Sunday, June 01, 2008

Jackpot

Downrange again? Dorothy says it seems like we're hitting the jackpot every day, and I guess that's not far from the truth: our winter weather losing streak has finally ended, and we've been reaping the rewards of easy cross country flying almost every day for the last week, including some personal bests and first time winners. The conditions were a bit brisk this weekend, but that didn't stop over a dozen pilots from enjoying the largesse of our consistent summer tradewind conditions at Kahana.

Yesterday the wind was blowing a bit hard for good XC flying, so we stayed local, but we still had enough excitement for a whole year: Nick's nice collapse in the Crouching Lion rotor, Ginny's downwind derriere descent, Maui Bryan's dramatic launch attempts and then his low spin on approach before barely making the beach, Stalker's wing disappearing on him at Puu Piei (but thankfully coming right back). I'm sure I'm forgetting half the list of mishaps by now. Scrappy, Reaper, Jared, Suicide, Jim, Steve, and Bill also came out and flew.

Today we got Captain Wes from San Diego up at Kahana for his first flight there, chilling out with us above Puu Piei at a cool 2,500 feet, and then Bill got his first taste of cross country flying as he followed Jim and me to Hauula Beach Park. Great job, Hillbilly! Conditions were stronger than we would have liked on the ridges downrange, so we cut the trip short and punched out to Hauula for safe landings. Ginny stayed local and perfected her beach landing approach, and Wes kindly came to pick us up. Thanks, Wes!

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