Crestline Soaring Society

Sunday afternoon McBus for 1300 turned out to be the 1330, waiting for Rob's tandem to show up. No sweat, she was cute enough to make up for it, even though she did NOT buy the beer! Got the setup sorted out, and the camera mounted and test-fired OK, and was ready to launch by 1500. Lift was strong enough to get the instant elevator ride, YEEHAH and away I went. Simple ridge lift was enough for 300 over launch, and there were good thermals mixed in with it, but I'm still really paranoid about turning in lift over the trees behind launch. Last week I found my self in big sink over the carbonized punji stakes right behind Billboard, and the strong impression has not left me. Had enough altitude to fly out safely, but Holy Crap! After flying the ridge for a few minutes, I saw Rebar on launch trying to talk Shiloh into a ride. Gave him a shout, and shortly got into sink past Billboard, and decided to play it safe and headed out. Mostly sink on the way to the Cloud spine, but cleared it and started finding frequent lift on the south face of Cloud. Got back almost to Marshall, turned around and started into the approach area. Found a really nice thermal as I came over the ranch, and started giving it some half-hearted turns, not expecting much, and the next thing I know I'm 3k AGL. Hot damn! Now I could do some more aggressive wingovers back to back, and tear around a little bit with the bar pulled in. Apparently I was doing the wingovers in lift, which I mistakenly interpreted as "vario thermals" because when I leveled out, I didn't seem to have lost as much elevation as I'd hoped to. Cool, then we'll do spiral dives! Three turns and 2 G's later, I was ready to set up a landing approach, and still ended up using S turns to scrub through some low lift. Not my best landing, but far from my worst; still improving...details, details. One hour and 25 minutes, I'll TAKE IT!! Joel