Spicy and Sweet

Sometimes a strong day can be pretty good fun. Friday, North Shore Brian joined Owens Valley Dave at Kahana for a mini wing session in the morning, and after it backed off slightly, they landed and ran back up with regular sized wings. Frenchy Yann and I joined them for a nice midday session of touch and goes, high fives, toplandings, and general wanging around. I look forward to Yann's video of the day, but in the meantime, I took a few pictures. After I picked Logan up from school I stopped by Kualoa to check out the evening ground handling crew: Woody, Maui Rodney, Sharky, BC Andre and Elena. I joined them, and so did Logan, for his first time in many months. He's still got it!

Cold Feet

Over twenty pilots flew Kahana on a chilly Thursday, and the mercurial conditions vexed many of them. Mad Dog and I were lucky enough to get away from Kahana before it got too challenging, and we criss-crossed the skies above Kaaawa and Kualoa before skating back downrange to Malaekahana.

High Diaphanous Clouds and the Ohulehule Triangle

I drove around the corner to see Alex above Hidden Valley behind Swanzys, and knew it was a bay crossing day. The cloud base was so high that, later on, even when I reached 4,000 feet I could not tell how high base was. 2,000 more, I thought: those diaphanous little devils were so high it was hard to discern.

North Shore Birthday Adventure

I found myself parawaiting on the Kahuku Motocross launch on Sunday, with Duck, Jorge, and Gaza. The frontal passage was creating the perfect wind direction for this famously rare and fickle flying site, but it was blowing way too strong, so we were waiting to see if it might back off a bit. When Jorge heard me say it was Dorothy's birthday, he was quite impressed, and he advised me to write a self-help book for pilots about how to successfully manage the expectations of our spouses. Not gonna touch that one, actually. I know I'm the luckiest guy in the world and I sure don't want to jinx it now.

Three Sweet Days at Kahana

The most exciting news last week was definitely Mad Dog's epic solo trip from Makapuu to Kahuku, followed by a second attempt with Lake the next day. But in the meantime, lots of pilots were also flying in rare light and thermic conditions at Kahana, with nice high cloudbase, and several of us managed some fun smaller-scale cross country flights. We don't fly Kahana too often in a typical winter season, so these three days were a rare treat for me, and I took some pictures that barely do justice to the pretty conditions we had out there.

Magical Makua

Saturday was an unexpectedly fun day. I've been battling Scrappyitis since January 2nd, and I got a whole new head cold sinus infection last Sunday, and I've been on antibiotics since Tuesday. So  I wasn't sure I was up for some hiking and flying, but I was feeling a little better when Steve picked me up in the morning to go grab a used washer and dryer in the Salt Lake area.

Nanakuli Magic

So Alex, what do I need to know about this place? That was Andrew's question to me as we were hiking up, for his first flight at Nanakuli. I gave him the briefest of site intros, and figured the site itself would dole out the usual instructions after that: try to get up and stay up if you can, or if you dare, for as long as you can, or as long as you dare.

Back in the Air Again

Gung Hei Fat Choy! Yes, this is the year of the Dragon, my Chinese birth year. Last year ended with a mishap landing that took me out of the air for several weeks. My back is straighter than before, thanks to an awesome back brace. After several weeks of being grounded, I got clearance to fly, with a two week window before an elective knee surgery that had been rescheduled because of my mishap. The weather did not permit flying, so kiting had to do.

From Golf Course to Golf Course: 32 Miles

The last day of January started off a little overcast, so down to the Ala Wai Golf Course I went, for a quick round of golf. Very light winds made for a nice 1 over par round on the front 9, then a 7 over on the back (blew up a bit), for an 8 over par 78 finish! A great day already! That's when I noticed the main range had cleared up to reveal crystal blue skies, and the base of what clouds there were looked to be 5,000 feet or higher. So off to Makapuu I went, for a 3 pm launch at Cactus.

My First Real XC Flight

It was a pretty interesting day today! I arrived at the Makapuu LZ around 9:30 and the wind was pretty light, but by the time Lee, Lars, and a few other Canadians (whose names escape me now) arrived and we got to Cactus, the wind on launch was really strong, probably around 20 mph.