Three of Northern California's Ace Comp Pilots (Brian Foster, Chris Valley, and Ben Dunn) giving all of you a "Finger Bang" after a few beers...Photo by Ace Comp Pilot (ACP) Ben Dunn.The day started out with some strong winds brewing off the coast at Funston. I saw John Simpson setting up his glider on the webcam and decided to make a go of Funston at least for the morning. When I arrived, John was launching and the conditions looked buoyant, but strong and a little bumpy. I chose to set up my glider and get in a flight before conditions became too strong.
By 10am I was in the air enjoying (er, not enjoying) the building conditions and textured lift. I got plenty high north of launch toward the bunker, then decided to make a go for Westlake...the trip to my favorite cliff to the south did not take long at all. Once at Westlake, I could feel the air still had a bubbly texture to it. I boated around for a few minutes, then decided it was time to head back and shoot for a top landing while the going was good. There was plenty of lift during the trek back, and I managed a pretty decent top landing in a rather squirrely LZ...the VW bus-sized white caps were inching their way toward us, so I called it a day at Funston...time to head toward Mission.
When conditions blow out at Funston, Mission typically is a good site to fly, so that is what we did. A lot of paragliders showed up also and were polluting the sky with their brightly colored canopies...fun to watch. I launched somewhat mid-pack and found a thermal right off launch...I worked that for a bit, then headed out into sink such as I normally do. Getting low, I found another bubble and worked that up to almost cloudbase, then found sink again...after all...that is what I do. This went on for about 1/2 an hour, but was fun nonetheless. I had a really low save down by RC Hill and vowed to top land and grab a beer if I made it to cloudbase. This last thermal was probably one of the lightest I've ever circled in at Mission. With VG almost dumped to zero and my bar pushed out, I worked the light lift amongst the brightly colored paragliders floating aimlessly. Once back up to cloudbase, I set up my approach for my first top landing in the new Rotor harness. All went well as I slipped in a nice landing. I'm getting used to the new harness, but more time is required such that it becomes second nature...there is definitely a learning curve adapting to a new performance harness. I was really happy with my low saves during this flight...my flying at McClure and effort to fly the glider slower is paying off more and more recently.
Funston: 15 minutes
Mission: 35 minutes (cloudbase)