Chiefs to I-5

From: Forger
Activity_Date: 04-16-02
Remote Name: 172.194.185.214

Comments

I was worried about posting such a long article but SD can always edit it...

Chiefs Peak to I-5. 4/16/02. Airwave Sport M armed with audio-only mini vario, thermal snooper, and radio.

This is version 2, with minor additions after reading Brendan’s comments. First off, we didn’t talk about the flight plan at all. I knew we had a driver but figured it was just for up and down the mountain, I had no plans for an XC.

Chiefs had scattered clouds at 6100 with more clouds streeting (without much vertical development) over the Sulpher Mt. area and east-west in both directions. Forecasted high was around 73° F (22C) and a 6K’ temp of 4° C. That equates to a spread of 32° F over 5000 ft of vertical – so a pretty good lapse rate would be had even if we launched early.

Brendan was already a couple of hundred over when I launched at 11:25 into winds blowing slightly cross from the east at 12 G 15 mph. No problems penetrating but I flew through enough sink as I headed west to worry about getting rotored from the spine that leads down to Twin Pks. Got some lift and started climbing, following Brendan toward cloud base. I had my eyes on a cloud that was forming west of Twin Pks, toying with the idea of using it as a stepping stone to the cloud street across the valley but Brendan suddenly turned east from cloud base. We hadn’t briefed going anywhere but I didn’t want to be left behind so I turned to follow although I was a few hundred feet lower. Brendan made it over to what I have since learned was the west repeater (so where’s the east one?) but wasn’t very high and I, being lower, was uncomfortable about being that far back so I chickened out and headed back towards launch

Meanwhile Chris was working up well over Twin Peaks saying it was “rock and roll”. I told him I was headed that way and he tried to talk me out of it. I needed something so I checked it out anyway. I found a nice core and headed up with Brendan also returning for it and entering it higher up. It was reasonably active air but not too death-defying. The worst I had was a short duration frontal, followed a couple of minutes later with a momentary 30% asymmetric. I was wondering if the Sport was being skittish and looked up at Brendan just in time to see him have a reassuring (to me) asymmetric wing fold.

Once again I followed Brendan up and he got to cloud base and turned east again. The clue bird finally landed on my shoulder and I figured out Brendan had no plans on landing nearby. So I immediately headed out after him. Again, I was wary of heading that far back so I angled more in front of the main ridge paralleling him to the southeast. I quickly lost most of my altitude in heavy sink. I could have really used a good vario with some speed to fly info and could only guess at what felt like normal glide, moderate sink, and heavy sink. The Sport flies faster than my previous paraglider (so does a hot air balloon) and I appreciated the fact I rarely felt the need for more than 50% speed bar. From this point on I never had any more collapses on or off the speed bar. I found some lift down low on the next spine to the east but couldn’t take it any higher than about 5K’. With nothing but sink all around I made the decision to turn back towards Twin Pks. Reaching TP lower than before I was once again rewarded with a nice thermal that took me on a northeast drift. I climbed out well in this one but was now a good mile behind Brendan. Again, I headed eastward out over the lower spines and again I encountered heavy sink. Brendan was by this time thermalling up over St. Thomas Aquinas while I was down to my lowest point of about 300ft above the winding road that goes along the foothills from upper Ojai (I know there’s a name for this area but I can’t remember it). Once again I got lucky and climbed out to about 5k’ MSL as I drifted past St. Thomas. It was nice having Brendan in the lead because I had no idea what the names of most of the places were.

By this time he was searching for lift on the ridge that feeds to Santa Paula Pk from the west. As I topped out and headed in his direction he was turning the corner and reporting good lift over the oil fields. Flying fast through the sink I approached the southern flank of the spine. As I crabbed in I felt a draw that steadily increased in strength, enough to make me wonder if I flew into a strong crosswind or if I should be turning with the draw to hit this huge thermal head-on. I decided I had enough room to do the latter. It was a moderate thermal but pretty bumpy and had me drifting in close to the spine. I could see the valley/canyon on the north side and was hoping there wouldn’t be any kind of flow from that direction which could put me in some rotor action at low altitude over some pretty inhospitable terrain. I looked hard at the brush and couldn’t see much movement from any direction. Still, the thermal was very choppy so I was happy to leave it and head across the rocky bowl. I radioed Brendan, asking him the best way to get up from my spot. Eddie answered that it was often better out front by the oil wells (where Brendan had reported good lift). I found some more lift in front of the bowl (smoother, thank you) on my way to the oil fields. Just as they predicted, I found the best lift of the day and finally got to cloudbase (which was lower here than back at Chiefs).

Although Brendan had followed the high ground around the corner, I once again angled out into the valley. The main reason for this was I was now above cloud base but flying in a strange trough of clear air. The cloudbase was a good 500-1000ft below me over the hills as well as further out across the valley but I was maintaining VMC and a seemingly good glide. The fact that this channel through the clouds was pointing into the middle of the valley in front of Fillmore was icing on the cake. I figured once I got below cloudbase I would turn back underneath them. Without circling I was now making up some time on Brendan who had taken a deeper line around Santa Paula Peak and was now fighting his way back out to the mouth of the Sespe. As I dropped down below the cloudbase I could see further up ahead and saw an area of small brush fires in the middle of the valley between Santa Paula town and Fillmore. The smoke was blowing from the SW but not too strong. My next goal was a west-facing bowl about 400 ft high just on the east side of the Sespe, on the north side of Fillmore. It looked like it was going to be close but then I started smelling smoke. About 30 seconds later I entered the fire thermal. I climbed back up to a couple of grand AGL and knew I had the bowl made. I figured I would work up in the bowl and then drop back and work higher up what I assumed was Oat Mt. but when I asked Brendan about it he made it clear he wanted no part of fighting the headwind back out of there a second time. <In retrospect, I think my game plan would have been a good one and that the turbulent headwind Brendan encountered was over the river, not over the Oat Mt. hills>

I finally spied Brendan at low altitude searching for lift around the small hill with the “F” on it. He found a thermal so I headed over there. He only gained a few hundred feet and headed out again. I started following but found only sink (as was Brendan) so I turned back and found another thermal. I called Brendan over but he chose to continue on (I had no idea he was planning on landing at Fillmore). I gained enough altitude to head towards the little field next to the road where Eddie was waiting and Chris was packing up in (he had previously stuffed the wing in the truck when they headed out to chase us from Ojai). I was low as I neared the field but Eddie spotted some of those small insect-eating birds circling around and told me to hang out for the thermal that was coming. I started to feel some lift and felt the lift go past me on the right. I started to turn in it but Eddie said to continue west. Since the core I had felt pass by seemed small and weak I figured “what the hell, I’ll humor him” and headed west. About fifteen seconds later I flew into Eddie’s thermal and started a nice climb out (thanks, I owe you Eddie). The drift was down the valley and Eddie and Chris gave chase. Unfortunately, Brendan was landing as I passed by overhead. I was able to climb to a couple of grand and Eddie told me I had Piru made. That surprised me since I couldn’t see the lake but I was able to guess where it was and saw the finger of land that Eddie was telling me to aim for.

I figured I would aim for it but not right away because I saw another group of small fires out in the middle of the valley. I angled my path further out in front to intersect whatever lift might be coming from them. Once again I smelled smoke and shortly afterwards felt turbulent lift. I arrived at Piru as I was climbing through 2K’ AGL. I continued down the valley much of the time staying directly overhead the highway. Eddie kept encouraging me to go back over the hills but from my vantage point all the ridges were covered in shade, the sunny terrain following the road. The clouds to the north didn’t seem to have much vertical development either. The sky conditions appeared broken by now and the cloudbase was close to the tops of the high hills on the south side of the valley. There was also an interesting cloud street that had been “just across the valley” since I left Ojai. I thought there must be some sort of weak convergence action helping me stay up out in front of the hills. I maintained from about 800ft to 1500 ft AGL as I followed weak thermals that got turbulent and quit when I rose to the level of the high terrain on the southern side of the valley. Eddie kept pulling over next to fields giving me rundowns of the possible LZs. By this time I could see Magic Mountain in the distance and really wanted to get to I-5 but I didn’t want to jinx myself or seem too cocky by telling him that was where I wanted to go. But the miles kept clicking by and in short order I-5 approached. The flag at Magic Mt. had a big southerly component to it so I figured I would have no choice but start heading towards Castaic Lake. I directed Eddie to take the bypass that headed that way but as I started to follow I realized I didn’t really want to head out into the no-man’s land to the northeast of the lake at 2:15 pm. I have three kids and they all had different after school activities (in different directions) and I was supposed to help my wife out in the taxi department and was already pushing it.

So I headed south back to Hwy-126 and looked for a possible avenue across towards Hwy-14. I’m very familiar with that area since I drive to and from Edwards AFB so often. Unfortunately, there was a huge array of powerlines crisscrossing the area to the east of I-5 and I didn’t want to mess with them either. There were plenty of clouds but no sign of the good lift that comes with some vertical development so I ended up heading for a large field between the Magic Mt. parking lots and the large frontage road. Eddie cautioned me about the powerlines at edge of the field next to the road so I set up well in front of them and crabbed back into them for the landing.

I made a beautiful touchdown at 2:20 pm, followed .01 seconds later with a nice flop on my side in the soft furrows of the field because my legs didn’t respond fast enough to my brain telling them to turn around to collapse the wing. My legs had gotten quite cold during the flight (no flight suit and just a thin pair of khaki pants). I had two pairs of thin gloves (fingers still got cold) but my upper body did OK with a windbreaker and a layer of polartec.

Chris pulled out his GPS and informed us it was 32.8 miles from Chiefs.

Thanks to Brendan for leading the way and Eddie for the running commentary.

Forger