Thursday, November 12, 2009

Not Dog Poop

Alex requested an article... ANY article... to push down his cute-for-a-moment picture of a dog cleaning up after itself. Well here it is.... Hopefully, this one's not total...errr....poop. :)

I threw together a very short video of a flight from a few weeks back. You can watch it by clicking the thumbnail.

This was the flight Jim alluded to in his article "Cloud Play", about another epic “cloud surfing” day we had just last week. Unfortunately, on that day, I didn't have my camera. So I just had to go back and dig through my footage before it got lost in the dark, dusty corner of my hard drive where too many of my flights are finding themselves lately.

A little bit of artistic license was taken to make the video. The launches were actually from different days, with my launch having been filmed by Maui Doug a few months ago.

The story... Feet got dirty, clouds got surfed, personal bests were bested, and beverages were consumed. It was a very good day!

You'll notice in the video that I'm barefoot. I had forgotten my boots at home this day, but I couldn't let that stop me. I just hadn't had a really satisfying flight in quite some time, so I decided to hike up anyway in my slippahs. Launch wasn't as bad as I expected, and I even pulled off a decent toplanding without issue. While it was a cool sensation – flying barefoot – I wouldn't do again for one reason... pushing on the speedbar without shoes was PAINFUL. Luckily, there was little need for the bar on this fine day.

It was a perfect day at Kahana for getting high...and I mean HIGH. I reached a personal best for the site of 3,097 feet on a freshly calibrated vario - nearly 400 higher than my previous best. I think Jim eked out even a littler more than that.

The majority of the clouds were super high this day. However, we were treated by these occasional puffy clouds that would cruise by much lower than the overall cloudbase. This allowed for some of the most incredible “cloud surfing” I've had to date. The air everywhere was butter smooth, even on the one occasion when I was briefly whited out. For over an hour, we were able to fly between and over these beautiful atmospheric formations and, with only a few wings in the air and the winds mellow, do so safely.

We eventually left the Kahana ridge and flew to Hauula Beach Park, choosing to stop there for the convenience of the 7-11 across the street. It was a sweet flight. It’s the only time I can recall when the downrange leg was anti-climactic. A not-so-poopy day in paradise, for sure ;-)

6 comments:

Alex said...

Jeff, great story, thanks for your help chasing that scary dog picture down the page! Very nice video, keep it up! I bet you have tons of great footage gathering dust on your hard drive.

Tim said...

Somebody get that man a pedicure stat!

Alex said...

Tim, you're just not used to seeing Jeff's raw footage...

Waianae Jim said...

Jeff, Nice job on the video & story.

Thom said...

Good one Jeff, Lets keep your camera on you more often.

MauiDoug said...

Great cloud soaring Jeff! Your feet looked cold! Great video editing, I really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to flying down range with you next time!