Saturday, 11/8/2014 [Flight Articles] by [Neal] [Jonathan] [Sundowner] [John Scott] & [Tim Barker]
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Tim Barker aka timobarker
Saturday, 11/82014

Saturday Report from Santa Barbara

Copied from: http://scpa.info/bb/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3089#p9162
by timobarker » Sat Nov 08, 2014 8:41 pm

Wish I could have made the Ojai train.  But, life got in the way and I was only able to squeeze time for a flight in SB.  I wasn't too upset about it, considering there was a 10 degree spread and light wind.  Unfortunately by the time the Eagle van made it to EJ bowl, the light wind was no more.  The thermals and wind were being held at bay by the high pressure, however, when the wind and thermals broke through, we were seeing gusts up to 15 miles an hour, maybe more.

I decided to launch simply because I thought it would get better outside the compression zone and I thought the wind could make for an interesting flight west.

Right off of launch I elevatored up a 100 or so feet and took it to La Cumbre.  With the gusts, I was conservative with both my thermalling and ridge soaring.  I gave myself plenty of room.  Probably because of that, I got drilled into the canyon on the windward side of Cathedral.  I finally wrapped around Cathedral to mid-rock ban and surf back to a hundred or so below the top.  I couldn't seem to connect a thermal to climb out as they were being pushed to over too much by the wind.  So, I took what lift I could and jetted over to West Bowl.  I intersected west bowl well below the rock band and just above the bumps out front.  I was able to maintain elevation here, but again the thermals were rocketing to the west in the east wind, which made it nearly impossible to track.

I finally made the decision to wrap up the day and head out to the Alternator.

3 rides later (less than 40 minutes) I was back at my truck at Parma.  Beautiful day and super interesting.  Looking forward to what tomorrow brings.

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