See Also Articles by [Diablo 214 HG] [Alex 55 PG] & [Cort] for Saturday 5/15/10

Cort Flinchbaugh's Flight Article
for Saturday & Sunday, 5/15 & 5/16/10
Marshall and SB T-Hill Cloud Suck

Marshall Saturday

Marshall on Saturday turned out to be a fabulous afternoon for the SB crew, with all of us getting good climbs up to the 6-7000 foot range, except for BobA who was the only one with enough conjones to lauch Crestline, and took it up to a THO altitude of around 9500.  Must be the pod.  Rest of us went back to Marshall with our tails between our legs, but got great launches and climbed out.  At the end of the day, I wandered at 6000 over the LZ and had an impromptu SIV clinic trying all sorts of weird ass things to lose altitude.  Then it was beer, wine, and hamburgers in the football field LZ as the sun went down.....great flying , great people.

Epic Sunday

Deep marine layer in S B on Sunday made me think the fun was over for the weekend.  Did a bike ride up Gibraltar in the sun, and could see some people working the launch at the hill.  Got there about 1, and saw Glenny was flying, so decided to get out the bag.  The clouds were out over the water and blowing over the hill at about 500 over and then dissipating at the back.

We were having fun working the hill, about 100 over, and then something changed and I found myself shooting up to cloudbase.  Suddenly I was at the back of the hill 500 plus over my house, having fun, and yelling at my dogs in the backyard, who were totally confused.  But when I tried to go back, I was parked, on full speed bar, and still going up, and getting whited out.  I started screaming like a little girl, which didn't seem to help.  Fortunately I was high enough that no one heard.  So I tried a steep spiral, which did work, but the drift took me back to the back edge of the hill, and as soon as I pulled out I shot up again.  So it was ears, which worked initially, but then I started climbing back into the clouds.  I was thinking bailout to La Cumbre when I finally started losing some altitude, and ended up pulling ears all the way to the LZ.

Glenny and Lee had similar but far less embarrassing flights.  I didn't hear them scream once.  Hey, when it's like that , who needs the Owens ????