Mike sent me an edited Iphone video of lightning storm under the power-lines looking east toward Mansfield. Sound track… well not my choice 
“On the Rim, Lightning storm”
Monday, July 23, 2012
Mike’s Lightning Video….
Sunday, July 15, 2012
3 hours later…..
Like I said, this place can be very big. This photo was taken three hours later (after the photo in the previous post) looking back at Mansfield from 25km’s away. At the end of the day this thing laid down numerous lightning strikes and caused at least two fires.
Strange things said and done…..
The Columbia basin produces big air. You need to respect the place or it can kick your ass big time. Why just the other day while flying near Withrow and monitoring 146.415 (our local op frequency) we had some familiar “no call sign” Russian PG’ers (and others) talking their way onto the flats from the Butte when there was a brief strange transmission ……. “Throw your Chute ! “ ….. (brief silence)…. “Nice save!”.
Not sure what the whole storey was but undeniably somebody just got schooled.
Over the last few days, there has been a local Chelan Butte PG comp underway, they have done well with reasonably good comp conditions with some very respectable performances. In the last two days, tasks where pushed with very high chances of thunderstorms. I’m not chastising anybody ( I’m sure they are all big boys and girls) but the second of these two days did “blow up” and had some serious potential . The task was called and it rained PG’s in Mansfield, later even a tandem sailplane from Twisp was forced to seek shelter at the Mansfield airport. I guess all I’m saying is you can “poke the bear” but remember…. the “bear does bite”.
Mia and I tend to seldom want to challenge the place when the forecast includes overdevelopment. Something about dragging 4000ft of towlines through statically charge atmosphere with a “kite” on the end of the line?
If I were to offer some advice to PG pilots who want to fly the Columbia Basin (Chelan and surrounding area), Unless stable, you should have at least 500+hours of experience. You should try to team up with pilots who know the area. Expect to encounter air far beyond anything you have ever experienced (even in an SIV). This is not a place to fly for the timid. Pilots who do not have a masterful grasp of controlling and recovering their wings should not be out here. I fully admit, as a PG pilot this place is way beyond my skills and comfort zone. I have close to 150 hours on the PG and would never dream of flying this place on anything but the quietest of days, preferably well into the calmer days of August and September.
Todays morning weather (11am) with severe thunderstorms in the forecast….
(Think we will go bird watching… Fly safe)
Friday, July 13, 2012
2012 Mansfield Encampment…. first day
Arriving at in Mansfield on June 29th, the weather was less then promising. As usual the weather proved entertaining (to watch) but not suitable for grinding out any airtime. Thunderstorms passing through made for some impressive photography.
Perhaps we could have pulled up for a little airtime on the days prior to July 1st but waiting for better air seemed to be the right thing to do. On July 1st, and very much to my surprise, what appeared to be a washed out day that I fully expected to overdevelop and explode into thunderstorms…. did the the complete opposite! It all started with a very low cloud base of very unstable dark cumulous (I estimated base to be a mere 5000ft asl, only 3000ft about the local terrain). The only incentive was a much brighter, dryer, group of Q’s to the south. The best I had hoped for was to get Randy (now the proud owner of Mia’s “old” ATOS VS) a flight before he had to head home and perhaps get a chance for a little airtime before we would have to dive for shelter down south in the dryer air.
I towed first, immediately connecting with some soft light climbs that brought me up to a now rising cloud base. Lift seemed pretty reliable so I pressed south to try and stay in the blue (some rain had started to the north of the tow site at L+13). As I pushed a few Km’s south when Randy got towed up by Mia and was “hanging in there” so I continued to push south. At this point in time it was pretty obvious the day was not going to go as expected. In fact it was rapidly drying and cloud base had lifted quickly to 7500asl. Within a few hours the area had turned into a pretty respectable day with a typical cloud base reaching over 8000ft asl.
Randy’s first flight of scratching around in the light air, ended a few miles south on L-Road with a good landing. Mia was right on scene and re-loaded Randy on the rig and at which point began a slow 3km back trek backup the tow road to get Randy a re-launch. This time Randy was up in the better air and worked on some nice local XC landing just west of Mansfield after a few more hours airtime.
(Down south the Day dries out…..)
I finished up the day with a 135km FAI Triangle, back at the tow site then a nice cruise back into Mansfield for a breakdown on the clean green grass at the shack. Ah, its good to be “home”!
Rotten Spring….
It’s been a rotten spring in so many ways. For Mia and I the flying season never really took off. A few nice days here and there (for the lucky ones) but no real trend setting up for some classic Fraser Valley spring conditions. Not saying that all the flying was bad, but it seemed that every time we thought we could count on a “great day”…. somehow mother nature would schedule a new weather event to put the damper on our plans.
Adding to the dark spring, a number of tragic flying accidents shook our local Fraser Valley community.
Here’s the thing about these accidents, they act as a wakeup call, they remind us that flying is a very demanding pursuit and as the expression goes, “a very harsh task master”. Even the simplest of mistakes can compound to deadly circumstances. If these accidents serve any purpose I would hope it would be to remind us that we have to bring our “A” game everyday.
I’m late writing anything in my blog, always seemed to have other stuff to do. Right now I’m enjoying time off in Mansfield and I’m pleased to say enjoying some wonderful airtime. It may have been a “Rotten Spring” but things are looking up. More to come…..
Monday, December 12, 2011
“Go to Cruise” Dec, 2011
Sometimes you have projects that just never seem to get done. Mine…. putting together of a “little video” that captures the spirit of our favourite flying site in Mansfield Washington.
I had plenty of excuses that contributed to not getting the project done. Thing is, I truly believed we had something worth showing off and sharing with the flying community but I could never satisfactorily capture it with the quality it deserved.
Then along came the GoPro sports camera. A filming tool for idiots. Quite frankly, its an amazingly simple piece of video equipment. Just turn it on and “roll camera”. Its strength is the high quality wide angle image that is captured by this simple point and shoot video camera. On the other hand, It’s only weakness turns out to be its high quality wide angle image! (IMO), the wide angle field of view is pretty much the sole purpose of this camera. Well this image can be breathtaking…. after a while it becomes boring. Kind of like riding a roller coaster? Once a year is a thrill?……. continuously, over and over? becomes a bit fatiguing. So, how to use it and take advantage of its strengths? Keep it short, keep the tempo fast, and never dwell on any given shot for prolonged period of time.
With lots of material hogging almost 40gig on my hard drive, I still had one more excuse/hurtle to overcome. I need a computer that would not spit sparks trying to render the massive files that the GoPro produces. It was time for an upgrade. Dell XPS15z, Intel i7, 8gigs of ram and 2gigs of dedicated video…. bundled with Adobe video editor (simple enough that even I could figure it out!).
To inspire a tight script I decided on a sound track that doesn’t give the viewer time to think… just enjoy the view.
In my opinion 
To view the film, please go to my Vimeo link to watch in HD.
Cheers
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
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...) :-(
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