Saturday, April 28, 2012

Tree in Dunlap

Conditions was weak, overcast most of the day, light thermals, typical task to Woodlake. I was trying to catch up with Josh, Eric and Kansas. They choose more direct route to Squaw Valley between Grany and ranger station and it seems working for awhile. When I get closer to ranger station game was over for them. Eric and Josh did not establish on ridge and was going to land on turkey farm, Kansas was landing on ranger station. My only friend was white Advance who struggle with me for awhile but then give up and landed on ranger station. I had enough altitude to go to Bold, so I went there. I hope for lee side thermal, but did not go deep enough and instead though I had enough altitude to go around. Big mistake, I did not found anything but head wind and very limited number of landings. The best option was landing high on mountain side, clear from trees, but it looked quite steep, so I choose small field between trees. Big mistake.
There was wind gradient close to the ground, so I did not quite made my intended LZ, still manage to get down to the ground, but could not steer my wing out of the tree.
Old lady came to check if I'm fine and later found and gave me old saw, which was used last time probably 50 year ago, but my persistence was rewarded and after 2 hours of work I was able to free my wing from tree embrace. Rescue team: Aaron, Kurt and Szilard arrived just in time to help clear lines from branches, thanks a lot. Arun, Jug and Tom flew over my head earlier when I try to explain that I'm not the only one crazy pilot that fell from the sky. Key for the day was to wait for conditions to improve.

Net damage teared wing tip:
Which was repaired by Mitch McAleer very well, color is slightly lighter, but this is it.
If you need to repair PG wing or harness I certainly recommend Mitch as he has 20 years experiences with Wills Wings as production engineer, he's also HG aerobatic champion.
http://users.ez2.net/skyfreak/

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