March 2011 Summary
Days of possible “Good XC Conditions” from La Malinche – 11 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. – 29 days (The previous catigory overlaps into this one)
Non-Flyable days from La Malinche – 2 days
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Thursday, March 31th
There were blue but slightly hazy skies, no cumie formations, and continuation of very warm dry conditions. Soarable but not the best for XC.
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Wednesday, March 30th
There were blue but slightly hazy skies, no cumie formations, and continuation of very warm dry conditions. Soarable but not the best for XC.
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Tuesday, March 29th
There was up to a 50% thin high cirrus cloud cover with very warm temperatures, no cumie formations, and powerful dust-devils at times. It was probably soarable but not the best for XC.
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Monday, March 28th
Skies were blue but slightly hazy with very warm temperatures, and no cumie formations. There were powerful dust-devils at times. Probably it was soarable at times but too strong at times also, and no cumies to mark the thermals. It is very hot and dry, even for this time of year. A day or two of rain would have a good effect on the flying weather IMHO.
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Sunday, March 27th
Skies were blue but slightly hazy and very warm temperatures. At midday there were still no cumies but some big dust devils forming. Some pilots were expected to show up late afternoon. By 2pm cumies were breaking out all over. Around 4pm Daniel P and I met up with Fabian and a tandem passenger, and Marco, Olivar, Alejandro, and one other pilot, and we all headed up to launch.
Like had been predicted for today it was blowing in pretty strong and we all held out till sundown. Fabian and his ride launched first and maintained good altitude but had trouble penetrating high winds at times.
About an hour later Olivar launched, and then I launched. It was all pretty much ridgelift in rather strong winds. Would have been good for someone who did aerobatics. I launched at 6:13, maximum altitude was 434 meters above the level of launch, but down by the towers, and I landed 37 minutes later next to Daniel Pedraza in the last alternate by the highway to launch. A strong west wind prevented us from making it to Tenancingo.Fabian and passenger landed I don't know where, but they appeared to drop back behind the Acatzingo hill too low, in an area with potential for venturi or rotor, but there are lots of landing options there. Marco landed back at launch and went for a retrieve of the others in San Antonio.
Most likely it was not good for XC today for either lack of cumies, or being too strong to launch, but as we proved, it was at least soarable late in the day.
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Saturday, March 26th
Clear blue skies with warm temperatures and little puff ball cumies to mark out the thermals. Apparently no one was planning to fly LM so I hiked up and flew all alone.
At 2:30 when I arrived at launch there were strong cycles comming in, but also some substantal lulls. I launched at 3:06pm. The maximum rate of ascent was 5mps over the Cama Del Rey. The maximum altitude was 2949 over the Tenancingo Valley. I landed next to my shop in Tenería at 3:45 for a 31 minute flight. There was good XC potential today.
I can't use my new GoPro for video because my computer needs work or replacement so that it has the capacity to edit the resulting videos. But I set my camera to take photos every 5 seconds and at the end chose these from the batch.
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Friday, March 25th
Clear blue skies, warm temperatures, and just a small scattering of cumies late in the day. It looked like good soaring weather but not the best for XC.
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Thursday, March 24th
I was in Mexico City playing tour guide today. Daniel P says there were blue skies with small cumies. Marco G was there flying tandem and there was a film crew there. Good XC potential.
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Wednesday, March 23rd
Temperatures warm with blue skies and small cumies from noon to late afternoon. I flew from La Malinche late in the day on the Cyber, and had a great time in strong boyant air. I would rate the day as having good XC potential.
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Tuesday, March 22nd
Temperatures were warm and skies were clear blue with small cumies from mid to late afternoon. I would expect soarable with good XC potential late in the day.
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Monday, March 21st, 1st of Aries and the Spring Equinox
The skies were generally clear blue with just a little haze and warm temperatures. Definitely soarable, but not the best for XC for lack of cumies.
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Sunday, March 20th
Skies were blue and slightly hazy with warm temperatures. A group of adventurers came for rides. Daniel P. and Hector Araujo of Ixtapan and I met them kind of early for La Malinche because strong gusts were predicted in the afternoon. At launch there were already strongish cycles moving through, but it was a good window of opportunity and blowing in from the due south.
Hector launched first with the female passenger and I launched shortly after with Said T. of Mexico City at 11:10am. We centered good lift just to the right of launch and worked our way up and behind the ridge to 2755 meters, or 490 meters over launch to where the lift got ratty, and then flew back towards Tenancingo. We flew over Ixpuichiapan, finding a thermal there, and crossed the valley, avoiding a nasty looking dust devil. I hit some heavy sink over mid-valley so had to come in and land at Insurgentes at 11:29am for a 19 minute flight.
Hector meanwhile had flown for quite a while close to the ridgeline at La Malinche and finally top-landed, and launched after with a male passenger. Said and I caught a taxi back to LM and saw as Hector was just landing down by San Antonio with his second passenger. It was already 1:00, and while not as strong conditions as I expected, I still decided to wait because it surely was going to get too strong to fly soon, and it did.
The group of visitors went and practiced rapel with Daniel and I napped and did yoga in Daniel's new cabin on launch. By around 4:30 conditions were calming down a lot and I launched with Jonathan B. of Tenancingo at 4:50pm. We caught a good steady thermal to the right of launch and road that up to 2795 meters, 535 meters over launch, to where the thermal topped off. We flew back into Tenancingo, finding no lift along the way, and landed at Insurgentes at 3:07 for a 17 minute flight.
So... I have a new GoPro camera! Yesterday I found the correct NImh batteries for it in Toluca. Today I filmed the two flights and they were beautiful videos, but my computer does not have enough memory to process or even download the videos, so I will need to fix that before I can show them. It was soarable but not the best for XC for lack of cumulus clouds.
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Saturday, March 19th
Skies were blue and slightly hazy with warm temperatures. Soarable but not the best for XC for lack of cumulus clouds.
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Friday, March 18th
The skies were generally clear blue with just a little haze and warm temperatures. Definitely soarable, but not the best for XC for lack of cumies.
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Thursday, March 17th
Skies were mostly blue in the morning with some convergence type clouds building in the late afternoon over the Tenancingo area. Definitely soarable, although maybe only good for long XC if flying to the north towards Tolcua.
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Wednesday, March 16th
Not sure because I was busy working today, but I noticed blue skies with the possible right kind of cumie formation to make it a good xc day.
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Tuesday, March 15th
Skies were cloudy to partly cloudy in the morning, building to overdeveloped and extremely strong winds from the north in the afternoon, presumibly gust fronts driven by heavy rain and hail in Tenango or Toluca. Not Flyable.
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Monday, March 14th
Skies were partly cloudy in the morning, building to overdeveloped and extremely strong winds from the north, presumibly gust fronts driven by heavy rainfall in Tenango or Toluca. It might have been soarable early on, but all in all I would best call it as "not flyable".
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Sunday, March 13th
Skies were clear blue. Temperatures were warm. The air was dry. Cloud streets formed to the west of Tenancingo from Ixtapan to the south to Volcan Toluca to the north, and those formations moved over the LM launch and the San Jeronimo valley in the afternoon. The TV reporters did not show up, but pilots Roberto and Pablo did plus a team going up to practice rappel.
We arrived around noon. There were cumies working the area with nice logistical placements and drifting in from divergent directions. It was technically launchable between thermal cycles but the gusts were really strong. It was suggested that I wait anyhow because a tandem passenger was expected that afternoon, and Roberto and Pablo did not want to launch into what appeared to be monster air.
I hiked down the western ridgeline to a secret place under thorn trees. Today I named it "La Cama del Buey". It is a giant granite rock some 3 meters wide with a large deep inverse pyramid shaped recess, possibly cut in pre-columbian times, forming a water reservoir in the rainy season, and a nice place to rest in the dry season. I did some power-napping there.
Some hours later the gusts were lessening and the passenger was present, but there was about a 30 minute delay from when I wanted to launch and when it was able to happen. I launched with Ruben S. of Calimaya at 4:53pm. We first did a pass along the western ridgeline barely maintaining and almost sinking out. But on returning to the southern running cliff faces caught broken and somewhat turbulent lift. We had a complete half-collapse of the wing at one moment, and lots of surges and velocity changes.
We made it up to 2620 meters, 370 meters above launch (but too far from the ridgeline to jump to Tenancingo). I tried following the cloud-street away from the ridgeline and into the San Jeronimo valley but we sunk out so I returned to the ridge, crossed the gap to the south, but could not gain any more altitude, so I finally doubled back and flew towards the Pantheon LZ. There was an impressive dust-devil in route, but I just skirted it because we had low altitude. We landed at the San Antonio pantheon at 5:13 for a 20 minute flight.
Alfredo showed up for a later flight. Not sure how he did but I saw him pretty high above the LM area once. We had a decent short type flight, but things went calm rather fast as they often do late in the afternoon. It looked like good or excellent XC conditions for the pilot willing to launch into them, but too strong most of day for the casual pilot.
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Saturday, March 12th
Generally clear blue skies with just a scattering of small cumies in the afternoon in the La Malinche/Tenancingo area, and an over developed cloud-street to the west from Ixtapan to Volcan Toluca. The wind direction forcasts looked good. I would guess that it could have been a decent XC day.
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Friday, March 11th
There were clear blue skies and warm temperatures with clouds and overdevelopment late in the afternoon. It was probably soarable but not the best for XC.
A television crew has announced that they will be at La Malinche launch on Sunday to film the paragliding activities. It looks like an afternoon perhaps excellent for flying with thermal induced clouds late in the day. Local pilots are invited to come for some good flying, and to maybe be seen on television. Contact Daniel Pedraza for scheduling and the ride up. 722-269-5960
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Thursday, March 10th
There were clear blue skies and warm temperatures with clouds and overdevelopment late in the afternoon. It was probably soarable but not the best for XC.
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What does a Thermal Look Like? ¿Como Parece un Termal?
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Wednesday, March 9th
There were clear blue skies and warm temperatures. It was probably soarable but not the best for XC.
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Tuesday, March 8th
There were clear blue skies with a hot sun and strong gusts in the Tenancingo Valley suggesting that it was blown out most of the day. I suspect that it was good for a late day glass-off flight, and perhaps a little risky at El Picacho.
There was a powerful solar storm today. The sun felt much more intense than usual. There were several wildfires burning off in the hills. I imagined some pilot out there launching on an old rag with a little too much UV, and the whole thing collapsing out there at altitude. http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/alerts/warnings_timeline.html 
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Monday, March 7th
Clear blue skies with puff-ball cumies and streets in the afternoon. It looked like excellent XC weather. Work kept me late today, and D.P. wasn't around for a ride up when I got home, so I did not try it.
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Sunday, March 6th
There were cumies building up to about 50% the skies by the afternoon, and supposedly a southerly air flow. Nobody called about flying La Malinche. Daniel Pedraza did not want to drive up. I was about to hike up around 1pm, but I saw a gust, a (temporary) northerly drift in the clouds, and a prediction for overdevelopment and rain in the afternoon (never materialized), and I had other things to do, so I did not hike up to fly. By the end of the day I would have to judge that it looked like a day with excellent soaring and XC potential.
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Saturday, March 5th
Skies were slightly hazy with some cirrus and small to midsize cumies in the afternoon and late afternoon. Daniel Pedraza reported that it was blown out most of the day up at launch, but I think it was soarable late in the afternoon and at Malinalco.
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Friday, March 4th
Skies were clear blue but slightly hazy in the Tenancingo and La Malinche area through mid-day, but in the afternoon cumies and ultimately over-developed skies. There may have been decent XC potential in the afternoon.
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Thursday, March 3rd
Gerardo offered me a free ride to Valle del Bravo to go flying and I took him up on the offer. After all I haven't flown Valle in like 4 years. Gerardo, Hector, Daniel Pedraza and myself all piled into a small volkswagan sedan and took the backroad through Coatepec Harinas, arriving first at El Piñon.
We were first at launch at around 10am. Skies were clear blue and the air was almost stable, from dead to very light cycles. Some students and some other pilots launched and Hector and I waited until everyone else had launched with sledders then extended sledders. It was about the latest possible moment to still catch the ride down at the standard LZ. We both thermaled up well above launch and flew around and over to the big rock and all, but I decided to land to catch a ride, and Hector thermaled back up in weak air and landed at Peñitas.
We went for lunch and shot the breeze with the local pilots hanging around the paraglider shop at the central waterfront, all 15 or so riding up to launch for some late afternoon flying. We got back to El Piñon like around 5 and it was (still) blowing in pretty hard but some acro and heavily loaded wings launched first into broken thermals. Things calmed down a lot and I launched last once more into really mellow but soarable air. I kind of cut my flight short again though because everyone was leaving. Thanks Valle! The place kind of speaks to me. Will visit again I'm sure. Soarable but not the best for XC for lack of cumies, Tenancingo generally the same as Valle I suspect.
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Wednesday, March 2nd
Skies were clear blue but slightly hazy in the Tenancingo and La Malinche area all day. Soarable but not the best for XC for lack of cumies.
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Tuesday, March 1st
Skies were clear blue but slightly hazy in the Tenancingo and La Malinche area all day. Soarable but not the best for XC for lack of cumies.
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