Thursday, March 29th at Mossy Banks
No one seemed real interested in flying today except Bob and Scott Wise. Scott got hung up working on his new rack but Bob met me at the bottom of Mossy after I had hiked in on top ( no gear ) to be certain it was going to be worthwhile. The day's forecast was frustratingly North, or NE or NNW and it had the potential of being everywhere and nowhere. I had thought Mossy would be too strong, but the hawks climbing out in front were telling me another story. So we get up top and Bob can get at least to the cell tower so that's what we did. The launch may have been clear, may not have been clear- I am not certain. Because I never looked over the edge at all. Bob took half a second and plunged off- didn't look so good at first. He was just below launch for way too many passes even after getting up some initially. I was set up 5 minutes behind him and, like him, spent no time contemplating the dive. I went into a better cycle than he did so I was 200' over in no time. But when I searched for him he was way high now, at least 700' so I started the hour long atempt to get higher than he was. Never happened. The thermals were very strong and organized the higher we got. It was mostly due north with a little NE mixed in. Bob had my max alt2 by 50 feet and was pretty much on top the whole flight. The air was fun, sometimes kicky, but classic Mossy, and it has been so long since I have flown there. It used to scare the shit out of me (the launch still does!) and maybe it's due to the high pressure nature of a north wind, or maybe it gets blown out so easily, or I don't know what. But today was good, and the stress level was low in-flight, although it was colder than I thought it was going to be. Bob flew with no gloves and had to land after an hour. I flew WITH gloves and my hands were pretty numb after an hour. We had a lot of birds playing there with us too. Their hands were probably cold, too.
So, airtime: 1 hour, max A2 1322', greater than 1000fpm spike on the climb, and the approach was better than my landing.
No one seemed real interested in flying today except Bob and Scott Wise. Scott got hung up working on his new rack but Bob met me at the bottom of Mossy after I had hiked in on top ( no gear ) to be certain it was going to be worthwhile. The day's forecast was frustratingly North, or NE or NNW and it had the potential of being everywhere and nowhere. I had thought Mossy would be too strong, but the hawks climbing out in front were telling me another story. So we get up top and Bob can get at least to the cell tower so that's what we did. The launch may have been clear, may not have been clear- I am not certain. Because I never looked over the edge at all. Bob took half a second and plunged off- didn't look so good at first. He was just below launch for way too many passes even after getting up some initially. I was set up 5 minutes behind him and, like him, spent no time contemplating the dive. I went into a better cycle than he did so I was 200' over in no time. But when I searched for him he was way high now, at least 700' so I started the hour long atempt to get higher than he was. Never happened. The thermals were very strong and organized the higher we got. It was mostly due north with a little NE mixed in. Bob had my max alt2 by 50 feet and was pretty much on top the whole flight. The air was fun, sometimes kicky, but classic Mossy, and it has been so long since I have flown there. It used to scare the shit out of me (the launch still does!) and maybe it's due to the high pressure nature of a north wind, or maybe it gets blown out so easily, or I don't know what. But today was good, and the stress level was low in-flight, although it was colder than I thought it was going to be. Bob flew with no gloves and had to land after an hour. I flew WITH gloves and my hands were pretty numb after an hour. We had a lot of birds playing there with us too. Their hands were probably cold, too.
So, airtime: 1 hour, max A2 1322', greater than 1000fpm spike on the climb, and the approach was better than my landing.
posted by Linda Salamone at
Friday, March 30, 2007
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