1 hrs/ 3 flights at Cliffside (09-28-15)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qu7kWnh3Pc

I had 3 flights at Cliffside yesterday with Ray B, Enrique, John C, Mark R, Steve F and a few paragliders. All 3 flights launched off from the PG upper launch and it was soarable as well . The conditions were fairly strong when we arrived around 11:30am, so we thought it was going to be an easy soaring day.

Unfortunately, when we were set to launch an hour later, the winds lightened up, although still soarable along the ridge above Highway 14 with narrow lift band; we just couldn't get too high for the first flight. The highest I got was on the 3rd flight which was about 300ft above (almost 900ft AGL) around 5:30pm. On my second flight, I tried to top land at a cross wind on the uphill slope, however my approach was terrible, which ended with me slamming into the ground instead of landing (or you can say crash landing or BIG WHACK).I unhooked and checked to see if everything was okay after the crash, as well as checking to see if I broke any bones. Fortunately, everything turned out okay so I re-launched again shorty. At this time, the lift band had expanded and thermals were starting to get better which made the soaring much easier than earlier. I got higher and higher, but also felt the throbbing of my left shin from the BIG whack earlier. So even though conditions had improved, I've decided to best head out and land. I made it to the LZ by the river with plenty of attitude and had a soft landing on an uninjured right foot. My Gopro was off on my second flight so I didn't captured the crash landing, but Ray saw it so maybe he can fill in with more details. By the time we finished packing, it was getting close to sunset and Ray still skyed out with a couple of paragliders. He landed right before sunset.  We had dinner at Hood River "Crazy Pepper"  with Mark , Enrique and our driver Justin.  I will post the video later.

 

Eagle Caves

 

5 hrs/2 flights Sept 25-27, 2015 Rampart

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2ITWkOwYBU

Day 1 (Friday) Sept 25th
I arrived Baldy LZ around 1:40pm and found the skies overcast with few light sprinkles on and off. The wind was really light (0-2mph ) at the LZ coming from NW. The paragliders headed up to launch around 4pm when the sun came out with light wind blowing at 10-15 mph at launch (5 mph at the LZ) , so they got about 1.5 hours of ridge soarable window. One of the Baldy rule is that no 2WD vehicles are allow on the road;
Unfortunately, no sightings of 4WD rigs with hang rack was available to take my glider to launch, so I missed flying for the day. Spent my evening hiking up to launch.

Day 2 (Saturday) Sept 26th
Rampart 3 hrs flight
3 hrs flight/ 4,500 AGL/ 7,000 MSL
Already blowing 10-15mph at Baldy LZ in the morning at 8:00am Probably 25+ mph at launch. So went to Rampart to meet up with other hang pilots and turn out it was an amazing day at Rampart for sure. Five lucky hangs (Tim C, Stas, Bryan, Chris (from Taxas) and myself) got hours of a magic air time. I launched first at 1:15pm and flew for 3 hours. It was quite easy to climbed over 2,000 ft above launch and also easy trip to the big Rampart wall and across the valley. Thermals were really smooth and climbed up to cloud ceiling fast. I didn't feel any rotors during the landing approach and everyone had a soft landing on the carrier deck.

Day 3 (Sunday) Sept 27th
Rampart 2 hrs flight
It was light with clear skies. 8 hangs (Kurt, Gary, Aaron, Stas, Travis, Eric O, Alfredo and myself) and few bags flew. I flew for two hours.

Day 4 (Monday) Sept 28th
3 flights at Cliffside
I had 3 flights at Cliffside yesterday with Ray B, Enrique, John C, Mark R, Steve F and a few paragliders. All 3 flights launched off from the PG upper launch and it was soarable as well . The conditions were fairly strong when we arrived around 11:30am, so we thought it was going to be an easy soaring day.

Unfortunately, when we were set to launch an hour later, the winds lightened up, although still soarable along the ridge above Highway 14 with narrow lift band; we just couldn't get too high for the first flight. The highest I got was on the 3rd flight which was about 300ft above (almost 900ft AGL) around 5:30pm. On my second flight, I tried to top land at a cross wind on the uphill slope, however my approach was terrible, which ended with me slamming into the ground instead of landing (or you can say crash landing or BIG WHACK).I unhooked and checked to see if everything was okay after the crash, as well as checking to see if I broke any bones. Fortunately, everything turned out okay so I re-launched again shorty. At this time, the lift band had expanded and thermals were starting to get better which made the soaring much easier than earlier. I got higher and higher, but also felt the throbbing of my left shin from the BIG whack earlier. So even though conditions had improved, I've decided to best head out and land. I made it to the LZ by the river with plenty of attitude and had a soft landing on an uninjured right foot. My Gopro was off on my second flight so I didn't captured the crash landing, but Ray saw it so maybe he can fill in with more details. By the time we finished packing, it was getting close to sunset and Ray still skyed out with a couple of paragliders. He landed right before sunset. We had dinner at Hood River "Crazy Pepper" with Mark , Enrique and our driver Justin.

9-26-15 (Sat) 

  9-26-15 (Sat) Tim Cayward flying behind me

Video Coming soon

  9-26-15 (Sat) Cloud surfing 

 9-26-15 (Sat) Cloud surfing 

 9-27-15 

9-27-15 Flying with Paragliders over Rampart wall

2.5 hrs/ 2 flights at Bremer & Dog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F__zJGI1Qw

More good flying at Bremer today (Sept 23nd Wednesday) .  There were two bags (Dave A, Dave Little)  / five hangs (Stas, Tim C, Jeff B, Tim and myself)  launched around 1:00pm and it was pretty easy to find lifts along Bremer ridge.  Some good thermals reached up to 1300ft above launch.  I flew for one hour and 20 minutes. Then, four hangs went back to Dog for the 2nd flight , it was really light with overcast skies. I launched around 5:15pm and surprisingly I was able to found enough lifts below launch boated around for over an hour. Shawn , Jeff and Tim C launched after me also got some good soarable air time. 

4 hrs /4flights at Bremer Ridge and Dog Mt on Sept 18-19, 2015

Friday (Sept 18th):
There were six pilots flew Bremer on Friday (3 hangs and 3 bags). Thanks again to PG pilot Kim for inviting me to fly Bremer and also thanks Dave Auman to letting us (3 hangs Travis , John Coyier and myself ) ) landed in his property (Area151). The flying was very good with plentiful XC opportunities at Bermer on Friday. The conditions at launch and LZ were really light from morning till 4:30pm (We left at 4:30pm). I launched at 1:40pm at the paraglider launch the first time so it feel like flying a new site to me. There were some beautiful little cumies clouds above launch providing thermals however I had to worked really hard to gain altitude in the beginning. I was struggled few hundred feet below launch for a while then hooked a nice thermal on the east side of the ridge. I flew for 1 hour and 40 minutes and topped 2000ft above launch (4200 AGL/ 5000 MSL). Once I got above launch the rides up to the cloud base were pretty easy and smooth.

Satuarday (Sept 19th):
I flew Bremer again with five hangs (Aaron R, Gary B, Kurt H, Ron B, John C) . Although mostly overcast with light west wind conditions, there was still a good amount of thermals allowing us to soar. I launched first and encounter some broken thermals mixed in with the good ridge lifts above launch. I boated back and forth few hundred ft over launch for a while , then headed to the east ridge and found consistent thermals. The top of the lift was about 900ft over in mostly smooth air. Gary and John came join me later and sometime they outclimbed me was even higher. After more than one hour of air time I decided to land so I have time to catch one more flight at Dog. Thanks a lot to John C going back up for retrieved.
Dog was really light but there was a lot of small tiny bubbles just enough for me and Brent (PG pilot) to maintain between 500-600 feet above LZ for another one hour flight.

 https://youtu.be/eGMT58BMJCM
Or Vimeo link
https://vimeo.com/139863180

Click to the below link for more information of Bremer

http://pdxhanggliding.blogspot.com/2014_10_01_archive.html

6 hours air time / 5 flight on Sept 11 to 13 weekend

Sept 11, 2015 Tiger Mountain (Issaquah ,Wash)

Only two hangs (Travis and myself) flew Tiger today. We and most of the paras had an extended sledder. It was almost zero wind conditions at launch and also no wind at the landing. Nice to flight Tiger again and I ran up to launch in a hot humid weather.
Anyway, I'm here for the Tiger party tomorrow so I will fly Tiger again even a sledder conditions. Not sure about where to go on Sunday yet. Maybe Dog, Rampart , Tiger again.... Etc.

Sept 12, 2015 Tiger Mountain Fantastic Fly-In Festival

The 2015 Fantastic costumes festival turned out really good. There were about 50 paragliders flying at one time and only 9 hang gliders including myself, Tim Cayward, Travis, Glenn, Steve Alford, Rob, Kerie, Aaron and Bryan. The soarable condition turned on around 3:00pm and we all soared. I flew for 2 hrs on the second flight and hooked up with a few thermals that topped out 1000 ft above launch. I had two flights and total of almost 3 hrs of air time. As you can see from the video the whole sky was filled with paragliders.

Sept 13, 2015 Dog Mountain (Glenoma, Wash)

It was really windy and gusty (20-25mph) at launch the whole day. I had two flight that combine 3 hrs of air time. Aaron R, Eric O and myself flew till sunset.

On Sept 12

I captured this incident on Sat (Tiger Mt Fantastic Fly In) around 3:30pm. It looked as if two paragliders were launching at the same time ; one got tangled with another glider and was dragged down to the bottom of the launch. I'm not sure exactly what happened. I heard that the pilot was okay, however his glider got toasted.

4hours/ 5 flights on Labor day weekend at Dog and Rampart

http://youtu.be/qDyIq0I768k

Sept 5th 2015 (Sat)

I had two flights. It was mostly very light to variable ridge lifts with a few thermals in the early afternoon. I got 200ft above launch and flew for about 40mins. Not too long after I landed , there was a big wall of a rain slowly approaching toward Dog that produced some powerful lifts for the second group. I think they got 1000ft above launch until the rain arrived. We went up again waited for the rain pass through. As soon as we were ready to launch the wind died down. I soared for a short time and landed.


Sept 6 & 7th 2015 (Sun & Mon)

It was soggy and no wind at Dog the whole day on Sunday so nobody want to fly except for me. I wanted to do some cardio exercise so I hiked up two times and flew down twice in no wind condition. Left Dog Mt with Jonathan at night to Rampart and it turned out we had an awesome flight at Rampart on Monday Labor day. There were 10 hang pilots (Dave L, Jonathan, Bryan H, Paul D, Lenny, Stas, Kurt, Gary, Aaron R and myself) came out and all of us had a wonderful flight. The winds were more on the light side at launch and LZ with cloudy skies but there were still a lot of easy find smooth thermals everywhere. I launch at 2:30pm right after Dave L and flew till 5:35pm. Cloud ceiling was about 1000ft above launch when we launched therefore the higher peak of the Rampart cliff wall was under the clouds. We were cruising underneath cloud base most of the time between the cliff wall and launch. It cleared off around 4:30pm and finally I was able to make it to 500ft over the cliff wall. My max altitude at the last hour was about 6,000ft MSL.

1 hr 20 mins (2 flights) at Kilchis (Tillamook, Oregon)

Video coming soon!

Sep 3rd 2015 Kilchis (Tillamook, Oregon) flight report:

Today I went flying with Ray, Kory and Mark at Kilchis with no paragliders in sight. There was a few showers around noon. The winds were pretty light at the LZ/launch for the whole afternoon with overcast skies. I launched first around 3 pm and scratched for a while just to maintain 100 to 200 ft over launch elevation. There was enough bubbles above Kilchis launch to keep us up boating around a few hundred feet above launch all day. I got bored at the same spot, then headed out to Sugar Hill hoping to find better thermals. Unfortunately, rain came when I arrived Sugar and I didn't feel any lifts either so I landed. The other guys stayed close to Kilchis launch for a while and had a longer flight. Ray stay up for more then an hour and I think he got 800 ft over launch. I went up again for the 2nd flight with Mark and had a better thermal climb this time around, reaching 300ft over launch. Similar to the 1st flight with a bit of improvement, I was able to soar for 50 mins, with the first flight lasting about 25 mins.

Photos: 

https://www.facebook.com/pdxrick.lai/posts/10153256215924285