Kagel Tues 6.13 Gusty

[Christian]

At 1 p.m. the LZ streamers were standing out stiff. Bright blue, no clouds, 78F. It was windy, and switchy 30 degrees. Two vehicles went up about 1 p.m., eight pilots.

On launch the breeze was 12-25, with long cycles and mostly straight from the S. Hang 2 Jeff Craig pondered the 25 mph gusts, timed the lulls, and eventually decided with a grim that he was ready for this. About 1,000 over launch whispy clouds were forming and dissipating. You could clearly see them rotating and rocketing up--visible thermals. Time to get in the air.

Soon there were gliders spread eveyrwhere, Locals to Lances. Strong lift (1100 fpm on my vario) and also sink. The clouds never came back. Moderate turb, but also very smooth areas for boating around. Clear skies, all the room in the world, and quite cool temps above 4800. Some got to 6K, I think.

Fly until yer arms get tired, but eventually you have to land. I had a S wind entering the pattern and a 90-degree 15 mph Eastern cross on final. Some had S all the way down, but gusty. Good flights all around, and I think Don Banas on his new Sport 2 is still up there, he can;t get enough.

Nobody whacked, but I think a few of us, me for certain, could have pulled on more speed on final. With the strong crosswind conditions, you're crabbing bigtime. With the gusts, it takes lots of control inputs just to keep on your chosen line. My tendency was to concentrate on that, but it would've been better to dive harder at the same time. Today's reminder: agressive conditions=aggressive pilot.

[Christian]

By Wednesday, the wind had gone west.

Then by Thursday, it clocked even further. From The Greblo report, 6/16/06:

Thursday it blew very strong out of the northwest a little earlier in the afternoon than I predicted. 2 of the 3 landings resulted in bent downtubes. Today (Friday) it is forcast to blow down all day and reach 105 degees in the valley. I cannot ever remember having northeast winds in mid June! Todays forcast is for just that. And, it's likely to continue all day although it should lighten during the afternoon. This is due to a strong offshore pressure gradient