Lukens to Kagel in a Falcon

stebbins · Post by **stebbins** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 3:34 pm

Saturday Jan 31, 2009, eight pilots flew Falcons (ok, one was a Pulse) from Lukens. At least half made it to Kagel. One (Greblo) flew to Kagel, then back to Big T to join the few who didn't make it in the wash there.

It was a very fun flight. And much of the rest of the country is having "less than stellar" weather.

Life is good.

JD · Post by JD » Tue Feb 03, 2009 1:48 am

It was a blast and hopefully, those who landed short didn't feel short-changed by the experience. I was low when I crossed the wash to Big T and got even lower while scratching for lift. Greblo called me on the radio and advised me to turn around and land at the wash before I got too low to make it back. I persevered down to 3,100' and spotted a gaggle of ravens circling in one of the bowls East of me and headed for what I thought might be the thermal below them and it was there indeed. I made numerous passes up and down the Big T ridge well below the spine before I finally got even with it. Once I had 150' above the spine I was able to start circling and climbed back to 5,200' in a downwind drift before I continued to head West. I went on a straight glide to the beehives where I came in about 350' above a desperately scratching Greblo who was climbing at what looked like 1 foot per minute. My GPS showed my glide to the LZ at about 7.2 by this time and so I proceeded along the front of the ridge and came in well below Trash and then 200' below the West end of the Kagel spine. I made a feeble effort to scratch back up but didn't want to blow my now 7:1 glide needed to make the LZ and have to land at the dam, so I headed for the LZ but prayed that I'd catch something that would carry me back up and allow me to head West to Simi. Alas it was not to be. A while after I landed we spotted Greblo climbing back to over 5,000' at Kagel and that was the last I saw of him until the truck pulled up. When we discussed our flights he seemed as much in disbelief as me as to how he was able the salvage his situation.

Here's my tracklog for anyone interested: http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/159214