FlyBC "Site of the Day" - October/2003 Archives
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/1000' (unstable) | 7900 ft. |
Seattle Tiger Report - I was in Seattle retrieving my lost harness and was offered a Tiger flight on a loaner Bandit. Light launch cycles that helped me into the air for a 40 minute thermal flight just below launch. I landed and waited for the others to launch and Diane and Abe launched and were scratching around when I noticed Abe doing strange square turns in one small thermal and his wing started getting smaller, Mark Chirico said it was classic Tiger glass-off (as the shade hits the valley it sets it off this time of year - now he tells me, I launched too early!). Abe climbed to 4000' and top-landed to warm up. Thanks for the flight, Abe! - Jim /1000' (unstable) 6600 ft.
Quiz of the Day - what does paragliding and Scary Movie 3 have in common? Send your answers to me at flybc@shaw.ca to win a gift! | 
Valley Report - still windy and cold. /1000' (unstable) 2900 ft.
Valley Report - Alan said he was dizzy from watching the trees dancing by his house. Very strong winds all day from the NE. | Calgary Report - 25 cms of blowing snow greeted the morning commuters, blowing from the NE so it is not soarable at Cochrane. /1000' (unstable) 1800 ft.
Valley Report - gusty with NOAA reports greater than 24 knots in Hope. Derek said they had to stop logging east of Hope because of the dangerous winds.
| /1000' (inversion) 2600 ft.
Valley Report - the rain came much later than forecast so it was flyable most of the day.
| /1000' (stable) 4200 ft.
Chelan Butte Report - pretty stable air but again lots of flights with waves of paragliders and hanggliders in the sky all landing at about the same time! I flew a tandem down around 3:00 pm with a borrowed harness and was on final from the north with another tandem landing from the south and we both stayed right and landed right near the sock (no wind landings). Again, no incidents . . . just many duffed launches and landings in light conditions. We left town around 4:30 pm and made it through customs at 9:00 after declaring the Vulcan. I don't think anyone stayed for Monday because it was so stable. | Elk Mtn. Report - Carl, Derek, Eddie, Kevin, Brad and Chris H hiked Elk and were rewarded with sweet soaring conditions. /1000' (stable) 4200 ft.
Chelan Women's Fly In Report - the Canucks were out in full force. As well most of the Seattle pilots too! Great entertainment at launch with pilots duffing many launches, nothing serious just bad style.
Most of the launches were "Between the Rocks".
Some nice soaring flights with Alex and Nicole top-landing when it got light.
I took a few tandems for interested family members. | Several hundred flights were taken on Saturday with no incidents except for one tree incident that will probably be posted by the offender later (I suspect his mask was in the way when he landed :-) . 2003 Women's Fly In Picture Database - by Chris Amundsen Party Report - the pilots lounge was full of masked and costumed freaks and I will post pictures later. The Canucks won the event with our audience participation song led by Magenta (Colleen) called the "Time Warp" from Rocky Horror Picture Show. Everyone joined in for the song! Frankenfurter (Frank Martin) and Magenta (Colleen) won for best costumes with "Ricky" House looking extremely slutty coming in third place. Turn up your volume & sing along here! 
Magenta & Friend  Eddy & Frankenfurter /1000' (stable) 4200 ft.
Chelan Report - Colleen and I arrived around 4:30 pm and we raced up to launch to get her a flight on her new Vulcan. Nice launch cycles and quite a few early flyers were already in the air. We met Jeffrey and Lee there and they had been flying all day in smooth conditions with Jeffrey getting above launch for 20 minutes. | get ready for the Women's Fly In this weekend! /1000' (stable) 4200 ft.
Woodside Report - Don Smith flew his HG but Alan and Rob decided it was too windy for their comfort levels. After talking to Don on the LZ, they found out it wasn't that windy in the air after all.
| get ready for the Women's Fly In this weekend! /1000' (stable) 4200 ft.
Fraser Valley Report - lots of rain until sunset when it cleared.
| /1000' (stable) 2200 ft.
Victoria Report - I was on the Island working, and it got sunny in the afternoon but not windy enough for Dallas Road. | Fraser Valley Report - I called Alan for a report but he said it got flyable too late, so he stayed home. /1000' (stable) 2200 ft.
Rain Report - heavy rain all day Monday! | later /1000' (unstable) 3200 ft.
Savona Report - we first thought Savona would be a good call, and Jeffrey and Kirril headed up there on Saturday night. They started flying around 9:00 am on the Dump Ridge and started moving up the hill as the winds switched to SW. Jeffrey logged 6 flights and Kirril only 2 as he drove. We stayed at Eagle Ranch as the forecast was amended for Abbotsford. | Woodside Report - Nicole phoned to say it was sunny in Point Grey around 9:30 am, with the forecast SW winds it should push through by early afternooon and we were on the launch by 2:00 pm. Unfortunately the clouds kept OD'ing and by the time I launched there was no lift, nor for Bob or Colleen as we flew out in the odd shower. But we flew! Tssawassen Report - TJ and Rick went kiting and TJ logged 15 flights down the training slope as they were getting ready to make a good showing at the Women's Fly In next weekend. /1000' (unstable) 2400 ft.
Woodside Report - despite the forecast high winds we were able to fly Woodside a few times and it was soarable. Quite north at launch for the first flights but it straightened out later. The last and third time we drove up we took some concrete and tools and started repairing the big holes in the road (Norm, Kelly, Kirril and I hauled the rocks and we mixed concrete on site).
| /1000' (stable) 2400 ft.
Woodside Report - downed trees and flooded roads all through the valley. I flew back from Calgary on Zip and the pilot reported 100+ knot winds from the west.
I don't know the condition of the road to Woodside Launch but we may need a chainsaw to clear some trees.
| /1000' (stable) 2400 ft.
Woodside Report - possible flooding in creeks due to heavy rains. The road to launch was eroding last weekend and it may be worse after today's rains.
| /1000' (stable) 2400 ft.
Woodside Report - high winds and rain all day. | /1000' (stable) 2400 ft.
Woodside Report - I left town so everyone else could fly! Forecast east winds didn't deter to usual gang from heading out. Colleen reported a nice flight of 1:30 that she ended to get back to work (no problem getting to cloudbase and spiralling down to do it again after white-ing out). Jack reported flying 3:30 in two flights, while Alan was up for the entire time for a total of 5:00! Not bad for the middle of October, maybe Chelan will be soarable for the Women's Fly-In October 25-26.
| /1000' (unstable) 2400 ft.
Woodside Report - launch was clear as early as 7:00 am, but when Bob and Kirril joined me to head up to the top, the weather socked in. We saw the valley twice but not long enough to launch safely so we headed down for Bob to head to a hockey game. | By the time we were back down to Eagle Ranch there was about 8 pilots ready to fly so we loaded up the Yellow Sub and headed back up. It was clear now with legal VFR cloud clearance and Alex R launched on Kelly's Oasis, and he wasn't coming down soon as he climbed immediately to cloudbase. One by one pilots chased after Alex, except me because I forgot my harness! Jack drove my harness up after he flew down so it wasn't a total lost day for me. Flights averaged 1:00 with Alan and Alex getting close to 3:00 flight time in nice lift, not too ratty. Kirril logged three flights and he is ready to write his exam to obtain novice status. Riverside Report - Burt Duncan heard "through the grapevine" that someone was cutting trees in Riverside without his permission? He was a bit upset! Rob S talked to him later. Home /1000' (unstable) 3230 ft.
Fraser Valley Rain Report - Yup, it rained hard all day! | Savona Report - more strong east wind up to 40 km/hr. No pireps. Home /1000' (unstable) 2230 ft.
Woodside Report - despite the bad forecast, Bob and Kirril showed up to try to fly. We checked the wind at launch and it was light, Abbotsford was calm too? What happened to the high wind forecasts? We flew two flights before the rain started at 2:30 pm. It never got windy at Eagle Ranch all day. | UP Kantega Test Flight Report - I brought in a Kantega M for demo flights and had a chance to fly it on October 11. It launched in the light conditions easily and lifted me off quickly at the upper end of the 105 kg range. Right off launch I could feel the crisp turn characteristics and threw into a couple of big wingovers without outside brake to see if it would deflate and the Kantega stayed inflated. Then I tried a SAT (Stupid Acro Trick) maneuver . . . I did a few little wingovers to enter the SAT and the Kantega entered the SAT cleanly with no deflation of the outside tip, the exit into a spiral was clean with the spiral requiring outside brake to exit. Colleen missed it so I did another SAT over the bailout field with a faster exit. I thought I might be low to make our field but the Kantega has a great glide and I had enough altitude to do a 5 turn spiral before landing. Overall, I am pleased with the handling on the Kantega and it feels like it will be an easy thermalling glider, because it turns when you want it to, quickly and responsively. It looks a bit chunky from the pilot's view because it is not as aspecty as say a Presta or Simba but others said it looked good from the ground. Come try it while we still have it in the barn - Jim Savona Report - no pireps but a bunch of pilots headed up there. The Kamloops NOAA reported 10-15 mph East winds all day so it might have been a good Dump Ridge day. /1000' (unstable) 2230 ft.
Woodside Report - Fred (soaring man) and I waited until the rain cleared before following Jack
off the hill. The sky opened up enough to allow us a few passes above
launch before my sink alarm started. After landing I looked up to see Bob
and Alan above launch with the entire hill in the sun. I picked up Ihor,
Jack, Fred, and Ian to head up with HIGH hopes. When we reached the top,
Bob was on his way out (40 minutes) and Alan ( hour +) was boating around.
Ian bagged an extended sledder and Jack and Fred took their second. Better
than working - Kelly | Cochrane Report - my plane was scheduled to fly out at 3:45 pm, so I went out to Muller's. Tihi's Simba was sitting there so I grabbed it and went soaring for an hour in light conditions. Never got high but didn't have to hike up. Better than waiting at the airport. On my way home the jet flew over Woodside and I saw Bob soaring his big yellow ship near launch, and it was bumpy punching through the towering CU - Jim /1000' (unstable) 2230 ft.
Cochrane Report - howling winds all day. No flying here!
| /1000' (unstable) 2230 ft.
Cochrane Hill Report - perfect winds forecast for Cochrane so I headed out in the afternoon. Tihi loaned me a UP Targa (Chris's comp glider with skinny lines) and he and I soared in punchy thermals with little prevailing ridge lift, so you had to be ready to top-land to avoid hiking up. We were 200 meters over and then on the deck in a few minutes on several flights. And then it got windy and the HGers took over. When I left the HGers were maintaining in strong cross winds but not getting too high - Jim
| later /1000' (unstable) 2230 ft.
Martina's Japan Travel Report - Hi! I hope this message and picture come through ok? I`m sending both from my phone. Here`s a photo of me in the rice paddy lz? after an hour long flight from Rice Mountain (can you sense a theme here?)A great day with thermals big enough to do S turns in. I`m even learning Japanese paragliding lingo! Miss you guys! - Martina |  a bit blurry . . . but you look shorter somehow? later /1000' (stable) 2430 ft.
Victoria Report - it started raining early so no Dallas soaring.
| /1000' (stable) 3430 ft.
Savona Report - we started flying off Lower Deadman's launch at 9:30 am and the students had buoyant flights into the valley. We then headed to the Dump Ridge for a great 2 hour kiting sesion in 15-20 km winds, with some soaring. When it got light we headed up the the Upper Launch but it was leeside and dubious whether it would be safe or enjoyable so we headed back to Cornwall. | Woodside Report - it was foggy all day and Ian J was flying his motor with Alex R. There were reports of a yellow wing in the trees at Riverside LZ, but no identity of pilot or logging company seen extracting said wing? Cornwall Mtn. /1000' (stable) 3430 ft.
Ashcroft Report - we headed up to Savona at 9:30 am after getting the forecast for the Fraser Valley. Fog as not expected to clear all day at Eagle Ranch and the interior had light winds to 9000 feet, so we headed out. | We arrived at Ashcroft Manor at 11:30 and loaded up the Yellow Sub and started up the mountain. It was hot on the drive up and we arrived at the top of the blackened mountain to find the launch was untouched by fires which came within 20 meters last August. Cycles were coming straight in and 7 pilots flew off and landed in the hayfield north of Ashcroft Manor in light surface winds, no lift except just off launch - Jim Savona Report - students flew off the Dump Ridge for 4-5 training flights while I motored to Upper Launch to check conditions. It was a bumpy leeside flight and I was back in 20 minutes to report that it was blowing over the back saving a drive up for nothing! later /1000' (stable) 3430 ft.
Woodside Report - Jeffery, Lee and TJ were flying Woodside all day after 11:00 am, three extended sledders in smooth air. Ian J logged many hours on his paramotor, getting to the peak of Cheam in the last flight.
| later /1000' (stable) 6330 ft.
Woodside Report - Alan logged 1:30 in light lift getting 150 meters over launch. Many others played hookie and were out flying despite leeside warnings.
| later /1000' (stable) 6330 ft.
Woodside Report - light winds and stable conditions awaited para-flyers today. Ian J was coming out motoring but I had to go to New West in the PM.
| Island Report - Flight report. Hiked up Skirt for the 6th time, and finally got a Flight. Don, Jayson, Jay and I got short extended sled rides launching just before sundown. A little earlier, and the lift probably would have been OK - Bruce McG 
/1000' (stable) 6330 ft.
Woodside Report - I arrived at Eagle Ranch and Alan and Kevin were above launch.
Fred had sunk out after 45 minutes and was on his way back up.
I decided it was too chance-y to try to top-land so I fired up the DK Whisper and motored up to launch on the Vibe.
While I was getting set up Kevin had landed at Riverside and Alan was on his way down too after 1:30.
There was a definite inversion layer that bounced you back down as you hit it . . . unless you had a motor.
It was smooth above the inversion and much clearer. Lots of haze and smog in the valley.
| |
September 2003 Site of the Day archives good conditions until the last days of the month when it got stable. Most days were flyable at Woodside or Bridal.
August 2003 Site of the Day archives Forest closures made the end of the month a non-flying period unless you headed to Blanchard. FlyBC SIV 2003 was a great sucess with 9 stunt pilots and no deployments or crashes.
July 2003 Site of the Day archives we flew most days early at Woodside until it got windy, then over to Bridal. Good Golden flying reports from the "Willi".
June 2003 Site of the Day archives we flew most weekdays at Bridal, Woodside worked most weekends. Bridal Air Races had one great day with only two tree landings!
May 2003 Site of the Day archives not a great weather month on the coast, especially on the weekends but a few pilots managed to get some great airtime at Bridal. The Nationals were held in Lumby and it didn't rain!
April 2003 Site of the Day archives rain for 28 of 30 April days, but we managed to get a few flights in between showers. Even the golfers were complaining!
March 2003 Site of the Day archives some high spring flights in early March, but not a great weather month. Still no HPAC Insurance!
February 2003 Site of the Day archives some nice long spring flights in late February. HPAC Insurance expired on Feb 14, so many pilots stayed home instead of getting USHGA coverage.
January 2003 Site of the Day archives lots of rain all month in BC so we bailed and headed to Tapalpa Mexico for three weeks. Norm and Lucille had a great XC flight the first day we arrived.
December 2002 Site of the Day archives lots of rain all month.
November 2002 Site of the Day archives not a great flying month, lots of rain in the beginning and then super stable and inverted for the balance of the month. Even the Savona Road Trip wasn't that great. Looking forward to Mexico!
October 2002 Site of the Day archives Still soarable some days, great fun at the Women's Fly In 2002 in Chelan. Allan logged 15 hours and only flew a few days. Most of the students are ready for signoff soon to get ready for Mexico trips!
September 2002 Site of the Day archives Still soarable most everyday! Some scary incidents at Woodside. Fun flying at Ashcroft.
August 2002 Site of the Day archives More spring-like days with super lapse rates, great fun up-country at Revelstoke and Mara, with some good XCs for all.
July 2002 Site of the Day archives Some spring-like days with super lapse rates, but still rather wet at times.
June 2002 Site of the Day archives another rainy and windy month with great lapse rates, some great flights at Bridal with some getting above Cheam Peak. The Clup Cup was nearly rained out but they got one valid task in on Sunday June 30.
May 2002 Site of the Day archives an extremely rainy month with the more spring mayhem, another reserve deployment at Lil Nick and a pilot crashed at the top of Deroche Mountain, uninjured but with a ripped glider and long hike down the mountain. Colleen placed 5th place at the Canadian PG Nationals in rainy Lumby!
April 2002 Site of the Day archives a rainy month with the usual spring mayhem, one reserve deployment at Woodside and a pilot hit a parked car at Bridal LZ, fracturing his leg.
March 2002 Site of the Day archives a few great days days with lots of snow and rain mixed in.
February 2002 Site of the Day archives two epic days already (4.5 hours and 2.5 hours!).
January 2002 Site of the Day archives Mexico vacation shots, some local flying but it was wet on the coast.
December 2001 Site of the Day archives pretty stable locally, wettest December on record, some good days sprinkled thru the month.
November 2001 Site of the Day archives pretty stable locally, had some good days at Woodside +2 hours, lots of rain later in the month.
October 2001 Site of the Day archives pretty stable locally, but great flying at Chelan at the Women's Fly In.
September 2001 Site of the Day archives starting to get pretty stable, more sled rides forecast for October.
Aug 2001 Site of the Day archives Mara, Bridal, till some great flights locally
July 2001 Site of the Day archives Road Trip Month, Golden, Mara, points east!
June 2001 Site of the Day archives Great Month, 3 hours of airtime for some pilots every time they flew Bridal Lower! Some getting up to 6 hours in a single flight!
May 2001 Site of the Day archives Unstable Month, 2-3 hours of airtime for some pilots every time they flew Bridal Lower!
April 2001 Site of the Day archives Rainy Month, not as much airtime for some pilots
March 2001 Site of the Day archives Spring has Sprung!
February 2001 Site of the Day archives Spring is in the Air!
January 2001 Site of the Day archives - Mexico Flying Trip
December 2000 Site of the Day archives
November 2000 Site of the Day archives (great month for airtime!)
October 2000 Site of the Day archives
September 2000 Site of the Day archives
July - August 2000 Site of the Day archives
June 2000 Site of the Day archives
March - May 2000 Site of the Day archives
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