Second Ever XC Flight - 18 Miles in Dunlap, CA
The first ever CSS road trip to Dunlap was a huge success, offering 3 strait soarable days.
Saturday morning Chris VV and I were discussing the previous day's flying and exploring the possibilities of doing a little XC. We both knew that the weather wasn't going to be spectacular, but we thought it would be fun to see how far we could get. We had a rout picked out because of it's proximity to a road (Dunlap road) and availability of LZs should we bomb out. We thought it would be wise to get the local advice before setting out. Turns out that the potential LZs we were thinking of were owned by folks not to happy about pilots landing there. The locals suggested another rout that would have us flying out rt. 180:
The weather looked pretty stable all morning. A few high cirrus clouds and light winds. But by the time we got up to launch we could tell it was turning on. There were cumulus clouds forming out over the valley and over the ridge. The wind was also cycling nicely.
Chris Launched first. I was about 2 minutes behind and Tom (who decided to join us) was about 5 minutes behind me. John was also planning on joining us, but had some radio issues and turned back. It didn't take much time to climb to cloud base (about 1500 ft over launch at this point.)
I was able to cross the valley where I found some really strong lift back to cloud base (now about 6700 ft.) I then went on glide to Bear Mountain (radio towers on the peak.) At this point I had passed up Chris who had to scratch for a while to find the lift. Bear Mountain was my goal for the day and I got there. Too bad it was drill fest. I tried to work the face of the hill over there but got nothing but trash.
I was sinking bad and headed out to go land. I had a nice flat, grassy field on glide just south of the 180 right along the 63. I was down to about 2400 ft when I was able to catch a smooth but light thermal back to 4000 and I continued west along the 180.
I was able to work a could of more thermals to get me as far as the last 2 hill before the terrain became flat. I could have extended my flight by maybe a half mile, but I spotted what looked like an ideal LZ. Big, flat, grassy, next to the road and with a big tree for shade. I touched down about 20 yards from the tree and parked it in the shade. A very pleasant way to end a fun XC adventure. Strait line distance was just shy of 18 miles.
Track Log:
A few pictures of my LZ:
Saturday morning Chris VV and I were discussing the previous day's flying and exploring the possibilities of doing a little XC. We both knew that the weather wasn't going to be spectacular, but we thought it would be fun to see how far we could get. We had a rout picked out because of it's proximity to a road (Dunlap road) and availability of LZs should we bomb out. We thought it would be wise to get the local advice before setting out. Turns out that the potential LZs we were thinking of were owned by folks not to happy about pilots landing there. The locals suggested another rout that would have us flying out rt. 180:
The weather looked pretty stable all morning. A few high cirrus clouds and light winds. But by the time we got up to launch we could tell it was turning on. There were cumulus clouds forming out over the valley and over the ridge. The wind was also cycling nicely.
Chris Launched first. I was about 2 minutes behind and Tom (who decided to join us) was about 5 minutes behind me. John was also planning on joining us, but had some radio issues and turned back. It didn't take much time to climb to cloud base (about 1500 ft over launch at this point.)
I was able to cross the valley where I found some really strong lift back to cloud base (now about 6700 ft.) I then went on glide to Bear Mountain (radio towers on the peak.) At this point I had passed up Chris who had to scratch for a while to find the lift. Bear Mountain was my goal for the day and I got there. Too bad it was drill fest. I tried to work the face of the hill over there but got nothing but trash.
I was sinking bad and headed out to go land. I had a nice flat, grassy field on glide just south of the 180 right along the 63. I was down to about 2400 ft when I was able to catch a smooth but light thermal back to 4000 and I continued west along the 180.
I was able to work a could of more thermals to get me as far as the last 2 hill before the terrain became flat. I could have extended my flight by maybe a half mile, but I spotted what looked like an ideal LZ. Big, flat, grassy, next to the road and with a big tree for shade. I touched down about 20 yards from the tree and parked it in the shade. A very pleasant way to end a fun XC adventure. Strait line distance was just shy of 18 miles.
Track Log:
A few pictures of my LZ:
posted by David Aldrich at
12:25 PM
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