Wednesday, January 18, 2006
East and Wet
Kahana was east, wet and cloudy today but we made the best of it. Don and I started the day by launching low into a squall. It seemed like the squall would pass and we'd have some clear weather afterwards. But instead the squall grew into a huge anvil shaped supercell over Kahana Valley and drenched us mercilessly whenever we strayed too close. Plus the atmosphere became really strange and unstable and there were clouds forming all around us constantly. Not only that, but the direction got super east on us and rotored poor Peter down to the LZ after he bravely volunteered to test out the conditions down there. We should have guessed from the glassy reflective surface of the bay marred by cats paws and bands of rotor turbulence. Of course me and Don said forget that, and went to Punaluu instead, where we landed on the beach near the beer store in very strong wind, descending right in front of the highway, speed bars engaged, yanking our C lines on touchdown and fighting to keep our wings out of traffic. Wayne had just showed up to fly but we convinced him that it would be better for his health to come pick us up instead and live to fly another day.
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5 comments:
Whoa - sounds like a scary day out there guys. Glad everyone is OK.
Geeze. And I told my wife that "Alex and Don have excellent judgement". Launching into a massive squall... yeah RIGHT...
hey, hey now there Russ!!! "ix-nay on the udgement-jay"... that's what I tell my wife too!! shhhh... [ahem] "Honey.... Alex, Don, and Bob are the safe, conservative ones... Those are the guys I listen to!"
:) Ehhh - what the heck?! She's aint gonna read our PG-geek site anyways... You guys is some crazy mutha-effas! (well, THAT day you were)
Don made me do it! I said no way to that crazy idea, but somehow he convinced me to go against my better judgement! Watch out for that guy!
Actually, it didn't seem crazy at all when we launched - a very light squall with no visible gust front. But after that one passed it kind of parked in the valley, and after a couple more passed thru the whole thing grew into a monster in the valley.
Don MADE ME DO IT? Alex... Alex, Alex... our El Presidente...
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