Sunday, August 07, 2005

LA Fun

Andreas from Sweden and I spent a week working with the Wills Wing designers evaluating and trying small glider changes on our new wings.  I love flying in the mountains and the air provided great feedback to the state of tune for our gliders.  We flew Marshall/Crestline about every other day and the weather was nearly identical each of those days.  Back over the desert the clouds would explode up and tower to massive heights by noon.  At the edge of the LA basin the soaring was consistently good, really getting stiff by 1 pm.  Lift ranged from 100-900 fpm, some fat, some tight and snaky.   While the soaring here was perfect to evaluate handling tweaks, it sometimes felt like a chore for performance comparisons.  The drives up and down the mountain made me feel like a total flight park weenie.  Breaking down and setting up between flights got old pretty quick and good gliding air was sometimes hard to find.

 

Mostly it felt great to get back in the air again.  I am really happy with the end result and can’t wait to start the competition this week in Texas.

 

Kev

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