Tuesday, March 29, 2016

2 flights/ 2 hrs at Sollie and Cape Lookout on 3/28/16

We went to Sollie around 2pm because there wasn't enough wind and no beach for landing at Cape Lookout. The winds conditions at Sollie wasn't perfect either. It was coming from NW 5-10mph at launch and LZ (Sollie is a south facing launch).I launched at 3pm and landed at 4:05pm. We found plenty of thermals over Sugar hill. I topped out approximately 1,500 ft AGL over Sugar Hill. I think paraglider Mark S & Peter got over 2K. Hang pilot Robin and few pgs launched later also had a nice soarable flight over Sugar. After packed up , I went to CLO with Robin hope to get a sunset flight. We didn't expect much because high tide at 5:30pm. We arrived CLO around 6pm and the winds at launch was still pretty light blowing from NNW with just a tiny narrow beach for landing. Vince , Nick (bags) and Robin (hang) launched before me and we all went straight up immediately. Magical smooth lifts everywhere..... Robin and I flew till 7:45pm. He reached over 1800ft AGL. I didn't go across the gap and got 900ft AGL. I came home around midnight so I'll post videos tomorrow. Robin camping at CLO tonight and he would like to fly again tomorrow with anyone.
Video Link: 


















Wednesday, March 23, 2016

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: 


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.



 



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? 




Friday, March 18, 2016

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.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

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.
















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:

Friday, March 11, 2016

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: