Last Kick at the Can, Part 2:

Sept 4th (Sunday). Hot and Blue, no wind.

My turn to run the rig but both Mia and Mike where un-inspired. With a little prodding, I convinced Mia to at least tow up the PG and got Mike to act as a "Spotter". 

We found a nice spot on L-Road where Mia could layout the PG  in some cut stubble and not on the road.  I'm still a little rusty on towing PG's and have not gotten a perfect technique figured out so I really like having a second set of eyes on the ground to "spot" the takeoff sequence. As it turned out, Mia took a frontal on her first attempt (came up a little too quick and she failed to "check it") so she had a short "dirt surf" .... bounced up and had just got in the air as I shut down the tow. Her next attempt (in near zero winds) was much better and she was up clean. 

Mia was hitting strong lift on tow and decided to pin off at only 700agl... almost connected but soon drifted in a very light south wind back to the start and landed. 

Her second attempt was much smoother but again, pinned of early (less then 800ft agl?). This time she successfully scratched her way up to 5000ft asl (3000ft agl) and decided she was going to try and make the 14km flight over to Mansfield her goal for the day. 

Mike and I set out on a "low speed pursuit" and watched her make several saves low out of the dirt but never getting that high. Mia said the air was plenty active and she was choosing to fly supper conservative for the whole flight.  Eventually she managed to do the glide into town, landed in a wild grass strip near the house where Mike helped carry her gear back to the front lawn. 

Victory.... Mia claims her first goal flight on the PG!

Nice breaking down on the green grass of home! Ended the day with a trip to Chelan for swim and dinner.

Sept 5th (Monday), You guessed it... Blue and Hot!

Same theme as yesterday, except my turn to be the Paragliding "victim" and Mia was running the rig. Mike still not enthusiastic about rigging the VR for a hot sweaty grind agreed to crew as "spotter" again.  Jeff on his RS also decided to join us, hoping to scratch out a flight on his hang.

With a little better procedures, I managed to successfully tow with my first attempt. I completed a 1400ft agl tow but despite having dusty's kicking off all over the place managed to drive through what ever lift that was there down to the start point.  (My excuse?... vario was acting up ;-)

A little bit of drama on my second tow with a blown weak link just as I pulled up.  No big deal, new weak link and I gave it another shot. This time it was nice launch and again a strong tow. Even more dust devils in the area but still was not able to connect. Admittedly, I felt a bit intimidated with the sight of devils cracking off in the area and decided that conditions where getting potentially above my comfort zone so I called it a day.

Jeff saddled up on the tow rig just after 1pm and took a nice tow directly into lift and was up and away. His goal was 30km south to Park Lake and the golf course LZ. It was a slow grind, only breaking 6000ft asl on one occasion. Mia, Mike and I backtracked to Mansfield with the tow rig, picked up some swimming gear and eventually took up chase with the lake as goal.  We stopped in Saint Andrews to monitor Jeff's progress. Eventually we got the go-ahead to head to the lake as Jeff had it on glide.  

Jeff styled a nice landing at west side fairway

Again... dip in the lake, beer and slow trip back up to Mansfield to finish the day where we packed up the rigid's for the trip back home. Not our last trip of the year but it signalled what was the end of summer for this year. (heading home...)   :-( 

Last Kick at the Can (Sept 1st to 5th) Part 1:

The good old September Long weekend is always a mixed bag. This year, the forecast looked promising.... perhaps too promising as a big high pressure was building onto the coast and I figured there was a very high probability of things stabling out.  Still, any airtime is better then anytime spent at work!

Sept 1st (Thursday), the high was still building in and the Jet Stream was driving straight down over Washington State.  Big winds on the ground, monster dust devils eating up the dirt  so flying was not in the cards.

After we got our acre of lawn cut, Mia was in a shopping mood. She had been eyeing up a good deal on a bicycle (fancy road bike) so it was off to REI in Spokane, where she picked up a nice little Cannondale Synapes... strange tho... no peddles.... apparently that required further research ?.... On the return trip to Mansfield, passed an old "red neck" in a Toyota pickup. The canopy and tailgate was plastered with all the usual right wing slamming of Obama. We stopped in Davenport to do some shopping and the truck was there in the lot, so I walked around it checking out the political statement when I noticed in the top left corner of the rear a small decal that read "Free Tibet"... left me thinking, America, "land of the political extremes" .

Sept 2nd (Friday). Well I guess I blew this call. We woke up to strong 30km North winds, forecasts all indicated pretty much blown out for the day so we decided to go on a road trip with Mike from Spokane down to what the locals call Saddle Mountain about 100km due south of Mansfield (north facing 2000 ft ridge site). We took our PG's.  Turns out the forecast was shit, and it was only light east up on launch. Still Mia and I got to get a little ridge flying in (I managed one touch and go top landing attempt), Mike did not bother to setup the ATOS as it was way too lame to make the effort.

Meanwhile, back at Chelan Butte we could hear some fellow Canadians (Alex and Rob) working on a 70km OR over Mansfield (Mike heard something on the radio about watering our lawn from the air by some smart ass....). Oh well, explored a new site. 

Sept 3rd (Saturday), Hot and blue... not looking great but we decided not to blow the call and committed to some aviation.  Mia was crewing the rig, Mike (ATOS VR) and Jorge (Light Speed) from Spokane joined us.  Still NE on the ground... I towed up first and much to my skeptical  surprise, connected into a smooth 2oofpm up... real smooth.... down right pleasant. I knew it was going to be a soft day so after hitting 5500 ft asl (3500 over) I headed cross wind to the south (in what had turned into 10mph east wind aloft). Despite what was a very slow go and plenty of low saves (like when I dug myself out of the dirt north of Douglas) it turned into a very nice day.  At the end of the day I landed back at the tow site (to retrieve Jorge's truck) for a 114km FAI triangle. Meanwhile, Mike had completed  a 86km FAI triangle and Jorge had flown a OR west of Withrow and back to join Mike on the grass on the front lawn in Mansfield.  Beer and steak dinner... life is good.  (Oh... getting even for the bad call the day before.... the Butte was blown out..... would never have guessed that, must have been "karma"?)