Lessons At Windy

Windy Hill can be a challenging site. Strong winds. Small LZ. I love it, but today it reminded me who the boss is.

Even this awesome pose wouldn't save me from Windy's wrath todayPhoto Courtesy Of The Westcoast Brit

The day looked great. Cloud streets as far as we could see, and snow on launch to give it even more of an unusual flare.

Ben and I were the only takers and we set up quick, planning our epic flight. Surely with such a great sky we would be flying over the back to Pescadaro. Surely it would all be great. Surely...

Snow At The Peak

Great Sky In Front Of Launch

Great Sky Behind Launch. Looking Towards The Coast

Ben was in the air first, climbing as he headed towards the tree line. I followed quickly. Launch was smooth and I hit lift right away. Things looked good.

Once over the tree line, the air was buoyant but not producing much in the way of climbs. I hit a few pockets that I thought might get me up towards cloud base, but none of them panned out. I kept looking at Ben and saw he was at the same height as me. So at least I knew it wasn't just me. The sky continued to look epic, but we couldn't find a way to get into it.

After 15 minutes or so I found myself heading to the LZ to land. A quick look at the streamers in the LZ and I knew it was going to be an interesting landing. The wind was strong from the North, switching between NE and NW. The combination of velocity, direction and variability was less than ideal. In our small LZ you only have two landing direction options. Either one was going to put me with a strong cross wind at best, and a quartering tail wind at worst. The active conditions above the LZ only compounded the situation.

I got my head together, planned out my approach and dove in. As soon as I entered my pattern, I hit lift. Not good. Planning for a short downwind leg and rapid turn to a crosswind final, I found myself too high. I made a quick turn to lengthen my approach and then I hit the sink. Quickly I found myself low and not in an ideal spot. Plan A & B gone, I moved on to a quickly devised plan C. In the end I came in crooked and mostly downwind. Whacked the glider good and ended up on my belly in the mud.

The conditions were tough, but they are not an excuse. There was a safe landing approach to be had, but I didn't execute it.

Lesson learned.

Snow and Funston

With snow levels dropping below 2000' in the Bay Area, we headed to Tam hoping to fly above snowy peaks. We got to the mountain and found plenty of snow, and a closed road about 1/2 mile from launch. A few hearty pilots hiked out to launch and had great flights. Myself, CRV, JT, Urs, Enzo, Wayne, and George headed back down the coast to Funston.

And Funston was kickin!


After braving the crowds at the fort, I cruised down to Westlake. Got there low, and scratched up. Once above 800', the air was active, and there was a lot of thermal activity on top of the ridge lift. It was easy to climb up to 1200' and kiss the cloud streets.

Looking North Towards The Golden Gate
I played around for an hour. Playing tag with Wayne, dodging the paragliders, and taking in the day. I have had only a minimal amount of airtime so far in 2011 and it felt great to be in the air.

Coming back to the Fort, I saw the ridge was packed with gliders. I opted to avoid the main ridge and go straight in for a landing. Squeezing into the narrow west side of the LZ, avoiding the large rotored area present during North-West winds.

Over The Fort. Many Gliders Below

Hugging The Cliff To Avoid The Rotor

Posing For The Camera's. Goes With Being An ACP

A great day. I need more!

Flights: 1
Airtime: 1:12

Flying 2/12 & 2/13

Some decent looking flying weather came over the bay area this weekend. And while it didn't turn out to be as good as hoped, it was a nice weekend with 3 flights and wonderful green winter hills.

Saturday:
Made the call to go to Tam, and headed up there with Dirk. Met Chris, John Taylor, Ryan, Ben, Gerry and some others on launch. It was a solid south wind, and looked good. Launches were easy, with a bit of rotor hitting us as we cleared the hill. The air was nice and smooth, which of course meant no going up.

Another cold winter day in California...

The beach was huge, so I decided to have some fun landing and do a fast approach over the surf. Chris, of course, had to show me up with a solid beat up approach.

After flying we hung around on the beach, enjoying the warm weather. Beer at the Mountain Home Inn overlooking Sausalito topped off the evening.
Dirk Morris. The man; The myth.


When you get bored waiting for your retrieve, putting flowers in your hair usually helps


John Taylor, sad to have a flower in his hair


John Taylor, proud to have a flower in his hair


Sunday:
Again, solid south winds, and this time we headed to Ed Levin. It was almost ridge soarable, but not quite. A few people were able to linger around launch, but we all ended up in the LZ sooner or later. Took two flights, with similar results.

Tried out my new wrist mount gopro housing and decided it mostly sucks.


Flights: 3
Airtime: 0:32

Don't Stroke The Exhibition

I've been traveling out to the Tampa area a fair amount lately and staying in Saint Petersburg. Mostly I think Florida is kind of tacky. But I like Saint Pete. It's a clean, nice looking small city. There are harbors everywhere and a small but active airport I can watch out of my hotel window.


Last week the weather was just about perfect and I had some time on Friday to walk around and enjoy the sites.


You can't see them in this photo, but this badboy had 8' tentacles.


I took the opportunity to go the the Salvador Dali Museum. I didn't know anything about Dali, but the building itself is extremely interesting and I had heard good things.


The building was probably my favorite part.


Upon entering the building, a museum attendant greeted me and informed me that she likes elephants.

I couldn't take photos in the galleries, but the car being driven by an old-timey scuba diver on the main floor was fair game.


I started to get an idea what the place was going to be like...


Overall, I was left with the following impressions:
1 - I don't get it.
2 - Why is there a little kid in a sailor suit in the corner of that painting? That really creeps me out.

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Huge Gust Front

Last week I was flying from San Francisco to Charlotte. Heading East, we passed just North of Mono Lake and the Owen's Valley. The view was spectacular, as always. One or two ranges East of the Owens, I saw this massive gust front.
Click on the photo above to get a bigger, zoomed in view.

At the top end of the photo you can just make out the white capped peaks of the Sierra's.

At first I thought it couldn't be a gust front. The clouds above it showed no sings of wind. There were no cumulonimbus clouds in site. But it was too large to be anything else. These photos are looking back towards the South West. The front is moving North.



I travel on airliners a lot, and I enjoy it much more ever since I started hang gliding. I love seeing places I have flown from 30,000'. I enjoy the perspective and get a kick out of seeing all the great looking ranges waiting to be flown.