Crestline Soaring Society

I was flying east along Crestline watching my shadow on the ridge and then my shadow was joined by Mike B’s. The two shadows flew in formation a wing sspan apart for about a minute, but Mike was no where to be seen. My shadow was nice and dark with crisp edges but his was lighter and fuzzy.

Later I was thermaling with Stan and Mike at Pine and I could see all three shadows on the hillside. Again mine was sharp and black while theirs were fainter and indistinct.

This morning I was feeling lazy, so I didn't get up until 6:45. But winds were strong, and by the time I wanted to fly a PG had crashed severly.

A student pulling big ears to descend, released the big ears, one wing reinflated immediately, the other side hesitated because of a slight cravat. The pilot failed to weight shift and began a spiral into the ground. Impact caused double compound fractures in the legs, including the femur, broken wrist, concussion, sore back.

Saturday, Fourth of July. I “launched” Crestline at 3:15. Tom helped me to launch in stiff gusting winds and in a lull I asked him to release my wires and I stepped off and up to 6000, simply facing forward and elevatoring straight up, no turns, no drift, almost directly above launch. That was in laminar lift and took about 3 minutes. I got bored and drifted to the house thermal where I made one circle and was now at 6700. I could see the upturned faces of some spectators at launch but had no way to tell them this isn’t how it typically is.