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FlyBC "Site of the Day Archive" - May/2015
Woodside
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| 5-31-15 |
 Agassiz BC Mainly sunny. High 26. UV index 7 or high. We managed 5 rounds with the students and the last round had Nathaniel having to do a hard run to get off in a light cycle right after Denis launched tandem. Denis had a good day doing 5 tandems for us, and Derek did 2 tandems as well. We had 8 tandems all day and they were not that long but Denis & Derek managed to get above launch nicely on one round mid-day. Our students are doing awesome, especially Tyler who launched with the VOX function on his radio turned on so he heard nothing but had a perfect approach & landing (due to good preparation in the ground school).  Pemby Report - while we were flying Woodside with students, and had a stable day the folks in Pemberton had some nice flights. X Contest scores here 5-30-15
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| Agassiz BC Clearing this morning. High 22. UV index 7 or high. We got 4 students off in nice launch cycles but only 1 made it to the Ranch! Chris was the last one to launch in the first round and he made it to the Ranch with ease with the others in a field north of the highway, picked for safety. Not turbulent, just windy and then it calmed down. Denis, Derek & I did three tandems at 11 am and the thermals were smooth and easy so we got the students off after we landed and we had a repeat of the wind for them? After a few landed short in Duncan's pasture we called the day and went kiting. Derek & Jack were heading to Bridal at 6 pm and needed a tandem pilot, so I volunteered and we were soon on top and clipped in.
We landed in the nicely mowed grass, thanks to Monica's hard work! Nice to fly Bridal again, we may have to bring some students over too. 5/29/15
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| Agassiz BC Mainly sunny. High 25. UV index 7 or high. I had a tandem at 1 pm and Kathy was quite small, around 45 kgs and I was concerned that it might get windy but Mother Woodside provided perfect launch conditions for us and we soared around thermalling in all the normal places before heading out to a nice landing at Eagle Ranch. Meanwhile Guy was soaring around waiting for Al to come back up and he toplanded. When Al, Paul, Etienne arrived they all took off and it did get windy as Al was reporting 2-5 kph ground speed without speedbar. He was advising the guys to head to Harvest but as it was also lifty, they all pointed straight to the river and arrived over the Ranch at 400 metres, where they were parked before hitting the shear layer and some turbulence but they all made it as Al headed to Agassiz. Colleen and I headed Chilliwack and Kevin heading home from Bridal where some pilots flying showed the others that they did not want to be in the air. It was very windy in Chilliwack, and as we got back to the Ranch it stayed windy til dark. 5/28/15
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| Agassiz BC Sunshine and a few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 25C. Winds light and variable. Josh got his first 2 solo flights in today. Tim C got 3 flights in with a super job on thermalling his Koyot around 2 pm getting above launch and staying high. Denis & Derek helped with tandems and it was soarable on the at tandem at 8 pm. Despite the forecasts the winds never got strong enough to suspend student flights. 5/27/15
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| Agassiz BC Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 23C. Winds light and variable. We did a set of tandem runs with Alastair, Denis, Guy and myself taking some Indian Tourists for flights and Alastair & I got to soar as the sun came out. We did have very light passengers on board though.
Mid-day flights were good and Kevin, Matt J & Guy headed east to land in Agassiz after some flat land flying. At the end of the day, Al took Matt J tandem as part of his tandem apprenticeship. We are having battery charging issues on the new webcam/weather station but should have it fixed today. 5/26/15
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|  Agassiz BC Mainly cloudy with 30 percent chance of showers and risk of a thunderstorm. High 21. UV index 6 or high. We never got more than 5-8 kph from the SW all day on the new weather station and the Launch Cam showed the same in the windsocks, but it was launchable all day. Ozone releases the new Rapido Speed-Wing Cecil Peak from Cade Palmer on Vimeo. 5/25/15
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| Agassiz BC Mainly cloudy. 70 percent chance of showers this afternoon. Risk of thunderstorms near Hope this afternoon. High 19. UV index 5 or moderate. Woodside Windtalker 5/24/15
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| Agassiz BC Mainly cloudy. 30 percent chance of showers this afternoon. Risk of thunderstorms near Hope this afternoon. High 19. UV index 5 or moderate. 5/23/15
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| Agassiz BC Mainly cloudy with 40 percent chance of showers. Risk of thunderstorms this afternoon. High 20. UV index 6 or high. A couple of un-named speed fliers took off in limited visibility but did not have to worry about getting cloud suck as they are little wings. I took Montana tandem as her Birthday is next week but can not come out then as she is in school. She was a very good pilot at 11 years old, and even started telling her Dad Colin how to do the approach as he readied for his flight later in the day. Jeremy & Cocoa got their first solos today afetr 3 days of ground school, ground handling and more briefings. Colin & Solal got a few more flights for their log books too.
Richard T got famous in Parksville on his Ozone Buzz Z4
5/22/15
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| Agassiz BC A mix of sun and cloud. 30 percent chance of showers late this afternoon with risk of a thunderstorm. High 26. UV index 7 or high. We had Solal, Dan S, Nathan, and Jason flying and Jason flew his 15 metre speedwing into Riverside on the first round while the others flew to Eagle Ranch.
Solal was first down and he landed in the ditch at Chimp Creek just inside our fence line, Dan was behind and lower and he had to ditch in behind the goal post trees. We drove down leaving Toby on launch as he was going to fly to Riverside. As we got down to the Ranch to sort out Dan & Solal's gliders, we parked the Van near the goalpost trees and it was howling (+30 kph from the south), and Toby was parked high about 200 metres over the Ranch looking good. Then as Toby got lower he started going backwards and he landed just on the other side of the fence east of the Ranch. We headed off to Agassiz for some kiting after that, and it was almost too light to kite as we were in the lee of Hopyard Hill.
Paul & Alison Harwood - film-makers and pilots extraordinaire! Airgasm - The humbling art of learning to fly from Ali Harwood on Vimeo. 5/21/15
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| Agassiz BC A mix of sun and cloud. 30 percent chance of showers late this afternoon with risk of a thunderstorm. High 26. UV index 7 or high.
By 3 pm, it was blowing pretty strong for students but Denis helped with one more tandem and they got to 1000 metres above and behind launch. The student were kiting in the field as we knew there was no point on going up. We quit flying by 6 pm as it looked threatening and later it rained hard in Chilliwack, just light rain here but we had lightning close. 5/20/15
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| Agassiz BC A mix of sun and cloud. 30 percent chance of showers late this afternoon with risk of a thunderstorm. High 25. UV index 6 or high. Ali is now up to 25 flights and looking strong, and she need to write her P-2 Exam to graduate. Brand new student Dan from AB got his first solo flight after a day of hard kiting on the Eagle Ranch Training Hill, no slope soaring just practice flights. Tommy was back and got a nice flight on the Element II L, testing harnesses. It did get a bit windy around 3 pm, mostly thermic winds as Sumas was calm, but I still managed to get 2 tandem rounds in landing softly at the Ranch. Mourad was also back after a month of working and managed to get 5 flights in 2 days and he too is looking very good in the air. He went up for one last flight at 7 pm, but it went catabatic and the Thunderstroms over Sasqquatch stated booming thunder, so no go for him. 5/19/15
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| Agassiz BC A mix of sun and cloud. 30 percent chance of showers late this afternoon with risk of a thunderstorm. High 25. UV index 6 or high.
5/18/15
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| Agassiz BC A mix of sun and cloud. 30 percent chance of showers early this morning and late this afternoon. Risk of a thunderstorm late this afternoon. High 25. UV index 6 or high. Denis did one tandem for us, while I wrangled students and we had a super good session with newby Tyler having his first solo launch on our Geo 4 MS and he went up very high and had a good 40 minute flight landing with a huge grin! Colin is back from a 7 year hiatus and he got his 5th & 6th solo today, getting a 45 minute thermalling session on flight #5 flying our Eona demo (what a sweet ride).
The skies looked ominous over Sasquatch & Bridal but Woodside stayed blue.
Some nice launches George G captured up May 16, 2015 5/17/15
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| Agassiz BC Mainly cloudy. 40 percent chance of showers this afternoon. Risk of a thunderstorm this afternoon. High 20. UV index 5 or moderate.
All out tandem flights ended up at the Ranch where it was a bit thermic as the hay has been mowed in Duncan's field east of us and in the Eagle Ranch LZ too (which is also surrounded by plowed field now as the corn field expands this year.
I somehow hit the middle of the landing circle four times today, despite getting dumped twice on final. After the students and tandems left I repacked Leo's reserve and I think I found the flaw in his harness. The Line to open the zipper is next to the reserve handle and he should be using the right hand to open the pod, as he was pulling past the reserve handle using his left hand, which he usually does. Maybe a re-rig of this line is in order.
5/16/15
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| Agassiz BC Mainly cloudy. A few peeks of sunshine possible. High 18C. Winds light and variable. We did have a great ground-handling session at the Ranch and later at the Rec Centre in Agassiz. Meanwhile Denis & I took a pair of tandems in cloudy and moderately windy skies, and behold the cloudsuck was nice and lifty under a completely cloudy sky.
Back to the Ranch to tell the next passengers we were waiting til 5 pm to go up again. After lunch I took the students to Agassiz to kite and we had good conditions there, as new students Denby, Jeremy & Tyler all learned how to reverse launch. We headed back to the Ranch and conditions in the web cam looked good, so the students came up to watch Denis & I launch the tandems and they followed us over to Harvest to check out that LZ. During the flight we got just to the height of the South Knoll and we played around a bit too much following Denis way out to the clearcuts and when I headed back to top up, Denis looked dooomed for Riverside. We topped up as much as we could before bailing to Harvest Market.
5/15/15
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| Agassiz BC Partly cloudy. High near 20C. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 km/h. Maurice & Bev are here from the Island and Maurice got to hang out with Bob.
We went back up at noon with Gavin and 3 tandems; with Denis, Derek & me as pilots. Gavin was clipped in and ready and we had perfect cycles, but his nerves got the best of him and he duffed 4-5 attempts so we had him drive down to kite in the LZ. On the way up Zack (one of the passengers) asked who would deal best with a scared passenger. That would be me, so I took him flying last so he could see his girlfriend Cassie and her mom fly off in safety before he had to commit. Mom was off first with Denis and they started soaring above launch. Derek took off next with Cassie and they too soared. I clipped in Zack and reassured him that I would fly him straight out to the anch and no soaring. We had a nice launch and immediately the vario started "chirping". We flew out to the construction area and the vario was non-stop and he was very uncomfortable in the air despite efforts to get him to talk, sing or relax. By now Denis & Derek were way above launch and having fun. I headed out over the Fraser River and it got really strong there going up at +5 m/s. We were now above launch as I searched for sink finding it somewhere between Duncan's and Riverside but anytime I headed to the Ranch were went back up. Zack was not liking the spirals an dbig-ears was doing little as the vario still chirped away. I told him to sit back and relax as Denis flew in under us on the way to the Ranch. I finally found some sink near the Maple Tree and we headed in right after Denis and had a super landing right in the circle and Zack even managed to stand up as I flared. Murphy's Law: When you want to go up, there is only sink. Get a frightened passenger who wants a sledder, and there is nothing but lift! We went back up at 3 pm to take one last passenger for a tandem but never even unpacked the wing, it was howling. Rod tried a few times but it was unsafe so we all drove down.
Flat Landers Report - a group of BC Pilots is in Alberta towing for some flat land flights and doing very well indeed. Al and Andrew had the only logged flights today as the others rested! All the action is HERE at XContest . You can filter out the days as this link show you the past day. 5/14/15
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| Agassiz BC Cloudy with 40 percent chance of showers. Risk of a thunderstorm late this afternoon. High 18. UV index 3 or moderate. Josh wanted to try reverse launches and was doing really well at the end of our 3+ hour kiting session. We went up to Woodside at noon and the sky was pretty big, with towering CU over Sasquatch and Dewdney Mtns. Jason flew off on his Octane 2 and was climbing everywhere a she headed out to the Ranch.
Yes it was going to be strong on my tandem with Josh. And it was as we hit some boomers over the clearcuts with sharp defined edges and +6 m/s climbs, and the plan for him to fly the approach fizzled as it was very thermic over the flats. We had strong south wind at Eagle Ranch as we approached over the Maple Tree, lower than usual because the cor field is all brown now and we recently hayed so everything is now exposed and thermic. we hit a few thermals on the way in and as we turned on final high I expected to overshoot the circle but we got dumped at the perfect time and had a sweet landing right in the middle of the circle. We had lunch and waited out the strong part of the day as the other students drove down. We went back up after 6 pm and it was still windy but Joe took off and climbe dall the way out to the Ranch arriving at around 1000 metres? He had a decent approach but it was still gusty in the LZ. Derek took off next and was soaring nicely as I got the tandem ready for Cocoa. Cocoa is a big guy so penetration will not be an issue.
We arrived at Harvest quite high enough for Cocoa to fly the approach, in fact he flew most of the downwind part of the flight. We packed up and got back to the Ranch as it got dark. Lil Nic Report - John W has become the Lil Nic guru taking many new people there to fly and last night Rod F & Adrian from Colombia flew there and had 2 hours of sweet soaring with the eagles. 5/13/15
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| Agassiz BC Cloudy with 60 percent chance of showers. High 15.
Flat Landers Report - a group of BC Pilots is in Alberta towing for some flat land flights and doing very well indeed. Alex R broke 200 kms for the Best flight of May 13th! All the action is HERE at XContest . You can filter out the days as this link show you the past day. 5/12/15
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| Agassiz BC A mix of sun and cloud. 60 percent chance of showers this afternoon with risk of a thunderstorm. High 20. UV index 6 or high.
Others did not do so well as an un-named pilot on a Large Buzz Z3 let himself drift downwind and he now owes Burt Duncan $20. I saw Martin N over the Ranch high but when I got there . . . no Martin? He later called for a pickup at the Post Office. Denis and I did a round of tandems and we thought it was going to blow out so we went to Harvest after 30 minutes of soaring Woodside and Jason & Martin drove to pick us up. Light winds at Harvest and we are now using the original field as the west field is plowed up. 5/11/15
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| Agassiz BC A mix of sun and cloud. 30 percent chance of showers early this morning and late this afternoon. Risk of a thunderstorm late this afternoon. High 21. UV index 6 or high. 5/10/15
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| Agassiz BC A mix of sun and cloud. 30 percent chance of showers late in the afternoon. High 21. Not too windy, not very thermic, light cycles at launch but Ali, Paul, James, George, Frank all had three flights. George fund his first thermals and worked them well with some eagles.
Derek, Denis & Bill helped with some late afternoon tandems, thanks for the help so I could focus on students.
5/9/15
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| Agassiz BC Sunny. High 25. UV index 6 or high. Everyone is flying very well, but unfortunately 2 of our pilots chose to head out too low and ended up landing in the Harrison Highlands Subdivision. One was okay but the other landed in blackberries and has some nasty scrapes on his legs. Tip of the Day: Don't fly in shorts! At least they don't have to pay Burt $20. Tonya & Bill took our tandems today, only two but the girls they took were super-pumped to get in the air. Thanks to Ben, Josh, Bill and others that helped put in the new carpet at launch. We had two big rolls donated by Tom who got them from the Powerline Project and Peter S arranged for spikes and washers to nail it down. Great teamwork and woodside Launch looks great with even more setup areas. For those already on the FlyBC Webcam Program, there is now a new online video feed from Woodside Launch using MyDLINK on your phone or PC. Go to our WebCam Links above. The later flights had everyone soaring and the traffic got heavy, good for students to practice ridge rules.
Meanwhile the drama unfolded at Bridal as we heard an un-named female pilot with little experience had a bad top-landing at Upper Launch (read "crash") and folks were getting ready to call 911 as she was not moving or responding on radio. Later she got up and was moving around. Second Tip of the Day: Don't top land unless absolutely necessary, there is no glory in top-landing as it is the most dangerous paragliding maneuver at Bridal and Woodside. Save it for a big spot like Savona Dump Ridge or Point of the Mountain. I don't know how the pilot was retrieved as there is no road access to Upper Launch except on a quad via Chipmunk Creek road. Jasper Report - Eight years ago we took 25 Parks Canada Officials tandem at Woodside & Bridal Falls to show them how paragliding was a low impact sport and could be practised safely in a National Park. It took all this time to finally get approval to fly in the National Parks and Jasper is the first Park to allow our sport.
Eight years of cooperation with Parks, the federal government and thousands of hours. A huge thanks to Margit at HPAC, Parks Canada, Jasper Parks team, Todd at the Jasper Skytram and all the pilots who respected the process. A HUGE moment!! There is detailed information on the HPAC website, and only Jasper is currently open. Please follow the regulations and we as pilots will have a lifetime of magic seeing the Parks as silent birds. Beautiful experience! The Jasper Skytram is not yet open to pilots, but we are working closely with the great team there. @jaspernationalpark @parkscanada @hpac @arcteryx @redbullcanada @blackdiamond @scarpana #paragliding #fun #california @skytram 5/8/15
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| Agassiz BC Sunny. High 27. UV index 6 or high. We did chores, we did errands, we wrote P-2 exams and around 6 pm the outflow stopped and we had inflow on launch so we went flying. For some reason we lost Jason, James and a few others as they went to Agassiz and missed the shuttle up at 6 pm. But Mike & Ben got in the first shuttle and Colleen joined us for the second ride up so Mike got 2 flights in before we headed for dinner.
Pemby Report - Bill G was up in Pemby the last two days and he said it was good, getting above the snowy peaks. 5/7/15
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| Agassiz BC Sunny. High 22. UV index 6 or high. I arrived at noon to tales of great flights already as the tandems arrived and Denis & I took to the skies and punchy thermals. We both got above launch to maybe 900 metres and there is was smoother. SW winds picked up in the LZ making it hard to hit the circle but the landing were good all day. James had a great thermal flight at the end of the day at 4 pm, getting high and staying up with nice flat turns but he got greedy and hung in too long and failed to see the SW winds and barely made it into Duncan's hayfield next to us. Teachable Moments! We wrapped up the day by 5 pm as I had an appointment in Vancouver. Meanwhile at Bridal, Alan was gloating over getting above Cheam Peak! 5/6/15
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| Agassiz BC Mainly cloudy with 40 percent chance of showers. High 18. UV index 4 or moderate. Al, Peyman, Kyle were doing tandem runs with lots of tandem passengers here to assist them. Thanks to Sam, Morgan & Shafi for being "tandem meat".
5/5/15
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| Agassiz BC Cloudy early with scattered thunderstorms developing this afternoon. High 16C. Winds WSW at 15 to 25 km/h. Chance of rain 40%. Forecast was 20 kph of SW winds by noon and we had NW at 15 kph on the ground so we raced up. We had Peyman, Kyle, Al, James, and Ben along and Kyle volunteered to be wind tech on our Synchro 21 demo. He soared close to the ridge facing Ashcroft Ranch and was maintaining nicely as Peyman launched. James was ready right after Peyman and launched and started soaring and outclimbed the other guys as he had proper wing loading on the Geo 4 vs the Acro/Hybrid wings the other guys were flying.
I went down to retrieve everyone and on the way up we had a cow traffic jam, and had to help the cowboys move the cattle up to the watering troughs near the antennas.
Al and Ben clipped in to tandem kite using the Synchro 21, and it was even too strong with 450 lbs strapped into the Synchro (designed for under 200 lbs total load!). We headed down and picked up Kyle and headed to Savona and the Toilet Bowl Ridge. We arrived to the same strong winds and Peyman & Kyle kited a few times as we cleaned up some garbage around the launch area and Kyle flew off on the Escape 11 a few times but it was not going to happen for student flying, so we headed back to the Ranch.
5/4/15
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| Agassiz BC Sunny. Increasing cloudiness in the afternoon. Becoming windy late in the afternoon. High 19. UV index 6 or high. By the time the tandems got ready, it was deemed too windy for making it to the Ranch so a Harvest Run was planned for the new Instructors that had not flown that route, good thing Al & Bill were on-board as navigators (as they have been there many times).
Some nice press on Will & Gavin's Rocky Mountain Adventure this past summer Outside Magazine Link 5/3/15
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| Agassiz BC A mix of sun and cloud. High 21. UV index 6 or high. We also managed to do a dozen tandems and they were all soarable even after 8 pm! It was tough to get higher than 1100 metres, after yesterdays big flights trying to stay under 2000 metres. Al managed to do 5 tandems toward his Tandem License today flying a variety of tandem wings. Our last trip up Woodside was interrupted by a blown tire but the crew of students and Instructors got it replaced as Denis, Bill & I finished the last tandems.
5/2/15
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| Agassiz BC A mix of sun and cloud. Clearing near noon. High 18. UV index 6 or high. It was a pretty full day with Indoor Presentations around noon by Colleen, and the students got 2 rounds of flights but had to sit on the ground kiting mid-day as the Pros all went XC.
Some pilots were noting the strong thermals today . . . typical of a -4.1 C lapse rate! Some of the XC Flights are on Leonardo but I think Martin H was cheating as he is on a Rigid! Track Logs are here . The last flights were very smooth and buoyant for all landing around 8:00 pm as the full moon came out.
5/1/15
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| Agassiz BC Cloudy with 60 percent chance of showers. High 17.
The Eagle Ranch LZ is shrinking as we are leveling and planting corn in the ProCircle Field. It is now plowed up and seeding should start in a week. The FlyBC Instructors Course went well with hours of classroom time and many more hours kiting in the LZ.
4/30/15
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| Agassiz BC Cloudy with 60 percent chance of showers. High 14. It was very productive at Mission as the guys got 6-7 flights and some thermals to pop them higher in the air. We even tried a drive up Lil Nic but hit a gate and had to turn around. I was too sick to try hiking up as my persistent cold lingers on. We went back to Woodside at 5:30 and Instructor Candidate Terry flew off to check the air followed by Jason on his new Octane 2. They both soared and Gavin tried a few inflations on the Gin Atlas before we had to pack up due to rain. |
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