My first tandem flight in 1988 was on a mountain in Southern Calif called Kagel. I started flying hang glider solo in 1990. Since then hang gliding has been my primary interest.
Ray B, Bob H (hangs), Mike Canifax (Pg) and I did some nice soaring flights today at Oceanside. The beach was under water until after 1pm. Tide went down fast and winds never blow more than 10 mph. It was favorable for paraglider all days with sunny sky. We all launched in a really light 3-6mph straight west winds. I took off first and flew for 2hrs. Ray also got about 2 hrs and I think Bob and Mike flew for 30-45 mins. There were few strong thermals on the North side that took me and Ray to 1,100ft few times. Ray went to the back bowl and got higher. Congratulations to Bob have his first soaring flight at Oceanside. I think Bob reached 800 ft AGL.
After an evening (Saturday 1/27/18) spooky scary hike at Cape Lookout last night, I headed down to Newport, Oregon from Tillamook (1.5 hrs 68 miles) with plans to check out Yaquina Head for my first time. I was up at the launch after breakfast in the morning, and counted 800 steps (about 10 mins) from the gate to south launch. It was a pretty easy hike with the help of my kayak cart hauling my glider and harness. I was able to get in two soarable flights with a total of nearly 90 minutes (1st flight 20minutes & 2nd flight one hour). The morning session was an uncomfortable flight due to a lot of east winds. I wasn't able to climb up above launch. Fortunately, my second flight was awesome with pleasant 15-20 mph straight up consistent south wind. It made take off more challenging but soaring was easy. Conditions were so smooth that I was able to use Facebook live and sent out a text to Ray in the air. Ken had launched before me in the afternoon and we both got up to 500 to 600ft above launch (1,000ft AGL above ground level). The winds drop down to 5-10 mph around 2:30pm and I was cursing between 100-200 ft above launch. All in all, this was a fun site with the exception of trees located on both sides below which made launching a bit nerve wrecking. I don't think there's enough room for ATOS rigid wings to launch (see pic and video ). Paraglider would be fine. You'll know what I'm talking about when you see the video.
Detail report here: Neahkahnie, Oceanside and CLO south report.
Thanks to Ray who provided me the info of Neahkahnie (35 miles north of Oceanside), an old hang gliding site where I'd went to check out this morning around 9 am. Winds were coming in ata perfect direction with guaranteed soarable conditions which made it tempting to fly. However, I passed on it since I was alone and haven't flown there before. Also, the 3 miles walk back up from beach LZ to launch was a bit too much, maybe next time. I'll post more videos and pics for later. After exploring Neahkahnie, I went back to Oceanside and had the sky to myself for 1.5 hour in smooth light wind condition.
It wasn't windy and no more rain when I arrived at 11:45 am and there was plenty of beach for landing already (high tide at 8:30 pm /low tide at 4). It was blowing approx 5-10 mph straight west by the time I punched off (@12:20 pm). I'd reached 500 ft above launch and flew down to Happy Camp when the winds started dropping quickly, so I headed back to launch. I cruised around between 50 to 200 ft above launch for a while before landing early, which gave me some time to check out the south side of Cape Lookout's launch today. The winds were almost dead calm at the beach when I landed an hour and a half later. l left Oceanside at 3 to CLO. It would've been a great day for hangs and Paras to fly Oceanside this afternoon.
