Launched at 2:38PM on April 29 and within minutes was regretting it. Thought the turbulence might be more benign past Rock n Roll. No such luck as I got rolled past vertical and floated into the right down-tube. Luckily I didn’t hit it with enough force to bend it. I made a beeline out front and stayed as low as I could while waiting out the rowdy air. At 3:20PM the weather rapidly changed and there was organized lift and much nicer air for the next 3 hours. I passed by launch at 3:40PM and enjoyed the rest of the flight. In other words, I could have waited an hour before launching and landed an hour later all in nicer air. Oddly, air out over the flats remained pretty crazy and strong throughout the day. The other pilots I spoke with also reported overly strong turbulence as well as bad sink.

I landed at 6:16PM and in spite of a good setup my left wind dropped and I did a minor ground loop and heard Andy yell “Whack!”. It was even difficult carrying my glider to the shade structure since the surface wind was swirling.

From the report I got from Sylmar, it was at least as bad over there.

Unless you are current and flew all winter, please consider launching later in the day until the marine inversion returns towards summer.

Don’t be fooled by the tracks. They don’t tell the whole story.