Following up on Tony's Deleo's brief report from Sunday http://scpa.info/bb/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1482. A bunch of us from Sylmar and one Crestline pilot descended on Pine Mountain, lead by Southisde's weather forecasting and inspired by visions of aerial glory and landings at the beach in triple-digit inland weather. I had bombed out at Blackhawk the day before while Tony and BobA had great flights: http://scpa.info/bb/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1476 and so did Sylmartians: Chip and Chris S. who flew back to Kagel, arriving at 10K. http://www.shga.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1529 That evening, both Southside and Ronaldo called me at home and helped me work up the nerve to beg a second kitchen pass from my beloved wife. In light of the expected heat on Sunday, she gratuitously acquiesced, "You owe me now. This is going to cost you." I happily proceeded to load waypoints, recharge batteries and pack that gear.
Sunday AM, we all convened for a briefing at the Kagel LZ and then were off in two vehicles. I rode with Southside and ChrisWVV plus our most excellent driver, Dana. Chris's Subaru was a bit cramped and I left my harness in Flamejob's big truck which IIRC, held four HGs and one Atos up on a set of foam blocks. Southside spent a few minutes spreading out a set of atlases to try and get newcomers acquainted with the lay of the land, the bailouts and potential routes. This was my second trip to Pine and for me it was not a place I could just go fly after a quick map briefing. I found it intimidating but was inspired to fly their by Tony, FKA: Diablo's personal stories and posts on this forum as well as last year's PG adventure and video from the Truck Stop flight, also posted here.
Our car arrived at launch as Tony was already set up and waiting for the cycles. The three of us were already set up and still no sign of Flamejob's truck and my harness.
A few minutes later, the truck pulls up and being pretty air horney, I grab my gear out of the back and don't ask any questions. By 12:28 in off and climbing out in a very rowdy thermal over the knoll to the right. Following Tony's coaching, I hang with it as I drift over the back until it tops out over 12K. But I'm not reaching cloudbase and piddle around while Southside gets up and heads over the back and towards the badlands. He's getting stinking high and I remember his advice to follow the convergence and not fly the terrain. So after more than an hour into it, I head out over Dry Canyon and beyond, in search of lift. I sink out to 10K before I finally hook something good over the badlands which gets me well above 14K.While on glide to the first good thermal ChrisWVV announced that he landed safely out front and I relay it down to our driver, Dana who was already headed for Lockwood Valley. I felt pretty bad for Chris and figured that the alien being who inhabited my body on Saturday must have jumped ship and taken over his soaring controls. Around the same time, Sylmar aces, BudRob and Ronaldo are stuck above launch and not getting over 8K. I turned back and could see their sails glinting in the sunlight. Southide told them to just go over the back and find the lift, which they both did, as I made my way over the badlands. Ronaldo's radio wasn't working and neither was one other pilot. I think it was JT. BudRob told the other to click their mics for "yes" and "no" and finally resorted to telling Ronaldo to wave his arms or wag his wings to acknowledge his transmissions. On top of this, BudRob was having GPS issues and could tell me his position.
I continued to make my way across the Badlands and head toward Lockwood Valley. I was flying without O2 and never spent this much time up so high but was doing pretty well for a spud. My 5030 was reporting internal temperatures as low as 40F which meant it was in the mid-30s outside. Luckily, my helmet visor was clean and didn't fog too badly and my bar mitts were working good. I managed to be judicious with my two hours of video capacity and shot many scenes along the was, starting with launch and ending with landing.
By the time I arrived at the base of Frazier, Southside had already tagged it and was heading back. His original plan for this flight was to tag the 5 and then tag Pine before heading out to the beach. I was a little over 13K as I headed for the tower on Pine and Southside was like a mile below me heading back as I flew over and caught him on video and yelled it into the camera. Our convergence speed was 80 to 90MPH. He had a tail wind and I was on fast glide with tight VG. After I flew over the tower and grabbed some video, I dawdled around and planned to continue on to the Tehachapis and go for straight line. But BudRob announced that he and Ronaldo were on glide for the beach with an 8K arrival altitude per his vario. I though about landing in the heat and waiting for the retrieve as well as putting a crimp on everyone else's day and dialed in the beach as a goto. Initially my 5030 showed that I'd arrive there with 76' so off I went in pursuit of sand and cool breezes after just over two hours into the flight.
I got in a couple of nice climbs back to 15K and my way to tag Pine first and shot some beautiful scenes from up high. I hadn't been reporting my position to Dana and she called me on radio at the same time that BudRob announced he's over the ocean at 8K. During my climb before tagging Pine I got a call on the radio from a station operator on Oxnard inquiring about our activity. I politely explained that I was 13,000' in the air over Lockwood Valley in a hang glider and that there were about six of us in the air and we had our radios buried inside our harnesses where we had no access. He said we were using a frequency reserved for single sideband and weak signals. Not only that but it was Field Day today. I told him I was aware of the situation and promised to have everyone keep his transmissions as brief as possible. well, BudRob was understandably excited and I was somewhat hypoxic and gave was was intended to quiet him down but poor Dana hadn't heard his simultaneous transmission and though I was scolding her. Lucky for me, that ChrisWVV is an expert at HR issues and went to bat for me. Later in the beach LZ, Dana walked up to me
and said, "I have just one question for you, and you better get the answer right." I just played it straight and ruffled feathers were soon all smooth and preened once again.
I didn't feel confident enough to tag Pine and was intimidated by all those mountains between Pine and the beach and just went on glide as I passed about 3 miles from Pine launch. Initially, I had 5500' above the beach indicated but that kept ratcheting down as I hit sink most places while I headed for the little lake. It was getting late and conditions had deteriorated somewhat since Southside had already passed the beach and was off to tag the Training Hill. I shot a lot of video and took as many stills as I could. B&B got on the radio and told me to head for the Old Man Mountain but I didn't know exactly where it was and just wanted to get the heck down. By then I had 2500' on the beach and figured it was in the bag. BudRob also cautioned me that the surface winds were blowing hard and plan for a no-step landing.
As I passed behind Fess Parker I caught Southside on video crossing over the freeway and heading for the sailboats. I snapped a few stills of him as well then I set the camera to record my landing approach from the best angles I could try and capture. It was quite and experience descending from temperatures in the mid-30s and then starting to get hot as I flew over SB. But then it got cool again as I went on final and landed a hundred feet short of Ronaldo who was laughing and running up to me in his Jams with cell phone camera pointed in my general direction. My right wingtip cleared one of the transient's shopping cart, parked in the sand. That made me chuckle as I tried to stretch it toward Ronaldo. I was still pretty hypoxic when I got to the lawn and spent some time describing my flight to a couple of families who saw the landing. One seemed pretty interested and I gave then Windsport's card since they lived in LA.
Later, I found out why Flamejob's truck was delayed. His Atos mounting blocks had shifted and the wooden bases punched some holes in Seabass's D cell. It was a sad day for both. Hopefully, Seabass gets his wing back in shape without too much hassle and expense.
http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/221895
Quick and dirty video edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pKEekVNb6Q
http://imageevent.com/aero92/pine
Cheers, Jonathan
