. 

I think I made 2.5 transgressions, each progressively worse. First off, I was really affected by aircurl's unfortunate landing the day before. Perhaps she wasn't going fast enough on final, she knows best, but she broke an arm, as she belly landed. I didn't have a better landing that day, but simply let go, or maybe my base tube did not catch, so I lucked out. The next day I kept thinking about that on launch, and kept picturing the landing sequence, and was quite nervous. That's the 0.5. You could say if I didn't want to land, I shouldn't have launched. I thought about that, and decided to launch to beat the fear, get it out of the way early. You could go either way here I think. It wasn't so wrong to launch, we are often afraid of things. I could have been more communicative though, and sought a bit of encouragement from my fellow pilots on launch. 

So I launched (I think a good launch), and had a good flight. Flew for about an hour, and got above 6000'. After about an hour I started sinking out, while still on the ridge. I made a few passes back and forth, thinking, "I've got LZ1 in my pocket, I can afford to try to get up. If I manage to climb back to launch, I'll attempt the glide to LZ2." I couldn't get back up to launch after 3 passes, even though I stayed close to the hill. I was now perhaps 30-50 ft below launch. Ok, time to land. This is where I made my first full judgement error. Not sure why - mind not clear? Being below launch, I should have just shot for LZ1. Now I could still see LZ2, and I let myself think there's a possibility out there. I decided to try flying towards LZ2, and check my altitude half-way and turn back if it looks impossible. 

Alright, let me emphasize, I think I knew LZ2 was a far stretch, but I attempted just in case. I can now see how that's a bit warped. Can't count on getting up along the way.

Well, that was an error in judgement but it wasn't grave yet. It is ok to fly forward and turn back if you see that you can't make it. But that only works if you continuously check your altitude. I looked back once. When I was half-way. That was mistake number 2, and ultimately the one that put me on the hill. By the time I looked back, LZ1 was far and surrounded by tall trees, and LZ2 was still too far yet. I chose the rocks and sparse trees on the hill, over the tall trees around LZ1. The rest happened fast. I avoided a tall tree, then sped up a bit, as if it was a true final approach, didn't flare because I was scared that the boulders will break my legs, and then in the end I let the glider take it. Hit small lava rocks, a dead tree and two bushes. The only thing on my mind during my crash approach was "let go let go let go let go let go". Best part of the story. I got away with a bruised left leg and no glider damage.

So the takeaway, learned for almost free:

0.5: It's ok if you didn't launch. Even if you flew in 6000 miles from Europe last week, and then you drove 5 hours, oh wait 9,  to get here. 

1: Just take the LZ that you can safely make. Can't count on lift on the way to your landing zone. That's the safety margin.

2: Always continuously check your altitude when gliding far. Not every now and then. Not half-way.

And yeah, let go.

Dunlap 6/18 - 6/19

Cleanpants here... we left early Saturday morning to go to Dunlap (way too early); we ended up having time to tour the Dunlap valley, walk the ranger station LZ, play soccer in Dan's LZ, go grocery shopping, eat at the mexican place, and still find time to wait on launch for a few hours. Robert Booth (wingman) was there and he launched early as did Dan Fleming. Dan sunked out almost immediately despite his best efforts to stay up. Robert, however, managed to stay up- barely. Not encouraged, I continued waiting a while before launching. Eventually, I get to launch and wait for things to improve, which they don't and decide to launch anyway. It turned out to be a hard day! The thermals were tiny and some were pretty strong (I went weightless a couple times falling out of the thermals). The best part of the day was near the end of the flight, when I was coming in to land. 4 gliders were in the air at the same level (Pat, clayble, Robert, and myself). We needed to get into some kind of landing pattern, and it was obvious that Robert had no intention of trying to get down. Being the highest up, I had to try to stay up to give the others time to land. So, Robert and I tried to work the weak lift above the LZ while Pat and clayable came in to land. It turned out Robert and I did this a little too well, because we both managed to climb up to ~5300'. Robert was going crazy on the radio trying to figure out who was climbing with him, but I accidentally had my volume too low to hear him. Anyway, I squandered all my altitude soon after, and had to come land anyway; I got an hour out of the day while I think Robert got close to 3 hrs.

The next day was much stronger. We ended up launching at about 1:30-2pm instead of the 3:30-4pm I had been getting used to. Lots of people launched and everyone managed to stay up. Andrea, a new mountain pilot managed to get about 1.5 hours out of the day- very impressive! Quite a few Berkeley pilots made it to Sampson (I unfortunately was not among them). K-dog decided he was bored of the Dunlap ridge and didn't want to land in cross conditions, so he XC'ed over to the pizza joint with his new glider and had a few beers. My flight wasn't particularly interesting, I got up and got low and got up, and nearly reached cloudbase (I'm now looking both down and up for thermals now). I had a 2 hr 20 min flight which was well worth the trip.

Lovely Weekend at Dunlap

Punchline:
- First mountain flights for Henrik, Andrea, and Lise
- More mountain flights for Aircurls, Jeremy
- Other pilots flew - Clay, Cleanpants, Dan, Barry, Leon, Victoria
- No incidents other than coming in too high on final, radio malfunctions, and whacks.
- Taught the boys how to tear down my glider. $1 a pop.
- Seed planted for 'Men of BHGC' calendar.
- Meat was consumed.

Flight Log:

Aircurls - 4 flights
Everybody else got some too...just don't have the stats. :)

Dunlap....Encore

A few of us headed out to the Sierra foothills for some fun mellow soaring flights. Cookie Girl, Leon, Eric, and the Hardys were out in force to take full advantage of the conditions.

Flight log:
Aircurls 3 flights, 500 over launch
Cookie Girl - 2 flights, highest at Dunlap so far (6500')
Leon (needs a nickname) - 2 flights, longest flight to-date (7000'?)
Erik - 2 flights (8000'?)
Dan - 2 flights

Enrique's first from 1750

Flying Solo....

Headed down to EL solo to get some training in on my flares only to find slightly soarable conditions (W, NW 7-15) which necessitated at least 1 flight off the top prior to heading to the 50' or 40'. If I'm going to set up my glider anyway....

I quickly gathered a motley crew - Ella, H3 and my blue sticker pilot (I still need a buddy until I get my H3), Sergei, paraglider pilot, Armand, H3 who was willing to be our driver as this was his first day back of the season and wasn't sure it was a good 'first' day back for him. His loss was our gain and we quickly headed up the hill.

There were two other hangies on top, who were miraculously just setting up their control frames, which I thought odd given they had driven up the hill 30 minutes prior. Their names were Tom and Terry, which conjured up images of a cat and mouse cartoon. :)

It looked good so I quickly set up, minimalized things (no vario, radio) and had Armand and Ella join me walk out to the N, W launch. Slightly gusty so I waited for a gust to come through and begin to lull prior to launching. One item of note, I had just done a hang check followed by my other checks (shoes tied, leg straps, backup buckle on harness, chute pins, helmet secure, gloves, brain, hooked in) and a nice cycle came in so I picked up the glider, stated 'target', and 'wings balanced' during which Ella asked me 'Do you have a flight plan? Do you know where you're going?' I ignored these questions and launched as I was already in the zone...note to self and lesson learned - be sure to tell your buddy what your flight plan is prior to heading out to launch so they don't possibly distract you as you are about to launch.

Launched and turned left, found lift close the ridge, did a few 180 passes and was above launch. Headed out to the 1200' as a paraglider was doing nicely far above it so I thought I'd explore. Lost a bit on the way out, found scattered, tiny, punches hear and there but nothing I could really work (read- knew how to work! :). Went over to the 600', did a 360 and only maintained. Headed over the 300 found some lift, and did a couple of passes between the 300' and the 600'. At this point I felt it more important to think about my landing approach (which I had been doing since the 1200') then maximizing the bird farts as there were cows! in the lz scattered mostly in the north/north west zone, yet encroaching on the H3 spot. I focused on the H4 spot as it was clear of cows and as I came around onto final, I tried to transition my hands during the turn, in a bump and ended up grabbing my left side back wire which put me in a rather exciting steep turn - whoosh! I quickly recovered, came in fast with wings level, landed on my feet just past the H4 spot.

Flight Log: 1 flight off 1750'
Zero flights off 40' and 50' due to too many cows

Dunlap May 7-8 - Mother's Day Weekend

Dunlap May 7-8 - Mother's Day Weekend, a set by kristymaja.

Happy Mother's Day aircurls, and thanks for shooting!

Saturday offered most pilots two flights, except for cleanpants who kindly watched Owen and Liam in the LZ. The air was calm in the morning, made my arms sore at 3 pm, and boaty at 5! Aircurls and another new H-2 (whose nickname shall not be named here) checked off 20 min flights with several passes at launch! I finally found some stubbornness to get up in the launch thermal, and got above launch both flights, high over ... though I found the best thermal over the switch backs. Took me to 5400' the second time, and to 5000' as many times as I wanted to play in it. The panorama of snowy Sierras in the back... Dunlap has finally been good to me. 

Rain drops on my sleeping bag woke me up Sunday in the early am. Slightly wet and sleepy, we packed camp, enjoyed Mother's day breakfast, and set sail back to the bay.

Flight log: aircurls (2 flights, 30 min total? soaring launch), cleanpants (1 flight, 30 mins?), cookie girl (2 flights, 1 hr 25 total)