Hi-Tech Graph of Apr.-Dec.2010
December 2010 Summary
Days of possible “Good XC Conditions” from La Malinche –
6 days
Days of possible “Soarable Conditions” from La Malinche, albeit perhaps within a more restricted time window, and flights perhaps not much farther than Tenancingo. –
28 days (The previous catigory overlaps into this one)
Non-Flyable days from La Malinche –
3 days
Days of possible “Training Hill” conditions at Malinalco, or better, albeit at times within a certain time window. –
30 days.
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Friday, December 31st
Myself, Bob V., Sherida, Guy, and a few non pilots arrived at the Terrazas launch of El Picacho, Malinalco around 10:30 or 11am, and it was already gusting in rather strong from the SSW at times. We played around kiting. I tried out the new Icaro Cyber 2 small that Bob soooo generously brought me from the North Pole. After ground handling for some time, I finally launched first, flew and thermaled for several minutes, got tossed a little in turbulence that would have caused collapses in the too-big wings that I had been flying, but no problem in the small Cyber. It flew nice and stable in turbulent air. :) I top-landed and decided to wait to see someone else try flying.
Later Guy launched, appeared to find some turbulence, strong winds, and overshot a top-landing (see video), but landed down by the highway. I packed up and left at that point, and the other pilots kited some hour more, but left around 1pm when it got completely blown-out.
I would say it was non flyable at La Malinche due to strong winds, and soarable at Mali but within a narrow time window.
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Thursday, December 30th
Blown out from midday to late afternoon. Might have been soarable at Mali early. That is why the Casa del Piloto pilots are thinking to make an early trip to El Picacho tomorrow.
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Wednesday, December 29th
Clear blue skies, puff-ball thermal induced cumies, south-west winds, the warmest weather we've had all year. The only hitch is that it was pretty clearly blown out midday in the whole region. It could have been soarable late in the afternoon or in the late morning.
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Tuesday, December 28th
Partly to fully overcast skies. I would guess soarable but perhaps within time windows. Not an XC day.
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Monday, December 27th
Slightly hazy temperate skies but no clouds. Soarable in mild conditions but not the best for XC.
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Sunday, December 26th
Hazy skies with medium altitude thermal induced cumies and streets around midday yielding to clearer and calmer skies in the afternoon. Hector and Gerardo showed up along with two Spanish pilots from Valle, Xevi and another whose name I forget, and gave D.Pedraza and I a ride up to launch, but rather late. We all scratched hard in light late afternoon lift. Two pilots achieved rather high altitudes and a flight towards Villa Guerrero, returning to Tenancingo, Cristo Rey and landing at Insurgentes. I tried the jump without much altitude and landed in one of the alternate LZs by the road to launch. Decent soaring and perhaps some XC potential earlier in the day, but generally mild soaring conditions.
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Saturday, December 25th
Warmer night and hazy skies with decent quantity of medium altitude thermal induced cumies and streets around midday and early afternoon, yielding to clear and calmer skies in the late afternoon. It looked like great soaring conditions and perhaps good XC flying for a few hours.
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Friday, December 24th
A change in climate with warmer slightly hazy skies and just a few thermal induced cumies of medium high altitude. I would guess great soaring and even good XC potential.
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Thursday, December 23rd
Clear blue stable skies with a little haze in the afternoon. Looked like decent or good soaring, but not the best for XC.
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Wednesday, December 22nd
Clear blue stable skies with a little haze in the afternoon. Looked like decent or good soaring, but not the best for XC.
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Tuesday, December 21st
Clear blue stable skies, but a little warmer than usual for the last few weeks. I would guess decent soaring conditions, but not the best for XC.
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Monday, December 20th
Clear blue skies with cold stable air. Soarable but not the best for XC.
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Sunday, December 19th
Hector of Ixtapan came to Tenancingo to do a couple of tandems. Gerardo also came and a few others whos names I forget at the moment. They did some flights earlier and I hiked up arriving at launch around 2:30. Hector launched tandem again and barely scratched his way up in one of the weak scraggely thermals enough to make it to Tenancingo. I launched after him. Gerardo was asking me if perhaps I should wait and I opted to fly because I did not see that conditions would be improving at that hour. I struggled around for about 10 minutes in what seemed more like rotor generated turbulence than lift, and sure enough, the smoke in the valley had switched to wind from the east. I landed in one of the better emergency options by the road leading out of San Antonio, for a 20 minute flight, and got lucky with a passing taxi when I touched the road.
I don't know if they launched after I did, but for sure they waited.
The night was cold and the day cool with stable clear blue skies. Soarable but not the best for XC. Hector and Gerardo also report that conditions have been very weak these last few weeks at Ixtapan, which makes sense because this blanket of cold stable air is covering all of northern and central Mexico. The meteorlogical report would lead me to believe however that there has been some parts of the eastern gulf coast states that have had (strong unstable) conditions for flying during this condition.
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Saturday, December 18th
The night was cold again and the day cool and stable with clear blue skies.
I left my pack with Daniel P. to drive up, and I hiked up for the exercize and to enjoy the beautiful weather. The air in the afternoon felt like a perfect 70 degrees F (don't know what that is in centigrade), and the stability in the air was evident in that there was not the slightest breeze (behind launch) and you could hear the smallest sounds from far far away.
Up on launch there were gentle cycles comming in and the general direction in the valley was SSE. Daniel finally showed up, but didn't bring his wing this time. I launched on Alfredo's Nova without any ballast, placing me 15kg under the minimum. I boated around with the swifts on gentle easy to find thermals, but which did not rise up much past the ridge line. With a little luck and determination I worked my way up to 300 meters over launch and bailed over the back towards Tenancingo. I encountered some patches of turbulence on the backside but no lift, and landed at Insurgentes in nil winds for a 20 minute flight.
I rate the day as soarable, but not the best for XC.
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Friday, December 17th
The night and day not quite so cold as it has been, but the skies were still basically clear blue and stable. Soarable and probably great fun-flying, but not the best for XC.
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Thursday, December 16th
The night and day not quite so cold as it has been, but the skies were still basically clear blue and stable, but there were just one or two tiny little wisps of cloud marking a few thermals at midday. Soarable but not the best for XC.
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Wednesday, December 15th
Cold night, cool day, clear blue skies, little evidence of thermal activity on the ground. But there were small cumies forming off to the west and to the north. Soarable but not the best for XC.
Here is the situation that has dominated for the last few weeks. Note that it was a very differient pattern last year at this time, with high pressure over south america pushing storm activities from the pacific tropical region up into central mexico.
-----------------Tuesday, December 14th
Cold night cool day, clear blue skies, little evident thermal activity on the ground. Soarable but not the best for XC.
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Monday, December 13th
Cold night and the day a little warmer than as of late, with clear blue skies, but today the thermal activity was strong, evidenced by the midday gusts and dustdevils. Definitely soarable and most likely rowdey, but not the best for XC simply for lack of small cumies to mark out the thermals.
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Sunday, December 12th
Cold night and cool day with clear blue skies and mild thermal activity. Soarable but not the best for XC.
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Saturday, December 11th
The stable cold fronts are still with us. Cold night and cool day with clear blue skies and mild thermal activity. Soarable but not the best for XC. But if you were just looking for gentle local flying then these days look pretty good.
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Friday, December 10th
The stable cold fronts are still with us. Cold night and cool day with clear blue skies and mild thermal activity. Soarable but not the best for XC.
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Thursday, December 9th
The stable cold fronts are still with us. Cold night and cool day with clear blue skies and mild thermal activity. Soarable but not the best for XC.
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Wednesday, December 8th
A cold night and the day a little warmer than the last few. No clouds, except a few little whisps around 2-3pm. A slight northerly wind, not enough to preclude flying La Malinche, but enough perhaps to preclude El Picacho, or maybe not. Soarable but not the best for XC at LM, and ? for Mali would be my guess.
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Tuesday, December 7th
A cold night, cool day and blue skies like the last days, but today there were small medium-high cumies marking out the heads of the thermals, and little to no prevailing winds, beyond occasionl thermal gusts. It therefore looked like an excellentisimo XC day.
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Monday, December 6th
Another day with the cold front air with clear 'stabilish' blue skies that are soarable and somewhat thermic, but not the best for XC. Looks like another cold front from the north is shoving right in after the last, so this condition might last for a while. The wind was more from the SE today and maybe La Malinche could have been compromised except if flying to the east, but I don't think that the easterly routes work well under these cold front conditions. Sounds like it would have been a good day for local flying at El Picacho. Not bad weather at all if what you are looking for is kinder and gentiler thermals... I would guess.
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Sunday, December 5th
I arrived at the insurgentes LZ a little after noon and pilots were just arriving from a flight made earlier than yesterday, some with quite a lot of altitude. This flight on Sunday was the only one that counted officially for this competition. I road up for a second round of flights later in the afternoon, and later there was a dinner of barbacoa (roasted goat), and later the downloading and computing at my place, and the awards presentation.
Skies were clear blue once more, temperatures cooler than normal like the last few days, and there were definitely thermals, but they were "blue" thermals, and not as intense as they often are. There was good soaring among the experienced pilots, but not the best for XC, IMHO.
H.Morgan, Juan Carlos, Esteban Javier, Shaq, Daniel Pedraza
Never the less the winning pilots pulled off pretty impressive flights given the conditions, out to the far side of Malinalco and back. Check out their flight logs.
1st place - Esteban Javier Delgado, Niviuk Icepeak, prize 1500 pesos.
http://www.xcontest.org/mexico/vuelos/detalles:edelgadob/5.12.2010/17:47
2nd place - Juan Carlos Lara, Skywalk Poison 2, prize 1000 pesos.
http://www.xcontest.org/mexico/vuelos/detalles:jcarlosl/5.12.2010/17:19
3rd place - Pablo "Shaq" Di Santi, Gradient Avax SR7, prize 500 pesos.
http://www.xcontest.org/mexico/vuelos/detalles:pdisan/5.12.2010/17:29
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Saturday, December 4th
I hung out at the LZ insurgentes, where I chalked a big bulls eye and waited for pilots in the competition to arrive and marked their distances. I recognized most of the pilots except for a few from Valle, and there was a Canadian pilot as well, J.O. from Vancouver.
Relative conditions were rather weak, like the last few days with the cold front, but definitely soarable. There were clear blue stable skies with no clouds, and generally cool temperatures. Pilots started launching around 4pm and about 10 to 15 landed at the Insurgentes Tenancingo LZ. Seems like there were about 20 pilots in the "competition", but many were just fun flying so not all paid the entry fee, and the turnpoints got eliminated, so it seems to have evolved into a fly-in. Guillermo C. got closest to the bulls eye at 2.5 meters, and Salvador Lara was second with 18 meters, and most of the rest chose to land in the dry grass rather than the dusty flat area where I chalked the circle.
Guellermo comming in for a touch-down closest to the bulls-eye.
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Friday, December 3rd
Supposedly there were quite a number of pilots flying from La Malinche this afternoon in preparation for the competition flight tomorrow and sunday, but I had to sit in a dentist's chair so maybe tomorrow I can find out how it went today.
I did glance to the skies once in a while in the afternoon and did not spot any pilots. There were clear blue skies with no cumies, the same as yesterday, and if I did not know any better I would say the same as for yesterday... soarable but not the best for XC.
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Thursday, December 2nd
Clear blue skies, but hardly any cumies to mark the thermals. Good soaring for sure but maybe not the best for XC.
(See November 5th for these same conditions)
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Wednesday, December 1st
Clear blue skies and nicely spaced puff ball cumies. Looked like good XC conditions.
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