Paragliding Aug 15-16 Weekend

[mingram]

I'm headed to Edith's Gap today. Austin and George camped out over night and report high cirrus are blocking the sun currently, but blue sky to the SE with cumulus behind the ridge.

I'm bringing my camping gear. Tomorrow looks like Daniels.

Any P2s that want to join text or call me.

[mingram]

Ediths was really good for flying yesterday. However there is a stump on launch that ate 3 wings. One wing will have to be professionally repaired. The other two have broken lines.

I had 3 flights. The first two I got over launch, but couldn't find enough to stay up. The red flight I found a 3-4m/s thermal to 5500 ft. Clouds were growing tall so I flew north to front royal with the goal of landing at the backroom brewery. On my way to signal knob I made a left turn to land in fort valley, but found another screamer that released from a field that way being cut for hay. But wasn't focused and didn't top out my climb and ended up landing in mauertown. A nice couple gave me a ride to Christina's in strasburg where I met my girlfriend and then we went to the brewery after all.

Krista got to fly her new delta 2. Austin had two Xc flights. Tom flew two front royal and back twice in the same flight. Randy flew to Woodstock. Great flying!

Daniels today for me with some new P2s.

[rlweber]

I arrived at Edith's gap late at 1:30 pm. Tom C was in the valley somewhere over Luray. Austin had taken a sled ride earlier. Justin launched and had an extendo. I launched and managed to find some lift. Austin relaunched and we bobbed around launch. It was fun thermaling together, pimping off each other. We could not seem to get more than 700 ft over. I had an engagement to get home to so I headed out. Decided to do a small xc and flew out to land by the river, at the hg landing area. Flight time 54 mins.

[mingram]

I didn't notice any chance of thunderstorms in the forecast on Sunday. I chose to fly Daniels because it's a friendlier LZ for P2s and I wanted to give new club members Jamie Traylor and his girlfriend Heather (who isn't yet a P2) their first intro to our sites. I showed up at 10:30 and noticed nice cumulus building over the Shenandoah. Wind was forecast to be none to south in the afternoon, but I found light wind from the east. I launched from the LZ with my paramotor and played around with some thermals over launch with the motor off for about an hour. Light lift that I found a little hard to stick with perhaps because the cores were small. Spiraled down when Jamie arrived at 12:30. We were on launch and setup by 1:30 and saw the last nice cycle, but clouds over the Shenandoah quickly grew tall and shaded launch. Radar confirmed storm cells. We heard thunder, packed up, and drove down in the rain. As soon as we were down the storm had moved off to the south and launch was clear. But we decided to leave. On the way home the sky was full of cumulus to the north so I stopped in Warrenton at 3pm for the hope of launching with my motor to catch the end of the day's lift, but I had a gas line connection issue so called it a day. Ended at the Tin Cannon brewery.

Everyone else went to Edith's Gap. Radar also showed a storm cell just north of launch there. Most pilots had sledders, but Tom managed to fly far.