Prefrontal Persistence

Friday was a tricky day at Diamond Head that rewarded patience and persistence. Fifteen pilots showed up over the course of the day. Seven flew, mostly in light conditions, and some flew briefly in very strong conditions. Many entertaining top landings were performed to the delight of the viewing audience.

I think I flew eleven flights over the course of the day, top landing after each one, with varying levels of success, sometimes going a tad long and sometimes a tad short. It's my favorite place to top land because it can be so tricky. Don, Brian, Sebastian and Jorge all pulled off superb top landings as well.

At one point I launched and accidentally snagged a large piece of a branch that snapped off and came along for the ride. I buzzed around and immediately set up a top landing into the east slot, but couldn't force my wing down until I was at the very end of the runway. I landed fine but I couldn't stop my wing from fluttering down and snagging a wingtip in the tree there. Of course the original branch just fell right out, but then I needed some help to unsnag my wing!

Don almost did the same thing a bit later, riding the slot til the very end, but then he pulled a perfect acro style spin landing and dropped his wing cleanly on the ground. Later on Thom entertained us with an exciting launch attempt that involved an innocent Keawe tree. And at the end of the day my last top landing into the east slot was a few feet short. I was lucky to get away with that one. Thanks to Jorge for the help getting my lines off from around the signpost!

The craziest part is that while we were scratching in light prefrontal conditions at Diamond Head, Steve and Drew were buzzing around in strong conditions on their little fireflies at Yokohama, and some speed flyers were flying the SW launch at Kaena. Now that's a venturi effect!

Roll call: Thom, Alex, Don, Sebastian, Jorge, Joey, Brian, Brent, Allegra, BC Lars, Frank, Dave, TommyRD, Mike Doyle, Mad Dog, and possibly others I'm forgetting.