SoCal XC League, Marshall, March 2009

John Scott (HG) predicted good weather to try Kagel to Marshall flight, but Dean call SoCal XC meet at Marshal, so I was in doubt until 8 am at Saturday and finally went to Marshal. It was north wind (not flyable) until 2:30 pm, but then we launch and go on course. I had slow start and did not care about time, task was easy and only trouble was strong west wind. I made few mistakes:
1. Forget start time (3:45 or 3:50?), so lost 5 minutes.
2. Did not pay attention for sink rate and thermal instead of following Dean using nice convergence line with almost zero sink.
3. Forget that its 1 km radius (not 0.4 km) over last CVS turn point, so did not go directly to it from Towers and flew upwind to Cloud first, which cost another 10 minutes.
After task flew another 2 hours for fun, got to 7+K. Good training before National in Dunlap. I should write down the task.

GPS track: www.xcontest.org
Photos: www.paraplan.ru
Results: www.usxcleague.com

As for Kagel to Marshal flight 9 HGs try to do it, 4 made it to goal, 2 within 2 miles, 1 landed below Cuc and 2 near San Dimas.

Sky Port to power-lines flight, 20 miles

At Saturday I had my first thermal flight on the new wing Axis Venus 2 in Santa Barbara. Weather was good except of light east wind. Launched at 11:00 and hang out between R&R and Antenna Farm for about one hour. Then follow Tony Deleo on his Atos and another hang glider. They go low and fast. I try to be conservative and get all altitude that I can before each transition. After Montecito peak there was no clouds and base was just little bit higher then top of the ridge. I made it to power lines then east wind become stronger and I turn around and fly back. On the way back I join Dean & Co. for Santa Claus Ln beach landing. Nice flight except of one nasty frontal collapse.

GPS track log
Photos