Made it out to Swan Falls to do some flying. The wind felt a little strong when we got there, and some pilots talked about going over to Pickle. Mark and Bruce had just come from there and reported that it was cycling through weak.
With this info Mark launched and flew for a while. After he landed he said it was pretty rough. I already had me gear out so I tried kiting for a little bit. After pulling up my wing a few times, I didn’t think the conditions where that strong so I launched.
I flew the bowl in front of launch a few times, and not getting hit by any gusts or overly strong lift, I headed east down the ridge. The wind had a different feel than Swan usually does, but the lift was there so I cruised down and back a couple of times.
I ran into some bumps, but nothing extreme. The thermals rolling through launch were turbulent, but the ridge lift was laminar. After I made a couple passes everyone else saddled up and flew as well. I tried to work one of the thermals in front of launch but it was over my head and really turbulent. Mark said later that it was extremely rough and he though that me turning out of the lift was a smart decision. Otherwise he said after a certain altitude that the lift was abundant, but really rough. We speculated it had something to do with the inversion layer, but who would really know?
I flew for about 25 minutes before I miss timed a cycle and got flushed out. I scratched but couldn’t make it back up to ridge level. I felt vindicated a few minutes after I landed when I spied Greg, Rob, and Bruce on the same flight path I was on. See the video below, Greg (yellow and white wing) flew almost the same pattern I did. It helped him as much as me.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9ag55U1bc4[/youtube]
Overall I thought it was a good day of flying. Swan is always a great place to fly when it is working.
