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[Amigo] > [Andy Palmer flight index]

Flight Articles from Saturday, 3/4/06 (in order of posting time stamp)
[Sharon Sweeney] [OJ] [Ron Meyer] [Bob Peloquin] [Randall McCormick] [Andy Palmer] [John Scott] [Kabir] [Dean] [Mike Preston] [Scotty]

Andy Palmer
Saturday, 3/4/06
Skyport to the Foothills below the Power Lines behind Carpinteria

What a day to cap off a great week of flying in Santa Barb. I rode the up in the Eagle van and saw Dean and Ron M climbing up over the thermal factory. As we got to launch I hustled to que up in a long line of anxious pilots. The SE was making things interesting, just as I was getting ready to launch Mike P fell out of the sky into the bushes below launch.

I launched and grabbed my brakes to get into the house thermal but to my dismay the left brake was tangled in the B-lines, so after getting that sorted I was lucky to get up over the lines and climbed up the ridge to the top of the TF and from there to 41 hun. Left for Montecito and found a rocket at Shadow that Randall and I climbed in together to 43 and then off to Montecito. Shades of Colombia skying out with Randall. We worked the points fairly close all the way to the power lines, and it was work at times, when Diablo and the purple/white Laminair climbed with me over Romero they were loving life and I was holding on for dear life.

At the power lines Faoro, Milley and OJ were debating whether to go or not, OJ finally said the climbs weren't high enough and he headed out. I climbed to 4400 and set off. It was feeling good to cross the lines. Then it was feeling OK when Faoro wasn't following me, and then it was feeling skeptical when I didn't hook it right away and I started to work it away from the terrain. I had been finding it closer to the terrain all the way there so why now did I think it would work away from the peak. I guess it was the flock mentality with all the other birds going out I should to.

At first I thought I have the high school made, then it was I have snowball made, then it was I have that road with the cows on it made. My glide during that sequence went from 9/1 to 4/1, the suck from all that lift in the hills pulled me down. Well after I scared the cows I put down on the road. Faoro called out and asked if I was all right and after hearing I was he said head east on the road, which I did for the next couple of hours.

The optimistic take on this time was that I finally adjusted that backpack which I had been putting off for so long. Ron Faoro retrieved me at the middle of Gubenador Cyn road where OJ and Chris had stopped by to make sure I was OK on there way back to Ojai. So all in all a good day, congrats to Dean for the long flight, and it sounds like Tom Pipkin is ready to start kiting after his recent progress with physical therapy!