Wind Dummy for a Day

A beautiful day to chase it in Hawaii! We had southeast wind and sun to start us off at my old launch above Kalama Valley, the one we used to call Mad Dog's. Thomas, Scot, the Japanese contingent and I all went up for a look see, and we all thought it was good and doable, but they all gave me the "looks good, you go first" theory. Since it was my old site from 14 years ago, I agreed.

After my first couple of attempts to kite it a bit, the Far East contingent probably thought we were crazy to try and get up from such a wild place we call a launch, barely big enough for the wing to fit. A failed first! Mahalo to Scot and Thom for getting me back on track and up the hill again, now our visitors knew we were crazy! The next pull up was good, and off I went, a few passes at launch level and I hooked a good one, as this is a thermal only site, and I climbed out to now make it look great, at 600' over. Thom offered the visitors the chance to launch next but they graciously declined. 20 minutes of good soaring and it was down to the LZ in the park for me. Met Da Boyz at Sandy's for a beverage or two and some relaxing.

Untitled from Thom Therrien on Vimeo.

Now it was time to motivate again, as Jorge communicated that Tantalus was looking good, and he would be off work soon, and Jim was also on his way there. So I arrived behind Scrappy and Jim who gave me another "looks good, but a little SSW, so you go first!" Feeling good about my earlier flight, I took to the hopefully friendly skies and yep, beep beep beep, luckily up I went to 1700' over launch at 2700' altitude. Thom was now on his way up, and I heard him on the radio, saying Scrappy was bombing out on the road, so no one else tried to make it work, as I glided in zero's across Manoa Valley to a position above St. Louis Heights. Cruising there for a while, I never really got any good hits, so I went across Palolo Valley low, and got nothing on the Wilhelmina side, so I went in after almost an hour to the LZ at Palolo Park and swimming pool.

It was a very nice day overall, especially after Thom picked me up at UH and gave me a lift back to Tantalus lookout, where I had a couple cold refreshments in the cooler, so we enjoyed them reflecting on a perfect setting sun.

Aloha, Mad Dog