Flight Articles for Saturday 8/710  [Bob Anderson]  [Tony DeGroot]  [Jim Zender]

Bob Anderson (aka yna / Cougie / BobA)
Saturday, 8/8/10

Pine Mountain / PG
to Quayle Lake

James Zender, Dave Teal, Bob Ramey, Fast Eddy, Marge Varino, Aaron Laplante, Tony The Tiger, and myself all piled in James rig from Nordhoff HS to Pine.  Not expecting much, it was an exciting day...many thanks to James and Fast Eddy for putting together the day trip and making logistics work out.  Aarons portable mobile radio works nicely, too bad the rest of our radios were a little shaky, We all flew, we all got up , and we all went OTB.  Launch conditions were good.  Various straight in cycles coming thru with an occasional boomer.

It was a good day but not easy in that we were not getting high above launch... Marge and I both got to 10k at one point, myself above the campgrounds drifting up from the knob. however we ended up lower and later went OTB.  My preferred route is to head to Guillermo Peak from Reyes peak to find the convergence lift.  Since it was blowing from straight South, and I did not have the altitude to dive so deep, I peeled off that route and aimed for the Badlands just on the other side of the roads that lead down to the Ranch OTB, on a line to Pinos.  I picked up lift just beyond the Ranch roads, saw clouds forming out West at the beginning of Badlands up from Dry Canyon.  Tony and Aaron were in tight circles down lower drifting East from that area.  I turned toward the forming clouds, climbing ever faster as Aaron and Tony drifted by to the East.  Then it was easy pickings for lift across to the 50-50 area and the real cloud development above.  Tony flew behind me while Aaron zig zaged out front.  I flew the roads into Lockwood Valley, then turned North into the foothills, following Aaron to remain under the clouds, climbed out to cloudbase and escaped cloud suck back to the bluehole South over Lockwood Valley.  Could see Tony at cloudbase over the entrance to Lockwood Valley in the middle of a cloudstreet that extended from New Cuyama peak to Pinos Mtn to Frasier Mtn.  Turned to Frasier coming in from the Northwest.  Meet up with Aaron in the usual mixed up lift at the East side of Frasier.  Finally left with 10.6k.  Landed across I5, on the road to Quayle Lake in stiff South breeze.

Tony and Aaron both made Quayle Lake only to find the usual ugly swirling air currents that plague that entrance to the Antelope Valley.  Gusty South winds spill over from the Liebre's in mixing fashion and cross the area rather than form predictable valley winds parallel to the 138.  Aaron found intense pops on final numerous times only to fly much farther down the road East of the Lake before setting it down.  Tony looked to land just South of the Lake and road but was popped up backward over powerlines, fences and the West end of the Lake, turned to the West then back South, popping up over a barbed wire fence, positioned over the road around the Lake, out of momentum to flare he nosed over when his base tube caught asphalt. Then hit his elbow down and the nose-plate caught his finger.

So being the first time Marge and myself fly PGs from Pine, I proceed to show her how a real Topa pilot gets air borne... After accessing the ever growing cycles and getting laid out, Marge opts to watch with Aaron giving a reassuring nod. 'Course a strong cycle is brewing and after a little wall building and reset, I pull up with the A s into a boomer... Six feet off the ground with the wing still coming over, I am frozen in time as I fly up and toward the HG launch.  Still in my reverse launch poise, Aaron yells 'FLY IT ! FLY THE GLIDER !" Snapping me out of it, I spin around into (an unchecked) left hand turn into a wingover aiming back down at launch, I managed to apply some right break on the spin, but still had the left break to release as I elevated skyward.  I swung under the wing in perfect imprecise diving fashion over Marge and Aaron ducking for cover and released the left brake.  This corrected the turn, parking into a boomer.  A few passes later and a couple of hundred over, I crabbed over to the campgrounds and began my flight. \

'course the day was fraught with calamity, and when picking up Aaron, the gliders were getting blown off the top of Zender's rig by gusty winds.  Eddy was holding onto the gliders, on the down wind side, up a step off the ground when a glider blew off onto his shoulder.  He got knocked down a step down with it to take a big hit on the shoulder.  Dislocating his shoulder he doubled over in pain.  After spinning around screaming in serious pain for awhile he grabbed my hand and told to reset his shoulder with a strong pull on dislocated arm outward.  After the second pull, much stronger than the first to prove I'm a man, the shoulder popped back into place and Eddy doubled over in even greater pain and then proceeded to vomit a few times to prove it. fortunately it worked and off we went.