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

Logan Walters / Tandem with Sophia
Sunday, 9/6/2020

Pine Mountain to Padaro Beach

Reference: [IGC Text Data File] and [Google Earth KMZ File] or [Ayvri Web Animation]

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Narrative below submitted by Logan on 11/7/2020

Pine to Padaro 2020-09-06
Second Tandem with Sophia
Ozone Mag 2

I remember looking at the forecast and thinking, “Dang that lapse is nice…”

I had committed to, and wanted to hang out with Sophia that day as well, and with 100 degree temps in Santa Barbara the cool Pine air sounded inviting.  I spent the morning trying to get a hold of a higher performance tandem but Robs was in use.  Andrew B and I share this old tandem and it's not so good compared to the others I have flown.  Oh well we’re going for it.

Met the Eagle Van at SD’s house with iced coffee and puffy jackets in hand, loaded up and headed out.  Got to launch and started setting up right away.  We launched first with a nice cycle but lost a lot more altitude heading to the spine than I do on the 2 liner.  I think Marty and Dylan were off next as Soph and I found a nice one out front.  We climbed back to the main ridge as I tried to explain the forecast.  The climb started pretty slow but in not much time I was reading out the numbers to her “3 m/s… 4m/s… 5.5 m/s!”  I thought it is was pretty neat as we looked over to Frazier and eventually spotted the coast of SB.  13 thousand plus and we were off!

Hoping to find climbs we were not going to even make Matilija.  We chased a red tail and did some extra turns with it for a good time before diving back to launch.  Lets try this again.  The conditions improved and Jeff was now reporting over 17.  Chris was already on glide and Sophia and I turned the radio down.

Found a really nice one near Marty and started going up quick.  Sophia was talking about burgers as the left side of the glider went slack and I jammed the brake to keep it open,  I don't think she even noticed.  Reading out our impressive (to me) climb rate, “5m/s… 6 m/s… 7m/s!!!” but I was interrupted by a dragonfly out climbing us.

At 16,700ft or so and with Chris and Marty out in front we made the move to the beach.  I opted to stay closer to Hwy 33 this time.  With east reported out in front I wanted to keep those guys to downwind, and possibly peal to Ojai if needed.  Worked the trimmers but they didn't seem to help much, almost better to set them to half and brake in lift.

Marty, Dylan and I met at West Divide with us just above them as we finished our apple.  As it warmed up Sophia and I were both able to shed layers as I stuffed them in the passenger harness.

Lunch at Padaro Grill was great and being in the freezing cold on that hot day was perfect.  SD made the comment that Sophia was still in the “audition phase” which is pretty right on.  To her paragliding is pretty easy, lean left or right and tuck your feet, so easy…

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