2 hour and 15 mins Lower Peterson 3/23/16

Since I didn't want to fly alone at Newberg, I decided to join Gabe & headed out to Lower Peterson this afternoon. We arrived launch at 12:15 pm and it was already blowing 20+ mph SSW. The skies were overcast with ceiling around 3,000 ft AGL. I launched first and flew for 2 hrs and 15 mins (from 1:00pm to 3:15pm), topped out 1,850ft AGL. Gabe and Chris launched about 45 mins later,I think they flew for more than an hour. The strong SSW (about 15-18mph) winds made it quite easy to bench up to the upper launch towers. There were a few short sprinkles during our flights, beside that everything else was perfect.  Thanks Gabe for filming me with his DJI drone , I added the drone footage on my video.

Video Link: 

https://youtu.be/818REU2ufCA

Thanks Gabe for filming me with his DJI Phantom 3 drone yesterday at Peterson Butte (Lebanon, Oregon). This is the full version of the drone video.

https://vimeo.com/160313859

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

 

About flying Oceanside tomorrow (Thursday), the winds direction and strength looks really good. However, there's a super high surf (16ft / 6ft High Tides at 2:30pm) which will probably result in no beach for landing in the whole afternoon.  Yesterday at Oceanside there was a 10ft high surf and paraglider reported that there wasn't much beach for landing. Last month when I flew Oceanside with 13ft high surf , I almost landed on the water during the low tides.  You can go to my blog to re-watch that video of that day. I'm debating if I should go or not? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw42qYHLgss&feature=youtu.be&t=1m1s

2 flight 3 hrs and 40 mins air time at Cliffside 3/18/16

Today was a day where patience is rewarded after a long wait before getting some really good flying. The easy consistent soarable part started around 3:30pm. All the air hungry pilots (Mark R, Enrique, Kory, Jeff H, Robin, Eric O, Myself and about a dozens paras) who waited long hours got to fly till sunset. I flew for 3 hrs on the second flight and 35 mins for the first one in the morning. Although the condition wasn't as good as yesterday,  a few of us were still able to climb up to the top ridge above the turbines. I heard few paras went XC. What a wonderful day! I've already flew for 3 days straight & will be taking a break from flying this weekend.

BTW,  I was below everyone most of the time , Jeff H went further east and sky out everyone. GREAT flight man! Everyone  lacked of hope earlier due to the bad condition. I worked really hard to stay up on my first flight and the first 15 mins of the second flight. Fortunately, it turned out all good in the late afternoon.  From depression to happiness and thanks to Mother Nature.

Video Link: 

https://youtu.be/lw5q0OxazSk

2 hrs Cliffside Epic flight 3/17/16

There was a light wind this morning and soaring started quite early for a few paragliders. The strong east winds arrived around 12:00pm. Three hangs (Neil, Ray and myself) launched around 1:00pm in ESE 10-15mph winds and I was not expecting a 6,000 ft AGL day. We got above the turbines in a minutes and felt a lot of spring thermals. Great two hrs beautiful flight.

 https://youtu.be/MFc4l5MvbnU

2 flights 1 hour air time at Dog 3/16/16

Fun flying with everyone (9 hangs) yesterday at Dog. The conditions was light but soarable. I boated around at the lower ridge for more than an hour on the second flight. The late day glassoff was a treat for Eric O, Enrique B, Gabe D and Mark R when the north ridge was finally turn on.

Video and photos coming soon:

Two sled rides at Cliffside 3/11/16

I had two sledders today. I forgot to turn on my camera on my first sledder, so this video is of my 2nd flight from today. The wind at launch were blowing either light NE or ENE most of the time today, as I expected of sled ride conditions only. But what I didn't expect was the non stop drizzle that started around 3:00pm so everyone else decided not to fly except for me. Also the wind at the LZ by the river was blowing from the opposite direction (west 0-5 mph) during the whole day.

Video link:

https://youtu.be/efHcue6MvzE

45 mins flight at Chehalem Ridge (Newberg, OR) 3/6/16

Alone at Chehalem Ridge (Newberg, OR) 3/6/16

Video Link: 

https://youtu.be/36Vd5VAhXp8

I had a nice approximately an hour (or maybe 45mins) flight at Chehalem today. The winds were cranking at launch (20-28mph) after the last squall passed through around noon. With no more rain so I went back to Newberg skatepark for another skate session. When I return to launch around 1:30pm , the winds had backed down to 10-15mph with more blue sky and sunshine. Fortunately, an RCer guy was there so I wasn't all alone.I decided to take a flight, punched off at 2:15pm with 10-15 mph wind and got high really fast. No penetration problem until 30 or 40 mins later when I felt stronger head winds from SE or SSE also with the rain approaching from the west side. I decided to land at the PG's LZ because it was a shorter walking distance to launch for my car. Packed up everything before the rain came and began the walk. However, I was lucky to have gotten a ride from a nice local guy after walking a few hundred yards. Rain started on the way up to launch so I didn't get wet. 

2 sledders flights at Chehalem 3/3/16

https://youtu.be/uUbKYvivU0E

Five paragliders and one hang glider (myself) flew Chehalem ridge today. It calmed down a lot after the last squall passed through which is around 12:30pm. I launched at 1:00pm (5-8mph winds) on the first flight and 3pm (5-10mph) on the second flights. I felt a lot of thermals mixed with sinky air on both flights; I was scratching and got really close to the trees and still could not bench up above launch. Andrew, Gregg , Rob S were able to soar and did some XC. I'm not sure where Greg and Andrew landed? Jay and Eric were getting ready to launch when I left around 4:00 pm.