2002_06_08_flying

Went down to the South Bay Soaring Society field near Gilroy and met two of the members. They were just closing up shop, but they let me fly the newly repaired Avenger 2 for a few minutes, and on the third or fourth toss I managed to hook a thermal and pretty much speck it out. (On a 60" span glider 'speck' isn't that far up there, but it was several hundred feet up further than I've ever been able to toss it and impossible for me to discern the plane's orientation).

After a few more tosses and another ride I threw the THL around for a bit and then followed one of the members out to Sunset Beach park. I went down to the beach for a bit and met some neat people grilling and then headed up to the designated soaring spot where I found several others. The lift started out pretty low, but I managed to throw the Avenger 2 up a few times to demonstrate the launch and then proceeded to get some good slope time in with mostly hand-catch landings.

The newly-sparred Zagi THL then flew for another hour or two as the winds picked up, and I met lots of interesting folks. Once the winds died back down I headed back toward home to have dinner with my roommates and go see a movie.

Note that I goofed and left the ISO set to around 200 on the camera for all of these pictures, so they're much lower quality than they should be. Operator error. :)

SBSS field entrance SBSS field entrance
SBSS field entrance SBSS field entrance
SBSS field viewed from the road SBSS field viewed from the road
SBSS field again SBSS field again
some guy sloping a fast own-design wing at Sunset Beach some guy sloping a fast own-design wing at Sunset Beach

capture locationSunset beach park
sloping sloping
sloping sloping
sloping sloping
sloping sloping
sloping sloping
sloping sloping
sloping sloping
sloping sloping
sloping sloping
another foamie another foamie
sloping sloping
sloping sloping
sloping sloping
tagging the flagpole tagging the flagpole