[Amigo] > [Sharon's flight index]

Sharon Sweeney
Saturday & Sunday, 4/23 & 4/24/05

Saturday...  The weather looked unpredictable for Santa Barbara flying.  Were the clouds going to win over the paragliders for the battle for the mountains?  Riss, Bob, Sara and I were checking out Earth Day at the Courthouse and decided we’d try to fly.  Tom dropped off my wing-thank goodness and off we went.  Many others joined us in the sky.  Bob headed off for the beach.  I finally got it in gear on launch after the switch from the Sport 2 to the Vibe.  Got right up at launch and headed for the thermal factory.  Felt like a day where you could stay up for hours so we did.  I spent the time trying to negotiate my speed bar which was next to impossible.  I wanted to go down range Sunday and was essentially doing the work out and getting in shape for Sunday.  I didn’t get very far with the gear so I just had a great time.  Got up to about 4300 at the Thermal Factory, 3000 over the Monastery.  It was that kind of day.  Dave Wheeler was back in town and it was great to fly with him again.  Riss was having a great flight as well.  Landed at Parma.  Went to Rob’s Handy Dandy Harness Shop to solve my gear challenged self.  Rob is so patient and has quite a selection.  There were lots of shoppers and we all had a great time.

Sunday...  Caught an early ride with Tony, Eddie, Tom Truax and Tom Pipkin.  Soon there were 20 paragliders on launch.  At least 15 more showed up as well.  Everyone was looking for the right combination of wind, lapse rate, sun and cloud streets.  I stood on launch with Bo for the longest time.  Tom Truax had launched twice and was headed East.  Ron and Bob had run into a cloud bank on their cross country.  Got up at launch like a bee looking for cloud honey.  Went for the Thermal Factory, got some altitude and headed East.  Bo had already split and Paul was right with me.

The flight got interesting because of the balancing act.  It seemed easy enough to get high and stay high but the wind was picking up and the higher I got the worse the turbulence.  I don’t like it when nothing’s happening, just a little shaking but you just know something is about to erupt.  So I elected to step it down a notch and come in a little lower on the spines.  But then I got brave again and started back up the mountain.  Then I got not so brave and flew lower.  It was so tempting to be higher up but much more sensible to be lower.  Then I reached a cloud bank.  I went even lower to get around it but it dissipated and I kept on tracking East.  I reached the second of the castles.  I did want to get higher to try to have the best glide out possible.  I left with 3400 over the house but ran into some headwind.  In hindsight I should have crabbed longer to the east.  I had enough altitude to look around for a safe landing site.  The wind was too turbulent to try  landing anywhere tucked in near the mountains, so I landed on a hill top near El Toro Canyon Park.  It was a short hike down to the pay phone at the Ranger’s Station.  I’ve landed out there before and that phone is very convenient.  Dan was able to come pick me up and I was very grateful.  Also great to share stories at the Carp bar with all the gang.