Rick Lai's Hang Gliding report : 3 flights 4.5 hrs 3 days flying trip (Dog, Rampart, Mt Si and Tiger) Sept 8-10, 2016

Day one Sept 8th, 2016 (Thursday) Dog Mt Glenoma, Wash
1 flight 2.5 hrs
Fve hangs flew Dog today (JJ, Chris T, Robin, John D and myself). The strong wind (15+mph) produced a good ridge lift with adequate thermals, it was easy to stay up. Robins, John D and l enjoyed two an half hour or plus flights. The highest we got was about 1,000ft over launch at the south bowl. Many trips to Elk Mtn across the lake unfortunately it wasn't working that well over there. All in all an awesome day. John, Robin and I went to Puyallup, WA Ram Restaurant & Brewery for dinner.

Robin and John getting ready to launch

About 800ft above launch over the south bowl

View of the south side

John heading to Elk with his brand new Moyse Litespeed

1400ft AGL over Elk

Day two Sept 9th, 2016 (Friday) Rampart Ridge
1 flight 2 hrs

There were five hangs (Robin, John D, Chris Tarnawski, David Best , myself) and one paraglider (David Le from Portland) soared Rampart today. The wind forecasts says light SE (bad wind direction for Rampart) early and turn more to WSW in the afternoon with full sunshine. We arrive LZ at 11am and it’s more like 0-2 SE but we are all convinced that by 2:00 it’s going to turn west with decent amount of thermals. Two rigs left LZ between noon to 1pm. We arrived hang launch and wind were still blowing from the back side 0-2 mph so we headed up to the paraglider launch and some cycles start to come thru but nothing stable. We cleaned up some tall weeds in front of paraglider launch and John D decided to fly his speed paraglider wing down and come back with his motorcycle to fly his hang later. The condition seem like a sledders and not much improvement after an hour of waiting so David Le (his first fly at Rampart) decided to give it a try. All hangs also decided to setup at the paraglider launch. David Le climbed up immediately and got 1500 ft above launch (6000 ASL) so I launch right after him at 3:15pm in almost no wind condition. I waited for cycles to punch off and l was able to find some good thermals and climbed up to 2500ft above launch (7000ASL) few times. A couple of hours of really fun air time going back and forth from launch to the cliff wall in smooth air. Everyone had a great soarable flights and smooth landing today. Robin, John and I celebrated our good day at North Bend Bar and Grill for dinner.

7200ft at Rampart

My landing gif file

https://goo.gl/photos/neokR6fytLxcQo5c6

All the photos below by David Le

Thanks Dave!

Day three Sept 10th. 2016 (Saturday) Mt Si and Tiger Mtn

Tiger Mtn 2016 Fantastic Fly In

1 flight sledder

Today started out early hike with John D to the famous Mt Si in North Bend. It took us almost two hours hike to the peak and I was admiring John flew his 11MM speedwing down instead of hike another 5 miles downhill like me. It just make me consider get into speedwing flying. Anyway, Mt Si is really a spectacular site with stunning view , it doable for paragliders and Hang gliders (if you can carry your wing to launch). After that we met up with Tim C at Rampart LZ at 1pm. and it was blowing really strong from NNW (15-20mph) so we decided to check out Tiger Fantastic Fly-In event. We arrived Tiger south launch around 3:30pm with our hang crews Aaron S, Steve, Bryan. All paragliders starting to sink out while we were setting up. By the time I ready to launch there were no more paragliders in the sky. The forecast says wind supposed to switch North in the late afternoon and I was worry if that happens we have to pack up our glider and take a long walk to the north launch so I decided to punch off even though the soaring conditions doesn't look promising. It was my first flight launch off on the south side and landed in the south direction so it feel like flying a new site to me. I'll be happy even a sledder. The thermals was really turbulence that make me feel uncomfortable and hard to climbed. I struggle below launch for a while and decided to landed. So I got to see almost everyone great landing plus the smoke bomb looping show perform by Aaron. Tim launched last when wind switched North. He was the only hang was able to stay up for long time and sky out. After John landed his hang glider, he hike up to north launch to fly his speedwing again. I was going to hike up with him to drive Tim truck down but after the morning 8-10 miles hike I'm exhausted. I took the shuttle up instead. So this year Fly-In it turned out only 6 hangs and tone of Pgs shows up. That it for now, lm heading home tonight and better stop text and drive.