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.
It was a typical kind of day at Cliffside with light soarable conditions today. I was the only hang, thanks to Kelly for providing me with a ride up to launch this morning. I punched off at 1:50 and landed at 3:40, nearly 2 hrs of air time. Flew with approx 8- 12 PGs in light yo-yo conditions. Few thermal bubbles took us to max altitude of 1,400 to 1,500 ft AGL. It was sunny earlier with ceiling getting lower around 3 pm. All wind turbines were covered by clouds around 3:30 pm.
"Most likely my first skunked of 2020" turned out being a fantastic soaring day for Ray and I. The wind at launch was dead calm and sometime blew from SW or East (wrong directions) at launch the whole time. After hours of hang waiting and was about to leave, the NW winds finally arrived at 3:15 pm. It was light but the trees behind the road were moving and a few eagles started soaring in front of launch. Ray and l decided to setup and I launched first at 3:45 pm. It was nearly no wind at launch, but was quite easy to reach 1,000ft above launch once I'd turned left. Ray launched 15 mins after me and we both got up to 1,800 ft. We cruised around from the end of the Cape to North Point and flew for over an hour. Both of us landed right before sunset in slightly tail wind (and no wind) conditions. Overall, it was worth the wait as we'd gotten a great flight in at the end.
I arrived CLO at 11am and it's still raining now. The wind is blowing light SE at the moment. I think we are between two systems and expected winds becoming more west instead of NW due to another southerly system moving in tonight. Most likely it will be my first skunked of 2020
