Thursday, February 18, 2010

Cold Day in Paradise

A dozen pilots met at Kahana today, in super north conditions, under a dark blanket of clouds, and out of the five pilots that managed to get up, all of them made it across the bay. But it sure wasn't easy to get up - the wind was switchy and gusty and hard to bend to our will today. Also it was chilly at sea level, so you can imagine how it felt at three grand with a 20 mph breeze. Brrrr!

Mad Dog led the way across the bay and across Kaaawa to Kualoa, followed closely by Don, Maui Doug and visitor Stu. Conditions on launch deteriorated, but I finally got airborne, working my way up over Kahana as I watched Scot, Thom, visitors Bets and Matt struggle below on launch.

I finally crossed the bay just as the other bay crossers were coming back from over there. Meanwhile, Scot sunk out during a sledder to the beach and landed in a bush on the east ridge. We may one day see that in HD-POV!

I flew to Kualoa by myself, but I didn't stay long because I was starting to freeze. Don and Maui Doug landed at the LZ, because they were frozen, and Mad Dog flew past Kahana to land at Pounders. Me and Stu returned to Kahana to tank up, and then flew to the Hauula ridge past Sacred Falls, and then turned around to fly back to Kahana, but we landed short, me at Chings Store and him at QLCC.

Thanks to Scot for the retrieve and the cold beverages. Reaper and Bonnie met us at the LZ, along with John and Ginger, and we hung out for a while and watched Reaper and Doug play with the demo XT16.

I didn't take any pictures in flight because I was wearing gloves. The four aerial shots in the slideshow linked to the photo above are from Don. Mad Dog took some great pics that are now featured in his excellent article about the day. Congrats to all the achievements today: Mad Dog's first time flying Kualoa to Pounders in the same flight, Maui Doug's first bay crossing, Stu's first XC anywhere, ever, and Don's first good flight at Kahana in quite a while.

1 comment:

MauiDoug said...

Alex, I Gotta get me one of those warm looking flight suits :-)