Sunday [Weather] [Photos Pending] and [Flight Articles] by:
[Logan] [Marty] [Dylan] [Garcia] [Jeff] [SD Crew] [Dave P] [Austin]

Dylan Laughlin
Sunday, 9/6/2020

Pine South Side to Padaro Beach

Reference: [IGC Text Data File] and [Google Earth KMZ File] or [Ayvri Web Animation]
Launch at 11:55 DDT, Land at 2:20 PDT
22.5 miles SLOFD (Straight Line Over-Flow Distance)
16,772 Feet MSL (gps) Max Altitude

Editor's note: This was Dylan's 3rd flight from Pine.  On his 2nd Flight he flew to Nordhoff High School

Article Submitted by Dylan via email 9/9/2020 and updated by Dylan on 9/10
minor edits by Tom Truax in (parenthesis) for clarity

Launched third, after the Logan/Sophia tandem and Marty.  Tom pointed out Marty's better, higher line to the first spine.  I followed that path and took a little while to find my first thermal.  It took me to around 12k, up behind launch, and I tried to follow Jeff to the East.  Found massive sink when I left the lift, and lost about 4k, and was not much higher than launch.  I couldn’t find anything in a predictable spot, but followed Jeff’s line East, and tried to climb where he did.  Found more sink, and was getting low, 1500 AGL over the  turnaround (end of Pine Mt Rd / west side of Reyes).  Slightly in the lee of the SE wind when coming around the turnaround bump.  Hit sink here and took note of landing options (over the SW spine in front of Reyes Peak with with about 7300 / Reyes Peak is 7510 and the Reyes large flat top landing LZ is just over 6800).  I got upwind of terrain and got a much-needed climb back to 12k.  After a bit of sink, found a (double pump) climb from 10k to over 16k.  The thermal edges were sharp, and I was doing lots of work to keep it open.

Marty and I had enough and tried gliding to the front range.  We started from behind the Pine ridge, and both got bad glides across the valley.  We turned back (over the Sespe with 12.3K) to try again at Tom’s advice.  Marty arrived back at the Pine launch fishbowl higher than me and found a great climb.  I went to the turnaround, my last known good trigger, and found weak, 1-2 m/s climbs.  Marty and Logan thermalled together back up to 16k.  I took more time, but found a great thermal, maxing out at 7 m/s up.  Thankfully, this thermal wasn’t blown back very much, and I was not drifting behind the ridge at all, saving me some ground to glide.  There were some layers that were a bit scary, but around 14k and up, the air was calm.  Great experience thermalling in some rowdy stuff, and I was able to keep it open at all times.

I went on last glide, leaving at around 16.7k indicated on FlySkyHy.  The glide ratio was much better than last time.  I was using the first step of bar most of the way, sometimes hitting full bar in some sink.  I did not have a good eye on Logan or Marty to watch their glide path, so I was on my own, and pointed toward West Divide.  I arrived West Divide around 10k, and met up with Logan and Marty.  We cruised West until Snowball’s Daddy or so, then pushed out to Padaro.

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