Crestline Soaring Society

Saturday was a full day of flying. I started the day quite early to reach El Mirage dry lake bed for 7:30 (well almost). It was blowing hard through the Cajon Pass and I had doubts there would be much flying later.

Met up with Hungary Joe and two pilots from Sylmar: Frank & Max, to do Joe’s aero-towing ground school. I’d gone up one other time, about 2 years ago, and made three tows but the timing had never worked out since to finish the course. Joe seems to make a trip about once a month, but the timing just didn’t work since my first trip. The dry lake bed is impressive by itself. Looks like the salt flats they show on TV. Lots of quads, ultra-lights, trikes, land-sailers, etc. Looked like they had some kind of drag strip set up yesterday.

Anyway, Joe went through the ground school materials step-by-step. Very methodically breaking the towing operation into pieces: equipment; flying the glider; etc. More than two hours of material. Good refresher for me. Then he went to get the tug and we set up the gliders. More training as we practiced with the carts, releases and weak links.

During all this, the wind actually died off a bit and it was only 3 -8 by 10:30 when we started towing. Being the most experienced (3 tows), I was the first one off. Just like last time, I was amazed how quickly you get into the air behind the tug. First tow came off pretty well. The Falcon needs significant bar pressure to avoid popping up like a cork at the 28 mph (or so) tow speed, but it chased Joe around the sky for the 8 – 12 minutes it took to gain 2500 feet. Released the two line and started a sled ride back to the lake bed. I was drawing comparisons to the space shuttle when my vario finally beeped about at 500 feet. A couple of turns and I was setting up an approach. The lake bed has all the soft, cushioning quality of asphalt, and the air is a little thin so you want to set up a good landing (and I did).

Frank and Max towed next, and each got a good, clean launch and towed the full 2500 feet before releasing. By the time Max towed, there was more thermal activity and he was still in the air when I towed up. The second tow was a lot more work as we flew through thermals and sink pretty much the whole way up. I stuffed the Falcon into what would normally have been a full dive a couple of times after getting popped above the tug. I just relaxed my arms for a couple of minutes after releasing at the 2500 foot top of the tow. Looking around, I saw that Max was not only still up, he was above me. I flew over and we worked some light lift together. The edge of the lakebed was acting as a thermal trigger with sink over both the lakebed and the darker scrub brush. I talked to Max later and he said he had hit one big thermal that had taken him up to 5400, but after that found only the lighter lift.

We boated around for awhile before going out over the lake bed and setting up another good landing. More pilots started showing up: an ATOS; a couple of NorthWings; a U2; etc; and we saw a couple of dust devils form at the ends of the lake bed.

I figured the old arms didn’t need another long tow and then tossing the Falcon through active air so I called it a day around 1:30. Packed up and headed back down the hill (still gusting hard in the pass) and stopped at AJ around 3. The McBus had room on the 4 so I took the paraglider up for a late day flight. Fumbled around with my launch a bit. There was a western component to the incoming breeze that I just wasn’t compensating for properly. Ended up with a two step launch (and no forward momentum) that required careful braking to clear the brush. Air was more dynamic in flight than really expected as well. The wind appeared to be breaking the thermals into many, disorganized pieces. Nothing radical, but made you pay attention. I’m still getting used to the wing rippling above me and this flight definitely provided some experience there. Setting up the landing was interesting too. Tried to stay back, close to the edge of the LZ due to wind strength and direction. But my 8’s were taking me through a ratty lift band over the house and trees. After several passes I gave up on the north end of the LZ and landed past the box after burning off some altitude over the LZ itself. The guys who had flown hangs complained about how bumpy their flights had been so said I guess the active air really was pretty active.

Fun day of flying. Multiple sites on multiple wings with good company at each.

Alan C