Pine XC

Portland pilots made the migration to Pine on Sunday - what a long day, 4 hours to get there and Pine is a roll of the dice, it can go any which way. You can fly 100 miles or it can blow out at 11am, the forecasts seem pretty random for this area.

It turned out well, totally blue skies were sliced by big jet contrails that expanded to make a lot of stratus, the contrail shadows were blitzing across the desert floor showing the speed of the upper air mass. Mike Steed flew 87 miles towards Burns, I went 54 to just past Glass Butte, Steve went 36 to Hampton, Doug got 20 miles to Brothers, and Dan got a PB, so it was worth the drive.

The air was active, it was a lot of work to keep centered in the fast drifting cores and there was huge chunks of sink. I got a climb to 14k and was happily over dressed.

Thanks to Paula for driving and to Steve for the use of the short bus. It was great to see Frankie at the farm and spend the night there.

The Rat Race comp is in 2 weeks, I hope to get a few days flying before then.

stay tuned...