Sunday, April 27, 2008

Airport Ridge....

First trip down to the Mansfield Shack this year.  The past two years we have been met with a flooded basement. So with trepidation, I slowly opened the basement door..... DRY!  Winter has been kind. Turned on the water, nothing leaked. Turned on the power Nothing blew up. Two glasses of Scotch and The 2oo8 World record headquarters is open for business!  (of course we still need to bring down the tow rig and the rigid's but that will be during the May long weekend)

Saturday the 26th we checked out the alternate routes into Chelan to visit Jeff.

Because McNeil Canyon is closed (35kms) we went via "Brown Canyon" (81kms) . Its a substantial detour but other then the the much rougher road of Farnhem Canyon (45kms), the other available options are via Bridgport (91km) or Waterville (109kms).  For sure it sucks having to do the big detour but hopefully the re-grade of the McNeil canyon road will all be done by mid June.

In Chelan we met up with Jeff and took the PG's over to the "Airport Ridge" It was hot, sunny, a few dust devils were tracking around out on the flats. At launch it was 10-15kms, crossing from the west. Dave (a local) got a few passes in and sank out. Both Mia and I did the same.  Jeff flew his Talon and got the best flight of us all. Thing is, as quickly as it turned on.... it would turn off. (one thing I should say about this site... you need to keep an eye on the airport for traffic. Keep clear of the end of the runway when ever anybody is taking off. Also, there are some monster power lines right behind launch. Personally, if it gets too windy I would not fly, if something went wrong you will end up getting bug zapped big time!)

After the first flight, Mia hiked up the front to get the the car (5-600ft vertical). In the mean time, Dave's wife showed up and came down and picked us up, so we went up for a second try. Mia launched first, two short passes and she sunk out.  I got lucky and managed a nice 40 min workout with one low save from half way down the hill.  

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(One of my brief passes above takeoff)

I got caught by a low and dropped out. Dave launched his tandem behemoth PG (solo) and hung in for 20 minutes.  Its a "SkyBike" (I think its a Swing product... looked more like a SkyTruck!) Its a brand new/old wing. I joked with him you could build 5 Nano gliders and still have enough "rope" left over to do the North Face of the Eiger.

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(Daves Monster)

Jeff, Cameron (owner of North Wings, a Ultralite/Hang Glider manufacturer) Jorge (both Dave and Jorge are employees of North Wings) all logged some nice air time after Dave joined Mia and I in the LZ.

Cameron was testing out a prototype Freedom 190. It's  a big single surface floater that I must admit looked like a lot of fun to fly!

Well it was far from an epic day, it was nice to soak up some sun, meet some old friends and share some airtime in town.

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to change and we will probably do some painting and some shack clean up....

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

It's been a Rotten Spring.....

Stir crazy? Looking back through the old log book I figure this has to be one of the worst starts to a flying season ever. I'm running out of winch projects and would really like to get a few km's of XC here in the Fraser Valley to warm up for some real flying down in Mansfield.

By this time last year I had logged nearly 500km xc in the Fraser Valley.  This year... .The VR has had one trip to the mountain, never bothered to take it out of the bag as the day was so stable  it hardly made it worth the effort.

The coastal mountains have had epic snow packs (the ski hill up at Hemlock recorded over 5 meters of snow.... well above the norm).  The road into launch at Woodside was buried up until two weeks ago. For most of the spring, you could just make it to the spur road turnoff, then pack it in from there. We are now able to drive into launch. But still the weather has been far from inviting. Mia and I have both managed a few flights on the Bag's but good old Woodside has been far from inspirational.

Yesterday, there looked like an opportunity to get the VR into the air, but the weather Gods were angry and the Valley was hit with 20mph out flow conditions..... oh well the VR stayed in the bag (no doubt some deranged bag pilot hucked off someplace?)

Mia and I are going to head to Mansfield this weekend to try and get our summer shack opened up. We normally take a weekend to clean up the lawns, collect up all the fallen tree branches and patch up what ever may have been damaged through the winter storms. Hopefully the trip down last fall to fix a leaking water line will have cured the problems we have had with the flooded basement. Always a treat to discover the sump pump failed and 4 feet of water has "moved" in to form a indoor swimming pool!

I don't think the winter on the east side of the Cascades has been that harsh so I'm hoping there will only be a small amount of clean up (weather looks like its going be cool but sunny for the trip). It's still too early for towing so we will just take the bags down for some kiting or the airport ridge in Chelan.

Of course, there may be a catch to heading into Chelan from Mansfield... McNeil Canyon road is likely to be closed and under construction (for the next 9 weeks!).  The reverse of this is pilots flying Chelan Butte will not have access to the flats. There are ways around the work but they will add at least an hour to the drive. The closure will last well into June. I guess we will just have to wait and see if its going to completely cut off access (there is some hope they may find a way to allow limited access).

So for now, its waiting for spring.....