Listen to how crabby I get on the radio!
I do not like distractions when I'm in a high risk situation and I get very, very cranky. That was BudRob who kept calling me wanting to know how the launch off the backside ramp was and you can hear me telling him. I got confused about which spine I was flying over and did not realize that I was above the spine the runs North/South!
DOH!!!!!!So I headed across toward the side of Towers rather than trying the 4th bowl of Kagel ridge. Rob launched the back side about 18-20 minutes after I did and began climbing out above the 3rd bowl so I came back low from Towers and hooked the convergence thermal off of the 4th bowl and joined him and we flew downrange to Middle T where we got up to around 7,700' then headed for Lukens where we found NOTHING. So we headed back then got back up to 8,500' at the same thermal.
As Rob and me passed Lances at 7,700' heading West, Seabass flew directly under me about 500' below heading for Lukens.
I passed high over Kagel then headed for Dino's past West Towers and got drilled before I arrived. I was hoping to cross the freeways and tag Oat Mountain but I was sinking at 500 fpm with no lift in sight. So I headed out front where I got drilled even worse and got rotored so bad I lost control of my glider. I was heading for the hospital bailout it was so bad but when I got out over the houses there was smooth lift so I bee-lined across the houses where we are no allowed to fly because believed I was in for a world of hurt if I didn't get out of this air.
It seemed to be the rotor off the convergence line but I'm really not sure what caused it. It was as bad as flying into Onion Valley near Mt. Whitney. Anyhow I came in for a clean no-step landing after hitting some switchy air along the wash runway.
Here's my flight data: http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/305936
Screen prints of my flight track and my launch and trip down the WRONG SPINE.
http://photos.imageevent.com/aero92/syl ... erview.jpg
http://photos.imageevent.com/aero92/syl ... Launch.jpg
Seabass entertains us with his knee slider landing trick:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_hHTsec6Lg[/youtube]
as always I enjoyed the videos.
