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FlyBC "Site of the Day Archive Page" - July/2013
Not one rain day in July in sunny BC
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 26°C Agassiz: Mainly sunny. Increasing cloudiness this afternoon. Risk of thunderstorms near Hope late this afternoon. High 26. UV index 8 or very high.
We quit early and went to the Golf Course for dinner and saw a thunderstorm develop over Chilliwack around 7 pm.
 Click here for the Leonardo Tracks from Canada . Some pretty long flights in Golden today at the Willi!
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| 25°C Agassiz: Mainly sunny. High 27. UV index 7 or high.
See You At the Bottom from Ben Letham on Vimeo.
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|  25°C Agassiz: Mainly sunny. High 25. UV index 7 or high. The first flights were actually pretty nice with some guided thermal instruction for both guys, with a nice thermal breaking off the Construction Zone and taking them north above launch. There was a defined inversion layer and capped ceilings with forest fire smoke imbedded from a fire at Stave Lake.
The conditions improved around 6 pm, and we headed back up with John M who wind-tech'ed for us but the thermals were all gone by then. Just a bit of ridge-soaring for Jeff S.
Manning Park Report - Stephen & Phil went camping at Manning Park and had a nice hike to Three Brothers Peak and Stephen found a nice ridge soaring site in a meadow to launch his Ozone Ultralite 23.
Willi Muller Challenge Report from Golden - mostly a wet day with rain & thunderstorms so no task results, but they have an entire week of flying and the best of 3 days can be counted. Al is up there representing the Fraser Valley on his new Peak 3.
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| 25°C Revelstoke: A mix of sun and cloud with 30 percent chance of showers. Risk of a thunderstorm this afternoon. High 25. UV index 6 or high. I helped Revelstoke Paragliding with one of their tandems at 9 am, and it was already soarable despite getting stuck with the heaviest passenger at 190 lbs. North winds require using the rocky north launch but everyone got off well include one of the new students of Revelstoke Paragliding, Darcy, who just picked up an Ozone Element II which is a perfect wing for the big air in Revy!
Five hours later I was back at the Ranch with no road issues and even some gas left in the Suburban for tomorrows student action.
Klaus was taking some cloud pictures when he captured this image of a "Ghost over Ludwig".
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| 26°C Revelstoke: A mix of sun and cloud with 40 percent chance of showers and risk of a thunderstorm. Wind becoming north 20 km/h this morning. High 26. UV index 6 or high. It was very windy as forecasted, good thing we cancelled the day for SIV and free-flying but Chris D sent some new pilots up Mt Mackenzie after spending the day checking out their skills and we saw Simon and the new guys up just before sunset getting high in the glass-off. Click here for the Leonardo Tracks from Canada . Some pretty long flights in Pemby today including Frederic's near 200 km triangle over tiger country!
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| 29°C Revelstoke: Sunny. High 29. UV index 7 or high.
The last flight of the day was after 7 pm and the students and experts got a nice glass-off before heading out to land just around sunset.
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| 32°C Revelstoke: Sunny. High 32. UV index 7 or high. Gord, Bill & Richard J were soaring above launch when headed out. Bill top-landed in the meadow to wait for the second group to launch at 1 pm. I spent an hour soaring above launch at 2800 metres, watching folks launch but didn't get much above that height. Later in the day Dave S & Dave E got to 4000 metres and headed towards Golden, but got flushed at Copperstain Mountain and had to hike down to the highway to get home.
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| 30°C Revelstoke: A mix of sun and cloud. High 30. UV index 7 or high. Gord launched for his 25th flight and signoff flight and proceeded to thermal his way over to Cartier Peak, where he flew for 1:30 before heading out to the LZ. Loving the Rush! We had two SIV runs for the remaining participants and everyone was pretty "amped" with SATs and Heli attempts. Some collapses on the last flights out as it was developing and there was huge lift.
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| 28°C Revelstoke: A mix of sun and cloud. 30 percent chance of showers this afternoon with risk of a thunderstorm. Wind becoming northwest 20 km/h late this afternoon. High 27. UV index 7 or high. The weather cooperated and we had light winds all day despite the forecast. Super calm on the Columbia River where we land.
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| 28°C Revelstoke: A mix of sun and cloud. 40 percent chance of showers early this morning. 30 percent chance of showers late this afternoon. Risk of thunderstorms. High 28. UV index 7 or high. We met the SIVers at the LZ at 930 am and decided to cancel the SIV today due to high wind forecsts and thunderstorm warnings. So I had a partial day off after packing a few reserves and doing some briefings with new SIV students. Bill G, Gord M, Matt F, Chris P and a few others went flying off Mt Mackenzie and the conditions were okay for free-flying but no much altitude over the lake for SIV so we made a good call. Woodside Report - Derek reported strong winds at Woodside Launch at 4 pm, and said no one flew the Valley today. Bob must be getting lonely? Felix our best Ozone Acro Team Member at an acro comp this week in Europe! Acro Max Sincro from felix rodriguez on Vimeo.
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| 29°C Revelstoke: Mainly sunny. High 29. UV index 8 or very high. John is here from Mission and continuing his flight lessons up here on his new Ozone Swift and had two great flights off the 7200 foot launch at the Meadow on Mt. Mackenzie.
Click here for the RedBull X-ALPS 2013 News Page after the results have been tallied .
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| 29°C Revelstoke: Mainly sunny. High 29. UV index 8 or very high. The new crop of wings from Ozone, Niviuk, Gin & Nova represented here flew extremely well and recovered from the most extreme maneuvers perfectly.
We even had a new student flying his first flights off Mt Mackenzie after a tandem yesterday afternoon and ha had a nice 40 minute first solo landing on the same LZ as the SIVers.
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| 25°C Revelstoke: Mainly cloudy with 60 percent chance of showers. Risk of a thunderstorm this afternoon. Fog patches dissipating this morning. High 27. UV index 5 or moderate. I took new student Chris E up for a tandem off Mt. Mackenzie following Chris D & Craig E as they soared over the tram station. A bunch of other free fliers flew off after we landed and they all had to rush out to the LZ despite huge cloud-suck, as a thunderstorm developed north of Revy spewing lightning.
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| 25°C A mix of sun and cloud. 30 percent chance of showers this morning and early this afternoon with risk of a thunderstorm. High 28. UV index 7 or high. We arrived in Mission at 9 am, laid out Gerry's Element II L and he only got one inflation before the rain got us. We bunched up the wing into Gerry's car and Gord took him to the Ranch as I headed to Chilliwack for a new radiator for the Suzuki. When I arrived back at the Ranch an hour later, the boys were kiting on the training hill . . . in the rain! We did some ground school and then sent everyone home, and behold a few hours later the sun came out. Paddy & Jerry arrived and we installed a new reserve in a harness and then they went to Bridal. I had a full day of repairs to boats, Suzuki, trailer and assorted other errands to get ready for Revy and somehow got it all done in time to leave tomorrow. Click here for the Live Tracking Page for RedBull X-ALPS 2013 . Pilots are still coming in to Goal, maybe 10 in now. Chrigel Maurer Winner on the Last Day X-Alps 2013 from axel Moreau on Vimeo.
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| 25°C Sunny. Windy this morning and early this afternoon. High 34. UV index 8 or very high. We arrived to find Coyote Hill had perfect winds and Gord took off and started soaring, getting a few hundred feet above launch. New student Gerry got nervous saying he just wanted a sled ride.
After a few false starts Gerry was now in the air and had a perfect first flight and approach. We stopped at the Ashcroft Manor for tea & apple pie to celebrate. We checked the winds in the Valley and they looked like they switched to westerly so we headed back to Mother Woodside to find inflow cycles and Gord flew off and was soaring there too. errry again had some false starts so we bagged up the Element II and we are heading to Mission tomorrow to refine his launches.
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| 25°C Sunny. Windy this morning and early this afternoon. High 34. UV index 8 or very high. We were joined by Pavan, Dylan & Gord all eager to fly. We did a reserve toss in the Barn for Pavan and his 5 year old reserve still worked and I repacked it as well as gave him a repack lesson. It was getting calmer and switching to more northerly so I suggested Bridal might work. They left at 4 pm and headed that way. I got a call from Derek asking what colour wings they had as he was driving to Chilliwack and saw a blue wing in the air - it was Dylan, Later he saw Gord's new red Rush in th air too high on the back ridge towards Cheam. Gord reported back in that he climbed to 2000 meters in lift that peaked out his FlyTec 6015 vario! But smooth! They landed in light north winds coming over the driving range.
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| 25°C Sunny. High 25. UV index 8 or very high. While we were flying, a student from another school was flying into Riverside and ignored his landing coach and landed in a 100 foot fir tree but was safe. Search & Rescue was called in to retrieve student. I received news that Steve M, one of our past students, was flying mid-day at Woodside and got very high but also crashed in Riverside due to thermic conditions. I have been worried that the over-mowing of Riverside would create a thermal generator as there is no ground water to replenish the grass without rain. I have no details of the crash or Steve's condition at this time. We completed a bunch of tandems before it blew out at Woodside, the last set I ballasted off Bill & Denis but there was no way to get Derek & my passengers in the air safely so we cancelled the day at about 330 pm. Condition reports from Bridal suggested it wasn't fun there after that time as the winds caused a lot of turbulence in the air. Click here for the Live Tracking Page for RedBull X-ALPS 2013 . Clement Latour from SupAir flying an Ozone LM5 glider has landed in Monaco too.
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| 24°C Clearing this morning. High 24. UV index 7 or high. Colleen launched first with Ronny, and they were climbing out at 10 am. Conditions were fantastic! Nice inflow cycles and smooth thermals all day long. Martin N joined us for the first flight and was still in the air 1.5 hours later.
Our second set of tandems got great rides as all three of us climbed out to 1100 metres and stayed aloft for 45 minutes. My passenger Robert made the mistake of asking "do you do any stunts?". "Sure, I answered . . . do you want to do some?" And then we spiraled & SAT'ed from 600 metres over the Ranch! More tandems were completed and again it was lifty on all of the flights. Lots of HGers to avoid today in the air too! We were getting Denis ready for a tandem around 5 pm, when a small black bear came up launch by the HG Ramp and stood up and looked at us and scampered off into the bush. No one had a camera ready but it may be on Denis's GoPro footage. No mama bear was seen. At 7 pm we started launching the students after Colleen had a nice soaring flight and headed out to check the air. Tyson was on his 5th high flight and also tested the air for the others. In then end Frank, Jody, Sean all got there first solo flights in perfect launch conditions allowing them to kite their wings for 30 seconds or more before committing to launch. All had perfect landings too at the Ranch.
Click here for the Live Tracking Page for RedBull X-ALPS 2013 . Chrigel Maurer from CH is way ahead after a few days flying an Ozone LM5 glider at this stage he has landed in Monaco at 12 noon. McGuire Mini Maurer Report - Today, my last in Canada for awhile, I had the pleasure of finally climbing the west ridge of Mt. Mcguire with Eddy, Larry, David Stanek, Steve Duncan, and Ivan Wilhelm Tomecek.
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| 22°C A mix of sun and cloud. 30 percent chance of showers this afternoon. High 22. UV index 6 or high. He had a perfect first launch and flight staying around 200 feet to the north and exercising his throttle. He was flying the Paratoys tandem wing for shorter takeoff & landings and he had a perfect landing too.
Needless to say he was pretty stoked when he landed! We then headed up the mountain with Tyson (0 flights), Gord (17 flights), JJ (13 flights) & Richard (1 tandem and days of ground handling) and we were going to conquer the mountain early today. Forecast said windy near 2 pm so we wanted to get some fights in early. JJ took off first and he was followed by Gord & then Richard on his first solo and they all had perfect launches. We were kiting with Tyson on launch but he had a perfect first inflation so off he flew, and his skydiving experience helped out on his flight (as did his pilot experience in planes). I raced down to get the boys and also brought up Dave E & Chris D from Revy and they watched the next set of launches which didn't go quite as smooth as Richard had an abort and his wing landed in the brush. But they all got off again and had nice flights and Gord got some thermalling over the construction site. Third time up was geting windier already and I sent Gord off after Denis and said "follow Denis if you want to stay up". Gord was soon pushing Denis out of thermals and they were at 1000 metres and getting some serious cloudsuck as it was getting thermic.
I sent them all to lunch as Denis & I took Lindsay & Jeff tandem. I ballasted off Denis in a lull and they were going up fast. As usual, no ballast for me and I had little Lindsay and no lulls for 20 minutes but we got off cleanly and it was very strong lift along the ridge and the South Knoll. Denis had already bailed to Harvest as Jeff was feeling dizzy. We soared the South Knoll to 1000 metres with ease, and then headed over towards Harvest mostly facing out towards Chilliwack and still going up. I saw Denis land and get dragged! Yikes! We were going up fast over the river and I estimated we were now thru 1300 metres and we were above Agassiz Mountain peak height wise. There was no descending except with big ears and we were not even near clouds. I got us down with big ears to about 1000 metres and then through in a good healthy spiral dive to cut through the lifty area but we were still high above Cemetary Hill. I spent the next 15 minutes looking for sink over the fields upwind of Harvest Market LZ. Some fields are recently plowed and creating strong lift, some are in corn and give off some sink. We did some more spirals and big ears and we landed right next to Denis at the roadway and he ran to grab Lindsay but she did a perfect landing and turned with me to kill the wing and we had no drama. When we landed Gord had driven down for us and we were soon back in the truck hearing tales of Jeff "blowing chunks over the LZ". Lindsay did have to lay down for a bit in the LZ as I packd the Magnum 38 up as she was pretty dizzy too! We had to cancel the next tandems and student flights as it never calmed down til dark. Click here for the Live Tracking Page for RedBull X-ALPS 2013 . Chrigel Maurer from CH is way ahead after a few days flying an Ozone LM5 glider at this stage 60 kms from Monaco.
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|  20°C Mainly cloudy. 30 percent chance of showers this morning. High 20. UV index 6 or high. It is oddly unstable due to a few incoming cold fronts and this caused a lot of gusty winds today. Thanks to Kevin & Alex we got two commercial tandems done around noon and it was a good thing they were both big passengers as it was very soarable, before they headed to Harvest Market for smooth landings. Dave L was out with some HG students and they had nice HG soaring flights too. Click here for the Live Tracking Page for RedBull X-ALPS 2013 . Chrigel Maurer from CH is way ahead after a few days flying an Ozone LM5 glider at this stage 243 kms from Monaco.
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| 28°C Sunny. Becoming a mix of sun and cloud this morning. Becoming windy this afternoon. High 24. UV index 7 or high. New student Richard T also got in on the kiting action, as did George (long term student). Good conditions at Heritage Park for flights and kiting and after several hours we went for lunch and then on to the Rnahc to check conditions. It was very gusty on launch so we kited in the Ranch LZ in strong S winds. The guys were doing well given the gustiness, so I took them to Agassiz Rec Centre where the winds are usually more laminar and we met Joe C there kiting too. We kited there until 7 pm, and even I was tired from watching so long. They are all ready to launch in most conditions now, if Woodside allows it tomorrow. Click here for the Live Tracking Page for RedBull X-ALPS 2013 . Chrigel Maurer from CH is way ahead after a few days flying an Ozone LM5 glider at this stage 390 kms from Monaco.
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| 28°C Mainly sunny. High 28. UV index 7 or high. After some gear fitting in the Barn, we were ready to tackle the mountan. Gord selected the new SupAir Delight Harness to complement his new Ozone Rush.
Skyler got a chance to try the Paratoys Quad without a wing this afternoon as it was too windy to try taxi testing with a wing. He then went to Harrison with the family while Gord & I delivered a new wing to Derek at Bridal.
Colleen and the others drove down as it was not worth the risk of them not making the LZ and there wasn't enough lift to try for a Harvest Market run. Click here for the Live Tracking Page for RedBull X-ALPS 2013 . Chrigel Maurer from CH is way ahead after a few days flying an Ozone LM5 glider at this stage heading for Interlaken CH where he will be a national hero!
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| 24°C Mainly sunny. High 26. UV index 7 or high. Super launch conditions all day!
Colleen even got do have a solo flight last night in smooth lifty air chasing Derek to Harvest Market.
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| 24°C A mix of sun and cloud. High 24. UV index 8 or very high. The Awesome Tandem Machine was running pretty efficiently today as we completed 9 tandems despite some windy conditions mid-day. A few HGers managed to stay up today too as the winds and thermals picked up around 3 pm. We waited til 7 pm and then headed to the Golf Course for dinner as it looked too windy for safe flights.
Click here for the Leonardo Tracks from Canada . Some pretty long flights in Pemby on the weekend! Not sure why people post their Bridal Sled Rides though???
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| 24°C A mix of sun and cloud. High 24. UV index 8 or very high. We headed up wth tandems on the next flights at 11 am, and it was soarable yet again and the winds held off most of the day. By the end of the day we had completed 10 tandems and had 4 student flights, but the only student was Leslie flying high above everyone. He went towards Harvest and the other pilots couldn't get high enough. Other pilots at Bridal reported in at 1600 metres. Cheam Report - Biff, Brad and Richard along with Judy, Christine and Ben hiked Cheam today. Fabulous day - nice temperature, no bugs. Some challenges - lots of snow creating more of a Mt. Baker feel to this relatively easy hike. We arrived at the top to find the predicted north east wind but not as strong as forecast. There was a strong east wind coming up from Wahleach Lake and this was 20-25 km/hr but pretty steady so Biff, who has launched this side a few times showed the way. Pretty intimidating drop as you run off. Getting a clean wing took some effort due to the rocks and rotor but the air was smooth as first Biff and later, Brad approached the edge. Richard decided to give this launch a miss which was good because the decent was tricky in the steep, slippery snow for Judy and Christine so it was good to have a mountaineer with them. Biff flew to Archibald and soared with Alan for a while til Brad came along. Then Biff flew too far past Elk and came back low fighting a bit of east wind so he made his way out to land at Annis Road where, above the golf course, he caught a nice little bubble that was drifting back to Bridal LZ so he went with it. As Biff was flying fairly low over the little knoll that protects Bridal from the west winds, he passed through a thermal that last for about thirty seconds while flying straight. You learn something every day in this sport! Biff had enough height to go anywhere now but two and a half hours in an alpine harness gets a bit tiring and he was happy to land. Brad landed a half hour later or so for about the same flight length. Brad gives a two thumbs up to his new Alpina and Biff just loves plain that Swift 2 as a great mountain wing.
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| 24°C A mix of sun and cloud. Becoming windy this afternoon. High 24. UV index 8 or very high. The students got 2 thermalling flights and the last flight we had them go XC to Harvest Market, some made it and some came short but they were very excited to do this route again.
Our first set of tandems at 2 pm were quite a challenge to get off launch as it got strong. I ballasted Derek & Jonathon off, but by the time I laid out and clipped in it was over 30 kph. Yikes! Derek hung in ridge soaring while we waited for a lull and we got off 20 minutes later and soared before going to Harvest. Thanks to Candice for driving that round!
It was a great end of the week as we had 5 students get near signoff in 5 days, and they all passed the Novice Exams.
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| 24°C A mix of sun and cloud. High 24. UV index 8 or very high. The students had safe flights but by the time they were packed up and retrieved it was strong on the ground, so I got them writing the Novice Exam. I went up and did the first tandem at noon, and it was pretty windy on launch but we had a nice launch in a lull and went straight up under the developing CUs. After a few passes at 1000 metres we headed off to Harvest Market and had a nice flight back to there with a smooth landing. The students went to the LZ to kite for a few hours, but it never calmed down. We went up for one last flight at 8 pm, but it was too strong so off to dinner. Tomorrow we start at 7 am, to get more flights done.
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| 26°C Mainly sunny. Becoming windy this afternoon. High 26. UV index 9 or very high. Sam offered to replace the pump during our first flight today and we were back in the Suburban by noon! Thanks a bunch, Sam & Nathan! It turned out to be a pretty good day as it was cooler and unstable and CUs were popping. By noon students & other pilots were soaring over Woodside.
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| 28°C Mainly sunny. Becoming windy in the afternoon. High 28. UV index 8 or very high. The tandems all went really well and we had strong thermals on the last flight, when I took a larger guy (Kevin always takes the light, cute ones) and we climbed up above launch pretty fast over the usual house thermal. Kevin headed to Harvest but Denis & I headed to the Ranch and we had no problem making it but the field was very thermic as it is being hayed. The students all did really well, with reversible conditions and not too strong valley winds until around 3 pm when we headed to Mission Training Hill for some reverse practice and about 5-6 flights there. How good do you have to be to win the X-Alps? - Click here to see Maurer's wind limits, good thing he is flying a fast Ozone LM5! Grouse Report - lots of folks getting their airtime on Grouse yesterday, and apparently the wind was not a problem there and it was soarable all day long.
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| 33°C Sunny. High 33. UV index 8 or very high. Many thanks to Bill from Horsefly & Derek & Colleen for helping out today with the tandems. We managed to get 7 tandems done by 1 pm. We got two student rounds of flights in before it blew out around 3 pm, and we had to cancel tandem flights too. We restarted student flights at 6:30 pm, when it calmed down and we got 3-4 off before it got windy again and one student was forced to land in Duncan's back yard. Weird conditions today, Norm was in the air at 3:30 pm when it blew out and he said it got very rough and he flew out to Harvest.
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| 30°C Sunny. High 33. UV index 8 or very high. Yesterday it was too strong and windy for new students and we had to ballast off tandems. Today was super stable and hot and we waited for cycles to launch into? Newest students: Grant, Danielle & Ryan got their first 4 solo flights yesterday after enduring the training hill yesterday in the heat. By the end of the day they were landing themselves smoothly. It was very stable and we managed to get 10 tandems done, but they were short rides.
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