A Nice Surprise

We are pretty much at the end of the summer flying season. That means north winds and less of a chance of getting some flying in. Yesterday it blew down at Crestline and was very hazy at Marshall. I didn't fly, drove for Kim instead and he only got a sledder. Today it was blowing in good and it was much more clear.

I launched Crestline at 2pm sharp and climbed to 700 ft over launch right away. I made a couple of trips to Pine but found it really trashy. I got the sink fest at Pine again and had to come out over Regionals pretty low. I was able to work back up level with Marshall but was not having much fun with the turbulence. At about 50 minutes into the flight I found myself at about 1000 ft agl over the 750 thinking of calling it a day and landing. It was then that I found a nice smooth thermal that got eventually got me back up high enough to go to Crestline.

I saw Kim high over the Billboard so I decided to go over there instead. About 5 seconds later I found another bubble, this one got me up to 7500 ft and I changed course for the turn out. Eventually got back up to 7000 ft over there but I decided not to go further east. Instead I went back over to Pine for the third time and got up to 7900 ft over there. I decided to try for the Cajon pass, but only got to a little past Sugarpine and I chickened out. There was a pretty strong east wind over there and I didn't want to get to low and have to work my way back upwind.

2 hour flight. The first hour it was really turbulent with small thermals. The second hour was filled with smooth, strong lift and smooth conditions in between. To bad there were only three of us out to enjoy it (Kim, Wisconsin Paul and myself.)

Summer ends on Thursday...