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Very strange for the end of May. Not even breaking 80F through the 29th.
And I don't like the wind forecast into the weekend.
25mph-predicted on the valley floor is for crazy people.
You can encounter some real dangerous stuff over the passes where the wind is a lot stronger.
In the venturis where it doubles in speed and quadruples in force.
Can you spell W-a-k-a-y-a-m-a?
"Long term...Monday through Friday. The medium range models indicate a relatively cool weather pattern will hold over the southwest states through at least the middle of next week. Short wave energy is forecast to dive down the California coast and into the Mojave Desert region Monday on the back side of the broad exiting closed low. This will carve out a mean trough and additional disturbances are forecast to drop down into Southern California and southern Nevada through at least Wednesday. This will lead to a pattern of afternoons southwest winds of 15 to 25 mph across the Mojave Desert region each day and high temps around 10 degrees below normal...with highs generally in the lower 80s in Las Vegas. Sufficient moisture and instability to support chances for showers and thunderstorms will mainly be confined to the southern Sierra and the higher terrain near central Nevada during the period." -- Wunderground
123F in India yesterday!
Here's last year on the valley floor at Bishop. Hit 96F on Saturday, May 29. Huge difference.
Here's a known good week - the week Tudor broke 200 miles in July 1983:
Tudor's record flight was on Friday the 13th. Note the temperature range of ~40F, the constrained dew point and the uniform southerly wind that developed on Saturday. Judging by how fast he flew and how fast I had to drive to keep up with him, the winds at altitude over Nevada on Friday were quite southerly / southwesterly. That was the influence of the low to the north over Oregon (always something to watch for). He got away from Walt's Point at 10:30. Winds had been strong the day before. But it wasn't the ideal day. People got drilled all along the route.
I made 178 miles along the route in 1986. All the hot shots, maybe eight, flew fast and got drilled at the foot of the range east of Luning, NV. I flew slower and passed above them, crossed the range to land 17 miles east of Gabbs. Very little stress, by the way. Its mostly excellent landing areas below, all the way.
Slow start to the XC season this year. I suggest looking toward the first week of June.
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A reminder from
"Racing for the Record"
by Rick Masters
"Whole Air Magazine" -- USA, Sept/Oct 1983; "Wings" -- United Kingdom, October 1983; "Drachenflieger" -- Germany, November 1983; "HanGlider" -- Japan, December 1983; "Glider Rider" -- USA, December 1983
Before disaster struck, he remembered circling easily in the thermal, pushing out gently on the control bar to capture the lift, holding his body slightly towards the high wing to increase its loading. It was a technique he'd refined to gain the highest level of performance from these sleek, tight-sailed aircraft designed specifically for cross country racing. Despite the lack of aerodynamic controls, the feather-light hang glider handled superbly on weight-shift alone. He even found the absence of control surfaces in the airstream worked to his advantage, for without the drag-inducing rudders or ailerons the curved-tip Sensor had the fastest, flattest glide he'd ever experienced.
He'd done well. Very well. He was 114 miles from gusty Gunter launch, riding some of the smoothest air he'd ever flown, pushed along by a marvelous tailwind and averaging nearly 50 mph above the desolate Paradise Range of central Nevada. If he could just reach the Toiyabe mountains across the next valley, he would ride the thermal lift they generated to a new world distance record!
Without warning, the glider rolled upside down and his suspension lines went slack.
He instinctively tightened his grip on the control bar as his legs fell down into the sail, knowing the glider might just as suddenly recover. But a powerful gust punched up into the sail from below and he lost his hold, falling painfully into the apex of the triangular control frame.
His head crashed against the keel. Stunned, he reached for the uprights to pull himself back up to the control bar when an "unbelievably savage" blast of air hit the inverted glider from above, driving it downward with furious acceleration. The limp suspension straps snapped taut and he was slammed into his harness with a force that almost knocked him out, throwing his arms and legs skyward and smashing his chin into his chest.
In the center of the turmoil, he heard a loud "BANG!"
The foremost nightmare fear of the hang glider pilot screamed through him.
"Oh my god!" he thought. "My harness is breaking!!"
But it was the frame of the Sensor.
The glider fell off to one side and began to spiral. He swung loosely in his harness, slamming against the control bar, tearing at the Velcro that secured his emergency parachute. He ripped it free and hurled it through the flapping wires, away from the madly spinning wreckage.
He tried to watch it, to see if it had cleared the glider, but the spinning made it impossible. All he could see of it was that the bridle -- the line that connected him to the parachute -- was wrapping around everything!
He went through another full revolution, then another. The time seemed endless and the parachute did not open. Then to his horror, the top of the peak he had been crossing leapt up next to him not 500 feet away.
He knew he was dead.
The 'chute burst open.
The force of deployment threw him through the control bar and onto the glider's nose. He saw he was drifting downwind, through the rotor of the mountain, descending rapidly through the thin, turbulent, unpredictable air towards a violent impact on a boulder-strewn slope. He reached for the transmit key on the FM walkie-talkie attached to his harness shoulder strap.
"Bob!" he yelled. "I'm going down! Going down on my parachute!"
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Far below, near the base of the mountain, Bob Trampeneau, designer and manufacturer of the Sensor, had brought the chase vehicle to a halt. He had heard the sporadic transmissions as Rik's head had inadvertently slammed into the transmit key. He knew something had gone wrong. Now the sound of the tires on the dirt road was gone. He turned off the squelch and listened carefully.
There, in the static, he heard ". . . going . . . parachute . . . ," followed by silence.
He thumbed the mike.
"Rik! Where are you?"
No answer.
'He must be on the other side of the mountain or I'd hear him better,' Trampaneau thought. He jammed the chase car into gear.
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He tried to climb up the keel to get away from the nose -- to let it take the force of impact. He was pulling himself up through the control bar when the glider suddenly pitched over just before it hit, hurling him against the ground. He hit flat on his back, sliding headfirst down the 45-degree slope, and the glider crashed down on top of him.
He lay there for a while, trying to breathe . . . .
"It was that piece of turbulence that everybody has nightmares about. Everybody told me about it; people who've had it happen to them. They said it could happen anywhere. Anytime. But I could never imagine the air being that violently savage. It was incredible! Until that point, I thought I was having one of the smoothest flights of my life. The only way I can explain it is I feel I ran into a really strong wind shear. It couldn't be seen, but it was there. And it was pretty good. There was something I read the other night. It's out of a book by Joseph C. Lincoln, called Soaring for Diamonds, and it's about the sky. It said, "The sky, to which some men are drawn like lost children going home. The sky, sometimes lover, sometimes mother, sometimes savage master." That really stuck in my head after that experience.... -- Rik Fritz
"You're a better man than me, Gunga Din."