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From: Dan
Activity_Date: 1/29/02
Remote Name: 68.6.44.212

Comments

I was the only PG on launch today. I arrived at SP around 11:15. On the way up I thought I was detecting the wind blowing down the pass. Not a good sign. It was blowing up at the rock tho and when I rounded the corner where I could see the flags at launch it was blowing down, bummer. When I arrived there was a contingency of HG's. I went up to ask how long it had been blowing down as Debbie was reporting 0 wind. Terry sd it had been blowing up 10 min previously but that's not the case now. Hammer and a small group drove up to the Brotherhood and their report when they came back was it was calm up there. So weather guru's how does that work?

Anyway it was still OTB at noon but was beginning to switch to coming in at more easterly direction. I was hoping that was a good sign. Then every once in a while it would begin to blow up. I had taken off all my warm clothes because I was overheating, thinking I would be repacking the wing and heading down... but maybe I will wait another 10 min.

Finally it straightened out and was coming straight in. I redressed and got into my harness. My attempt at launching in moderate cycles the first time was a bust. I allowed my wing to get out in front of me ever so little and moderate braking and running did not work. The instant I got into my harness I took a 50%+ asymetric on the left that caused me to plant myself in the bushes. I was so angry with myself. 45 minutes later I was ready for launch number 2. There had been some booming cycles finally come through while I was extracating my wing from the local fauna so I was ready.

Not much was happening at launch when I got into the air and after my experience of landing in the canyon last week I was not about to waste time and altitude today so I took my heading towards the TF/AF. I had put new batteries in my vario and had to re-set all the parameters. One setting was to turn the audio on once sink dropped below 4.5'/sec. I was getting a lot of that and the wires were looking very reminisantly close. I was approaching the west spine of the the TF where it intersects the road. I was thinking of top landing on the road. But my vario began to speak the sweet tones of lift. I worked the lift and benched up the spine to about 2900'. The sun was hitting the earth out by the AF and there was a HG climing nicely just above the round house.

From that moment on it was sweet 400-500'/min lift all the way to 5000'. I ck'd the time and I opted for the ole beach route due to parental responsibilities. I boated around the city, keeping the beach within reach. There were white caps forming on the ocean and the direction was pretty much SW. Up at altitude the wind was north.

When I finally got down to 2200-2400' the wind switched from the south. I had drifted with the wind enough that now the line to the beach was directly into the wind. It was more sink alarm and 16mph on 3/4 speed bar and I was thinking oops, maybe it might be the Montecito Golf course.

I made it to the beach with about 300-400' and the wind was strong enough that when I pointed directly into the flow I was only making 4-5 mph head way. I got over the spot I wanted to use as LZ and used enough brakes to come straight down. I was reaching for my "C" riser to kill the wing when I touched down only to have my wing do a front tuck and almost have the leading edge hit my head. Once it re-inflated in a loud pop before I could turn around it dropped me on my behind. I grabbed the lines running to my wing tip and was pulling hand over hand to kept the wind from draging me over the beach.

Besides really feeling like a novice today the views of all the snow in the back country made it a spectacular flying day. Thanks Zvi for driving me all the way back to launch.