Cliffside 12-30-2014

It's nice to end the year with John D , Solo R and Travis P with an absolutely terrific flights, given the iffy weather condition at Cliffside. The wind direction was blowing straight up (approx 8 mph) at launch from east (between 9:00 to 10:30am) with almost zero wind at the LZ. It became lighter than it was earlier when we launched around 11:30am. I was waiting for a stronger launch cycle when the wind started to drop down to less than 5 mph, to which I told John that we'll probably end up having a sledder,.......... but I was wrong, the day turned out much better than expected. We both launched in a good thermal cycle and was able to bench up and climb above launch quickly. I flew for 30 mins and later hooked up with more good thermals that took me up to 1400 ft over the hang launch. John also did really well and got 600 to 800ft over. After about an hour of air time, the thermic conditions had shut off and winds switched more to the opposite direction (west). A couple of PG pilots didn't fly because the wind suddenly switched over the back or too west. So, the 4 of us (2 hangs & 2 bags) got to soared and ended up with great flights today at Cliffside,...pretty awesome for an unpredictable forecast!
Date: 12-30-2014