Mike Leichterman's maiden launch at Walt's Point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKJ7kraOszY
Owens This Weekend?
Moderator: Chip
owens
we want details,height distance,turbulence , etc and who tf is going in 2 weeks w me
Larry makes a cameo in this (presumably non SHGA) video from the weekend:
http://youtu.be/rQ5WJwDpoM4
Looks like nice weather and good conditions. I'm jealous.
Lin.
http://youtu.be/rQ5WJwDpoM4
Looks like nice weather and good conditions. I'm jealous.
Lin.
Re: owens
My memory might not be perfect so correct me if I am wrong...vannoppen wrote:we want details,height distance,turbulence , etc and who tf is going in 2 weeks w me
On saturday larry, ken, greg, will, and orion flew from walt's. Most....? landed at the lone pine airport. Ken made somewhere north although I am not exactly sure where (independence?). I believe the ceiling was around 11 (OP might have made higher but nobody knows if we can trust that vario...) I chose to watch. Later myself and some others went up to flynns to see if it might be a nice easy evening flight but it was completely blown out with a south wind. We instead chose to go to amigos and get some excellent food.
On sunday, we again went up to walts but were rather scared of the forecast for north winds in the area. However, upon calling the lone pine airport and receiving a report that the wind was switching from north to southeast I set up my glider and launched as the last glider off. I only made 10500 although the cieling was much higher.....next time i will wear gloves.....but I bailed for the lake diaz LZ rather quickly in any case and had a fun flight there was some epic views. Some of the other pilots (berkeley crowd) made it a decent ways north; the record for sunday was an altitude of 17200 with a flight to black mtn.
After getting picked up at lake diaz and a lunch, we drove up to black eagle,
36.818565, -118.042860 . The wind was SW. There are two launches on Black eagle: one is more SW-y into the "valley of death" between the finger on which the launch is located and the next ridge to the south (36.818218,-118.042903 ), and one is almost directly west (36.818565, -118.042860). As the wind was light by this time (430-5ish), we decided to use the west facing ramp in the lulls. Myself on my sonic, ken on a lightspeed, and orion on a sport2 launched, in that order. The air was very smooth and there was not much lift but I did get some turns in on a few very light thermals (mostly zero-sink drifting with the wind). There are a number of LZs within glide (on non-falcon gliders at least). I chose the patch near the power line road at 36.810378, -118.123919 , ken made it to 36.796695,-118.157472 , and orion chose the larger patch at 36.813794,-118.123247 . laminar southwest wind at ~12 made the landings a cakewalk.
Monday was a slightly cloudier day with lift not quite so easy to find at the saddle in walt's from what i could see. The air might also have been a tad nastier with north or west winds growing stronger. It started with a paraglider reserve deployment after entering a spin with a partial collapse inside the walt's point valley between launch and the lowest hairpin turn on the road up. After receiving word that the pilot was OK, walking out and the rescue helicopter was called off, ken and larry flew (along with a few others). Larry made the lone pine airport and ken made the northern edge of the alabamas.
Driving back the wind was howling west pretty crazy. The dry lake by garlock was a massive plume of dust.
....that's the brief summary, I imagine others here can provide better details....
Larry Cham, Tony + crew once caught my transit to the moon at walt's. I did go a ways to the airport, but not as far as last time. Go for the O.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBJBlHF8jno[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBJBlHF8jno[/youtube]