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Flight Articles from Wednesday, 3/15/06 (in order of posting time stamp)
[Andy Palmer] [Ron Meyer] [Dean Stratton]

Ron Meyer

Wednesday, 3/15/06
Skyport to Montecito

Andy, Dean and myself all talked about going downrange and downtown today.  Downtown Ojai or Downtown Fillmore or landing next to the Batman Returns ride at Magic Mountain all seemed reasonable on paper.

I started the day with a beautiful thermal at launch and left 300 over, climbed to 4700 at TF and intersected Montecito about halfway up.  The next 20 minutes were spent scratching and sniffing down the west spine and slowly but surely I endured the agonizing death glide all the way to the base of Montecito, fighting a low level SE wind and trashy air the whole time.

That, my Topa friends, was to be the end of my day.

Landed in a field at the base of Montecito and after yelling and spitting and cursing the gods, I found a pool guy named Jeff who kindly shuttled me back to Parma.

After I landed the two aforementioned Topa studs picked up the slack and slapped the SB range around with stellar flying that their Mommas will be proud of.  I'm especially impressed with Andy Palmer's piloting today - busting through the Pass for the first time.  Congrats Andy!  You're a star.

Dean was probably yawning as he went through, he's been through so many times this month.  Congrats to you too Dean.

Both of you guys deserve a big sloppy kiss from a Topa trophy girl.  We gotta get us one of those!