Super Fun

At least thirteen pilots came out to Kahana to enjoy the last gasp of the trade winds on Saturday. The atmosphere was quite stable with a low inversion, and volcanic fog began to obscure our views as the flow veered east. It was a struggle for many to get up and out, and those of us who did make it up had a tough time finding many thermals or getting as high as usual. But a couple of us pulled off some super fun cross country flights.

Cloudbase varied considerably, sometimes as low as 1,700 feet, and a few times rising as high as 3,000. Jeff and I worked hard for every inch of altitude, and at times we plumbed the depths of our patience as we scratched low and waited for a hint of a thermal to come to our rescue.

I ended up flying for three and a half hours and twenty miles, completing a chronic run to Kualoa and Punaluu, and then I made a run to the golf course. It was a very tough day to pull that off, but I guess I was determined to max out the conditions, as well as the capacity of my bladder. Jeff joined me for the downwind leg, and battled heroically to climb out at Punaluu and then make his way to Laie Point.

During a perfect lucky window I got to 2,800 feet over Sacred Falls, well above the clouds, where I enjoyed a most surreal perspective. From there I just barely made the golf course, screaming a hundred miles per hour downwind over the horse ranch and then the beach, turning crosswind at the very last moment to run it out like an olympic sprinter.

I heard there were tandems and acro flights and parapark conditions at Makapuu - hopefully we'll hear some stories or see some pictures of those super fun flights.

Roll call: Woody, Jonathan, George, Sebastian, Drew, Steve, Kevin, Mark, Johnimo, McStalker, Sharky, me, Colin, and maybe a few others I'm forgetting.