http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/ en Copyright 2009 Wed, 22 Feb 2006 13:19:42 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Fly Sun Valley, a walk on lift ticket to the top and away we went. This year was COLD! 0-20F during the days so the flights usually ended with numb hands. On Saturday there was a bit of ridge lift to soar in and Sunday there was light lift to work. Sunday had the added bonus of snow crystalizing around us while in flight so the dancing rainbows and mini-prisms of light while working our way down the hill were especially spectactular. It was great bumping into Dave Hanning who is spending weekends there doing tandem instruction with Chuck. This was our second year flying in Feb in Sun Valley and I can say that I'm going back next year!]]> http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2006/02/#000104 http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2006/02/#000104 Wed, 22 Feb 2006 13:19:42 -0800 What a day - an 83km triangle task was called this morning due to the light and variable wind forcast and clear skies. Same strategy as usual, get high at the Chelan Butte, make the crossing with room to spare, and then work the flats. With a triangle, the wrinkle is that invariably one or more of the legs will be somewhat against the wind and of course there was the crossing back over the river to the goal to contend with. Unofficially, it looks like the fastest time was at around 3 hours and 30 minutes which is about 23km/hour. Pretty fast. My time was 4 hours and 30 minutes into goal which when I turned in my GPS was good for 25th place on the day. That's 4 hours and 30 minutes on course, that doesn't include the hour of circling around getting high prior to the race start so my day was quite long. Once again, the Gin Zulu treated me well, although on this long task I could start to see where a faster wing would be more helpful. However, the pure joy of flying with such a rock solid wing with great performance as it has outweighs the stress I had on the Zoom. I must say that every Gin Zoom that I've flown with over the past couple of days has out-climbed me in every thermal. Either I'm heavy on the Zulu or those are just fantastic climbing wings. Today was a day where nutrition was starting to play a part. Being out in the elements and concentrating for that amount of time taxes your body and it's critical that you take in water and perhaps some calories. Preparation before the race is also key, making sure that you're hydrated but not overly so since it's hard to pee while in the air. Tonight is a wine tasting dinner and then two more days of flying if the weather holds. I'd be happy if today were the last day, I've had a fantastic experience so far. http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/07/#000103 http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/07/#000103 Thu, 14 Jul 2005 19:15:00 -0800 For years I've been hearing about Chelan and it's kick ass thermals and dust devil spouts especially the "tower of concrete" ones that will pretty much wreck your day. On the fence for the past 3 months, I finally decided after much cajoling from friends to come out the the Nationals to fly in the competition. I have been flying a DHV2 wing for the past 6 years and most recently I've put about 100 hours on the Gin Zoom. Since the mystic of Chelan was clearly imprinted in my mind, I decided to step down a bit and fly a DHV 1-2 - the Gin Zulu. Wow! What a difference! I am having so much fun on the Zulu! A bit to my suprise - my initial thoughts were that the feedback was much less, it might be slower and the glide less. After four days of flying on it, I've been suprised to see that the speed is very comprable to just about every other wing out there except the very new comp wings. I can keep up with and pass guys on Boomerang IIIs! On full speed the glide goes down a bit more than I'd like but I can usually find a sweet spot somewhere at 3/4 to full bar. The stability that I'm experiencing in this turbulent air is also increasing my joy. The greatest thing is not worrying about having an epic frontal on bar as the Zulu just doesn't want to collapse. I did have a 30-40% collapse yesterday that was a non-event - just opened right up with no turn what-so-ever. http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/07/#000102 http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/07/#000102 Wed, 13 Jul 2005 17:29:10 -0800 What a great start to the Nats! Today is the start of day 5 with the weather looking great again today. To recap the past four days, the first day was definately clouded over at about 99.9% so there really wasn't any sun. An ambitious task was called for something like 30 miles. To everyone's suprise 65 of the 86 pilots made it into goal. What an experience to know that even poor looking days can be epic! Day two was a tough call for the task committee. They called a straight out task that they though would be a cross-wind task. However, the wind picked up and it was almost a straight upwind task - lots of work! Len made it to goal finally after flying 8 hours - landing at 7pm although goal had closed at 5 so he only got points for where he was at 5. Most of the field made it out to about 35-45 km before the winds really picked up. Day three was called due to wind. Day four was about to be called off but then a 63km task was called for the fun of it. Again to everyone's suprise, at least 50 pilots made it to goal. Pretty much a blue sky day so there were no clouds to fly by. Super fun day for me as I kept up with the lead gaggle for the most part. http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/07/#000101 http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/07/#000101 Wed, 13 Jul 2005 17:22:06 -0800 Yow, here I go on this big trip and then drop the ball on keeping this updated. Well, as for the Pemberton Whistler Championships, there were no task-able days so there wasn't much to report on. We did get some flying in during the four days but for the most part we spent time playing a lot of chess, hacky, and general socializing on launch or out and about. The area is spectacular and I'm really bummed that we didn't have any epic days. We were treated with some really cool aerobatic shows by the local glider pilots. It was amazing to see the huge loops, stalls, chandelles, and ground skims at 100+ mph in those big wings. Thanks to Mark Dowsett for throwing the event and I hope the weather is better next year. http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/07/#000100 http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/07/#000100 Wed, 13 Jul 2005 17:17:12 -0800 Rained last night and it's likely that it will rain most of the day today. Lots of fun activities being considered and at the moment we are listening to Australian Brian Web providing an excellent overview of CompGPS. Tomorrow is also looking to be a rain day so this probably will wrap up this competition with three valid task days out of seven. Two days of extremely light conditions and one decent day. Next stop, Pemberton Whistler Classic north of Vancouver. Hope the weather makes a turn for the better! http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/06/#000099 http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/06/#000099 Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:19:13 -0800 The day was another grey overcast day with light conditions. After setting the task we waited up on coopers launch for a couple of hours before a time was finally set. About half of the field bombed out in the light thermals including myself. The other half made a good go of it with six or so making four of the six way points before the conditions became too light. Overall quite a frustrating day for most. http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/06/#000098 http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/06/#000098 Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:16:06 -0800 Day 4 turned out to be an epic looking day and a 52.5km task was called for the second task of the competition. From launch there was an upwind leg of 5km to Lumby Ridge then out to the Camel Hump which has two or three valley crossings depending on your track. From there back to Saddle Mountain, Lumby Ridge, Camel, and back to Saddle to make two triangles. Goal was out to the north east another 8km. Due to airspace restrictions, the normal ceiling is 7000 feet but on day 4 we asked for clearance to 12000 feet. The wind was about 10+ knots from the south west which meant that Lumby Ridge was upwind and getting up there was on lee-side thermals. Getting there twice was hard enough and then getting up in the rotor was quite the trick. I bombed out early today and didn't even make the start cylinder as the idea of flying in the rotor wasn’t too appealing. I did launch a second time for fun from Saddle and semi-joined in on the race. I got up to 9000 feet and boated around the area using the cloud streets as my guide. I managed to make a 25km triangle in a couple of hours flying and watching the other competitors who were on course. Two lessons for the day: first, don’t take risks when the conditions or locations are adverse and second, don’t get caught up in the competition aspects and try to focus on good decision making and having fun. http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/06/#000097 http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/06/#000097 Fri, 17 Jun 2005 09:29:51 -0800 Canadian Nats Album]]> http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/06/#000096 http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/06/#000096 Tue, 14 Jun 2005 14:35:59 -0800 2005 Canadian Nationals]]> http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/06/#000095 http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/06/#000095 Mon, 13 Jun 2005 10:14:43 -0800 We had spent a couple of days in Seattle finally to be treated to an excellent flight from Tiger on Thursday. Greg Babush is working on his tandem so he was the pilot in command as we soared up to cloudbase. Knowing that we had to get to Vancouver that evening, we ditched thoughts of cross-country and made our way around the Tiger Mountain "Tiger Tag" turn points before heading down for an eventful landing. As the wind was from the south, we had to set up over Marc Chirico's house (Seattle Paragliding) which has some mighty tall trees above it and of course the LZ is boxed in with big trees and power lines anyway. We went for an extended ride passing over the spot and finally found sink just at the end of the landing area. Whew! On our way in to Lumby yesterday afternoon, Tin Ilacovac, Greg, and I immediately spotted a couple of gliders soaring a hillside about 10k west of town. Called "Baldy", we threw our wings into Matt Dadam's truck (he had just shown up) and drove the 15 minutes to the top. Punched off and had a nice 15 minute soaring flight before coming down and heading into Lumby to find our camp spot. Today we were greeted with an epic looking sky and headed out the main landing area. The hangies had already went to the launch above Lumby so we booked out to get there too. Arriving at the top, we found mostly down (west) winds with some very sporadic cycles coming up. I punched off into a nice cycle and went up to cloudbase at about 8k feet. The air was pretty rough down low and several others who launched after us had some good collapses and ended up landing pretty early. About 5 of us did a quick tour of the area following the cloud street west and then back to the east, but as the winds aloft were at 10-15, it didn't take long for us to decide that landing soon would be a good idea. Mid day was a-coming and the day's weather called for OD conditions and thunder storm clouds. We can only hope that the next few days are going to be as epic, sans the wind of course! http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/06/#000094 http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/06/#000094 Sat, 11 Jun 2005 14:06:02 -0800 Last day of the Rat Race here at Woodrat Mountain in Ruch Oregon and we're in the middle of our daily pilot's briefing. The organization of this event is top notch and I've been impressed with the level of professionalism and quality of work. From the pre-printed labels with pictures and names to the daily schedule complete with the pros giving mentoring talks at the end of the day. I've decided that I'm racing today as opposed to "finishing to goal" which has been my focus for each day. With nothing to lose, I can test the "speed to fly" theories - launch early, fly the course with the pros. If I dirt out, I dirt out but I'll have gained more practical insight into the mindset required for "racing" paragliders. After today Greg Babush from Telluride and I are heading on a 2-4 week road trip touching three more events in the Northwest. The first event we’re signed up for is the Canadian Nationals in a week then we’re competing in the PWC (Pemberton-Whistler Championship), and finally joining in on the US Nationals in Chelan, WA. This next week is a freebie and with a front coming in we are heading to Bend to fly Pine Mountain and then on to Chelan for some practice there before the US Nats. Then on to Pemberton a couple of days early for some practice days there. More later as we hit the road tomorrow! http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/06/#000093 http://www.pacskyways.com/blogs/tim/2005/06/#000093 Sat, 04 Jun 2005 09:47:56 -0800