Owens Valley-- Mem Day '09

Wings of Rogallo had a strong (dominant!) presence at Walt's this weekend. Several first-timers put in impressive performances, showing good skills and judgement regarding conditions, which tended toward early overdevelopment and occaisionally "interesting" flying. Congrats to Ryan, Dirk and Mike, and everyone, really. Good flying.

Scott and I were returning for our second trip here, and both stretched our distances over last year. Scott's fiance Rhonda drove for us as well as keeping us in launch sandwiches and good humor. The Sierras were their usual gorgeous selves, festooned this weekend with a variety of clouds.


5/22/09. Walt’s to Big Ears. 52.6 mi. Launched at noon. Got to 13,500 pretty quick, headed north. Clouds developing over Sierra almost from start. Decent lift punctuated by heavy sink—1500 plus down. Really pulled in a lot, used VG, flew fast(for me) from ridge to ridge. Encountered some snow flurries. I was flirting with the edges to get lift and moving toward the valley when viz got sketchy. Basically a lot of fun. Just past Onion Valley (at 13 k) hit some 0g, then heavy twangs. Thought I was past it, then hit sudden massive sink. Vario pegged at 2000 down, then the bottom dropped out (very light in the harness). I could hardly believe it. Down to 7000’ in no time. Scary, as it was taking me straight down into a heavily bouldered area, didn’t seem to be anything I could do. My topless rocket was getting .5 to 1 glide. Unzipped ~300 agl, when I hit a bump. It felt solid, I turned, re-gained a couple K. I was shaken, didn’t trust anything, kept on into valley to make sure I had an lz on glide. Bubbles. Followed 395 for several miles, drifting N and E. Crossed fish pond, Mazurka road. OD over Whites had me skirting clouds ~ 8-9k (me, not them). Finally the clouds from Sierras and Whites started to converge, I bailed to Big Ears. Had to dive pretty hard to get down. Good landing in 15-20 S. Rhonda and Scott picked me up. Interesting day, and a bit further than I’d gone before.

5/23/09
Weather looked similar to yesterday, but developing even earlier. Launched ~10:15. Decent flying, nice views. I was wary approaching Onion Valley. Since I only had 12 K, I gave it a wide berth to the valley side. Weather looked likely to shut down the day before too long, so I opted for an easy landing near Aberdeen for maybe 35 miles. Ryan landed nearby--great first flight in the Owens.
Ryan brings it in near Aberdeen.

5/24/09
Got another early start. I was finding even better climbs than the past couple of days, frequently reaching cloudbase at 14.5k or so. No tailwind today, maybe even slight headwind, so progress north seemed slow. Saw Bruce and later Ben as they passed me. Passed high over Whitney Portal and Onion Valley, enjoying spectacular views. Still was wary of the area but nothing of note. Pissed on it just for good measure and moved on.
Friendly cu’s along the way, but I started noticing a huge tongue of dense, very high, cloud reaching into my path from the west. Didn’t know what to make of it. Not cu, and not cirrus, clearly being pushed by strong wind aloft. Possibly lenticular? Didn’t look quite right for that either, more like some errant tendril of the jet stream coming down to visit.* Eventually I headed east somewhere past Big Pine (My GPS kept shutting off, I think the cold was getting to my batteries, so I’m not sure exactly where I left the Sierras.)
Made the crossing with no issues, but that tongue kept reaching farther east, I wanted to get clear of it but wasn’t moving fast enough. Hit Black’s (a first for me) around 8K with Brian F overtaking me. Quickly climbed to 14.5 under a growing cu. Brian didn’t like the weather and went out to land. I raced north a bit further, but found alternating heavy lift and sink, and the Devil Tongue kept licking at my heels.
The hundred miler was beckoning, but with no GPS, faint familiarity with the landmarks further north, and vaguely threatening weather which I didn’t understand, I moved away from the peaks and closer to the foothills, still headed north. The weather uprange looked strong but fine, but I just wasn’t feeling comfortable with the situation where I was, so I left the hills after Flynn’s and landed along 6 between Flynn’s and Chalfant for 66 miles. My LZ was clear enough to pull off the no winder OK, but it was a hellish breakdown spot—half and half talcum powder and nasty stickers, and very hot.
Rhonda had trouble getting to Scott for his pickup, so I had a couple of hours to watch the clouds. The elevator over Black turned into an impressive cu-nim, exploding high and wide into a classic anvil. The tongue continued to spread east and grow, but became less and less defined. The shade brought some relief from the heat. Mayflies suddenly appeared out of nowhere, followed by a busy squadron of dragonflies gobbling them up. Passers-by offered welcomed water and beer. Cu’s and virga developed north and south. My ride eventually appeared, and we quested north to find Rick Dumlao, who did 80+ but landed without radio or cellphone coverage, but fortunately near the highway. Just another day in the Owens.

I was a little grumpy about cutting off the flight, but it was still a best for me. Met up with Bruce and Sarah, Wayne, Eric, Matt, and their drivers Nile and Suzanna for pizza and a thorough debrief on the day. Bruce, Ben and Steve all went better than 100 miles, though Bruce had to sacrifice a control bar($ouch$) and a modicum of flesh. Eric and Wayne also had good flights. Matt got stuck in the launch queue and didn’t get off before it started raining. (argggh).

*Bruce was able to enlighten me regarding the Evil Tongue—there had been T-storms over the West side of the Sierras, and what we saw was the dissipating remnants of those cu-nims being carried over the mountains by high westerlies. Ya learn something new every time.

Mount St. Helena Fly-in

The Sonoma boys hosted yet another successful fly-in over the weekend. Ryan G and I drove up to meet 20 other pilots and fly the the wine country, had a great time. First time there for both of us. Scenery was beautiful and green, lift abundant, beer cold.
Launch is 4k, was able to get 5800 a couple of times. You could pretty much fly as long as you wanted, but it was really choppy. Also, right around the mountain it seemed quite sinky, so everyone congregated over the peak and it got pretty busy sometimes. Fewer people, but not as organized as say, Chelan launch with 40 wings ;-)
I think I was probably over-correcting the glider a bit (hadn't been flying the litespeed much lately) but was kinda beat up after 1:30 and headed beerward.
View from over the peak, pretty sure that's Bob Stanley in lower left corner. Whether he's coring something tight or going over the falls I couldn't say. Either was pretty possible.

Oddly, once I left the peak at ~5400, I pulled rope, got past the sink zone, and found myself in completely smooooth air w zero sink--cruised at 35 mph for 5 minutes w no loss, then s-l-o-w-l-y settled down after that. The last 15 minutes of the flight were really nice, just glassy. Cruised around the valley a bit, then went in to land. Nice to fly the litespeed again, its just a nice-flying wing.
Found the right field and landed close enough to the target for a T-shirt. Some competitors took a unique lawn-dart approach to hitting the spot. If they'd told me those still counted, I'm sure I would have done better.
The BBQ was superlative, nice camping under a full moon. Great hanging out with the ever-colorful SW crew.
There were some other happenings on Sunday, so only 4 of stuck around to fly. Conditions were similar. I flew for a (short) while with what we later identified as a pair of golden eagles. Which is to say I saw them near me start to circle, turned into it with them, and watched them promptly disappear overhead. Damn locals.

Wind had picked up to 10-20 in the LZ. OK as such, but it was coming directly over a big row of trees on the long side of the field. The grass/weeds in the field were tall enough to illustrate nicely what big tree rotor looks like on the ground. I tried to land downwind of a small gap in the trees, but if there was a clean channel, it eluded me, so I got to try out the lawn dart method. Nothing broke, but I still don't see why its so popular.

Anyway, fun weekend. Thanks Sonoma Wings!

Finally!

4-26-09
Red letter day. After yet another cycle(or 3) of accumulated/obliterated pairs of H4 spots, I finally hit 3 in a row and get the rating. Good timing, as the joys of knitting and putt-putt golf were beginning to exert their powerful allure.
Thanks to all who observed, drove, coached, and refrained from laughing their asses off (at least in my presence) during all the fun.


4-28-09
Ok, ok it was all worth it. Flew Mission Peak for the first time, with Karl, Carm, Roy, and Doug Hahn—easy ride to cloudbase, flew nearly 2 hrs, top landed a couple of times—hey this local mountain soaring stuff is easy! Somebody should tell the guys…. Just remember to duck when the big planes come by.

Catching Up, Ditch Suck, etc.

So, finally found that pesky camera cable. Sandia Peak launch pics didn't do it justice, let's move on to the LZ.
Not sure why, but enough of my 'local' sites seem to have small ditches or creekbeds or some such in/near the LZ that we recognize a phenomenon called ditch suck-- way more pilots seem to land (or better, whack) into these features than the relatively small area justifies. The main Sandia LZ is a long skinny field oriented to the prevailing wind. I say long, but the downwind half is pretty rough- cactus, rocks, etc--not really a good place to put down, but good to set up your approach--no powerlines. The second half is pretty clean. But crossing it, right in the middle....the mother of all ditches. This sucker is a concrete lined culvert 15 or 20 feet wide and 8' deep-- the mind boggles at the possibilities. The photo was taken standing in the bottom, you can see the sock in the distance. If you suffer object fixation, do not land here!

Also drove out to La Bajada, a ridge-soaring mesa 45 minutes north of Albuquerque. Rugged, volcanic, long ridge- reminded me a bit of Hat Creek. Good-looking spot, though the edge was very sharp and rotor-y-- could feel it even 300 or 400 meters downwind. Of course that was with 40 mph steady and higher gusts. I exercised my razor sharp judgement and elected not to set up.

La Bajada from below.


The view from launch.

After getting blown out in New Mexico, I headed up to Denver to visit my sister to get snowed in.









Of course, it could have been worse.


After a few days I braved more blizzardy conditions across Wyoming to Salt Lake to see Heather and Adrian. (Heavy winds and falling/blowing snow made an already lunar landscape seriously surreal.) It cleared getting into the flats. They've got a great place 3 minutes from Point of the Mountain launch. Lots of pilots congregate in the neighborhood, even on a wintery weekend it was a lot of fun... summer sounds like flying/party central. Imagine Funston with a golf-green launch/top land area, pilots living walking distance all round, and consistent warm weather. The hardcores fly all day and then bbq while the working types fly/land/provide entertainment in the evening.

Last stop was Reno for a couple of days, visited with Bruce and Sarah—their new kitchen is starting to take shape. Flew Duck. After watching an H2 on his first high-altitude flight just about sky out flying a straight line, we watched the cycles promptly weaken then die. Scratched hard to get a slightly extended sledder; of course Bruce extended his just long enough to make me land first—damn locals. Shouldn’t whine though, it provided the sum total of my flying time for a 3k (driving) miles trip. Still, got to see lots of family and friends, generally had a good time, so I’ll stop my (non)whining.