Hello Pilots!

Dang...It's COLD in them thar hills!  

Well hopefully it will warm up soon! There have been some good flying days sparsely intertwined between the recent rash of winter storms plowing through the region.

This month we have a robust Ridge dancer for you. A great interview of Dan Foust by Ann regarding his wonderful trip to Peru. We also have an site introduction for you P4s wanting to fly the mystical Mt. Diablo. To top it off Jeff Greenbaum has contributed an article about Coastal Wind Shear.

I know that some pilots have been asking when we will have a downloadable, printable version of the Ridagedancer. We are working on this...really we are. Since the engne that drives this newsletter is based off of an Open Source product (that simply means FREE to us non-geeks) we basically have to search for the modules that allow us to perform magic in the site. One of those modules are for printing the whole newsletter at once.

You can print article by article now but we want to make easier to print the whole shabang at once. In the mean time I am going to put the document in PDF format manually so those of us wanting to print the RD may do so. I will do it for the issues I have been editor of. I will let you know when I have that done. 

As usual, I close with a request for more articles and or photos! Send them please!!!! We welcome any comments or suggestions as well!!!

Take care, get high and stay high!

Rich 

AS: I heard that you had a fascinating trip to the Huaraz Valley in Peru with Jeff Cristol of Adventure Tour Productions, based in Colorado. In a few sentences, how would you describe the overall trip?

DF: From cultural perspective it was wonderful. The Quechua people have obviously lived in this valley for a very long time and they still farm their small terraces and tend their animals pretty much the way they always have. They seem to have a strong sense of identity and to be very comfortable with who they are. It was great to see that.

I would say the flying was pretty intense - at least for me. I guess it was the combination of an overwhelming mountain environment, high altitude sites, XC landings, big verticals and a new unfamiliar site almost every day. It was an amazing place to fly but I will admit that on more than one occasion I was, well... scared. Now that I’m back, I am feeling much braver and would love to go again.

AS: How would you characterize the flying conditions in general at the sites you visited?

DF: It’s a little difficult to generalize because we were there in November, at the beginning of the rainy season. The more obvious flying season would be May – September. However, weather and flying conditions were surprisingly good.

On many days there was considerable buildup over the Blanca, but invariably the Negra remained flyable. Several times we launched from sites in the Negra, under partly cloudy skies while, just across the valley the Blanca was completely socked in with heavy rain and snow. Maybe we were just lucky, but we flew every day, except for one blowing-over-the-back day in the Blanca.

Assessing Flying Conditions

      Mt. Diablo, elevation 3,849 ft., is the highest mountain in the Bay Area.  The park includes thousands of acres of high terrain surrounding the peak.  This geography creates a lot of its own weather in addition to both the marine air influence from the nearby sea and the large scale weather pattern in effect.  When the three weather sources (local, marine, and large-scale) combine it can be confusing and difficult to assess the flying conditions.  Moreover, one weather phenomenon may be dominant at lower altitudes and another at higher altitudes.  A good practice is to observe the weather conditions (winds and temps mainly) during the whole drive up the mountain, including above launch elevation if in doubt.  Particularly, note conditions at the Northgate Road park entrance (elev. 350 ft.), main LZ (elev. 1,000 ft.), alternate LZ (elev. 1,750 ft.), Junction sign-in box (elev. 2,150 ft.), main launch (elev. 2,900 ft.), and appropriate pull-outs along the road above that if there’s any question about the upper level winds.  Only the alternate LZ stop is additional, the others you would generally need to stop at anyway.  Each stop allows you to feel ground-level winds, see foliage and cloud movement from the wind, and see how the “locals” (hawks and vultures) are faring in the nearby air.  And once at launch, it is usually a good idea to eyeball conditions there for at least 10-15 minutes before you commit to flight.

A wind shear happens when two air masses intersect and overlap each other. The air masses can be either moving in different directions or at different velocities. Among the most violent versions of a wind shear is the micro burst that occurs preceding a Thunder Shower. These are extremely violent downward blasts of air that hit the earth and radiate outward causing very high winds and hazards to pilots of any craft. Other wind shears happen in a horizontal fashion. The term shear defines the fact that one air mass is shearing off of the other. This happens because of the directional or velocity difference. Faster moving aircraft like planes and jets, will transition through the two air masses in an instant and this can be extremely hazardous. With the speed of a paraglider, we actually sometimes fly in the zone where the two air masses meet and mix.

In some locations, when the shear is of a horizontal nature, one air mass rises above the other. Sometimes the result of such an overlap can create soarable conditions much like the dynamic lift related to ridge soaring. One year, several Hang Gliding pilots got as high as 4,500 ft after getting in a wind shear and heading north of Fort Funston. The Class B airspace above Mussel Rock begins at 1,500 ft. then jumps up to 2,100 ft beginning near the Canyon of Westlake and to the North. Since the Jets from SFO depart right above us, any pilot that gets up in a shear above Mussel Rock could become a bug on a Jet’s window should they go into the Class B airspace. Even a near miss could jeopardize our beloved flying site. If you learn anything from this article, it should be that you need to stay below 1,500 ft at Mussel Rock if you get into a shear.