Bruce leaves for Reno !

My flying buddy Bruce and his wife had one final party before moving to Reno. I will miss having him close by.

Diablo was the place to fly this weekend, however I stayed local and enjoyed the pleasant coastal weather. Here is Waddell from the south.This is the old Davenport Landing at sunset.

Sunday : light at Marina - blown out at Waddell.

Sunday was also a really fun day, light at launch but nicer down the dunes toward Monterey. This is Stephen cruising around with Vicky and another bag pilot.

This is Donny on a hot mylar La Mouette topless.
The performance gap was large compared to my old Pac Air pulse.Lake Ct is one of two spots you can top land. It was a really pretty day.
Here is some of the crew Eric, Ken, Steve, Donny, and Stephen. Another big smile day.

Mission Peak, Freemont, Ca

Saturday was a great day to fly Mission, I ended up launching about 2pm and landing 5:30pm. The wind was almost coming straight along the ridge but there seemed to be abundant lift anyway.

Thats Eric infornt of Mission peak. Cloudbase was 3400msl to start with, it dropped to near 2200' by the end of the day.
Again it was possible to fly up the leading edge of the cloud. For some reason I failed to capture a glory... Next time!
I tried to set a course constisting of the water tank to the south, launch and the pool of Olohnes college. The latter almost put me on the ground out there.
The lift was really smooth all day.
The camera was set to take 100 pictures at one minute intervals. I happened to notice the camera about to take a shot just once.I took this one freehand just before landing.

Views of Owens Valley

On the way home from Denver, the flight to Oakland took a route over some familiar terrain. The Escallante Staircase, the north end of Owens Valley, Yosemite and Mono Lake. This is looking SW from Colombus at the East side of the White Mountains. Bishop is in the center of the shot and Boundary peak and Montgomery pass middle right. Miller mountain in the foreground.
Its interesting looking down on a familiar desert from 38,000 feet.

Brekenridge, Co.

This passed weekend I caught up with some friends from college days. Roy and Helen are half way through a 2 month contract teaching snow sports at Breckenridge. The snow was great. Roy and I learned to ride board about 10 years ago together. Excellent messing about on those things.
Monday was a pretty day and I seized the first opportunity to get to the top. I am glad I did, the next couple of days were snowy and not nearly so photogenic.Midge, Roy and Me. ( I swear I was not touching him).
Looking south from 12,665' MSL. Tenmile range peak 8.
Daimo, Jules, me, Helen and Roy after a jolly good nosh. This weekend made me realize I have forgotten a few of english words like corgette (although thats french anyway). Needless to say they didn't let me get away with it.

Great Tandem Day

Just before Christmas, some cold air came marching in from the west and Mission was on. I had arranged three tandems that day and was hoping for the best. The best happened ! It was great air. Its the first time I've gotten my Tandem wing above the peak.

Speaking of Christmas I finally got the much anticipated gift from Amazon yesterday. It spent 73 days somewhere...

Also I was elected president of the local flying club yesterday, there are just a few of us so I am hoping it won't consume to much time. Thanks to Mark and Rodger who on and off have acted president for the past 10 years I think.

Thats two hang gliding meetings in two days. It will soon be time to get the Wings of Rogallo Cross country league going for 2008.

26'F at 3600'msl

A chilly day at Mission Jan 20th. Flew a little over 2hrs. Cloudbase was low ~3k but you fly up the edges, glory in tow. Flew with Charlie, Gerry and Beav. This is Charlie coming in for a landing.

Cement Ship - New Brighton Beach

I have heard "the art to good photography is to make something uninteresting appear astounding."
I will work on that, but for now I will just take picture when the light and shapes capture my imagination.

Man Tow

On Feb 2, Dallas came to town, we were due to do some aerobatics practice out at New Jeruselem airstrip, alas the weather did not co-operate the whole weekend. A few tows were had in the morning and Alex from Reno showed off some nice moves, then the wind picked up [12-25mph]. We watched clouds form to the west, then grabbed a rope and tried some manual towing. It was really fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LRNIKxiMVM