weekend report

[Steve Forslund]

Emma and went to Fox Island for a family gathering arriving on Friday
evening. The rental house had SW exposure, low bank, no trees, low tide
and it was blowing 15-18 from the SW! The beach curved around to the
north and the wind was probably splitting(not coming up) but it was
worth a try. The bank in front of the deck was only 40' but it was tall
grasses with a few blackberry vines to be removed. I would need to go
left around the corner in front of the neighbors trees high enough off
the beach to be in the lift band so hopefully I would be able to soar
the large two story house we were staying in. A little cross on launch
but I was soon off and inspecting the roof. Speedbar around the corner
and now I was working a 40-80' bank with some gaps to cross and 100' fir
trees on top. At 500' asl the breeze was freshening and there was some
thermal mixed in so I started climbing up and back. I fell out and was
getting drilled with no way to get back out front. I turned NE planning
on landing on a large beach next to the bridge(if I could get that far).
I stopped dropping and was actually in a line of lift and by the time I
got close to my bail out I was climbing. Convergence! You could see the
wind lines coming west and east meeting at the bridge as the wind
wrapped around the island. Things were going great with lots of beach
lz's and little to no drift as I topped out at 1,200'. Having grown up
on the Puget Sound it was nice to get this different perspective and I
could see the Narrows Bridge and Wollochet Bay as I tried to figure my
next move. But then it happened, in the words of my friend Terry Taggert
" I woke up in the wet spot" That's right I'm dreaming, didn't even have
my wing with me. Sorry I had to read a flight report, even if I had to
write a fake one.

SF

[Mark G. Forbes]

In the non-fantasy realm, I had a pleasant hour of touring around
the valley in the trike on Sunday evening. Fairly smooth but some
thermals still kicking off even as late as 8pm when I launched. I
did a lap around the pattern for practice, then headed east to
Workman, Mulino, across to Skydive, to Beck's then back to Lenhardt.

At Mulino I found a Beechcraft Bonanza on the taxiway, being drained
of fuel. Seems they don't work so well when you forget to put the
wheels down. Messes up the props too. Oops. Looks like it slid to
a stop fairly gently, but that's gonna leave a mark on a hundred grand.

I ran into an interesting patch of fairly strong turbulence just west
of Skydive Oregon, on the west side of Molalla. Nothing there which
would seem to trigger it, and the upper level winds weren't anything
too extreme...about 10mph out of the north, typical for summer. But
it was a rock-n-roll ride down to land at Beck's, though calm near
the surface. Departing to the east, I found the same thing again for
a bit, but it was confined to just that area and things got smooth
again farther west as I approached Lenhardt. As I was halfway down the
downwind leg, an RV-8 called three miles out approaching from the
south. I told him to come on through because I'm slow. It was less
than a minute until he was on short final, and he was at his hangar
and out of the plane by the time I finally got on the ground. Ah,
the virtues of a low-and-slow 40mph airplane.... :-)

MGF