Monarca 2010 – Task 3 – 68.5Km – I hate Piano’s!

Results are posted at http://www.monarcaparaglidingopen.com (Note they are still trying to get the titles right!. However the overall scores for task 2 actually include today’s results)

Today there were clouds!!!! It looked to be real nice when I arrived at launch and I was feeling very confident about today’s flight after yesterday’s uncomfortable right turn day. Today the wind was mainly from the South and with the clouds setting up early I thought they would set either a long task or a task with a long upwind leg to test the comp pilots. They choose the later making pilots fly most of the Mesa in both directions. The start was at Maguey again with a 2Km enter cylinder so having got there before (Jump starting the race!) I didn't anticipate too many problems. Today I would wait for the main gaggle to head off first. My simple strategy for today was to stay high and pimp. Couldn’t be that hard right. Look at all the clouds forming over launch.I would bite my tongue on that thought later.

The launch window opened at 11:40 and at that time anybody could get in line to launch for 15min. That would be my time. After the pilots briefing and entering the coords in my gps I would get ready and head off first to launch rather than wait. Well that seemed to be simple but alas no. By the time I entered my coords and the clock hit 11:25 the line was longer than the previous day where I waited for 30 minutes!. Oh crap. Being the lowest of low in this comp so far, it meant I would certainly be at the back of the line. No point getting ready for launch now. In fact the line just grew and grew. it seemed everybody wanted off of launch quickly today.

I decided to take some video of the launches and see what happened. The thermals were already beginning to get a little strong on launch and there were a lot of blown launches and wings with knots and cravats that took to the air while  other pilots careered down the hill. Yikes!. The clouds were about 1500 over launch, nice and white and they just started to grow and grow then  after a time would dissipate and then start the cycle again.  Today keeping out of them would be problematic I thought. Cloud flying is NOT allowed as it’s dangerous so if you did get  high you would had to go around them. Being only a little over launch it would turn out that you had to fly around them like avoiding obstacles in an arcade video game! Quite fun really.

I watched Chris, Mer, Dave, Stefan, Arun, Frank and Bill Hughes all get off the hill safely. The launch line finally started to dissipate and I pulled on my gear and went to launch to start with the 1 last remaining competitor. By this time  the thermals were strong and the other chap had some problems bringing up his wing. I pulled  my wing up controlling with A’s and C’s and I was off!. Like a rocket I shot up vertically about 100 feet before I could get into my harness. But all was good. Oh yeah…this is going to be a good day baby! Within a few minutes I was at around 9000ft where the clouds were and had to start veering away so as not to enter them. I flew past a nice fluffy one to my right and headed towards the Penon. Today I flew right past the top shoulder and could see over the top for once. Woo Hoo…at last no scratching at the bottom. Feeling good I flew around the rock to see a bunch of gliders struggling at the wall. I should have hung back, but I pressed on. Big mistake. My sink alarm came on which is set at 800 ft/min down. My glider lost pressure and I sunk like a stone towards the spines at the bottom of the Wall. Oh for frick’s sake not scratching again surely. I arrived higher on the spines than before but decided to head back to the Penon and tank up again. Mistake number 2. Sink all the way. I flew past the bottom of the front of that Rock and made it to the other side where I got lift again and started climbing. Woo Hoo. Up again I went. Ok lets try that again. Headed towards the Penon for the 2nd time and the big hand from above came down hard for the 2nd time and said where are you going mate! I saw 6 gliders below me sinking fast and heading out to the Piano. Surely not again for Pete’s sake. But alas yes. For the second time this week I landed at the Piano during a task. As it turned out there were 30 pilots who made minimal distance today so I didn’t feel too bad. In fact A lot of pilots sunk out after the 2nd waypoint and landed near Jovan’s on the way to Saucos. All reported big lift and big sink. Tell me about it!

Kudos for the day goes to Arun Moorthy who made goal. Only NW pilot to do so. He has been flying like a demon and even Frank refers to him as the Master now! Awesome Arun. Steve Theibult sunk out on way to Saucas along with Frank, and Mer  and Chris on the way back. Wheelie Bob got all the way back to the Wall from Saucas heading for Divisa but landed out there. Not sure where Stefan landed as he was making his way back to the Lake LZ when I left.

So 3 tasks down and 3 to go and still no start. I need to back to flying school. So goal for me tomorrow is to officially start! :-)

Monarca 2010 – Task 2 55.8Km

Today’s task was going to be a little difficult for a lot of people and most of all for me. Feeling confident flying yesterday today I crumbled! Launching wasn’t a problem as I have always been confident in that area even in strong winds. However turning right is my big weakness and I will need to get that sorted out pronto if I have any hope of getting off the bottom of the ladder down here. For some mental reason I just don’t feel comfortable in strong lift turning right or with a lot of people in a gaggle. Today the wind had also picked up and it was pretty strong in places low down around the Penon, where I normally find myself.

Anyway, for today’s task the start was a hefty 10Km from launch and that made even the comp pilots leave early and get in line to launch. They have priority order which means the yoyo’s like me have to wait in line. It took me 30minutes to get to the start of launch. I wasn’t too bothered by this other than having to wait fully suited up in the heat for what seemed a long long time!

Getting to the start, the thermals had started to come up the hill quite strong and it still amazes me how really good pilots in the air have some terrible ground handling skills. I think all that Whidbey practice has paid off for me. It was still a high pressure day but the launch gaggle seemed to spread out quite quickly and made a move towards the Penon and the wall as soon as they could. They wanted to get onto the mesa and wait above Espina about 1  Km from the start cylinder. I took off and joined a few gliders in front to get up. I certainly didn’t like the air around launch,. There were thermals coming up but it was also windy and quite rough in places. Having to turn right just made it worse. I headed out to the Penon and beyond as soon as I could. Getting towards the Penon the wind had picked up and it was slow going. I took my first little asymmetric close to the Penon on the inside wing half nearest to the rock which did not make me feel too happy. Other folks had some frontal action going on too so I gave it a wide berth and continued to the wall. That was another struggle. On the radio there was also chatter about 2 pilots who had gone into the trees above the wall on the mesa. That didn’t make me happy at all to hear! I was  low down again and didn’t want to struggle climbing up the wall so I headed all the way back to the other side of the Penon. However I went a little too far back as the wind had picked up even more and I was now only making around 7mph progress moving forwards. Another rocking and rolling low down and I had had it. I decided to just go and land out at the Piano,

Having a beer in the Piano and watching the gliders head off was actually quite relaxing. It was also great to see the convergence setting up about an hour later and soon there were clouds developing everywhere. It was really good to see first hand the clouds forming and coming in from different directions and then forming one solid line.

At this point the local transport bus picked us up just as we saw the lead gaggle of pilots fly back to the Wall on their way to Jovan. It would now be a race between the bus and the paragliders to see who made it to the LZ first. It was close but the bus got back about 5 minutes before the leader landed at the LZ.

From the NW Paragliding perspective, I saw Bill Hughes and Meredyth make goal with great performances by Dave Wheeler and Arun. Frank had landed out between LaPila and Aguilera.

Tomorrow is a left hand day and there are supposed to be clouds about so I am looking forward to that. Maybe I might even officially start a task for once!

Results are posted at http://www.monarcaparaglidingopen.com/

Monarca 2010 – Task 1 65Km – Maguey, Divisa, Santa Maria, Quintella, Inglesi, Lake

 

Update: Looks like I jumped the start after all as they only gave me minimal distance. Ah Well.

My Flight is posted on Leonardo if you want to see it in Google earth or have a look at the video of today’s flight below.

So on to today’s task!

Not a bad day for flying for me. Again another high pressure day with the height capped around 9500ft so a lot of scratching to be had. At least by me! It was a bit of a shambles at the start today though for everyone. We hadn’t been given our ID cards last night so we got them today, or should I say, we had to find them today! They dropped the entire 135 or so ID cards under a tent and you had to look for yours – a Mexican Scramble. Then they wanted us to stick numbers on our wings so that took a bit of time too. They had no PA system to announce any changes to tasks being made so you had to be on your toes. I actually missed the change that the start was moved to 1:20. As it turned out I was lucky this year since it took me some time to get on top of the Mesa and I made the start gate which was a 3km entry cylinder around Maguey.

I had programmed my Garmin and the Digifly and once again the Digifly became the Dodgifly as it lost all the comp waypoints as I stood in line. However, this year rather than get stressed about it I just decided to use the Garmin. Since I have flown here before its reasonably easy now to fly the route (or as much as I can) since I know where the waypoints are.

I got reasonable high over launch and made for the Penon but I got a lot of sink on the way out so I came back to launch and tanked up. Went back out again and same thing happened. On the 3rd attempt I just kept pushing and got to the wall really low down on the spines, like 75 feet or so. I worked the ridge lift on the spines and eventually made it up to the side of the wall. There were a few other gliders not making much gain so I took a different path and was lucky to find a thermal that took me to the top of the wall for the first time since I got here. By this time the main gaggle was already established over crazy thermal and waiting for the start. I managed to get up on to Mesa and then got boosted enough to take me over to the crazy thermal too. The main gaggle still hadn’t gained much and I quickly joined them at the top. It was well after 1:00pm (what I thought was the start time!) so I headed straight off to Maguey wondering why they were waiting. I assumed that it was because they were waiting to get more height. It was because the start was pushed out to 1:20 and with a 3km entry cylinder, the were probably waiting until 1:20. With ignorant bliss I set off across the valley and arrived at Maguey low as expected.  I remember surfing the ridge line last year and started to do the same again. I caught a very light thermal and started gaining more height. By this time the rest of the main gaggle had transitioned across the valley and were coming in my direction. Thinking they would see me climbing slowly I expected them to move to the side and let me continue climbing. Nope! Some dumbass comes straight at me and never flinched and I had to move out the way for him during the turn that took me out of the lift. With the main gaggle now surfing the ridge too I joined them. However they managed to keep a better line and got a little higher by staying on the mesa. I surfed my way as far as I could and started looking for thermals to take my up. There were some but not that strong. I pushed out into the spines below and managed to catch one that took me back up to the edge of the mesa. By this time the 2nd gaggle were arriving and once again another yoyo pushed me out of my climb and I sank back below the ridge level. By this time I was close to Divisa but I knew I wouldn’t make it. So I ventured back down to the spines where I got lift before but this time it was all sink so I decided that I would just fly down to Santa Maria and land and get a retrieval from there. And that all went well. I did have a problem getting down though! it was very buoyant and very windy down there and I heard someone landed hard and had to get some medical attention. As it turned out. A lot of pilots who tagged Divisa sunk out at Santa Maria too. So all in all I was pretty happy with my flying today. The Dodgifly is another story!

Rest Day – Registration and a “funny” story

Well not a great deal to report at all in the way of flying today since I didn’t do any! I woke up at 9:30 and quickly looked at the weather forecast. Seemed to be another high pressure day but lower than normal and a lot of scratching would be involved. I decided to sleep in a little longer, then get up and check my wing after the kids packed it yesterday and adjust my speed bar a little shorter. So that’s what I did! Sure enough the kids had got a few lines crossed over so I untangled them. Glad I did that rather than tomorrow on launch.

I went downtown and registered for the comp. I was glad that they had updated their facebook info to let you know where to register. I hadn’t remembered seeing any info about that being sent out which was strange. However it got a little stranger. The map they had issued with the location of the mandatory pilots briefing was not in the right location so a lot folks later in the evening were wondering around. Eventually we all found the place. They did the safety briefing but hadn’t the id badges available and said they would be handing them out at launch. All a little unorganized but what the heck.

Anyway, now to a weird little story not about paragliding but about a guy who started talking to me in a coffee shop in town. he had heard my accent and introduced himself as Scott to get the conversation going. He then said I looked at bit bored and wanted to know if I wanted to hear a funny story. As it turned out it wasn’t funny in the humorous sense but in the weird sense. At least it was for me. You be the judge.

This guy drove down from LA in a car with the son of an 83 year Mexican whom he was going to setup in business with to run an art gallery in town. The 83 years old that is. This was 3 weeks ago. The deal was the 83 year would put him up and give him $500 to get things rolling. He went about getting things going in town and attended  a party at the end of the first week with the 83 year old who proceeded to get trashed and then threw Scott out of the house saying the deal was off. Scott hadn’t gotten his $500 yet so was annoyed at that and thought the guys was a little crazy, However, he had met a woman who was interested in doing business with him and she took him in under her wing. She lived with her boyfriend and son. They put the basic workings of a deal together and Scott continued to get artists lined up and get the gallery building painted. I wasn’t too sure who the building belonged and neither was Scott when asked but he continued his story. So now he was living in the house of the woman with the boyfriend. The boyfriend got a little jealous and told Scott that he had to leave. This eventually led to the Police being called and Scott forcibly removed from the house.  Scott now had no place to go and ended up going to the local church for refuge. At this point Scott felt that the contract he had with the woman he met was in breach and was now seeking a local lawyer to sue this woman. I asked to see the contract and he took out 1 sheet of paper with rough costings scribbled on it alongside a picture that her daughter had drawn on it. I laughed and Scott looked at me and asked why was I laughing. I started to tell him that I didn’t think this was a contract but he defended his situation. At this point I was waiting for him to ask me for money so I said I had to go to the pilots meeting and asked for my bill. He simply wished me well at the competition and asked me to stop by his gallery which he hoped to open later in the week!

As I walked up the street I couldn’t but help think about the surreal story I had just heard. Well at least it passed the time!

Ok the comp starts tomorrow so will keep you posted task by task.

Cheer Iain.

23rd January – Short but Sweet

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!

22nd January - Headaches

I awoke this morning to the sound of Marimba playing too loud on my Iphone alarm! 8:00am. I had planned to get a taxi rider at 9:00 so thought I would snooze for a while as I had a bit of a headache. Couldn't be the drink since I only had 2 glasses of wine and 1 beer all day! Makes a change. :-) 55 minutes later I wake up. oh Crap. As it turned out it was easy to get a ride up to the launch site by taxi. At least they are all charging the same cost – 100 pesos, about $8.

My headache wouldn't go away and my throat glands were a little swollen. Looks like I had picked up something. A lot of the folks here had a head cold and cough so looks Like I had it too. Also felt a little lightheaded. Oh well, we shall see what happens today I thought.

Conditions were light and by 11:00am not a lot of gliders were in the air and those that were were barely more than 750 ft over launch. The makings of another high pressure day.Bummer. By 11:30 gliders floated around the sky like confetti en mass. Hmm, this could be troublesome. I don't like turning right as I don't feel too comfortable that way and it’s something I should practice more. The thought of having to fly in a gaggle that size did make me  a little uneasy. Ah well better get off the hill before it gets to strong. Mer left, wheeler left, Arun left Chris left then me. As predicted it was a bit of a madhouse up there with lots of folks not really looking where they were going. When you fly in a gaggle and you don’t see a lot of head movement from other pilots that is not a good sign!. Thermals are strong in this neck of the woods and it’s quite easy to come up quickly from below to people above you. My worry was that nobody was looking down. A few gliders had already left at around 8200 to head towards the Penon and were getting real low as they reached it. However they were soaring the face. TIme for me to go too! This gaggle was not to my liking. I headed off and got to the Penon about at the bottom of the rock. There was some lift there and I scratched a bit to get a little more height and then dove past i into the fingers at the bottom of the wall just like yesterday. Not a great deal of lift here and I was real low. Like 300 over the ridges. I went back to the Penon and I could see Wheelie Bob (Dave Wheeler) there too. He was also low. We headed back to the bottom of the spine that runs up to launch and we started to get some lift but also big sink. My headache hadn’t gone away and I didn’t feel like scratching anymore so decided to call it a day. Dave continued on and eventually got back up and headed out.

I took the bus right back to the lakeside landing zone and watched the gliders come in to land. Quite impressive sitting by the lake watching them come in. Dave and Arun had managed to get up and away from the Penon area and once on the Mesa they got high. Stefan was one of the first to land at Lakeside and I had a chat and a beer with him while waiting for the rest to fly in, Steve Theibult from Cashmere was on his new Mantra, his first real flight and he also made lakeside. All in all not a bad day for them. Best part for me was watching Dave Prentice fly in the prone position and come into land. I had heard about that but never seen it. Pretty cool!.

Yu can check out the video of Dave landing on my facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1356246064539

Tomorrow is a left hand day, so I will try and stick this one out if I am feeling better and set a goal to get to the lake. I will wear my helmet cam tomorrow and see if I can at least get some aerial pictures.

21st January – First Flying Day

 

What a great little day it turned out for me. I have to admit, I was pretty nervous on launch today. I haven’t flown in 6 or 7 weeks and arriving at the launch site today to see about 60 Norwegians already there at 9:45am was quite worriesome. By 10:45 there were over 150 folks on launch easily. How will we all get off I wondered? As the morning hours passed away and 11:00am was soon arriving there were only a handful of wings in the air. Oh crap!.In another hour it is going to be nuking through here and it may not be possible to launch. That was what was going though my head.

On the bright side it was great to see a lot of people I have met in the past through paragliding at this site. Dave Prentice we there minus a pigtail! He had to get the left side of his head shaved off during a recent operation. Quite funny to see actually. Then there was Joe Hartley with one arm. Joe learned to fly at Seattle Paragliding and moved to the east coast shortly after. He is one hell of a guy. Flying in Valle with one arm! Holy smoke. However, he has managed to drop the wooden bar he used to use and he now has a prosthetic that at the end has a quicklink that he attaches to the risers. Pretty cool!. That made my day i have to say. He leaves Saturday but today he took a tandem with Brad G. and had a great time. Rock on Joe.

I decided to get off the hill sooner than later and followed Wheelie Bob, Steafan and Mer. Right off of launch I hooked a thermal and it took me to the top of the stack within 7 minutes to about 2000ft over launch. Sweet. The wing was performing great but it was weird to feel pressure in the wing after such a long time. At the top of the stack I decided not to hang about and headed towards the Penon. Only a few others were beyond near the wall but all very low. Hmm I thought. Maybe I should have just gone over the back onto the mesa with the rest of the gaggle. The glide to the Penon was pretty easy and for once I passed it parallel to the top with Mer following behind me. We went to the wall but I sunk pretty quickly and rather than scratch decided to head back to the Penon. I got to the other side and tried to hook a couple of thermals but it wasn’t to be. I headed out towards the Piano and got a few bubbles I tried to stay in but nothing came of it. Eventually I decided to just go land and have a beer.

The landing zone there was pretty thermic to say the least but all turned out well. I got a lift back to Jovan with eagle paragliding had lunch and went back up for glass off. All in all a good first day over here. Tomorrow weather permitting I will try and fly back to the lake which I haven;t done yet so looking forward to that. Mer, Norwood and Wheelie all put in pretty good flights today as will see if you check out Leonardo. But then, they are premier league and I’m fourth division so no surprise there!.