May 28-31 flying plans

New plan, Tyler wants to go as well, but he has to be back in town at 4. So we'll go try 8th street, here is the point forecast for 8th st.:


I read in a forum posting once that I should learn how to read skew-t charts. I have no idea what is going on here. I've tried reading about them, but I need someone to actually explain to me in person what is going on.

This was taken as a point chart fro the Danskin Station launch. From what I do understand this tells me that there should be some clouds just below 15,000ft or so which corresponds with the top of lift and the three day point forecast. So why do I need the skew-t as well?:




Ok, the update as to how the day went:

I'm not going to last long, super tired, need a shower, hope to have enough energy to fly Friday if things look good.

Tyler and I ended up at 8th street with a deadline of getting him to work at the idaho fry company at 5 pm. We waited and waited for things to build. There were cu's above and behind Bogus that built dissipated, built dissipated, then finally built and stuck around. The owyhees were booming as they often do this time of year. Danskin station looked like it was going fairly good, and towards mtn home stuff got super high anviled out. Cu's above squaw.

Nothing above our heads at launch. We waited for things to built for a couple hours. Never really felt great. It was rolling up from both the west and east side of launch. The cu's above and behind bogus were being blown over from the west a bit, but not tearing apart.




No locals showed us the way. It started to get late, we realized we had better launch if we were going to get back to town. Calm at the airport. We discussed launching to the left following the main ridge down and working the combined lift that was coming from either side, landing at the saddle and hiking the few hundred yards back to main launch if need be.

Tyler launched first and ended up going straight out, then to the right. He tried working the gully. I finally had a cycle to launch in, more or less ridge soared and scratched around the bowl in front of launch, then worked towareds the left as we had discussed. I was able to work lift that rolled up from either the left or right side, boated around in bubbles until two motorcylces ripped across the trail and triggered the best one of the day.




I climbed up above launch in the moto-cycle, then tried working back to some patches in the burned out trees. Meanwhile Tyler had side hill landed on a lower spur ridge. I got nothing out of the "pocket" areas between trees, tried working back towards the main ridge, bubbled over the snotty not-really-a-house-thermal house thermal around the corner from launch, then bumbled my way down to where Tyler had landed.

We packed it up, hiked our butts back up the hill, traversed on an errosion grade, barely relaunched on a sage-brush covered knob and made it across the gully, back to the 8th st. road, where there was decent lift. We landed, drove the shuttle and went back to town.

Things looked great behind the boise front towards Placerville and Idaho City. Clouds looked great behind the boise front in Horseshoe bend.

My guess: some days this valley is just super super stable and we should try to go fly that old hang glider launch in Idaho City where things are less stable.

So why did the forecast seem fairly good, but the reality was that cycles were weak and far between? What was it that we should have seen that should have told us not to waste our time today? Even the boyancy shear, Mark's standard, looked great at 9.




I hope it doesn't overdevelop on Friday and this weekend.

I'll try to add more when I'm not so tired.

Any ideas?
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Posted the night before the flight:
Here is what the forecast shows thursday morning: Slightly different than last night with the winds being even lighter and our of the NW instead of the SW:





Thursday's lift forecast for the area:



Click to see larger:





wunderground.com shows Boise's surface winds SE switching to NW after noon, xc skies shows SW at the top of usable lift all day at 12mph:
The three day point forecast for Bogus Basin:


The 3 day point forecast for the Danskin area:

I still haven't flown here, but this makes it look like it could be really good on Thurs:

Melba Ridge Glass Off

Clancy must be doing something right with his life. After the last final of the 09 BSU spring semester he ridge soared and kited some smooth air out at Melba ridge this evening.

Have a fun summer motoring and soaring Indian Head near Weiser, see you in September.

Team USA X-Alps 2009 - Honza Rejmanek/Dave Hanning

The sole 2009 US Red Bull X-Alps is pilot Honza Rejmanek and ground support / logistical organizer Dave Hanning. Support team U.S.A. with a donation and be entered to win products from Suunto Watches, Smith Optics, Hammer Nutrition, and others.











The 2009 X-Alps course is a grueling 813K paragliding race. Honza battled a G.I. bug in 2007 that put him more or less out of the race for four days. Once back on his feet Honza had an incredible push, placing in the top 10. Watch the race this summer via live tracking and cheer on team USA.

Honza on Mt. Borah, ID. 2006:

Task 6 - last day

After the tour of the Greek Orthodox Monestary we spent about 3 hours on launch waiting for the low cloud base to lift. Many of us thought that the day would be called, and it would have been a fun day to go slack-line with the Jackson boys on some gigantic old growth trees. Eventually base lifted just barely enough to allow pilots to launch and the task committee called a task.




Pretty much everyone struggled all afternoon to stay in the air. Back at the ranch in the evening Nate told stories of flying super light ridge lift for large distances followed by frisbeeing zeros for even longer distances. Translation: Nate is an incredible pilot and managed to turn circles in zero lift that just barely allowed him to coast like a Frisbee, neither sinking nor climbing, to within a few kilometers of goal. Nate's patience won him the task for the day, and certainly the most difficult 300 points of the entire comp.

I landed back at the ranch. Here is my track log.
Ajay and Little Pete waiting for base to lift:



Launch director John Ivey:
Retrieve driver Forrest:
Paragliding's storyteller, Billy:
Paragliding's er, uh, animated party monitor, Patrick:
Meredyth Malocsay:
Hayden:
Jack:
Little Pete: