Today the inversion kept gliders pretty low over launch for a long long time. About 500ft over launch until at least 11:45am. A lot of pilots left the launch area and headed over to the wall for better luck. Quite a few got up and away that took that route and others sunk out. I really wanted to get high over launch and head directly over the back. The last couple of days I went the wall route and it was a scratch and a half for most folks and I always ended up dirting out. So today, the tactic was to wait until the gliders above started getting a little higher or spreading out and wait until the thermals got stronger. I really wanted to get high and hit the lake run from behind launch. I am still a very impatient man and I know that this type of flying is not to my liking. I hate boating around for hours just waiting with others until something happens. Of course, needless to say that is generally a really bad strategy to choose as the gaggle shows you where the lift is but then you are at the mercy of everyone else.
So today I helped a lot of folk off of launch and I took off at 12:40pm. It was starting to get strong on launch and there were a few blown launches by some pilots but there were idle cycles too that made it easier. Wow oh wow. While everyone else had been flying around in front of launch for well over an hour until they started to get high, it took me probably 5 minutes from launch if that to get to over 9000 feet. My vario never got below 800 ft/min and at times was in excess for short bursts of over 1400ft/min. A real screamer. With only Woodrat conditions to test the Nova Triton it had behave well. I wondered how it would behave in Valle. Very impressive I do have to say. Its a dynamic wing that needs very little brake movement to make corrections (like a couple of inches). I was pretty well cranked over for a lot of the time using the outside brake to control my ascent with minimal inside movement. it was great for once to get a view over the Penon and also towards the lake.
So the route folks told me to go was to head for Sacamente, a knob of a hill a few miles behind launch. From there head towards St. Augustine and Cerro Gorodo and then to the lake. Typically you would go past Penon to the Wall and onto the Mesa there and head to St. Augustine. But what the heck. I saw a few gliders in the distance near the Pinitas and knew that wasn’t the place to go. So off I went on glide.
Oh My Oh My. I got drilled on the way big time. Going over the back was major sink for a while. On went the speed bar and I wondered if I could make it to the roads with the roundabouts just at the base of the hill. The wind was still behind my back which was good but now I was entering a bowl with cliffs to the right, hill in front and the mesa to the left. The wind had also picked up. I got over the roundabout about 300 ft and started to scratch, There were bullet thermals coming off the cliff side and I tried for a while to engage but it was not to be. I ended up landing in the field next to the roundabouts. I could have flown over the cliff side and down to the main rd but I had landed there before and wanted to try some place new. It sure was windy in there and when I landed I was going 5 mph.
A family of 4 kids came to meet me and helped me pack my wing. I then hiked down the rd which was beautiful, had lunch at Jovans and headed home.
Entire length of flight from start to landing – 20 minutes! As I said Short but Sweet! You can see the flight unfold below. I had set my gopro camera to take picture every 60secs. I then pulled the best ones together into this little video along with some initial camera footage of folks launching. Enjoy!
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