Crestline Soaring Society

Sounds good Joel

yeah, I recommend starting your launch run at the beginning of the steep part of the ramp. People that start up on the shallow tend to run hard for the duration of the shallow and then just "jump" into the glider once they reach the steep. You didn't do that because you had plenty of head wind to get you in the air. Go right up to the steep part and let gravity help a bit in launching.

-Dave

Wow, you're not the first to make this mistake. I had a terrible launch at the July fly-in doing the same thing in strong winds. Dave made the same suggestion to me. Once I reviewed my launch in my mind and noted Dave’s comments with respect to my launch, he was spot on in his description of my error. I may be older, but Dave is definitely the wiser. “Damn know-it-all kids”…………Just kiding,………… Thanks Dave

Gary

Rating: H3
WW Sport2-175

Gosh Joel. Glad you didn't end up with a 'soar ass' on that launch. Say, would that be a catchy user name? I started to read your post thinking to myself "Shucks. I was stuck down in Seal Beach (with sore arms) on Sunday and looking North at the beautiful cloud base over the San Gabriel's and now Joel is gonna write how he snagged a boomer to 9K." So, thank you for lying about your 4 hour flight to 9K and beyond to assuage my laments. I owe you a cold one for easing my pain.
Cheers, Jonathan

Launched the UltraSport 166 at 14:45 (just like yesterday) and the thermals down low were small and twitchy, but got up to Cloud with lots of steep banks and shoving the bar out going through the cores, then another thermal shortly got me to Crestline. A band of high thin clouds drifted from the NE and shadowed the ridge and it really turned on (coincidence?). Climbed to 7600 going at least 1200 FPM at times. Went to the low bump east of Pine but decided to scurry back to Pine, where I got up above 6k at the back ridge and went to Sugarpine. Just as I was turning back to Pine I hit a boomer and went to 7600 again. Went west of Sugarpine a way, then made a long glide past Crestline to Marshall and down to the LZ, landing at 16:35 into strong SW flow.

The thermals were much wider and stronger than Saturday. McKenzie reported getting to 8k tandem and the flex wings and rigid in the XC League meet were easily able to make the '330 Fwy.' turnpoint in Highland and back.

I heard several PGs didn't make it back, and late in my flight I saw one PG down just behind the ridgetop about 1/4 mile east of Marshall Peak.

I saw rain or virga over Lucerne valley and later read there had been rain in Big Bear.

RE: Crestline Launch - definitely better to start on the steep part in windy conditions; moving down from the lip a bit is often even better.

The webcam time lapse for Monday is pretty interesting, with upper clouds from the east dropping virga, then it goes still at Crestline (13:30) and might be a shower, followed by upper north and west flows battling it out and the clouds all fizzling out to nothing. (Link starts with 0.5 sec interval; switch it to 0.1 sec interval after the first run-through)

GPS track images and flight gory details on my website.

Good Flying,
Ken Howells

Launched Marshall just before the 2:00 start time and got right up. Shared a couple of thermals with a few PG's and a HG (flying in a gaggle is a lot of work), trying to gain ahead of entering the start window. At some point my Camelback valve popped off the tube and I got soaked, including my vario, gps, and radio mike. Spent the next 5 minutes empting the bag over launch (a little man-made virga).

Scratched for the next 40 minutes to get well up before entering the start cylinder. Bailed on a few very crowded thermals which hurt my time a bit but I was still a bit fatigued from Saturday's flight, so it was the right decision at the time. Got up to 6K and headed back to Billboard (up to 6700), then Pine. I hooked a good one at Pine to take me back up to 6700, then off to Sugarpine for the first turnpoint. Then back to Pine, Billboard, Crestline Launch, across the 18 and back up again to 6700.

Followed the spine from the interchange to the Arrowhead peak, then down to McKinley. There I hooked a good one up to 6000 where my vario was showing 1800 per minute up (as a max for the day). Made the 330 turnpoint with ease, the fun began.

Back to McKinley up to 4600 then West into a nice headwind. It felt like two steps forward, one step back. While I was headed East my ground speed was in the high 30's, heading back West I was in the mid to low 20's. On glide from McKinley I made it to the next peak West and back up to 4000, glide to the next peak west after that back up to 4500. Ground speed was now down to the high teens at times.

Had to make the jump across a wide stretch of low foothills to either the hills in front of Towers or back to the Arrowhead for more lift. I chose the latter getting to Arrowhead at 2800. After finding no lift and getting drilled for a couple of minutes I headed out to find a place to land. In hindsight I shouldn't have gone back into Waterman Canyon at that altitude. A better choice would have been to accept landing out and put it down in the riverbed at the opening of Waterman Canyon.

I had scoped a potential bailout LZ (with a good uphill/crosswind approach)while entering WC. I set up my approach, got bumped 70 feet up on short final and overshot the LZ. With few options left, I choose not to fly into the power lines (or under which I actually considered for a fraction of a second) and cranked a nice right turn and took a tailwind landing in the gully at the opening of WC. Avoided any trees and flared hard, parachuting down into some soft bushes. Actually, I balled up, bracing for impact but there wasn't any impact. The bushes cushioned my fall and landing in the gully blocked any tailwind. No broken bones or downtubes, etc., and best of all, no poison oak while doing a retrieval.

This was my first competition and it was truly a great learning experience. Sunday, I had my longest flight, went the furthest West and East I have ever been, and learned a bit about my good/bad decisions.

Stats for the flight:
Total distance flown: 76 miles
Straigh line distance: 30 miles
Longest leg (straigh line): 12.6
Average speed: 27 MPH
Duration: 2:50

Big thanks to Dean S. for putting on a great event. I totally recommend other HG's join the league. It's very well organized, a good way to improve your flying skills, and a ton of fun.