Daniels was sweet today--mellow light soaring ad a magic air cushion to end the day. Nobody but some paragliders showed--wasn't even really cold. Cahrlie Givens and most others flew at least three times--I had to content myself with just two sweet soaring flights. Ahhhhh.
marc
Daniels Today
Moderator: CHGPA BOD
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Marcel Dettling
- Posts: 93
- Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2005 1:00 pm
- Location: Zurich (Switzerland)
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Daniels Saturday 12/10/2005
We were 6 PGs in total (Jim, Stephane, Laszlo, Charlie, Marc and myself). We arrived at launch around 11.30am. It looked promising, although still a bit weak. As expected, the first 3 flights I saw were sledrides. I decided to wait. At 12.30 some rapidly climbing birds our front teased me to launch. I went where they were, flew half a turn in the lift - then both the lift and the birds quit. Back to the ridge where the birds were now. Same story again, both the birds and the lift quit when I was there. I was briefly above launch on that flight, but sank out after 10 minutes.
Waiting until the high clouds move away (1.25pm)
We drove back to launch while Marc was soaring above launch for a while. Unfortunately, a band of high clouds moved in right at that time and shut down the thermal activity. Again, some sledrides happened and I prefered to wait until the sun came back at 1.40pm. Twenty minutes later, it felt like the thermals had built again. I let Laszlo launch before me and took off a few seconds after him. Exactly as we hoped, we could stay up, and yes, there was a good thermal that felt really solid. Cored it, but when we were 300ft above launch, it quit. All of a sudden the lift was gone, just heavy sink. Laszlo headed left, I tried it to the right, then we both tried out front of the ridge - nothing. After a 15 minute flight, we were grounded.
Daniels Mountain after my last flight of the day (4.20pm)
We packed the wings, started walking up the mountain before about half-way up, we were picked up by Marc. Back on top at 3pm, it still looked fairly light, although a bit more consistent than before. Jim gave it a go, I went shortly after him. Indeed, the conditions had improved and for a while, it was fairly easy to stay up, everybody got a (longer or shorter) soaring flight. The highest altitude I reached was about 500ft above launch and as the conditions got marginal after around 40 minutes, I knew that I had to spare every foot of height if I wanted to achieve a 1 hour flight. I did it well enough and was able to squeeze out another 35 minutes for a flight of 75 minutes in total. I sank out a few minutes before the sun went down behind the Blue Ridge, but was very happy with my flight. Jim (great team flying with him today) gracefully outflew me by a few moments and then, shared my pain in the thawing fingers (well, the pain was nothing compared to what I experienced two weeks ago, because it was a lot warmer today).
My last flight with the P26? We'll see. Note that the wind has already turned catabatic (4.20pm)
Cheers,
Marcel
PS: Also my US flying season ends here, I will soon be heading to Switzerland for the holidays. Merry Xmas, a happy new year and see you all in 2006 for some hopefully great flights.
Waiting until the high clouds move away (1.25pm)
We drove back to launch while Marc was soaring above launch for a while. Unfortunately, a band of high clouds moved in right at that time and shut down the thermal activity. Again, some sledrides happened and I prefered to wait until the sun came back at 1.40pm. Twenty minutes later, it felt like the thermals had built again. I let Laszlo launch before me and took off a few seconds after him. Exactly as we hoped, we could stay up, and yes, there was a good thermal that felt really solid. Cored it, but when we were 300ft above launch, it quit. All of a sudden the lift was gone, just heavy sink. Laszlo headed left, I tried it to the right, then we both tried out front of the ridge - nothing. After a 15 minute flight, we were grounded.
Daniels Mountain after my last flight of the day (4.20pm)
We packed the wings, started walking up the mountain before about half-way up, we were picked up by Marc. Back on top at 3pm, it still looked fairly light, although a bit more consistent than before. Jim gave it a go, I went shortly after him. Indeed, the conditions had improved and for a while, it was fairly easy to stay up, everybody got a (longer or shorter) soaring flight. The highest altitude I reached was about 500ft above launch and as the conditions got marginal after around 40 minutes, I knew that I had to spare every foot of height if I wanted to achieve a 1 hour flight. I did it well enough and was able to squeeze out another 35 minutes for a flight of 75 minutes in total. I sank out a few minutes before the sun went down behind the Blue Ridge, but was very happy with my flight. Jim (great team flying with him today) gracefully outflew me by a few moments and then, shared my pain in the thawing fingers (well, the pain was nothing compared to what I experienced two weeks ago, because it was a lot warmer today).
My last flight with the P26? We'll see. Note that the wind has already turned catabatic (4.20pm)
Cheers,
Marcel
PS: Also my US flying season ends here, I will soon be heading to Switzerland for the holidays. Merry Xmas, a happy new year and see you all in 2006 for some hopefully great flights.
