Wendy and I met up with local pilot, Jonathan Dietch, at 1 pm up at launch today...the day's task was to, hopefully, get in an XC flight.
Oh, such high hopes...
After getting the driver / communication thing down, Jonathan and I launched. Right from the get-go, I was struggling to stay up above the ridge line. I couldn't seem to find anything substantial for lift no matter how slow or determined I flew. After about 15 minutes of watching me struggle, Jonathan made a dash to the east for his XC flight.
I went into survival mode...
There is a gap one must cross between Crestline launch and Marshal to make it to the LZ. If one gets low, you need to creep around the Marshal ridge. If you can't make it, you plant yourself on a bailout LZ toward the mouth of the canyon. I didn't want to land in the bailout, so I fought and hunted for lift all I could. I was able to find a bubble of something to get me over the lower portion of Marshal ridge within glide to Andy Jackson Flight Park LZ...that was the good news. The bad news is that I had only been in the air less than 25 minutes. I really wanted to fly for more than a half hour today.
I could not find much in the world of thermals along the lower portion of Marshal ridge. I headed out to the LZ, unzipped my harness, and prepared to land...well, the beer will taste great when Wendy arrives in the LZ. It is a shame to beat the driver to the LZ.
At about 200 feet AGL, I was eyeing what approach to take when I felt a slight bubble of air...beep, beep, beep went the vario. I pushed the bar out and gently worked the very light bubble of lift...beep, beep, beep...the vario kept indicating lift here and there, so I kept working what I could...up 50 feet, down 75, up 100 feet, down 50...this went on for about 15 minutes. I was getting tired, but didn't want to give up.
Finally, the thermal(s) became more defined and I was getting 100 feet up per minute, maybe 200. Then 200 became 400 feet up per minute...Hope was within sight.
The LZ became smaller and smaller...I was winning the battle, but not out of the trenches.
With little warning, the right side of my wing banked high and the vario was going off like crazy...I hard-banked to the right and had about 1000 feet up per minute to work. This went on until I reached 6100' MSL. At about 5000' MSL, I decided to zip up my harness again and get back into XC mode...
Oh, such high hopes again...
At 6100', I decide to chase Jonathan to the east, but was losing close to 750 to 1000 feet by the time I got to Hwy 18...time to turn-around and work Marshal for more lift...that was how the day went...get low along the western portion of Marshal, hook a boomer, get high, then get low again...a great lessen in patience and thermaling today.
Jonathan had a great flight today with 40+ mile out and return flight...hat's off!
Flight Time: 2 hours, 8 minutes
Altitude: 6100' MSL
Day 3 at Crestline tomorrow...
BANG!