I also met the El Presidente of the BI flying club on Maui, Gene, and he invited me over to their flying site and new LZ near Kealakakua Bay - he was really grateful for Oahu's contribution. I'm really getting spoiled with these drive-up wide open launches. Had a low ceiling with not much wind but the sled rides were very scenic. Forward launches were necessary again. I can see why LZ's are few and far between - alot of trees and private land.
The new LZ is within easy reach of launch and one of the house thermals (bee hive) works like a champ. I walked the LZ prior to get a feel for the approach - there's a break in the trees (see pic) to get low with a generous carpet landing area amongst the rocks. Should you overshoot the carpet there's plenty of real estate with hale koa shrubs to stop any more forward progress and catch your wing - as you can see in the last pic. I would love to fly there again and try and get around the corner on the right and ridge fly the bay. Russel's been pushing for a group trip to Hawaii to fly - count me in. Gene, Charlie and others are great hosts.
2 comments:
Great writeup, Frank!
For everyone's information, Gene e-mailed to let me know that because the new LZ is tricky, he suggests only very adept P3s (or better) consider flying the site.
They used to require P4 ratings to fly over there, so this is an improvement.
Let's go check it out!
Adept P3s eh. Well, that leaves ME out.
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