K-9 Air-Time!

Saturday's forecast called for some pre-frontal SW winds, but quite a bit of cloud cover. Cody, Clover and I checked the wind on the internet, looked out the window, and decided it was worth the short drive to Short Divide. Upon arriving at launch it was blowing straight in at 16-18, with patches of blue sky above and about 85 degrees, although the skies were quite hazy due to smoke from wildfires in southern Utah and California.

Klobberhead looks like she is smiling in this picture, as I finished my pre-flight and prepared to launch. By now the windspeed was down to about 12 mph, but a local red-tail showed us signs of thermal activity, so we hooked in and went airborne!


Clobber the "Thermal-Snooper" was a bit nervous at first, as there were some strong, sharp-edged thermals, with plenty of sink mixed in-between. We had to fly a tight, figure-8 pattern, right over the tree tops to stay in the narrow lift band on the small launch ridge.


Clover was able to relax a little when some workable thermals came through, allowing us to climb to about 500' over launch, and attempt to bench up over the upper mountain. The two times I was high enough, I lost the lift as soon as I began to drift back, and had to return out front. Cody found a good core that took him to about 600' over taking him to the upper face, but he said it was just too westerly to produce enough lift, so he had to scoot back out over launch. Overall it was a fun, challenging flight, allowing for some good low altitude thermal practice.


After we landed, conditions on launch had mellowed enough to allow some other "locals" to take to the air.


It didn't turn into a magical glass-off, but there was still a nice, buoyant lift band, and a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

Airtime: 1 hour 15 minutes.