This weekend was the Oceanside Fly-in. The forecasts were poor and Saturday was a no-fly day. Sunday had a better forecast and I headed through a little late to find the sky full of gliders - more gliders than I've ever seen at Oceanside. Everyone was well spread out and there was obviously lots of lift.
Conditions were gradually weakening and by the time I got on launch, there were fewer gliders in the sky. Those that remained were near launch - traffic would obviously be a problem. I launched and found I could maintain my altitude just above launch by working some tiny, punchy thermals. The skies gradually cleared as gliders were flushed. After maybe 25 minutes of interesting flying I run out of lift too and landed on the beach.
I flew again in the afternoon for maybe an hour. There was a lot of traffic at the start. As conditions weakened, the traffic lightened. Towards the end of my flight, I headed to the Capes, hoping to soar the houses there. I arrived too low and tried to scuttle back to Oceanside, but I didn't quite get all the way back before landing on the beach.
It was my first time flying Oceanside this year, and it's always a pleasure to fly there - launching in and flying over a town is pretty unusual! I appreciated the benign conditions but I found the traffic pretty intimidating. There were several reasons for that
- Normally, when I'm flying in Oregon I know every glider in the air, so I know what to expect. That wasn't the case today.
- The best way to fly today was to thermal; but most pilots were ridge-soaring.
- When conditions are weak the lift-zone at Oceanside is pretty small.
- Sharing the sky not just with PGs but also HGs makes things more complicated.
Still, as far as I'm aware, there were no serious problems with traffic, so everyone was managing pretty well.
Some pics -> http://picasaweb.google.com/DMMullin/Oceanside03May2009#
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