King Mountain 2011

Day 1:
I woke up with butterflies in my belly and confidence in my heart. This was the first day of the competition and I was going to go far! Keep in mind I also had that "first flight at a new site" nerves thing going on. In fact, I had that same feeling all week long. King Mountain is huge in the sense that it's "big air" and changes constantly. The morning skies were usually clear with perhaps one or two popcorn clouds indicating moisture in the air but usually by noon the skies became riddled with clouds, some of which became massive cumis. Day 3, we decided not to fly at all due to the overdevelopment.

Each morning really began at the pilots meeting in the campground. I opted to stay in a motel thinking I could use the space for downtime, shower and a place for overall energy regenerating. I soon found out I really needed it. The days were long and draining if only for the amount of waiting on launch in the sun with very little food. Thankfully, I brought lots of water each day.

After the pilots meeting explaining forecasted conditions and general information about the event, we headed to launch. King Mountain is awesome in many ways and one of them is because it takes no time at all to drive to launch. There's an upper and lower launch. The upper is steeper but has limited space for cars and gliders so we opted for the lower launch which has a much shallower slope but plenty of room to setup and relax.

While setting up my glider I was constantly assessing launch conditions for my comfort level (first flight nerves and all) as well as assessing my overall flight plan in my head. (strong launch, turn left then right, feel out the thermals and stay hooked in one all the way up over the peak behind launch... don't go across Ram's Horn Canyon unless I've got altitude... always maintain a viable out to safe landing... remember to watch for barbed wire fences, power lines, cattle... remember to be patient and persistent in finding lift off potential thermal generators... On and on the list goes in my head... communicate my whereabouts on the radio but don't chat too much... remember to drop a streamer and follow it prior to landing... what were the names of all the peaks, roads, towns?

Oh my! I was way too much inside my head to even consider launching. I needed to step back every few minutes and just remember to fly and have fun. It's not like I haven't done this before. Right? Well, not really. I have only twice landed out away from a site's designated landing zone. This was freaking me out. So, after a long wait on launch for both my nerves and conditions I decided to launch. No problem! In fact, it was one of my best launches... directly into a nice thermal cycle that I worked for a few minutes before getting comfortable in my harness. The air was nice and smooth thermaling like I've done before in some of the local sites in California. It put me at ease so I could get to working on my in-air XC strategy. Back and forth, above launch I worked the thermals trying to get higher and higher but just couldn't get above 9700'. I did this for about 30 minutes until I heard my teammate, the Legendary Ryan Goebel, say on the radio that he'd landed out in front of Ram's Horn Canyon. At that moment I could see where he was and thought it would be fun to glide out and let next to him, high five and call it a day. As I headed north towards Ram's Horn Canyon and lost very little altitude and flew well above Ryan to make it to the other side of the canyon. Reaching the lower spine of Mr. Nasty, the peaks above the north side of the canyon, with more than 800' above the ground, I was able to hook into a nice thermal that took me up to 10.5k and back over the top of Mr. Nasty. Great name, by the way, because the tops of those mountains were like nasty, rocky, teeth. But oh so beautiful. As I fiddled with getting a drink from my camelback and adjusting my harness, zipping up further, and messing with my VG cord, in a single 360 I rose above the tops of the peak to an amazing view of the valley beyond... 30 miles to the next mountain range. Sigh.

I continued on to the north slowly losing altitude and heading back towards the valley while trying to catch lift off some of the lower spines. Several times I was able to maintain my altitude but never went back above 10.5k. I was okay with that because I was having fun! trying my hardest to cut across Elbow canyon on my way to Pass Creek. If I could make that I would be extra happy. Down slowly I went and began picking out a field to land in. The sage brush in some of the fields looked awfully large so I chose to double back to a clean field with 5 silos in a corner. I dropped my lucky streamer (my daughter helped me make) and successfully circled it, watching to see it hit the ground. My depth perception wasn't quite what I thought it was and it took 5 or 6 360 degree turns until it hit the ground and showed me the wind direction. After a few more circles I dove around into the wind and landed in a nice 10-15 mph headwind for a soft landing. Unfortunately, my position in the field from the road was about 1/4 mile south. So, after a nice long walk with my glider I set her down, got out my extra water bottle and cellphone, took a moment to enjoy the surroundings with photos and Facebook postings. There's nothing quite like landing in the middle of nowhere and having not only a cell signal but enough of a connection to upload to Facebook. Here I am!

Thanks to Team ACP and our drivers... Wendy and Eric! ...who brought us all back safe withiin an hour or so each flight. Not bad considering they have to find us with little directions and/or gps coordinates.








Day 2:
The day was cancelled due to strong winds and unfavorable direction.

Day 3:
Even before the pilots meeting in the morning the cloud development was not looking good. Of course, the old timer/local pilots were itching to get into the unstable air. Not me nor any of team ACP. Instead CRV, Brian, Wendy and I decided to head to the town of Mackay (pronounced Mackee by the locals) for lunch and then we'd head to the bailout LZ to watch others launch as the sky grew darker above the mountain range.

The day turned out to be quite the learning experience. We watched as Ben Dunn launched, got drilled and headed south over the smaller hills towards Arco using his patience and persistence method of flying. One of my downfalls or lack of experience issues is being patient and persistent while flying. Watching Ben fly was a treat and inspired me to chant "patience and persistence" in my head for the next 2 days. He was able to maintain his altitude and little by little eek out a few hundred feet to proceed around the hills. It appeared that in each new location he was able to find either lift or no sink and managed somehow to get high enough to blaze over the mountains and to the East to pull off what I consider awesome XC. For Ben it was just a romp in the air. :)

Day 4:
I can't remember what happened day 4. I think I had two short flights to the LZ. Bummer but, at least there were two more flying days left. I still felt good. Disappointed but good.

Day 5:
The conditions were much better this day in my mind. Little puffy clouds everywhere and happy thermal cycles making for good launch conditions. I was feeling good and much better prepared food/energy wise. Even so, I had a late launch and was able to reproduce my flight from day one almost exactly! Similar altitudes were achieved, I caught thermals at similar points in the flight and I even landed out in exactly the same field 11 miles away. I'll even bet I landed within 50 feet of my first flight there. Sweet! Sure I wanted to fly farther but being able to redo that first flight was fun!

Day 6:
Saturday, my confidence was up and I was feeling good! This was the day I was going places. The conditions looked to be strong but still good if I were to get off launch early. We decided to get lunch first and then head to launch for a 1pm launch window. I'm glad we did but right after I was done setting up my glider the thermal cycles on launch were getting stronger as well as the Southerly winds. I usually prefer some downtime immediately after setting up to get my head in the right place and center myself. Instead, I watched as Ryan and Trey launched and then took my place on launch. The wind howled and they held me and my glider in place a few minutes until it backed off. The next cycle appeared to be trickling up to launch so I lifted the glider and began my run 10, 11, 12 steps... and I was in the strongest air I had been in all week. I had to pull in and dive to counter the strength of the wind and lift I had launched into. White knuckled and not having fun at all I chose, a few minutes later, to head for the bailout. I didn't want any part of that kind of air.

In retrospect, and after hearing some of the epic flights others had that day, I kind of wish I has been patient and persistent in working the air further out from launch in order to get up high. There were many pilots that bested their XC distances and I could have been one of them. Having said that... I am glad I'm in one piece and don't regret any of my judgement calls this week. Next year I will have that much more experience to make similar judgement calls that will take me that much further.

For photos click here

Soaring Waddell fills my soul

Waddell Creek has put out for me each fourth of July for the last 3 years. My first flight at Waddell was less than epic but, the very next weekend, fourth of July, turned out to be just that...epic! Here's the video from 3 years ago. Ryan and I enjoyed smooth, into and across the canyon air up to 1700' all day long.



Last year, of course, I anticipated and expected the same conditions. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite as epic. However, I do recall it being more than soarable. It was fun! The same held true for this fourth of July weekend. Zooming, stalling and diving repeatedly and showing off for the beach goers, not to mention the cars below who were constantly trying to race me. No worries, with a downwind blowing typically 20-30mph I can beat them in a dive, soaring 60-70mph. It's wicked fun and tends to spook and impress motorcycles and convertibles as they drive south on highway 1. Another one of my favorite flying routines is to fly north, parallel over the highway, with my shadow below lining up with the road. Also, occasionally, there are hikers on the fireroad on the East side of the highway in the woods. It's fun to shade them as the walk, like I'm a giant bird... keeping in mind that there is quite possibly "spanking" to be had while soaring low over the trees on the point. Shadowing people on the beach can be tricky because you have to fly well out over the ocean in order to get the right angle form the sun. Typically, this just means zooming back to the bluff at the last moment. No problem this weekend. I swear it brings more than a smile on my face. Soaring Waddell fills my soul.

Sunday, Mr. CRV joined me at Waddell only to wait all day for the white caps to hit shore. When they finally did, it was the oddest thing... You could stand at launch on the edge of the bluff and feel the wind blowing 15-20 but all the streamers on the hill were showing wind blowing out of the canyon. Yep, it was going to be one of those days... two air masses mixing on the bluff. Not the safest flying conditions but after an unexpected and awesome visit from Dirk and the Stanford family, and much prodding from Callie because she had never seen a hang glider launch and land before, I decided to give it a go. Fortunately, I shot straight up, as if on top of a bubble of hot air, and within a few passes had to land for fear of being "spanked" to the beach, I came in for a top landing, rodeo style. Yeeehaww! Three minutes of filling my soul.



And then Chris and I sat on a Dirk's ride...

On the fence. Yosemite, Dunlap, Slide.

Lately I've been "on the fence" about so many things. Where to fly this past weekend was no exception. I had been invited to Slide Mtn. and to Dunlap but, I was also really looking forward to Yosemite, a trip I signed up for weeks ago, because the falls would be rushing and I missed out last year at this time due to a flooded LZ. As the weekend got closer my gut was telling me the LZ at Yosemite would be flooded again and now I was shifting gears, in my mind, to join the gang at Dunlap and maybe try to do some XC practice prior to King coming up. On Thursday I get a text from Mr. CRV saying the flying is good at Yosemite and the LZ is manageable. Back on the fence. So, I make a last minute decision to head to Yosemite for a Saturday morning flight and then on to Dunlap for a Sunday flight. I also decide to bring both gliders, the RamAir for Yosemite because it is a little slower flying and easier to land at high altitude, and the Litespeed for Dunlap. Glad I did because I ended up breaking both downtubes on the RamAir after a less then desirable landing. Actually, I kind of enjoyed the landing. Let me explain...

I was poised on launch at Glacier Point. Ready to go. Hang checked. Camera on. Breath caught. There I was looking out over this awe inspiring valley towards several waterfalls in the distance as well as Half Dome and a slew of other peaks Miss Wendy so graciously pointed out to me earlier. My head was in the right place and my goal was to fly directly to Yosemite Falls and get some awesome close up video and feel the mist on my face. My launch was perfect. The glide around to the left of Glacier Point, hugging the giant granite walls was nothing less than spectacular. I even felt lift for most of the way around the valley. Then I flew beeline towards Yosemite Falls keeping in mind my camera was filming from behind me on the keel of the glider. I made some slight left and right input to make sure the falls were being captured and as I flew closer to the falls, directly at it mind you, I was almost hypnotized by it's beauty. I remember laughing and hollering as began I right turn into a full 360 no further than 50' away from the falls, about halfway up from the misty base. This video was going to be ACP epic and worthy of professional movie editing treatment. As I came out of my 360, back into the falls, this time a left bank to capture the falls towards the overlook trail I could see half a dozen people staring up at me/the falls. Now it's show time! I manage to burn some altitude with some slow figure eights and then from 100' up I pulled in and dove directly at the overlook. Now I could begin to see there faces, some not even looking at me! Can you imagine? So, I do my best John Simpson Indian call... "aieee aieee aiieeee aiieeee". I strafed the tourists about 10 feet above their heads, capturing some of my best onboard video yet. Did I mention this was going to be epic video? Next, it was time to plan my landing. Although, I inspected the LZ the night before, from the air it appeared to have more water in it than I remembered. No problem, I had my heart set on a new kind of approach. Not the standard parallel-over-the-river-right-turn-base-to-final-towards-the-path-approach. No, this time I was going to scrape the tallest trees farthest from the river and come in parallel to the path towards the river. Now, if you haven't figured it out already, my camera was not, in fact, turned on. I blame CRV. You see, he successfully turned on the camera in the setup area before launch and upon review it did capture my walk out to launch. Oh, how exciting. But, prior to launching, Mr. CRV noticed the display was black on the back of the camera and we went through the start-the-camera-procedure again. Somehow, it didn't take. Darn you CRV! My theory is that he wanted me to stay to fly on Sunday as well and if I "accidentally" didn't have video then I would for sure have to redo the flight on Sunday. Little did he know I was going to thwart his plan by clipping a tree, landing in water and breaking both my downtubes. Where was I? Oh yes, I was ready to dive in on final approach, scrape the 150' tree...in the back of my mind I was getting all of this on video...awesome!! Moments after initiating my dive in over the tree tops I realize I have way too much energy to safely land short of the breakdown area or the river for that matter. So, I reacted by pushing out to a controlled stall, trying to loose some of that energy and then entering the dive to get into ground effect sooner rather than later. This all worked great! However, I was already halfway to the river and skimming the dry, highpoints of the LZ with my legs, no flare window in site until the last second I had to bump right slightly to avoid a small pine tree. Not enough to miss the small branches which turned me as I flared, trying my hardest to avoid the pond I just flew over and the pond I was headed for. Twenty feet further is the overflowing river. My flare slowed me down enough to be safe but because my feet weren't on the ground my basetube slammed into the 2 foot deep pond and my arms forced the downtubes to break forward. Soaked, and elated that I got it all on video, I walked the glider to the nearest high ground and laughed out loud at myself. Later on I laughed even more because the "high ground" I chose to breakdown on was surrounded by 2 foot deep water. Nice! Despite the mangled landing I was absolutely elated by the flight. And, I got it all on video, right?!!






Needless to say, I was so disappointed when I reviewed the "video" only to find it had captured my walk from setup to launch and that was it. :( Hence, the detailed flight report above. (I don't really blame CRV for the camera malfunction. I could swear I heard it beep too as it usually does when it starts filming.) Regardless, it was truly an amazing flight and I can't wait to do it again...only next time the standard landing approach will do just fine.

After a semi-quick retrieve I was on my way to Dunlap. The drive really wasn't that bad, 3 hours through scenic Sierra foothills. When I arrived there was Trey, Donnie and Stephan from the Marina crowd. Gerry P., Eric F., Eric C., Yotam, Paul C. and Victoria, as well as the Berkeley crowd. It was quite the happenin' scene. Not too mention the 20 or so paragliders there for an XC event. No worries for flying though because they generally got up high and went XC early on.

Sunday morning after a hearty breakfast at the local grill we headed up to launch, setup and waited for the first person to launch. Eric F. decided to go first and up he went. I hardly saw him at all the rest of the day. After I launched I struggled to the right of launch trying to scratch any lift from strong broken bubbles until finally I had to ditch my efforts and head south along the ridge. Once over the winding dirt road I finally caught something that carried me almost to cloudbase. I managed maintain altitude back and forth, North and South of launch but it was much more work than it should have been. Finally at cloudbase just North of launch I headed for Sampson only to have lost most of my altitude and found myself scrambling to find lift. Usually, there's abundant lift at a certain point in from of Sampson but it just wasn't working for me. So, I returned to in front of launch and aggressively worked any bubbles I could find. Again, I ended up scratching south of launch above that dirt road. I did get back above launch a few times but never back to cloudbase or Sampson. Meanwhile, Gerry P. and Eric F. were long gone. At one point I could see them circling together above Delilah and then Gerry radioed they were on their way to Bear Mountain. Way to go, I thought, and satisfied by just over an hour flight and reaching cloudbase, I decided to head for the LZ. Maybe I could eeek out some thermal above the last chance hill. Once over last chance hill I realized I was with several other pilots all trying to coordinate landing approaches if lift wasn't in the cards. So, I decided to do my patented spiral dive, a few 360's to lose altitude quick and come in first. Nailed it, perfect landing, 5 feet from the spot with a beautiful flare. That felt good! None of it on video because I didn't even bother with cameras. I'm over it.

Eric F. and Gerry P. made it to Bear Mtn. Gerry turned back in order to land at the ranger station and Eric, sans radio, ventured as far as he could towards Fresno. He made it a whopping 18 miles! Nice job!

All in all a great weekend full of useful flying experience and great friends.

ACP send off at Mission Cloudbase

Friday and Saturday, May 6 & 7, were my days to fly this week. The routine, in my head anyway, is to check the conditions at several local sites, Marina, Waddell, Funston, Mission, Ed Levin...not necessarily in that order. (I always lean toward Waddell as the preferred flying site for some reason. Although, recently I've had some awesome airtime at Marina as well.) So, my flying routine began late Thursday night with a check on multiple websites showing similar strong west conditions. Marina was looking to be the best. Friday morning the conditions started to favor Waddell or so my heart was telling me. Indecisively, I saddled up the Bronco with both the RamAir and the Litespeed just in case I ended up at Marina. I've tried to fly the Litespeed at Marina before and it's just too big and fast to launch off the dunes. The RamAir is much better suited for scratching the dunes and the Litespeed is much better suited for Waddell. If the conditions were just a tad more favoring towards Funston then I wouldn't need to bring any gliders because I keep a Litespeed in the clubhouse. Yes, my quiver is full.

Naturally, I ended up heading to Funston and not needing anything at all because when I arrived to see 4 set up gliders in the process of breaking down I decided to head home myself. Bummer. I heard through the grapevine that Marina was too Southy and Waddell was blownout as well as Funston. So, I called it a night and prepared for Saturday. Must fly! Back to the routine...check conditions...wake up...prep truck...decide on...........

Funston! Looking good, I thought I was going to drive by Waddell on my way to Funston but by 9am Waddell was reporting 6-19mph already. Straight to Funston, I could see gliders set up and the windsock looked good. Made a few calls and was confident it would be nice! When I arrived, Mr. Valley was there to report lumpy conditions. It was obviously leeside shear going on with potential of greatness later in the day. I decided to hangout for a couple hours and went ahead and set up the glider. After about a half hour or so I just wanted to get into the air and feel it for myself. CRV had flown for about 15 minutes and landed to report that it was subpar for his ACP tastes. My tastes aren't as sensitive so I thought I would have some fun while no one else was in the air. I had a great launch and a nice workout for my shoulders. It was definitely lumpy. However, there were moments of pure smooth air up high. Determined to get in some airtime I headed to Westlake to see how the higher altitude would treat me. ...it was more of the same...smooth moments but mostly lumpy air. Back to the parking launch for a ACP landing and eventual breakdown of the glider. It just didn't seem like the shear would make it to land and my gut told me it would do what I call the Waddell dance where the wind, fog, and shear come in, and fade out, and come in, and fade out, back and forth all day long. Chris and I along with Urs and Dirk decided to pack it up and give Mission a go.

Mission! Yes, this was the place to be! Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, cloudbase was fluctuating betwween a couple hundred and 1000' above launch. We waited and waited until I just couldn't take it any longer and I launched pretty much knowing I would be skimming the bottom of the cloudsuck until I was forced to land at the parking lot LZ.

The best moment of my flying weekend was ACP CRV's send off Mission launch...watch the video...


Launch at Funston...



Landing at Funston...



Thanks to Chris, Robert, Urs, Dirk... I love this sport and the people who eat, sleep, breathe hang gliding. Long live ACPs!

McClure! Pink panties, Golden Eagles, Cloudbase...

I was determined to start the weekend off with a bang on Friday by cutting out of work early and heading to my favorite flying site, Waddell Creek, or possibly the backup plan of Marina or Funston. All these decisions were made for me one by one. First, I raced home, 2 minutes away from work, packed the glider on the truck and headed on highway 17 south towards Santa Cruz. I could make the decision of Waddell vs. Marina in the 40 minutes I had to get there. Unfortunately, the freeway was a parking lot at the intersection of 17 and 85. And, since 85 heads to Funston...hmm, I thought "Oaky, new plan...head to Funston". Not more than 5 minutes up 85 the truck starts sputtering and telling me it wants to turn around and go home. :( Sadly, I listened to him and went home, called the repair shop and promptly took him over to be assessed. He's still at the shop and I'm not really in a big hurry because I don't know when I can use him next for flying anyway.

The new plan? ...prepare the BMW for a trip to McClure... arrive in style and mooch off of other's 4x4s to get to launch... Thanks to Carm & Bob and Robert and Will and KM and Glen and hmm, thank you everyone!

I needed a weekend entire to myself, about me and nothing but me. So, I decided to head to McClure based on my own analysis of the weekend conditions, not influenced by the fact that my friends were headed there as well. (Only, some decided not to show up. You know who you are...Ryan, Chris, Doug, Etc.) Fortunately, I got to meet Ann (Fawkes) from Belgium and stay in Glen's hang gliding hooch (thanks Glen!) rather than pay $22 just to camp (read: sleep in my car). Unfortunately, my eyes burned out of there sockets as Noman wore pink panties the entire time in the LZ. He wears pink panties but cooks some mean McClure meat nuggets.

Saturday was epic flying with so many gliders in the air. I think there was 8 to 10 of us all trying to core thermals together. I may have even had a few close calls. My traffic flying experience is limited to ridge soaring and at times it seemed chaotic in the air. No worries though. Loads of fun and made for an exciting flight. At the same time, I was really able to explore the area like I never have before. Making it over to Schwill and towards Horseshoe further than my past flights. Other pilots topped out around 4800' while I was only able to reach about 3700'. Plenty to enjoy the day and discover new ground/air. And, oh, what a view from up there!

Sunday's flight... I'm still coming down off my high from yesterday despite the hang waiting we had to do. Five of us were driven up to the top, (thanks Bob & Carm!), and left to set up our gliders and wait out the rain. At first, conditions looked to be building perfectly but soon it became too developed and dumped rain on us for a solid 30 minutes. When it looked to be clearing, Bob headed down in the truck, our only ride down if we ended up not being able to launch. :/ ...which didn't seem to be needed when we saw through the rain on the other side were some beautiful popcorn shaped cumulus. Unfortunately, the wind was little or nothing on launch and of the little wind it was over the back. We couldn't make heads or tails of what was going on because the rain had passed and the clouds were definitely moving from the West but there were zero cycles blowing up the hill. All I can think is that the ground was too wet for thermals to be forming. So, as soon as there was a single puff of thermal coming up launch KM flew, scratched the southern point and momentarily hooked a thermal taking him above launch. Ten minutes later he was on the ground. The same with Will and then Terry and Robert. I was last but after assisting Robert launch I put on my gear and decided not to hook up my radio and use my camelback. No need, I was just going down to the LZ, right? Not the case...as I stood on launch, hooked in, ready to go, the cycles died, cloud shadow covered the valley in front of launch, and wind began blowing over the back. I waited and waited for a single cycle to come through. Ten minutes later my feet left the ground and as soon as I was in the rising air I fell right out the falls on the backside. Easily lost a couple hundred feet and head towards the LZ, away from the hill. But wait! I hooked into a thermal and cored it once, twice, three times...and suddenly I was above launch and going up up up! I kept going until I felt the cloud, a huge developing cell above launch, suck me up! I reached 4000' in a manner of a few minutes and have never heard my vario scream that way before. Oh what a glorious, and frightening, sound.

I only have a few flights where I've been able to play with cloudsuck and this was one of the stronger times and it spooked me. I'm sure I flew conservatively because I headed away from the clouds before I felt the whispies underneath, light rain on my visor. It was time to explore and head to another cloud. I was also trying to figure out the prevailing direction because the clouds were apparently moving from the NWest and my vario indicated from the SW. I was convinced it felt like SW headwinds and decided I would fly out over the lake and then towards Horsehoe. Meanwhile, my vario was beeping UP UP UP the entire way. As soon as I turned around I was in a stiff NW wind and my glide ratio even at full VG was maybe to the LZ which look like a 6 to 1 slope. On the way to the LZ I spotted 2 Golden Eagles circling below me and decided to follow suit. This took me back up to 4800', looking down at the bottom of the clouds around me, the whispies dragging underneath. Magical. A few minutes later I saw another Golden Eagle circling on my left wing and we cored a thermal together, eye to eye. Heaven!

Fully satisfied and kicking myself for not using my radio or my camelback (my mouth was sooo dry), I headed towards the LZ and spiralled in for a hot landing typical of the likes of CRV, the best flaring pilot I know. (Did I say "flaring"? I meant "flaming")

Wonderful weekend! John is satisfied. John can't wait to fly McClure again. John will dominate wherever he flies.

2011 Ed Levin Speed Glide

Soaring was had by all. What a fantastic weekend of flying!

...beginning with Waddelll...
I was able to start the weekend early with a relatively decent 1 hour flight at Waddell on Friday after cutting out of work early. :) This always makes me happy. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to break the 600-700 foot ceiling of major spank on the back ridge and due to the tsunami warnings the beach was closed with park rangers patrolling the area. This meant if I had to make an emergency landing on the beach I might be cited...at least that's what was going through my head each time I flew to the back ridge. On the upside I got to fly for an hour and had a perfect top landing. That's a great feeling!

...on to Ed Levin and Mission...
Saturday morning, bright and early, we met at Mission Soaring Center in Milpitas for a 7am pilots meeting. Then on to the top of the mountain where this year it was clear and beautiful. (Last year the fog stayed down low and prevent a second day of flying.)
I decided to enter the kingpost class this year flying my Wills Wing RamAir 154 for several reasons. 1) it's just so much fun to fly! 2) There's no chance of me even placing in the open class on my 82 lbs. Litespeed 5 and 3) because it's just so much fun to fly!

Here's some video taken by event coordinator Chris Valley at the start gate...



After getting in one speed run and one just for fun, Saturday, we headed to Mission and Lindsay was able to tandem fly with Ben. They soared for 30 minutes and I did as well never getting much higher than 200' above launch. Wayne and Eric managed to soar all over the place getting at least 1500' above launch.

Sunday, we were back at it...8am in the LZ and 8:45 at launch, ready to go. The pilots meeting determined that the conditions would alter the course slightly. No altitude control at any of the gates and the last gate would be over the 300' hill in order to allow for safe landings. Good call. It was clearly an active day already but we were intent on getting in at least one speed run. I am very pleased by both of my speed gliding flights, one on Sat and one on Sun, and had an extra treat of an hour long soaring flight Sunday after the awards ceremony. Which, by the way, I won first place in the kingposted class. Woohoo!

Special thanks to Chris Valley and Brian Foster for being awesome guys, pilots and event coordinators. True ACP style.

Here are some photos of the weekend's activities...


Marginal Mark shows us his best move.


Marginal Mark at the last gate, taking times and watching the course.


Ed Levin LZ full of happy pilots.


Doug K. and Mark have a chat about what else...hang gliding.


Robert Booth is ready to fly! He went on to dominate the sky with a nearly 3 hr soaring flight after the speed glide was over. Way to go!


Hey! That's me! ...accepting the award for 1st place - kingpost class. So exciting!


Lindsay shows us multiple fingerbangs after a 30 minute soaring flight with Ben Dunn


Handshakes all around after an incredible afternoon soaring session.


Brian and Chris showing us his landing approach technique...dive it in and stick it!


Eric Froehlich and his beautiful blue T2C


Jim Hillman - photographer extraordinaire. He took some great photos on Saturday...click here. If you download his photos for $5 each all of the proceeds go to the Susan G. Koman foundation. He has been working hard to raise his goal of $32k this year. Way to go!


I title this one "Ben"


Brian and Chris presenting awards.


My ACP Litespeed...so pretty.


Chief and Star walk the LZ


Doug...almost as big as his glider.


ACPs represent!


Diev calls it!


Dirk and Ben thrilled to be on the ground. *sarcasm*


Lindsay and Ben are ecstatic about yet another tandem flight!


Me and my award for 1st place. Did I mention I won an award? ...1st place - kingposted class.

Robert Booth, definitely the sky god this weekend!

Ryan's pre-birthday soaring at Marina.

Mother nature delivered a present today... West winds 15-20 all day for fellow ACP Ryan's pre-39th birthday! It turned out to be a well deserved albeit chilly day at Marina. Ryan, Doug, Lee, Brian, Ben, Nile and I dominated the 6 mile stretch of dunes from Marina to Sand City. And a glorious sunset to top it off... HaPpY BiRthDaY Ryan!







I love my Ram Air...


Niles and Jessica with big, post-soaring, smiles...



ACP Brian calls it before a flight...



ACP Ryan enjoys a birthday beer after a long day of soaring the dunes...



ACP Brian is happy to see me...



Yes, that's Brian running in the middle of the photo. He was trying to be in every frame off the panorama but the camera was too smart and only recorded him once...