Flight Articles from Thursday 6/29/07 (in order of posting time stamp)
[Ron Faoro] [OJ] [Chris G] [Andy Palmer]

Ron Faoro (The Spin Doctor)

Thursday, 6/29/06
Pine SS to Ojai

Tom Pipkin called me at work to let me know a crew was headed for Pine Mountain.  The BLIP MAP said 13-15K and the wind was negligible.  Andy Palmer, John Kloer, Chris Grantham and I met at the high school.  Fast Eddy provided chase.  We got to launch around noon; Chris Grantham had to be sedated for the ride and he still wet his pants.  Things are that slow on the East Coast.

The cycles were blowing in regularly and they were strong - but just right.  Then the scuds came in.  Then Faoro couldn't ground-handle his Trango in the little bit of east wind on launch, blowing four consecutive attempts.  Andy and Chris gave me some pointers and finally I was off at 12:40 PM.  I had to scratch way below the bonzai tree (which is dying, unfortunately!) before I finally got a little 100 fpm thermal that slowly took me back to the top - all the way to 11,300 feet.

Cumis were developing west of launch and I cruised over there to test it out.  Most of the backcountry was scudded in, especially over toward Lockwood Valley, and there were lenticular clouds all over the desert and over the Badlands.  A fire in the Cuyama Valley showed the smoke bent flat from a north wind.  But we were getting strong south in our location.  The thermals would carry you over the back and at the inversion ceiling of 11.5K, we would fall out and immediately hit big sink and a headwind of 15-20 mph.

Thoughts of OTB left with the lenticulars, so we headed off to Ojai.  OJ squeeked in to the high school and Chris and I came in with thousands to spare.  Andy tried an easterly route and landed in Rose Valley.