Flight Report - Kutch

[William J. Briskey]

Despite the attraction of flying with y’all in the Gorge, the distance and other considerations caused me to stay more local.  So I met Stan and his main squeeze Jenna and drove out to the Kutch LZ and the old Flying M to check out conditions.  There sure is a lot of horsey activity in that area, such that whatever is going on prompted the event coordinators to bring in a couple of porta-potties at two or more locations along the Flying M road.  We were a bit concerned that the winds in the valley looked strong, but when we go out to the LZs and finally to launch, thinks looked more reasonable.  NE at 6 plus lots of stronger cycles up to about 12.  We took our time watching what was going on and prepared to launch.  It was just before 1 when we laid out.

 

My plan was to kite it and wait for a solid enough cycle before risking going into the trees below, as the tree tops seemed far more intimidating than what they looked like at Detroit Lake a few weeks ago.  When I pulled up the first time the wind didn’t seem strong enough to get me over the tree tops, so I set it back down.  Another cycle came through a couple minutes later that felt good so I pulled up and kited.  It was obvious that the wing was full and pullin’ me so I turned and committed.  I cleared the trees well and found the air to be pretty active, and I turned aggressively to counter a gust right after I passed the trees and lost a little altitude, but then went right up from there.  It was kind of one of those “yeehaw” moments.  There were some bouncy thermals and I was able to get to 2575 ft just out in front of launch, and probably the highest gust was NNE at 15 or so.  Never did have to get on the bar, and just stayed close to launch waiting for Stan to launch.  But the wind died down and he waited for 20 minutes for something and came up empty.

 

I headed out to the LZ to see if I could get something directly above the clear cut with no success.  I picked an intersection to land in and gave it up when the set-up was too risky – flying between two tall trees with all the mid-day thermic action didn’t give me enough comfort.  I picked the next intersection and the ups and downs made it too sketchy to make another turn over “stumpland” and lose my options if I hit sink before I could get back to the road.  So I took the safest path and followed the road just past the intersection and lightly touched down between up/down rock-n-roll cycles farther along the ridge.  I was able to run to the far side of the road and bring my wing down on the shoulder out of the bushes.  GPS said just shy of 30 minutes – beats a sledder any day!

 

By the time I packed up and hiked out, Stan and Jenna were there with my rig and we headed to the closest gas station to put 20.4 gallons in my 20 gallon tank.  I got home and I put a beer in my own tank.  Gotta love it, this free flight stuff!  Looking forward to the PLF clinic (surely there will be beer afterward) and then the DAR fly-in.

 

Bill B