Flying Friday 11/9/12

[Dan T]

Several of us PGers bailed out to Dickies after running into Joe Schad who was breaking down after spending several frustrating hours on launch at Woodstock. When we got there at 3:15 Dickies was working and based upon the trend was probably working very nicely a couple hours earlier in the day. Most of us soared, some for over an hour.

Dan

[sailin]

The Pulpit produced some good weekday flying...and a great pilot turnout. I was the second one off the mountain just after 130pm and launched in mostly straight in 12-15mph. The gusty punchy air that we encountered when we arrived had backed off and smoothed up a bit. At 11am I had been getting consistent readings 12-15 shooting up to 23-25mph and additional gusts to 28mph. After most of the pilots were in the air, the ridge was actually "crowded" at one point as we were all working lift and trying to survive flush cycles down by the south radio towers. The thermals were better than forecast (a couple 500fpm) although there was definitely an inversion present at maybe around 3600msl???.....you could see the brown scuze. I maxed out at a little over 3300msl and had fun yo yo'ing up and down for 1:15. Turned out to be pretty warm in the air as well . Finished up the day with a Steak and Cheese at Tony's with a bunch of other grinning pilots.

Jon

[DanTuck]

I was the last one there a little after 1200 and it was already backing off and looking good. Got set up and helped with wire crew. A guy named Darren showed up to watch. He used to fly hang gliders back in the day, learned from Keith Ford, and most recently has been flying powered ultralights and planes. He said just watching was giving him the bug again. Since I was last one left, and I didn't know if anyone else was coming, I got Darren to help me up to the pad. It turned out that conditions were nice enough that he didn't have to do anything at all and I self launched at about 300pm. It was still good to have someone there though as it had been gusty earlier. The ridge was still soarable but just barely and I saw the gaggle down by the towers. I stayed a little to the North and found a little climb up to 3k msl. Hooked up with another good climb with Larry B at 500+ fpm to my max just shy of 3,600 msl. Shortly after I noticed two people setting up at launch and I figured crew would be needed and maybe it was Charley so I went out to land. Turned out it was Charley but fortunately the other pilot was John M who helped him off. Interestingly John first tried the pad but conditions were cross and strong. So we went up to the old ramp where it was much nicer. Could've just been the timing but I would've expected the opposite. Anyhow, glad everyone got to fly and soar.