Sunday, March 22, 2009

Quick trip to Kagel

This weekend I took Brian and Ryan and headed down to LA. Kraig had kindly collected my glider and even put it back together. Then showed us around the local site Kagel. Cloudbase was a bit low to start with but it lifted a bit and allowed some fun flying. Here is Ryan having launched from towers, Sylmar LZ down below.There were about 12 Condors flying around launch when we arrived. One of them tailed Kraig for about 4 circles. Chris had a good few circles with them too. Chris came and got me and we flew to the west end of the ridge with Phil and Kraig. And back toward the east end. Everywhere around there was burned by the fires down there last summer. There is a pretty sizeable reservoir between the two launches. Limerock peak was as far east as I wanted to go for the day. A good day was had by all, what a great group of people and fun place to fly! A huge thanks to Kraig for ferrying us around. I'm not sure I could find half the places we stopped at.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Classic Ed Levin

The forecast was a bit sketchy, but as the day went on classic prefrontal conditions developed at Ed Levin. That being south wind, overcast, cold and lift everywhere. I am glad Urs convinced me to fly the Litespeed, having driven though 40 mins of drizzel to get there, a dacron glider seemed like a better choice. Very green this time of year. The thermals were better behaved out in front (and probably later in the day). It is the first time I've been able to fly out over the valley, look there's Mission Soaring. Looking back at Monument peak. The view over the back of Ed Levin. With a driver and a plan, the way to have gone would have been out over Livermoore, into the central valley, catch the north wind and head south Bakersfield way, or San Luis Obisbo...
There's Livermoore in the sunshine, passed Sunol Wilderness. The wind switched north as the front passed, and cloudbase dropped a thousand feet. I headed out towards Mission. Plenty of ridge lift infront of the peak, all the way up to 3000' Rain fell on the coast side of the bay all day.
On the way back from Mission I flew over summit point golf course, where Wings of Rogallo have the meetings (next one tuesday). There's the landing zone, left of the lake.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

S.F. City views

Saturday was a toss up between Funston and Mission, and actually both sites worked well. I chose Funston because it has more ridge to soar and thats what the day looked to be offering. Quite a few pilots were out enthusiastic for the new season. The wind was pretty strong and a bit north, so no worries about getting lowish near S.F. Zoo. Golden gate bridge in the top left. I mostly flew with Chris and Brian. Here is Chris over Westlake. Brian also at Westlake but looking west obviously. A better view of golden gate bridge and Tiberon in the background. Downtown S.F. Treasure Island off to the right, Oakland on the otherside of the Bay. How lucky are we to be able to fly here ? The sunset was pretty spectacular on the way home too. I had to jump out of the car when the sun poked benieth the cloud deck.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Spring is in the Air at Marina

It wasn't quite the day I expected at Marina dunes. The wind came in and went away again. Here's Ryan perhaps practising for the upcoming steeple chase on Mothers Day. The wind came back in later, and was good till sunset. Everyone had a good few hours.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

El Diablo

Saturday the wind was light and north - good conditions for Diablo. I went up there with Ryan, rode up with Matt and Terry -thanks Terry :) We met up with Robert, Kevin, Matt, Mark, Steve & Mike (on launch) at the towers. Mark on his rigid over Mitchell Canyon, off to the right is Mitchell Cyn LZ, Clayton and the plateaux LZ. Mission was looking good for about 45 minutes too, that's over there under that nice looking cumie. It was a nice clear day (for the bay area). Looking SE towards Tracy. I flew for 1.5 hrs or so then headed out from Diable to join Matt at the Lyme ridge LZ. Its pretty close to downtown Concord with the Sacremento river behind. The Lyme ridge LZ is on the right (west) side of the creek. What a great day :)