| Flight Number: | 300 |
| Location: | Mission |
| Date: | 2024-08-24 |
| Duration: | 01:05 |
| Launch: | TO (SSW-WSW) Mission Ridge (Mission Peak), CA |
| Max Distance: | 7050m |
| Max Altitude: | 963m |
| Track Length: | 27498m |
| Wing: | BGD Epic |
| IGC File: | Download |
Comments:
Comments:
Comments:
| Flight Number: | 300 |
| Location: | Mission |
| Date: | 2024-08-24 |
| Duration: | 01:05 |
| Launch: | TO (SSW-WSW) Mission Ridge (Mission Peak), CA |
| Max Distance: | 7050m |
| Max Altitude: | 963m |
| Track Length: | 27498m |
| Wing: | BGD Epic |
| IGC File: | Download |
Today was forecast to be lighter winds than yesterday, with a bit more of a westerly aspect to it.
I hiked and flew with James Cooper and Zak Wambaugh. We launched at around 12:30 I thought, but perhaps it was a bit later looking at the flight log time.
The HRRR weather forecast had shown the best lift to somewhere between 1 and 2pm.
My game plan was to ridge soar the slide until I could find a thermal to establish myself on. It took a few passes before that worked out.
I went over to Mission Peak from the slide, but, didn’t find great ridge lift, and no fantastic climbs. On my way back over to launch, ended up finding a few great climbs that were very well formed.
I’d love to know how the earlier pilots got off and up so well, because I had to wait until this time to get up and off.
The wind was starting to come very hard from the north, so getting to Ed was no problem. Found lift over every tower and ended up back up at Ed above the launch tower there.
I did take possibly the biggest collapse of my flighting so far out of nowhere near Mt. Allison, but, was very benign on this wing. Hands down to catch, and right back up. Nothing scary.
The time was closer to 2pm though, and I felt like the air was trashy at this time. I pushed away from the ridge to try and make sure I’m not too close to the ridges in the lee of a north wind, but ended up flying the normal Ed pattern.
The goal was to try and find a very good climb to start heading south again, but, I fell out of one climb over the 600’ and could not get in it. I was Ben Wedlock with a good climb so I was trying to join him.
It surprised me how quickly I sank out and landed though. The wind went from roaring gusts, to perfectly still in every wind sock and streamer around the Ed LZ. I must have been just behind a ripper thermal because the wink was an incredible -3 to -4 m/s, with a very hard flare and still a hard landing.
What a fun flight. Zak despite having not flown much this year took the flight of our group and managed to go very far south! :)
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