Copyright 2000, Cliff Lindgren.
My friend Scott Hewett who is somewhat of a explorer in the field of searching out new sloping DS spots had gone up to Fremont Peak yesterday. We have been going to Fremont Peak off and on now for about three years since a fellow No. Cal sloper discovered its possibilities for good sloping. Unfortunatley, out of the perhaps 10 times I personally made the trek to the top (about a 1.25 hour trip from Santa Cruz and then another 1/2 hour hike carrying gliders and gear to the slope) I have only flown twice in poor conditions. Well anyway, Scott got skunked again. I like to rub it in and gave him a bad time about it. He is persistent though and doesn't give up easily.
This morning I awoke to find that East/Southeast winds were blowing and it was raining up in the Oakland Hills where it works great for this wind direction. Our local slopes in the Santa Cruz area don't work at all in this direction.
So...What does Mr. Hewett suggest to me at 6:30 this morning? You guessed it, Fremont Peak of course! I agreed and we made the trek up there. On the way up I could tell by the trees and bushes and things flying through the air that this could well be the day! Near the top we started encountering lots of limbs in the road. All right! Now, if only the direction would be right.
We got to the parking lot at the top and looked on up the hill where there are lots of radio towers and a flagpole with a somewhat tattered American Flag blowing like it was in a hurricane. Scott suggested we drive to the top where the towers were, hell the gate was open, nobody around so why not? We did drive up the windy road and when we rounded the last bend my van got rocked like it had been hit by a nuclear blast! Some poor guy who works up on top installing a new tower (not today!) was driving this rough terrain forklift around putting heavy articles around his temporary work shed so he could tie it down so it didn't blow away.
Fremont Peak forms a wide L shaped Bowl. From that side of the hill the direction was not happening so we drove down. We parked, then Scott looked at me and I looked at him and we said, "well?" It was unanimous so we packed up our heavy air flyers and headed up the hill.
The walk up for a while is on the lee side of the mountain so that wasn't too bad. You walk up and around until you reach this saddle in the mountain and then the rest of the trip is on the windward side of the ridge. Scott was in front and when he reached the first exposed area he immediately got blown down and I mean literally blown down! What a blast of compressed air flow! This saddle is where the whole valley below is funneled up the windward side and I know why it's lower there. Over the years the mountain has been worn down by the wind. Anyway, I get around him (the path is narrow there) and make my way over and start down the other side to start traversing the hillside and then I get blown down.
Carrying even the small slope rockets and radios was an extreme chore. I get down a little ways and look back to see how Scott's doing (he brought two gliders and I only brought one) and didn't see him. I'm thinking Jeez, I wonder if it's too windy for Scott and I'm just too dumb to know? But no, there he is taking a different route (this is after he got blown down again).
We make our way across the hillside trying to figure out where would be the best place to fly. Scott has DS on his mind big time. We decide that we need to walk way out to the end of the ridge where it bends around to the left a little because this is where the wind would hit the slope most directly. As we are getting near the spot I spy what appears to be small birds flying near the top of hill in the area we picked out. What it turned out to be was leaves being blown up the hill from trees some quarter mile away. The leaves would reach the top and the rotor coming back up the hill would catch them and toss them around in a mini whirlwind. Perfect! DS heaven? Maybe.
The wind is howling/screaming. I am ready to fly my Higgins F-20. Scott launches it for me and my Lord what a ride. I mean this thing is ripping the sky apart. I do these dives way down the valley and then go vertical and it's flying like its got after-burners. The only down side is that the hill faces east so the morning sun beams down between clouds that are tearing past us and is somewhat of a problem and you have to be careful.
I fly around for awhile with my heart in my throat and try a couple of DS passes on the lee side. Way to fast for this Cowboy. I know my limitations. So I'm having fun on the front side and that's when I decide to turn the ailerons onto high rate. Big mistake! I'm screaming long the slope and decide to do a roll and that's when all hell broke loose. I have bad problem of giving it elevator when doing a roll and that's exactly what happened and it went crazy, did a wakazoid maneuver, spinning uncontrollably and hit the face of the slope cartwheeling up the face with stuff flying out of it before blew over the top! End of my flying and now the Easter egg hunt starts.
While I'm hunting Scott gets a ripping flight in with his F-20 (I look up once in a while during the search) and manages to land successfully. He comes up and we finally find every piece except for one of my elevators. No big deal. My nose got broke off but is repairable.
So now Hewett decides that he is going to DS the upper ridge we are now on. I launch his F-20 again and he starts making the circles. The thing is ripping/twitching/squirrelly and terrifying! Over rotation is the big problem on this short winged rocket. It is a handful for Hewett!
Finally on one low pass it gets down at the tree line and because its blue and hard to see against the dark green he loses it for a minute, don't ask me how but here it comes shooting up, out of control and it augers in nose down. We make the trek down and Scott pulls it out (it was buried to the wing) and says, "holy sheet! My canopy came off!" I'M Thinking, "Wow, bummer."
So now he starts thinking about launching his latest creation. It's a 63 wing he calls the Go Go Girl and is the 63 Sloth. Then he starts backtracking because the little common sense sloper who lives on one of his shoulders says, "No Scott, don't do it. You just built it and you don't want to chance destroying it this early in its life." Then the little DS devil sitting on the other shoulder starts telling them that he'll never live it down unless he flies it and the Devil wins the argument.
OK, I get to launch again. Here we go! Hang on! He gets altitude, dives for the backside, stays low and the thing just tears up the hill at us. I am diving for cover behind him. It's scary!
The thing is making horrible screeching sounds like it's in agony! He is making these huge circles going so deep I simply can't believe why this thing just keeps coming up the hill on the wrong side? Is it magic? I'm a firm believer that it is. Circle after circle and it's flying like it's on rails.
Now Scott has to land the thing. So he makes some deep circles low on the backside trying to bleed speed coming up the hill but it just won't slow down enough even for a controlled crash. He goes deeper and deeper coming up the hill and finally he stuffs it in doing about 110 mph! He smiles and says, "I"ll take that."
I didn't bring my wind gauge with me but we figure it had to be blowing somewhere in the 75 to 85 mph range today there. Now if you are a bit skeptical, and I can understand if you are, I can tell you that we have flown some of the windiest spots the West Coast of the US has to offer. Scott undisputedly is one of the most experienced big air flyers I have had the pleasure to watch fly in these conditions. Today, he stated that this is probably the heaviest air he has ever flown in during his RC Glider flying career and definitely had the most vertical punch, even better than Cape Sebastian, Oregon or Eagle Butte Washington.. I personally watched him and Dave Reese fly in 70 mph plus at Cape Blanco, Oregon (my Kestrel wind indicator blew up at 74 that time). This opinion is based on today's conditions, which are not an everyday occurrence at Fremont Peak.
When we got back down the hill I glanced up at the flagpole...the flag was gone! We drove down the hill to another one of our recently discovered DS spots which I named the "Mother Lode" and only flew in an average (according to my Kestrel wind meter) 41 mph with a top gust of 55 mph. Both Fremont Peak and the Mother Lode are in the Hills around San Juan Bautista, CA area. I must admit I would not care to fly in these extreme conditions on a regular basis but once in awhile really gets the juices flowing. The only way I can sit and write this is because of the overdose of adrenaline today.
Thanks, I hope I didn't bore anyone.
Cliff Lindgren.
Copyright 2000, Cliff Lindgren.