Picture by Tim West
Click image for larger view of my flightFunston delivered a rare mid-summer shear this past Saturday...
The day looked like a wash with a line of white caps stubbornly holding a little less than a mile off shore. Many pilots had packed up and called it a day. Me and a few others hung around because we had nothing better to do...Around 5:30PM the sock was still undecided showing south winds and at times twirling around in limp 360's.
Then, at a little after 6PM, a nice cool air started blowing in from the WNW. The sock appeard to have made up its mind and stay consistently blowing WNW. Yoshi launched first, then me, then Tim West, Brad Martin, and Tom Rust soon followed...
The first couple hundred feet were a bit rough, then it all smoothed out into 20+ mph balmy glass-like lift. We boated around for a little over an hour. I headed out over the San Francisco Zoo twice then back to the sweet spot of the shear just south of launch. We boated back and forth easily within reach of the maximum allowed ceiling height of 2100'.
Then we felt the shear begin to dissipate. With fog developing along the cliff line and some off-shore fog rolling in, it was time to land.
The LZ was whipping up 35+ mph gusty winds. I hovered just south of launch, watched Brad land, made sure my VG was set at 1/3 and committed to top landing this flight. The downwind leg took no time to get to the clubhouse where I set up my spot in the northeast corner of the LZ. I could feel the LZ churning beneath me, but hit my spot. Tim West was soon to follow. The rotor in the LZ was huge and everyone had really good landings given the strong wind conditions...this is a flight I'll keep in my head for quite some time.
1 hour, 22 minutes