Monday, July 30, 2012

A Great Weekend of Flying

Saturday had a beautiful sunrise, then some clouds rolled in, and some were afraid the weather might not be good for flying. But then the sun came out and it was beautiful again. A couple squalls came in, and Dave Z had a mishap with a tree after one of the squalls, but we just considered that part of the decoration for the wedding that was about to take place. Fireman Dave was flying tandem with the Tyler, the ring bearer. Joey was flying tandem with Kealoaha, the flower girl. Reaper enjoyed a beautiful flight in his groom's costume. I launched shortly after them and took pictures while in the air.

Fireman Dave and Tyler blew up a balloon, released it, and chased it around. I captured a few shots of the balloon chasing them, as it seemed to stay with them. I took pictures of Joey and Kea heading out over the bay to do the flower drop, as Fireman Dave and Tyler followed. Then Reaper followed and had an awesome (as FlyStrong described it) James Bond approach as he jumped out of his harness upon landing. I stayed in the air during the ceremony and took a few shots from above. Then I took a video as I did a spiral and came in to land.



It ended up being a great weekend for flying. Many pilots hiked back up after the ceremony, although most of them got stuck on launch, waiting for the winds to calm down a bit. I hiked up before most, and got lucky and launched before it got too windy. As it got windier, I stayed low and out front, dodged a rain squall, did a couple of fun nose-down spirals, and enjoyed a fun, beautiful 3-hour flight. The wind started to pick up again, as many pilots headed in to land.

Matt, Stalker, Nikki, FlyStrong, Brazilian Ray and Kalei, Joey and Andrew, Alex and Jeff, Woody and Logan, Steve, Geronimo John, Sandy, Allan C, Fireman Dave, One-eye Jim, Allegra and I are some of the pilots that flew the afternoon sesh. I probably missed some.



Later that evening, Matt hiked his Firefly up to high north and launched, and went straight up. He was having fun soaring it for a while, and I got on the radio and was (somewhat) joking and said, "Ok, come down now. It's my turn." He seriously said I could take it, so he stuffed it real quick, I grabbed it, and my harness, and literally ran down the beach to beat the nightfall. I hiked up to high regular and it was really windy, about 18 mph. I struggled with untangling some of the lines, and finally got it straightened out and was ready to launch. I pulled the wing up and launched and went straight up. I soared for a little bit, then figured I should go in since I was losing light. I made a video of the flight, although the video is darker than it really was. It is hard to see, but kinda fun to watch. Matt filmed from the beach.



Sunday was also a good day to fly. Well, sort of. It was kind of a weird day and no one was motivated whatsoever. I got out to Kahana in the afternoon, and it was cloudy, and had been raining off and on all morning. I was still motivated though. After a kite session with Woody, Haley, JJ and Jas, we got motivated to hike up. There was a nice hour and a half window between squalls and we had a super fun flight. I made a video for the Jernaills, as I know they enjoy flying on Oahu, and they are all doing a great job and learning a lot. I had a blast practicing touch and goes with Woody, and I loved flying by for the high fives.



So I made a video for that, too. Actually, I made quite a few videos of this weekend's flying fiasco; I tried to make them short so they weren't too boring. I had so much fun. I'm glad the weather was so good. Congratulations, Reaper!

2 comments:

Thom said...

Bonnie,
Great Re-cap, your flying is getting so awesome!!

Thanks for making my coffee read and the vids were great.

Keep'm coming!!

JJ Jameson

Alex said...

Thanks for the story, pics and video, Bonnie. You are way more timely than the rest of us! You always make JJ's deadline, whereas I almost never do. You are turning into the official club reporter and news anchor! JJ should give you a raise... :-)