Crestline Soaring Society

At least one PG was able to launch but not until 6pm or so and he said he had to wait for the lowest lull. Another pg, who was bummed out because it was blown out, decided to hike to the 750 for a late evening flight and was able to get an extended flight in.

I got to fly my new Sport 2 and had a blast. Launched Marshall and got up to 6400 on my way to Crestline. At 45 minutes I decided to come in and land, didn't want to fly for too long and not have energy to land a new wing. It was hard to get down, took me 15 minutes or so to land. The LZ was a monster thermal generator.

Lets do it again tomorrow

-Dave

Dave's new Sport 2: Dave's new Sport 2

windy at marshall but it seemed pretty laminar on top so didnt walk to the lower launch. caught a nice one right away to 5k and headed to the turnout where the usual nice lift had turned to chucky and son of chucky tag team. 3 circles there and got out with another 500 ft, 3 slack main slaps and finger dents in the basebar. adios. went over to the arrowhead ridge and back to marshall to watch KenW's launch on the B. He's off nicely so I cruised over to the BB to wait for him so we could tour the east ridge. turns out he went straight to pine instead. I head east to redrock wall and chase Bruce for a bit and bail back to the restaurant. I spot a flexy over at rim forest/ strawberry pk and burn over to scope em out, its Kyle on his spectrum and he's doing ok at 6 and change, parked. I flew around the area for a bit and he drove upwind back to redrock wall paying out a gob of altitude but was soon back over 6 so I left for a quick trip east to the helicopter pads and back cruising btwn 6-7k. Left the ridge turning upwind from the BB to payoff some altitude and call it a day but hit a smooth beauty at the reservoir to 74, sweet. spent 2000 ft of alt traveling upwind 'bout 6 miles to the wash and the 210. burned downwind to little mtn, marshall, radio tower and landing at quarter past 5. nabbing 2-1/2 hours on the cheater...cheetah glider. better luck next time chucky.

Went to Crestline with Kevin Greene. Driver left which left us
the only two there. I assissted Kevin off at around 2pm. No
one else showed up, so I decided to attempt a self launch. Gingerly and slowly edged the Talon over to launch. It was now blowing a steady 15 gusting to 18 or more. Just as I started
to turn the nose into the wind a gust came through and bad things began to happen. Fortunately I was able to plant the nose into the gravel. Now I was in trouble because it was only getting stronger.
I decided to unhook and crawl around to the nose and lay on it.
Rotor kept coming back off the treeline threatening to lift the wing. Finally I decided to lift the nose and walk the glider backwards on the wheels. I forgot the wheels were locked and glider would not roll anywhere. Just then a local High School student walked into the LZ. I hollered for help. He came over and volunteered to assist. I gave him instruction and he said he thought I was ****** crazy. I agreed and he executed perfectly. Just as I launched a big wave of lift hit the
ramp and I rocketed straight up with the base bar tucked. It felt like I was going backwards, but I was making slow forward progress. Then the Talon dove over the front wall and suddenly picked up alot of speed and began to pio and fling me about a bit. I relaxed and kept flying straight until things settled down. Got in the harness and zipped up and a great flight began. Climbed to 7k multiple times only pulling out because of the strong drift over the back. Flew from Pine to East of Crestline. Flew to Marshall got down to about 300ft over and caught another boomer which I pulled out at 7000 going back to Lake Gregory. Flew backout to Marshall without much altitude
loss, but was amazed at the lack of penetration. 4:30 flew to other side of University circled around and came back to land.
Two other wings were in the pattern and so I found another
bubble and climbed backup to 4500. Now I.m getting a little tired because my VG was tangled because of problem at launch.
Deceided it was time for cold beer. Good approach into the LZ
but I failed to execute the final few seconds and whacked. No damage except ego. I'll trade a little ego anytime for this kind of day. Downed a few suds with friends and boogied home after dark. Three more hrs in the logs.
Awesome!!!!!

The day was pretty murky to begin with (I think I saw Frodo and Sam hiking into San Berdoo), I didn't tweak the saturation on this run of video, and YouTube washed it out a bit more, but...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woRCVrdT_iI&fmt=18

Here's my video of the day. I'll render a high def version sometime today, email me for the link.

I was experimenting with three cameras. My verdict: it can be done, but it's a pain in the ***, worth doing for the most scenic of sites. The overhead camera records onto to a little portable recorder I got, on which I have to rerender from divx to mpeg to edit, as the divx it records to is too compressed for my edit software and causes it to freeze (Vegas, Pinnacle, & Premier, ugh!).

Having 3 perspectives at once is too much, generally. I like three cameras only for the variety of angles they provide. Two cameras were hi def, one standard, not that you can tell on youtube.

I got some good in air shots of Dave's new Sport 2, Jack holding onto his glider at Crestline, Wisconsin Paul, and one of the Atos boys at Crestline. They look better on the hi def.

This was also a video where I experimented on using my gps track to help tell the tale.

I give myself a B- on it, getting above a C only due to the sheer volume of raw material (I was flying around like a %%(!&! EA-6B Prowler). It's almost too much and the conditions were kinda crappy for vid; it didn't turn out as well as I hoped it would.