BASH #32
The weather always plays a roll and today at the Los Banos BASH was no
exception. A series of storms had been blowing through that had me
concerned. Sunday's forecast was for more rain but I was hopeful. We
BASHers have been historically blessed with flyable weather.
BASH day dawned with mixed clouds and a spattering of rain at my house but
at Los Banos it was dry! On the trip down the skies were a treat as the
post frontal clouds drifted by. Actually, drifted is not the best word.
Zipped would be a better description. The winds were clocking a solid
20mph. Gusts were in the thirties on a digital meter while a Dwyer Liar
said 40mph. Stiff wind for sure.
On the trip down I was able to fly a new site that I'd looked at last
month. It's a vista point just off the freeway and it turned out to be a
good slope! It has no specific sign except for "vista point" and is only
accessible from the south bound side of the freeway. It's just about 2
miles north of the intersection of hwy 5 and hwy 140. It works in a south
and a west wind and is definitely worth a look if you're passing by.
This month we had visiting dignitary. A big welcome to Mr. Mark Navarre
from southern Calif. He was driving back to So. Cal. and was able to join
us for some great combat action. We do hereby grant full BASHer status to
Mark. Please come back to join us again. We loved flying with you! It was a
blast!
The wind was south all day. Unfortunately, the only site which faces south
is the far side of the dam. If the road to the camp ground wasn't closed it
would be easy to get to this slope. However, the road was closed and we had
to walk across the dam to get there. We flew from this site for about an
hour. It was an interesting time. The lift was unique. Occasionally booming
and occasionally flat. Dodging the 230KV transmission lines added to the
ambiance. Two rain squalls blew past while we were at this slope. During
each we huddled down in the rotor area of the slope and waited it out. They
never lasted more than a few minutes. It was fun watching the rain drops
follow the lift over the slope. While the weather was warm we occasionally
saw small hail. Very interesting.
A big thanks to BASHer Mike. He decided that another slope looked good and
walked over to try it. This slope is about 200 yards from the campgrounds
and I'd never seen it flown before but it was facing the wind and that was
good enough for Mike to make the hike. He launched (while we watched) and
immediately shot skyward. After seeing him do some great aerobatics and zip
all over the slope, I decided to make the hike. Again if we could have
driven to the slope it would have been much nicer but the lift was
excellent. Big sky lift from what is a fairly small slope! Soon the others
joined us and we had a huge furball! This was a great slope! Pity we had to
hike to it.
BASHers Charlie and Mickey were able to DS at the usual DS spot but on the
other side. It worked. Both of them fluttered their foamies within two or
three passes.
Charlie had a very eye catching BD-5 and Tim had a cute little plane called
the Spaz. Mark's Air-ratchet was very speedy. It was quite impressive both
with and without ballast.
We had a good turnout for a cloudy February. We typically had about 12
planes in the air on the average. After the flying we all headed over to a
top secret diner in Los Banos. I was surprised to see that we had 17 people
at the restaurant!
It had been two years and one month since I'd flown the far end of the dam
so today was a nice change. However, the camp ground slope turned out to be
a real bang-up winner of a slope! A great find! See you in a month!
Bill Swingle
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Pleasanton, CA
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