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FlyBC "Site of the Day" - July 2018 ARCHIVE Page
FlyBC had a super month with no rain days and lots of flying
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@ 3000' in knots |
Rate °C/1000' Cloud Base in Meters |
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| 7-31-18 |
 Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. Local smoke. High 32C. Winds light and variable. 1000 metres 7-30-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. Local smoke. High 32C. Winds light and variable. 1000 metres It was 15 years ago that the mountain roads were all closed for forest fire protection and had just re-opened when I took a crew to Cornwall and a pickup full of fire fighters hit us head on when trying to get to Cornwall in our diesel Suburban. 7-29-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. Local smoke. High 32C. Winds light and variable. 1000 metres 7-28-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. Local smoke. High 32C. Winds light and variable. 1000 metres 7-27-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. High 32C. Winds light and variable. 1000 metres  It was very smoky with 2-5 mile visibiity over the mountains, which is not much when you are going 180 mph, so one must stay above the peaks at 8500 feet heading NW. I arrived at CYWL airort at 1030 as was flight planned bucking a pretty strong North wind which is why the forest fire smoke is now into the Fraser Valley. We did a quick turnaround and we were loaded up and back in the air by 11 am.  It was kinda bumpy over the rocks as the daytime heating was causing some CUs to form. We made it back to Chilliwack by 1220 pm for a nice lunch with Colleen at the Airport Cafe. Then a rare trip to the Bridal Falls Water Slides for a few hours. 7-26-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. High 32C. Winds light and variable. 1000 metres I also took Ali's niece tandem and we had noce launch conditions but very inverted thermals so it was not very long a flight. But we got it all on video for Ali's next film compilation. 7-25-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. High 32C. Winds light and variable. 1000 metres Thomas and Michael both caught some nice thermals over the Highlands and rode them above launch! 7-24-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. High 32C. Winds light and variable. 1000 metres Diane & Thomas are from Toronto and despite her one faceplant, she did very well on her next launch and Dennie guided them in to the landing. Michael was also here and he is a climber so he knew to to be coordinated and flew well too. 7-23-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Partly Cloudy. High near 25C. Winds light and variable. 1000 metres Derek and a group flew Bridal and got to 2500 metres and Derek flew over to Laity Peak. 7-22-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Partly Cloudy. High near 25C. Winds light and variable. 1000 metres Dennie was launch coach and Colleen was landing coach and everything went very smoothly, and there was no one out at Woodside today. Most of the pros were at Pemby doing big XC flights or at Bridal doing the Cheam Run getting to over 2400 metres. The students here with us got 4 flights and great thermal conditions to practice their first thermals. And landing conditions stayed nice until 6 pm when we closed shop. 7-21-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Partly Cloudy. High near 25C. Winds light and variable. 1000 metres We flew three student rounds with a break from 3 pm til 6 pm. Colleen and Dennie helped with tandems and we did one round of tandems at 1 pm. Then Dennie & I did another set of tandems at 3 pm and it was a wild ride to 1100 metres! But my passenger enjoyed the ride, giggling and screaming for most of the flight. The last flight of the day had Dennie and Colleen testing the air as I launched the students. Phil got way above launch on the SupAir EONA2 and had a long flight. 7-20-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. High 31C. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 km/h. 1000 metres The students did about 8 hours of kiting today, and we did go up the mountain at 7 pm to wait for an hour. It was damned cold on top and gusty, so gusty that even Derek & Colleen did not fly so we drove down. Tomorrow looks good for the students first flights! They are ready! 7-19-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. High 31C. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 km/h. 1000 metres Dennie took the students to Mission while Colleen and I were on a quest to look at new property for FlyBC summer operations when Woodside gets stable. We flew our Turbo Skymaster from Chilliwack to Salmon Arm in just over an hour, sure bears driving up there!  First time landing at Salmon Arm Airport, a very nice runway nestled between the hills. Mostly heli traffic around doing fire training and RCMP stuff. We spent a few hours looking at property with a realtor and then headed back to Chilliwack around 2 pm. Usually as the day gets warmed cloudbase lifts, but today as we approached Hope there was a wall of cloud down to 3000' just west of Hope Airport that we had to dive down under to stay VFR. As we got further west we had to drop dpwn to 2000', but we were in familiar terrain as we passed Woodside.  This was our tracklog with the odd diversion to dodge clouds, but otherwise straight GPS routing at 8000 feet. When we got back to the Ranch, Dennie was out kiting with the students who are looking great and are ready to fly! Unfortunately the winds blew all day and night so no flying off Woodside. 7-18-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. High 31C. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 km/h. 1000 metres It was already quite strong at 9 am when Jake got another paramotor flight with a perfect launch and about 4 steps and he was in the air inside the landing circle on the Blackhawk 125 Lite. It was smooth but he was not penetrating heading east so he landed after a few passes. John tried one launch but tripped and almost fell so we packed up and everyone started kiting. We had three new students in the Barn doing ground school with Dennie, and they were soon out kiting in +25 kph winds and were all mastering the reverse "As & Cs" technique quite quickly. We never bothered going up the mountain as it was far too windy. A few Hangies flew but they had short flights as the thermals were torn apart. I went to pick up the Van from the tranny shop and the replaced most of the internals and all the electronic parts too for a grand total of $2800! Thanks to Norm for the ride. Derek & Martin worked on brushing out the Bridal road and then flew and they said it was quite pleasant on that side of the valley. But the big news today was Igor & Ivo flying from Pemberton to Kamloops and back to land in Savona.  7-17-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. High 31C. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 km/h. 1000 metres Jake and John W got in a paramotor flight early but the air was already turbulent at 9 am. I got a ride up with Derek and hucked Jake and he got to soar out front for the first time after a perfect reverse launch.  I also got to fly after Jake had landed, on my new Ozone Alpina 3. The air was inverted and crappy, as attested to by Derek flying out after only 10 minutes. Derek flew to Harvest after getting halfway to the Ranch with Bev, Martin & Norm in tow. I flew out to the Ranch to work with Jake when I calculated that there would not be enough seats in the Harvest Shuttle and just made it in for an aircraft approach. John W also flew out to the Ranch but landed short as the winds had picked up. The rest of the day was just kiting and hanging out in the Barn. 7-16-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. High 32C. Winds light and variable. 1200 metres John has been flying PG for over 50 flights and built his own Kangook Paramotor but has been reluctant to try it til today. Jake has been here for three days and has flown 6 times free-flying and lots of kiting and he has been doing well so today is his day to fly PPG too. John launched first on his Ozone Spyder and had a great flight and everything worked as designed. After John's flight Jake took off on our Blackhawk 125 Lite demo unit flying an Ozone Atom 3 glider and he had a stellar takeoff and flight. We decided it was getting too choppy for PPG and went up the mountain for a free flight and the boys did great launching off the top. We went for lunch and then for naps until 5 pm when Jake went for another PPG flight but it was still too windy as he got parked over the LZ on the upwind passes. We spent the rest of the day kiting, to end the day in +32C temps.  Seymour XC Flight - James took off from Seymour a few days ago and completed an awesome flight all the way to Pemberton on the Sea-to-Sky route on his Ozone Swift 4 (EN-B)! XC flight to Pemby  7-15-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. High 31C. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 km/h. 1200 metres We had 6 students and we did three rounds, and could have kept going but everyone looked pretty tired so we called the day at 5 pm. We had some parawaiting on launch as another instructor was taking too long to ready his students for flight, if you see this behaviour tell then to get them ready in the back of launch and bring them forward when they are clipped in and ready to go. We need to expand launch width wise to accommodate students and pro pilots. Landing conditions were excellent, despite the newly mowed LZ and hay removal this week. We also had a visiting French Paramotorist here this week and he showed us how to do tandems with his wife and daughter. 7-14-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. Becoming windy this afternoon. High 28. Humidex 30. UV index 9 or very high. 800 metres We had new students here for ground school and ground handling sessions, and we had to put them on 12 metre Fazer 3 or other mini-wings to show them how to kite without getting blown downwind. As forecasted, the winds dropped to light North by 3 pm and even switched to normal inflow winds in Eagle Ranch, so Dennie took a load of students up and Bev drove up a group of P-2s. New students Reza, Sean, Jake all got their first solo flights in perfect conditions! I had the landing coach duties today and it was smoking hot in the LZ. Congratulations to Noah who completed his 25th flight today! Noah passed the P-2 Exam last week and he is signed off and ready to fly, so make room for him in your shuttle rigs. Flight of the Day honours go to recently signed off pilot, Jaime, who took off before the students to check the air and went to 1300 metres and stayed there for 2 hours on his new SupAir Leaf Light! Colleen and I were having dinner at 7:30 pm and pilots were still landing at Eagle Ranch. 7-13-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. Becoming windy this afternoon. High 28. Humidex 30. UV index 9 or very high. 800 metres 7-12-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Sunny. High 30. Humidex 33. UV index 9 or very high. 800 metres We also have a visiting French Paramotorist here and he showed us how to do tandems with his wife and daughter. Richard T was here doing some followup paramotor training and got 8 flights and many hours of airtime today on his Miniplane-Top80. Last flight of the day with Colleen, Derek, Dennie, Bev, Norm and Andrei went very well and Norm was still 200 metres over the LZ when we went to the golf course for dinner just before dark.  Pic by Dennie. 7-11-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Cloudy. High 27C. Winds light and variable. 800 metres The other student here for paramotor lessons took the day off to absorb the past two days of training and observe. We got three rounds in today and then it got too windy and weird. Derek and Martin flew Bridal and got to 1400 metres, much better than the RASP predicted, but also said the air had weird layers. Pemby is looking better on the RASP these days as the Valley goes stable. Typical for this time of year. Chelan is looking much better than Woodside as the US and Canadian Nats are running there this week. 2018 Chelan Day 4 from tom ceunen on Vimeo. 7-10-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Cloudy. High 21C. Winds light and variable. 800 metres Dennie was launch coach and there were a few tense moments, but late in the day as everyone was getting tired out. I was doing landing coach duties and working on the Bronco, which will be our main shuttle verhicle for the next week as the Van has a blown tranny. By the end of the day the students all got four flights, not a bad day and we were finsihed by 6 pm. P-2s looking for a ride had better contact Bev for rides this weekend, as we only have 5 seats in the Bronco. 7-9-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Cloudy. High 21C. Winds light and variable. 800 metres We had perfect ground handling winds and Dennie took the newbies out to the LZ after a great ground school session in the Barn. By the end of day all the students were able to forward and reverse launch with good skill, but the conditions on top were not allowing them to fly, in fact it was too windy for Derek. 7-8-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Partly Cloudy. High 27C. Winds W at 10 to 15 km/h. 800 metres I was in the LZ coaching Sauleh & Keith on their paramotors and they had a few great flights until it got too thermic and then we went up the mountain. A lot of pilots out flying and even the odd other school was out with students so launch was busy but everyone got lots of flying in today. Colleen flew a tandem at 2 pm and it was a nice long flight with perfect landing conditions.  Artem made his last flights today to graduate to P-2 level and 25 flights as he soared around on our Nova Mentor 3 glider for hours. I took Reza for a tandem at 4 pm, and the lift was light but we got to 1000 metres over launch and it was easy to stay up. There were nice thermals to work on the way out too. Tandems are a great way to train new students, showing them weight shift, turn rates and speed control. All instructors should be required to have a tandem rating. We did our last flight just before 6 pm and I think it was still flyable until dark but we sent everyone home happy and tired. US Nationals/Canadian Nationals Report from Task 1 - a 109 kms task was set from Chelan Butte to Mazama. Many Canucks made it including Nicole and Andrew! Results from Task 1 here Hard Lessons from earlier this week - a day when it blew out and some folks did not have radios or working radios a least. Thanks for sharing! 7-7-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: AM Clouds/PM Sun. High 21C. Winds light and variable. 800 metres The guys then went kiting from noon til 4 pm, with and without the motors on ther backs, building their skills. Then Derek, Colleen, Bev & Norm drove up to fly Woodside at around 5 pm. The sky looked great!  As I launched the paramotorists down below, Derek took off and "skied out". Keith flew his Blackhawk Airmax 220 up to launch instead. Sauleh also took off and the paramotorists flew until they ran out of gas. 7-6-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: PM Thunderstorms. High 23C. Winds SW at 10 to 15 km/h. 2000 metres We managed to get three really good rounds in by 2 pm. Tip of the Day: Get your Zen moment when launching, no panic and no rushing. Just think Zen! It worked for the students and for some P-2s that have been having bad launches. When we finished with Lunch Keith & Sahey went kiting with their paramotors on to get used to the hang-points. They finally finished when it started raining at 430 PM> 7-5-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: 30% Precip. / 0.00 mm AM Showers. High 31C. Winds W at 10 to 15 km/h. 800 metres The winds were light and variable and Dennie got the first round with 7 students off in about 90 minutes. I was in the LZ landing folks and getting chores finished. I also got Henry another nice, long paramotor flight as he took off on the Kangook Paramotor using our new SupAir EONA2 glider. The EONA2 is a great paraglider that also works very well on the paramotor, easy launcher and good speed in the air. Henry flew up to launch and above exploring the area while Dennie was launching the second set of student flights. He was heading to check out Harrison River campground when he noticed he was running low on fuel, so he headed back to the Ranch for a nice landing at the training hill in South winds. We had a few pilots leave by noon for other commitments, so we were down to 4 students for the afternoon sessions. We only got one more round in before 2 pm when the winds got gusty as forecasted. After lunch a group went out kiting in the LZ in the 30C temps. Even as late as 8 pm it was still gusty as some rain cells moved through. But we were able to complete Keith's paramotor assembly and he got a 30 minute runin session breaking in the AirMax 220 engine (which is very powerful!). 7-4-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Mostly Sunny. High near 30C. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 km/h. 2500 metres Here Parm is kiting an 18 metre Ozone Firefly 3 and it is still a workout.  We kited hard til 1 pm and then took a lunch break. I had to make a run to the US to pick up a new Blackhawk AirMax 220 Paramotor for Keith who is here for paramotor lessons this week. When I got back folks were just getting back to kiting with Dennie. It calmed down around 5 pm but everyone was pretty tired but we did a short tow session getting Ryan & Keith in the air. After the towing I sent everyone home rather than wait on top for another hour to hopefully get a flight. Henry took off on one of our Demo Kangook Paramotors for his first paramotor flight! Henry is a Cessna Pilot, a base-jumper and paraglider pilot and we have been building up for this flight for a few weeks and conditions were perfect for his first paramotor experience. He flew high and the air was incredibly smooth with the normal SE flow in our field after an entire day of outflow, as the airmass flow changed. Chris also tried for his 10th paramotor flight but he was too excited and he hopped into the seat and crashed face-first breaking his cage (but not his prop?). A bit of welding will get him back in the air. Meanwhile after a nice Sasquatch Inn meal, it started raining on Harrison Mills so the weather is in for a change. 7-3-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: A mix of sun and cloud. High 22. UV index 8 or very high. 600 metres It turned out that it would not have been a good student day as the air was turbulent at 1000-1100 metres. Derek, Blake and I went up around 3 pm and we had "idiot-lift" conditions with easy climbs to 1400 metres right away. The washing machine was around 1000 metres, and it felt like outflow winds, but I had no vario/GPS, flyng "seat-of-the-pants" style.  I tried many times to get close to launch to top-land but I got lifted anywhere near launch, and if I came in lower it was gusty so I eventually just flew and enjoyed the air up high. Igor had flown Woodside earlier and did the Raymont Challenge (over to Bridal and back to Woodside), and almost made it arriving low at the Dykes east of Woodside (where the mossies hatch apparently). He was complaining/bragging that he had 11 hour airtime in two days, with a long Blanchard flight on Monday and 6 hours here at Woodside today. We overheard Nicole at Miracle Valley where the pilots stayed in the fish-bowl rather than venturing east toward Woodside. 7-2-18
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|  Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Mainly cloudy with 60 percent chance of showers. High 18. UV index 6 or high. 600 metres 7-1-18
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| Woodside Forecast Harrison Mills Forecast: Mainly cloudy with 60 percent chance of showers. High 18. UV index 6 or high. 600 metres |
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1253 Kilby Road, Harrison Mills, BC V0M 1L0 Cell: 604-618-5467 E-Mail: FlyBC E-Mail |