Simon King
Saturday, 4/17/10

Oat Mountain.

Put out a Twitter notice and text messaged my usual constituents on Friday as to potential flying at Oat on Saturday.  Treeman was the only usual suspect that was unable to join us.  Also invited my new friend Benson who just sold me a mess of new windows for my house.  He was also preoccupied with other matters (I saw him earlier on the day we flew, had to cut him a check for the product).

On the day of Saturday, I had to push the meet time back twice.  Originally planned on meeting at 1, ending up meeting at 2:30.  Nitrous recruited some new fiends of his, who happen to live in the Sespe River bottom, to drive for us.  I was not 100% sure I was even going to fly, knowing that I had not flown in at least a month.  And now looking at my logbook, the last time I was flying was February 7th.  In any case, I brought my gear along with two Liters of water and a ten pound weight vest.  My body weight had been fluctuating for the last year and I am in the middle of the weight range on my glider, so if I was going to fly, I was going to fly heavy.  Even the sled rides at Oat can make you poop your pants a bit, and do not think I have not done it on occasion.

Got to ride up the mountain in the back of Scott's, Nitrous's friend, truck, sitting next to my beautiful wife and getting caught up with Allen King and Marty DeVietti.  This is the first time Kristyn and I have flown since getting married.  Wind conditions at launch were fairly steady out of SW with a little more S than W in it.  There were cycles that would come and go, especially when the high and hazy clouds would open up on occasion.  If memory serves me right, Marty launched first and struggled to stay above launch.  He worked the ridge south of Launch, maintained an altitude about on level with Launch.  Allen launched, hung around the house thermal a bit then headed over to the ridge to the South.

Allen did not find much love out there, and by this time Marty was working mountain below Launch, scratching and sniffing.  Allen flew over the ridge that leads to the Half-Moon LZ, though was on his way out to his truck at the Goodenough LZ.  The rest of us hung out for a while, and the sun decided to pop its head out.  Ronnie showed up and started laying out his gear, as did Kristyn and I.  Marty had top landed a while before we started to lay out.  I ended up with 3 Liters of water, my weight vest and my usual gear.  Marty launched a second time, followed by Ronnie, and eventually Kristyn.  I was in the air 7 minutes later, having watched all three pilots play in the house thermal right in line with where I was set to launch.

My launch was not my best, but I got off the ground when I committed.  Kristyn had already gotten higher than the veterans and was moseying on over to the Goodenough LZ.  Allen had landed in time to watch all the good lift being taken advantage of.  I spent some time with Marty, I think it was, working the lift in front of launch.  I debated doing a touch-and-go top landing for kicks and decided not to.  Marty was between me and my flight path to do the top landing and I did not feel the need to intrude on his air space.

Had to remind myself, a couple of times, to ease up on my brakes.  My wing, Airwave Sport 4, flies fast when heavily loaded.  Air was smooth and the lift was friendly.  I did not get much over 2600 feet ASL, give or take 50 feet.  After flying for 25 minutes, I was setting up to land at Goodenough.  Doing my T-approach to land as, heavy as I was, my turns were steeper than they ought to be, so I went ahead and straightened out setting up to land.  Ended up being a long final, setting down nicely just past a patch of scattered wild Sunflowers.  My wing came down on a few of the flowers.  Only one flower was hurt as I untangled my lines.

Simon

 [Top of Page]  [Home]