The SkyBlog

The Burmuda high that has set up off Florida has been piping in the high winds for the past three days, strong enough to force us to cancel the last two days of the SIV training.

The Rob Kells Memorial competition at the Florida ridge is on day three and it looks like they may still have to cancel the day due to gusty high winds. They have yet to fly a task.

The good news is that the high should be breaking down by Thrusday and then we will have two days of SE conditions and then a signifacant reduction in the winds. So this should give us a great week of flying for the 4th annual Spring Fling.

A reminder note to those who are attending the Spring Fling, registration will start Saturday May 2nd at 4:00 p.m. and the Competition safety breifing will start at 7:00 p.m. followed by what may possibly be the largest gathering of both PG and HG comp pilots ever in the US, as there will be 40 HG pilots who will kick off the Flytec Race and rally May 3rd as well as 25 PG pilots for the Spring Fling, certainly a party not to be missed. If pilots have any questions please contact me at 505-720-5436. there are still about 8 spots still open for the Spring Fling.

See you soon,

David.

Well we finally got a day with lighter winds and that allowed everyone a chance to get airborne, we were flying all day and things were just starting to get good at 1:30 when Kevin C got away, he topped out at 4,000 ft agl and went on glide over the canal and then into the Triangle of doom, he did’nt find any more workable lift and landed back in the forest and had about a 2 mile walkout with most of that being bushwhacking.

Around 3:00 it went off and cloudbase went up to 7,000 ft agl and there were about 5 HG pilots who got into the good stuff and they floated around at base for hours going anywhere they felt like with little drift aloft. There was one pilot at cloudbase at 6:00 7,800 agl and reported climbing there in a 1,300 fpm smoothie.

Today we started with mostly cirrus cover high and some cu’s forming below, the winds were strong at 20mph at 3,000 ft but seem to be backing off, we’ll be waiting for the afternoon cook to see if we can get in some miles.

There is a front approaching but the weekend weather calls for building high pressure with light winds, great forecast for a weekend SIV session.

Right now there are four pilots flying daily preping for the SIV and the SPring Fling which starts May 3rd going thru the 8th. There are 22 pilots confirmed at this point.

David.

Well, i just hav’nt been very motivated lately to blog it up, mostly because the flying around here has’nt been very inspiring.

We have been getting at least one or two flights a week mostly at La Bajada ridge near Santa Fe, i got a niuce 30 min flight there on Tuesday which was the first test flight on my new harness, the air was super smooth.

I had been building my new harness for the last couple of weeks and was eager to give it a go. The RLD2 has new reserve containers and is alot cleaner the the RLD. I put on a new lumber support system but the location of the straps was not as comfortable as my previous set-up, so i still have a bit of tweaking to do before it’s ready for a 8 hr world rocord flight.

Spring Fling update: well finally after 9 years of trying to get things rolling if Florida, this year is going to be a real deal event with 20 pilots already confirmed, and the drought conditions still persisting in Florida all we need is a good week’s weather with lighter winds from the south and we’ll see some very happy pilots.

Once i get to Florida next week i’ll start to blog it up more so pilots will get a chance to see exactly how good the flying is. Recently the winds have been strong in Florida and not much good flying has taken place, but that is totally normal and the winds usually back off right around the last two weeks of April thru the summer.

More soon

David.