Casa del Piloto Blog site

Daniel Miller Weather Blog, January 2012

2012-01-03T14:29:00.000-08:00

This is a history, not a forecast. To see a possible weather forecast for La Malinche go to -
http://www.windguru.cz/es/index.php?vs=1&sc=237111
meteorological summary for Mexico
http://smn.cna.gob.mx/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55&Itemid=58
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January 2012 Summary
Days of possible Good XC or better Tandem Conditions from La Malinche – 19 days
Days of possible Soarable Conditions from La Malinche, including the above XC days. – 28 days
Non-Soarable days from La Malinche – 6 days
(Once in a while I might mark a single day as both Soarable and Non-Soarable, like when part of the afternoon is soarable, and the other part is not.)

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Tuesday, January 31st
Overcast early, to clear skies in late morning, to low level developing cumies in midday, and overdeveloped cumies in the afternoon. Mostly not soarable, but a possible one hour time window in the early afternoon.

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Monday, January 30th
Rain, overcast and east winds all day. Not soarable.

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Sunday, January 29th
Overcast and east winds all day. Not soarable at LM.

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Saturday, January 28th
Daniel Pedraza drove Aaron and Soren up to LM at noon, and I hiked up. When I arrived, it appeared thermic, but we were under a swath of clear blue sky, and there was cumie development in far off regions to the west, north, and east, and to the south there were high streaky cirrus of an apparent convergence zone.

We felt uncertain about conditions so waited to see if cumies would start to develop over LM, but by the time that started the cirrus convergence zone moved in and high winds kicked in that did not abate for hours until we left. We did not fly and Sunday Soren goes back to Valle, and Aaron back to Arizona.

It was probably soarable in a several hour time window early, and maybe late in the day, but it was not flyable most of the afternoon due to high winds.

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Friday, January 27th
Daniel Pedraza drove Aaron and Soren and I up to LM at around noon. It was very thermic and cycles were strong. I launched first and then Soren and then Aaron. I worked my way towards the new switchbacks cut in the hillside and got rather high, but returned to the LM house thermal where Aaron and Soren were gaining even more altitude.

We all crossed north to the Tenancingo Valley at that point, where I was lower, and I did a loop around the whole valley but did not find lift, so I landed at Insurgentes next to the circus, which I was avoiding because major dust-devils were kicking off there every 15 minutes. No problem but I hurt my ankle a little in switchy winds that went dead in the last seconds and gave me a hard landing.

Meanwhile Aaron was gaining even more altitude over Cristo Rey, and Soren was getting lower and setting up to land by me at the circus big-top, when he sunk out big-time over the roof of the Garis store, and looked like he could not even penetrate 100 meters for a safe landing, so he did a u-turn, and became the second person to ever land in the soccer field of a high-security private school. He posed for photos with a bunch of school-girls, and then was politely escorted out by the guards.

Aaron continued to gain altitude up to 12,000 feet, and landed at small pueblo near San Pedro where the locals had never seen a paraglider before.

Strong XC or tandem conditions, blue skies with small high cumies.

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Thursday, January 26th
Pilots Aaron and Soren of Arizona came to Tenancingo from Valle de Bravo, because the Monarca competition started and they were not allowed to fly there because they were not part of the competition.

Soren already had a good thermic and XC flight earlier in the day when Daniel Pedraza and I passed by their hotel later in the afternoon. We rode up to La Malinche. I launched first and Soren launch just after me. It was rather late, like around 4pm. It was thermic but not real strong. We were both working the knoll beyond the cliffs to the left and sinking out. I ended up landing after a maybe 15 minute flight at the Cabañas LZ, and Soren scratched his way back up, jumped the ridge to the Acatzingo side rather low, and then got major altitude gain over Teneria, ultimately flying to San Pedro, some 10km north of Tenancingo.

Strong XC or tandem conditions, blue skies with small high cumies.

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Wednesday, January 25th
Looked like strong XC or tandem conditions, blue skies with small high cumies.

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Tuesday, January 24th
Looked like strong XC or tandem conditions, blue skies with small high cumies.

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Monday, January 23rd
Looked like strong XC or tandem conditions, blue skies with small high cumies.

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Sunday, January 22nd
I hiked up to LM and launched at 3:24pm into strong thermic conditions. Skies were clear but a little hazy in some areas and a little OD'ed with small high altitude cumies in other areas. Strong XC or Tandem Conditions. Conditions were strong and rowdy. Got up to 2857 meters over Tenancingo.

I flew towards Tecomatlan, found no more turbulence or lift on the way, and landed there at 3:59 for a 35 minute flight.

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Saturday, January 21st
Looked like good XC or tandem conditions.

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Monday January 16th through Friday January 20th
These 5 days all appeared like days with good XC and tandem potential. I was working and recovering from a flu, but I've got the itch to try flying again soon.

Here is a video from pilot Florian of Toronto from when he was flying here a few weeks ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNGJCY_bNlE

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Sunday, January 15th
Overcast in the morning, but periods of nicely developed conditions in the afternoon.

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Saturday, January 14th
Overcast in the morning, but periods of nicely developed conditions in the afternoon.

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Friday, January 13th
Nice little cumies from the SW, looked like good XC conditions.

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Thursday, January 12th
Blue skies, light winds from the SW. Probably very powerful conditions, and good XC for a knowledgeable pilot, but no cumies to mark the thermals.

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Wednesday, January 11th
Blue skies, light winds from the SW. Probably very powerful conditions, and good XC for a knowledgeable pilot, but no cumies to mark the thermals.

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Tuesday, January 10th
Blue skies with some high velocity and altitude cirrus and high winds from the SSW in the Tenancingo Valley in the afternoon. I would guess blown-out and not flyable at La Malinche most of the day.

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Monday, January 9th
Blue skies, no cumies, but probably very strong thermals judging by dust devils I saw roaming around. Lots of powerful but invisible turbulence monsters in the air I would guess.

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Sunday, January 8th
Blue skies with cumies, good XC and tandem conditions it looked like.

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Saturday, January 7th
Blue skies with nicely formed cumies and streets and light south winds it looked like excellent XC and tandem conditions. I was still indoors with the flu. Florian reports his longest flight of his vacation here, most of the flight over 7000ft, past Malinalco and back to Tenancingo. He says he got it on video. I made him promise to hook me up with a link when he edits and uploads.

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Friday, January 6th
With blue skies and nicely formed cumies and cloud streets it looked like powerful XC or tandem conditions. Florian flew around midday and was rather high over the cliffs of La Malinche when in turbulent air he got two full collapses in a row and then a cravat that he barely got out before hitting the ground. He says he would like to fly a little later next time when the lift is more stable. I can relate to that!

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Thursday, January 5th
It looked like excellent XC conditions with cumies and cloud streets around mid-day, but later in the afternoon it over-developed in the Tenancingo region. I would have flown, but felt some kind of virus hitting me in the morning.

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Wednesday, January 4th
Rather dense high altitude cirrus was blocking a good deal of solar radiation reaching the earth. I suspect that it was soarable, but just barely, at La Malinche.

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Tuesday, January 3rd
Blue skies with nice cumies but with SE wind which is generally tricky for La Malinche, although possibly soarable more to the right of launch. Peter and Florian chose to fly and El Picacho where they had some excellent high altitude soaring in that region.

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Monday, January 2nd
Strong winds from the north most of the day and not flyable. But Peter and Florian soared late in the day at Mali as conditions switched.

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Sunday, January 1st
Was predicted east by windguru, but it seems to have come in more from the south in the afternoon. Blue skies with some cumie activity. Good soaring conditions later in the day I suspect. Florian and Peter had good flights from La Malinche.

Tenancingo , 6 weeks flying in the center of Mexico

2012-01-02T19:13:00.000-08:00

It has been an incredible 6 weeks flying out of the casa. The first two weeks, I had the company of Andy and 5 Polish pilots. We flew La Malinche for the first week in fairly strong conditions but limited XC potential. then things got better and Andy did some record breaking flights to Ixtapan and back and other triangles.

But what makes Tenancingo great is its central location. We did side trips to Ixtapan, to Iguala and three days in Valle De Bravo, all within a two hour drive or bus ride.

Later I had a chance also to fly a new site from Tasco from where one pilot flew back to Ixtapan.
Now with only two days left I hope to fly Malinalco again as I found it inredibly beautiful. I will have more detailed writeups on www.explorex.net . Hope to see you here one day for some great flights.

The cumulus clouds really started building nicely by mid December and seems things are just getting better and better as far as the paragliding and longer higher flights. January and February look stellar !

Daniel Miller Weather Blog, December 2011

2011-12-01T17:46:00.000-08:00

December 2011 Summary
Days of possible Good XC or better Tandem Conditions from La Malinche – 9 days
Days of possible Soarable Conditions from La Malinche, including the above XC days. – 31 days
Non-Soarable days from La Malinche – 0 days
(Once in a while I might mark a single day as both Soarable and Non-Soarable, like when part of the afternoon is soarable, and the other part is not.)
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Weather Graph click to enlarge
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Saturday, December 31st
Strong thermal conditions with blue skies and cumies but dominated by over-development to the north. Apparently both Peter and Florian had long flights.

I was hiking up to launch at 2 when I saw Florian flying over the back to Tenancingo. I saw conditions switch up in intensity and the looming dark clouds to the north and decided to not fly.

XC potential and also the time window were practically limited due to the heavy northerly activity, with Tenancingo falling right at the convergence of the two air masses.

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Friday, December 30th
It looked like an awesome flying day with thermal induced cumies and streets in blue skies, although it did OD a little and even a few rain drops late in the afternoon. It rained in the evening a little too.

There was also an unusually powerful geo magnetic solar storm event all day and I stayed more indoors in the afternoon, watching at times the real-time event on the internet, and saving my wing and body from the heightened UV and X radiation that sometimes penetrate more through the atmosphere when the magnitosphere is under stress.
http://www2.nict.go.jp/y/y223/simulation/realtime/

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Thursday, December 29th
Florian and Peter launched around 11 am and had good flights, Peter says he flew to Malinalco and back to Tenancingo. Florian went for another flight later, don't know the details.
But skies were blue with nice cumies and looked like good XC and tandem conditions.

I got called for a tandem flight in the afternoon. We launched at 3:21, flew up and down the ridge lines for some 20 minutes, and then headed out to near the clients home in the valley. In route we got some strong lift near the margin of an overdeveloping cloud that was already raining a few kilometers away. I played with the lift for a few minutes but did not want to risk gust fronts from rain activity so we landed near the passengers home 3:54 for a 33 minute flight.

My GoPro failed to work, or better said, I failed to check it well enough on launch, so unfortunately I missed a good video for the client and this blog.

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Wednesday, December 28th
Florian flew in the early afternoon and reports strong thermals with small cumies. He flew 2 1/2 hours all over the region, and Peter flew later and also had an extended flight. It was also reported that some Mexico City pilots flew, possibly Marco, and had several hour flights.
Good XC and better tandem conditions it sounds like.

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Tuesday, December 27th
It was an odd day because high clouds generated from the cloud street over Ixtapan the earlier days was impinging on the Tenancingo region, but the air was surprisingly stable in the afternoon.
Toronto pilot Florian arrived and we flew around 3pm and both had sledders.
I'd be willing to bet that it was soarable several hours earlier though. Soarable.

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Monday, December 26th
Blue skies with no cumies in the Tenancingo region until late in the afternoon. Definitely soarable with probably strong thermal conditions. Once more Ixtapan had a great cloud street heading to Toluca and Valle de Bravo, most of the afternoon.

I flew late in the afternoon, like around 4:30. I did not quite attain the altitude necessary to arrive in the Tenancingo Valley restitution air, which was my goal.

I flew the ridge-lines for about 40 minutes and at least I landed in my favorite LZ by the Zumpahuacan Highway and was back in Tenancingo very quickly afterwards.

I heard that Peter flew around 2:30 and did very well, flying around in the Tenancingo Valley.

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Sunday, December 25th
Blue skies no cumies in the Tenancingo area. I flew in the afternoon around 2pm and there was very strong thermal activity, sending me quickly to over 2700 meters, to where I flew towards Tenancingo, flew around the east side, and landed at the Insurgentes soccer field for a 40 minute flight.

Over at Ixtapan for a second day there was an awesome cloud street extending all the way to Valle and Toluca. In the Tenancingo region there was moderate to strong soaring but no clouds or even any dust devils that I could notice.

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Saturday, December 24th
Blue skies, no cumies, soarable but probably not the best conditions. However over from Ixtapan northward towards Volcan Toluca, Toluca, and towards Valle de Bravo, there were impressive, if not too powerful cloud streets, so for Ixtapan de la Sal it looked like excellent XC conditions.
Peter flew LM before noon and reported that he was soaring the ridges but lost it when he left the ridgeline.

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Friday, December 23rd
Blue skies with no cumies. I did not fly. I did see once at midday the sign in a column of haze or dust from a thermal over Tenancingo. Also far away to the north there were cumies. Could have been a little more unstable than yesterday, but still, I'll call it soarable, but not the good conditions.

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Thursday, December 22nd
Blue skies with no cumies. Unfortunately it was a weak-ass stable day like the prior weeks. I did some ridge soaring around 5pm, hoping to catch restitution in Tenancingo, but landed by the Zumpa highway. Peter got a sled ride. Daniel Pedraza was on launch all day working on his retirement cabin and reports that it was very weak all day. Soarable, just barely.

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Wednesday, December 21st
Blue skies with just the right amount of small cumies and cloud streets at around 3000 meter base. Excellent XC and tandem conditions.

Peter and I hiked up to launch around 3pm. Peter hired well known local Philipe (the Filipino) for 30 pesos to carry his pack, and we also spoke with a number of locals about having a donkey for hire in the future to carry up equipment for other visitors. However Peter did comment when he got to the top how the hike felt a lot shorter than he thought, and would just assume carry his own equipment. I think all the twists in the road make the vehicle ascent seem longer than it really is. But then it is at over 2000 meters altitude and there is the question of getting acclimatized if arriving from lower altitudes.

Peter launched first at around 3:30 and I launched later at 3:45. Peter got high up pretty fast and I did too but it was rowdy air and when I got up to 2600 meters and it was getting even crazier I decided to bail for the Tenancingo Valley.

In doing the 6k crossing I was doing all I could to prevent the wing collapsing in heavy turbulence, and did not pause much to try to work the lift to gain altitude, so I arrived lower than I started.

I found out later Peter was following me, and he also experienced heavy turbulence and got 100% total collapse of his wing, the whole thing going into a tiny wad he said, and was pleased to find out that his brand new but somewhat over-sized Dudek wing automatically recovered flight with very minimal oscillations.

Anyhow the turbulence bothered me so I instinctively took the path where one finds maximum sink, landed at the Insurgentes soccer field at 3:59 for a 14 minute flight. Peter flew over the city to Cristo Rey and back and landed a few minutes after me.

Afterwards it looked like the classic late afternoon restitution "magic air" developed over the center of the Tenancingo Valley.

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Tuesday, December 20th
Blue skies with high well defined cumies and streets at approx 3300 meters altitude to mark the thermals.

I hiked up alone and launched at 2:28 and got yanked straight up into a spine tingling elevator ride in full-on La Malinche powerful thermals. In 3 minutes I was 407 meters over launch, and doing all I could to keep the wing inflated and not going into full frontal collapses. The thermals were so strong and sharp-edged I was scared $#¡tless and flew directly towards the middle of the Tenancingo Valley, hitting heavy lift, heavy sink, severe turbulence, but more lift than sink.

I flew against the wind east along the valley with the intent to land at Las Causerinas. I got lift and turbulence all the way, but just when I arrived hit heavy sink and landed, heart pounding, at 2:46 for an 18 minute white knuckle flight :)

The strong lapse-rate conditions have returned. Powerful XC and tandem conditions.

Perhaps just a little lacking still in cumie development IMO for a "gold star" day but it was was probably more enjoyably mellow, developed, and buoyant later in the afternoon. Peter flew later I think. Will add if I find out.

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Monday, December 19th
Blue skies with high well defined cumies to mark out the thermals. It looked like excellent XC and powerful tandem flying conditions.

Peter was taking Andy and Andrew to the airport, so they didn't get to fly today, and I had work to do.

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Sunday, December 18th
There were very small cumies in blue skies at midday. I sent my equipment up with the CDP pilots in Daniels truck at noon, and took my time in the market and hiked up to kill some time and buy some food. I knew that if the day would have half a chance that I would need to fly rather late in the afternoon.

At launch we did wait, but Andy finally launched around 1pm, struggled a while, and finally landed at the Cabañas. Peter launched, got real low after a while and landed by the cabañans.

And I, like a lemming following the expectations of spectators on launch, launched after Peter at about 2pm, struggled in the weak air to the left and to the right, and landed at don Pablo's emergency LZ after 10 or 15 minutes. I don't have a chance on my small wing in these conditions, but I did get some wickedly nasty collapses from thermals that were strong, but way too tiny and broken to circle in.... so I am still happier with stability, even in less than optimal conditions. I would have been in serious problems and close to the ground on a larger wing. Peter got some real wicked collapses too.

Then later of course the cumies develop better (but they still had an easterly drift which is not good for the LM), and I was thinking that I should have waited till 3pm.

I've got to remember to ignore the effects of the people on launch on my decisions, a mistake I think that all experienced pilots continue to make. Shouldn't fly La Malinche on SE days either.

I'll call it Soarable, but just barely.

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Thursday, Friday, Saturday, December 15th, 16th, 17th
Continued cool, cloudless, stable skies, except for Saturday when there was a little high cirrus, with stable skies. Andy got "rather high" over launch on Friday on his comp wing, but none of the 5 CDP pilots have been able to do any cross, not even to Tenancingo. Soarable, barely.

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Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, December 12th, 13th, 14th
Continuing relatively stable cool cloudless skies. Medium and longer flights for the CDP pilots on larger wings when they get up above the ridge lines into the stronger lift zones, and a few sled rides for me on a smaller wing when I drop immediately below the ridge line. Soarable.

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Sunday, December 11th
Conditions were gentle most of the day, only building to moderate strength around 3pm. Soarable for those who got well above the ridgelines, and a struggle for those below the ridgelines. Of the pilots on comp wings it seemed 2/3rds on comp wings got high and long flights, and 1/3rd hit weak cycles and got too low, landing in the emergency LZ's at the base of launch.

Here are some photos from Andy.
Bridge nearing Ixtapan, photo Andy

Tonali Estate, San Antonio, photo Andy
More pics by Andy
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2753037223564.2146664.1186650450&type=1&l=4bddbb57c9

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Saturday, December 10th
Conditions were not as strong as I hoped yesterday and there was no cloud formation even in the afternoon. Skies were clear blue and relatively stable. Soarable, with a little effort, and luck.

Not very many pilots showed up this Saturday compared to prior years, but top Mexican pilot Shaq of Mexico City, and Leonardo of Valle de Bravo were here, along with Peter, Andrew, and Andy of Casa del Piloto, and also Joel was here, and hope I'm not forgetting anyone else.

Leonardo launched first and got up to around 500 meters over launch, but he had to work for it. Shaq launched at some point, don't remember when. Later Andy (paraplegic) was launched by the uniformed Tenancingo fire department ;)

I launched with Perla of Tenancingo around 1:30pm, and we flew for some 10 minutes, but the thermals were just a little too light, and we had to put down in don Pablo's emergency LZ.

I made it back up to launch by 3pm and I flew with Favian of Tenancingo, but that turned out to be a short sled ride and we ended up landing next to Andrew at the Cabañas LZ.

I hiked out with Andrew and then with the help of a taxi driver and some GPS coordinates we tracked down where Andy had put down and had been waiting for several hours.

Here is a photo by Andy of the Ixtapan de la Sal water park and country club.
According to Andy, he had followed Shaq and Leonardo in crossing the San Jeronimo Valley towards the other ridge line and Ixtapan de la Sal further to the west.

Here is a photo by Andy of crossing the San Jeronimo Valley to Ixtapan.
But Shaq and Leonardo did not make the whole crossing and Andy did, arriving at Ixtapan, but then he crossed the valley back to Tenancingo landing in San Antonio.

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Friday, December 9th
Skies were clear blue but with just the tips of high altitude cumies forming around 11am, then disappearing and then reappearing around 3pm.

Daniel Pedraza drove us up to launch, Peter, Andrew, and Andy. We got to launch around noon, and Daniel also had a work crew of the local kids, and we did some prep work at launch for the event tomorrow, while we waited for some clouds to form. Finally by 1:30 the cumies I wanted still were not forming, but cycles were strong at times, and dead at others. I decided to sacrifice myself as wind dummy.

I hit no lift after launching, until getting real low by the far end of the western hook, just minutes from landing, where I caught a small diameter thermal, and worked it up to the main La Malinche thermal and up to 2920 meters, about 700 meters over launch.

I got decent rowdy thermals over the city of Tenancingo, but rowdy thermals over a city scare me so I bugged out of there and landed at the Insurgentes Soccer Field for a 26 minute flight.

I found out later that the 3 CDP pilots flew and got real high and flew to Tenancingo, and Shaq (top Mexico pilot) showed up in the afternoon almost flew to Chalma, but returned to the Tenancingo Valley, and over the city of Tenancingo he attained a maximum altitude of 3700 meters (over 1 1/2 kilometers above the valley floor).

Strong XC conditions, but with blue skies around midday, and nice high cumie marker clouds in the afternoon.

Tomorrow and Sunday for the La Malinche event it looks good, with a little more cloud activity than today.

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Thursday, December 8th
Skies were clear blue with nicely defined cumies and streets at midday, when it looked best. I hooked up with Daniel Pedraza and we both flew, a little late.

I launched at 2:54pm, the house thermals were a little weak, but still working. Best of all there were small high cumies to mark where the lift was.

I got my highest lift over the city of Tenancingo of 2829 meters, and landed at the Insurgentes Soccer Field at 3:37pm for a 41 minute flight.

Daniel P struggled in up and down conditions but lost it when he got a little low on the San Antonio side and landed over there.

Good XC and tandem conditions, although a little weak in the late afternoon.

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Wednesday, December 7th
Blue skies with small mid-level cumies and streets around midday.

Daniel Pedraza reports that Marco and some others flew from La Malinche to Malinalco this day. Good XC or better Tandem Conditions.

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Tuesday, December 6th
Slightly hazy skies, with cumies and cloud streets for the first time in several weeks!! I did not fly today and don't know if it was good XC conditions, but will call it soarable, and hopefully it shows a trend towards some good XC conditions now after several weeks of rather weak stable air with no cumies.

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Monday, December 5th
Clear skies with no clouds, but mild thermal conditions for soaring.
I flew a short tandem flight going to the right along the ridge-line, got a single moderate thermal up to moderate altitude, but the other nearby house thermals were not working, so we soon had to put down in don Pablo's field.

Of course to myself, as jaded as I am with my own site, and for sure for the passenger, any flight is a spectacular experience, so here I edited together parts from today and yesterday with the same passenger.

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Sunday, December 4th
Clear skies with no clouds, but moderate thermal conditions for soaring and tandem flying.
The CDP pilots were at Valle de Bravo. Daniel Pedraza drove myself and a passenger up for a tandem flight. We launched at 1:55pm into moderate thermals and soon got up to 600 meters over launch. Within easy reach of all the Tenancingo Valley. I chose to try flying to the south towards the antennas, (and a possible jump to Malinalco), but got low, and did not catch anything substantial in the way of lift on the return, so we had to put down in the Cabañas LZ at 2:25, for a 30 minute flight.

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Saturday, December 3rd
Clear skies with no clouds, but probable moderate to strong thermal conditions for soaring and tandem flying.
The CDP pilots were at Iguala

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Friday, December 2nd
Clear skies with no clouds, but probable moderate to strong thermal conditions for soaring and tandem flying.
The CDP pilots went to Ixtapan in the afternoon, but did not fly (Ixtapan is generally not a good afternoon site.)

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Thursday, December 1st
The CDP pilots went to Ixtapan de la Sal in the afternoon. I'll find out later how they did.
It looked like powerful XC soaring or tandem conditions, with a cold night, warm day and clear blue skies, but just lacked any cloud formations to mark thermals and moderate conditions.

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November 27th

2011-11-28T07:51:00.000-08:00

So all polish pilots have arrived and today we decided to go and have a look at the town as it was market day. we cruised through the stands and enjoyed all the colours and fresh fruits, vegetables and of course we stopped at my favourite place to have Obisbo!
The weather was a bit overcast but burning up at about 1:30. So we met up with Daniel and Daniel. By now it was just after 2:00pm we left to show the pilots the Launch at La Malinche and the possible landing fields.

By now we were a bit late and the system started to shut down, most of the 6 pilots got ready anyway just to get into the flying mexico rhythm. There was not much happening and most landed down below in St Antonio. One of the pilots , Witek, got up 800m above launch but choose to fly south and lost right away as there was not much left. At least they had a flight and are now ready for tomorrow.

November 21

2011-11-21T19:29:00.000-08:00

Arrived in Tenancingo on November 20th. It is nice to be home in my place. After going though the house to familiarize myself again with everything, Daniel Miller showed up at the door. I wasn't quite ready to go flying but what the heck, the weather was calling for a flight. After scrambling to get ready and a catch up session, we took off to La Malinche. Once we arrived at launch I was pleasantly surprised with all the changes. Boy Daniel Pedraza has done a great job in creating a world competition launch site. And he is still working on it. He even build a Cabaña for BBQ's and gatherings.
So needless to say, it was great conditions not to waste time to get into the air. Daniel launched first and I was about 10 minutes behind. Ok... just to let you know, if this blog sound funny at any time, I am into the tequila...
anyway, we are cruising along the house thermals up and the ridge. Daniel is up then me, back and forth we go. you need about 300m above launch to cross over to Tenancingo. well finally I caught a thermal that takes me to about 600m above launch. I look where Daniel is and he was scraping the bottom. I decided not to wait and go. once I had crossed over I got up and down 200m lift and sink. but I stayed up. So I decided to bump around Tenancigo and do a little sight seeing tour. Since I had only some Breakfast, my tummy started to feel a little funny. And no it wasn't the tequila the night before. so I decided to land. But I have to tell you, the landing field was not the same that we advertise. They have bulldozed the original field and now they have a market on it plus the was a circus in town at the same spot. so I landed in the next closest soccer filed. Well, that is about it for today... I had a great flight! Common Down!!!!!!!!

Daniel Miller Weather Blog, November 2011

2011-11-02T18:09:00.000-07:00

November 2011 Summary
Days of possible Good XC or better Tandem Conditions from La Malinche – 8 days
Days of possible Soarable Conditions from La Malinche, including the above XC days. – 28 days
Non-Soarable days from La Malinche – 3 days
(Once in a while I might mark a single day as both Soarable and Non-Soarable, like when part of the afternoon is soarable, and the other part is not.)

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Wednesday, November 30th
Most of the CDP pilots went up to launch at 10:30, which is always too early, and many had their sled-rides for the day by the time I showed up at launch around 1:30pm. There was one pilot, Robert I think his name, and Bernie who waited like me for more developed conditions. There was Andy and another still up and struggling in the ratty early thermals when I arrived. Finally when I started to see some of the house-thermals down the west facing ridge turn on, myself and Bernie launched.

I launched at 2:09 and shot up straight like a rocket into the house thermal. The plan was to fly to Santo Desierto and then to Malinalco, but we all continued to hit a barrier getting to the Antennas. I gave up and turned back and worked the main La Malinche house thermal up to my highest altitude of this season so far, about 3100 meters, but the batteries on my GPS failed, and my camera memory was almost full so that failed me too.

By the time I was at 3100 meters the gaggle of about 4 pilots finally had taken the antennas of Snto. Desierto, and were gaining major altitude there. I crossed the Tenancingo Valley to the east, but did not find the thermal I needed to cross to the Malinalco Valley, although the western Tenancingo Valley was generally buoyant. I landed at the Casurinas LZ at the east end of the valley for a 41 minute flight.

It was difficult to cross to Mali today, but Andy did best, landing in San Nicholas, north of Malinalco. Bernie made a daring landing in the badlands because he could not make it to more lift and the Malinalco valley, and landed on a narrow road on the side of a hill, and Robert was with him, but opted to jump into the sink zone that leads to the eastern Tenancingo Valley but great landing zones.

Definitely soarable with strong thermals in the afternoon, but lacking any cumies to mark the thermal locations and the XC routes.

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Tuesday, November 29th
Skies were clearer. We had a cold night and morning and it just started to warm up by noon. There were no clouds in the region.

Half the Casa group went up to LM by taxi around 11, and I showed up at Casa later, where Peter, Bernie, and Andy were waiting for Daniel to show up, and for my part I was shooting for about 2pm as the best hour. The four of us arrived at launch, one of the previous group had not launched yet and the others already flew to the Tenancingo Valley and beyond.

It looked good so I set up and launched at 2:01pm, and shot up like a rocket. In 9 minutes I was 727 meters over launch and headed over the back towards Tenancingo. There was a light easterly wind over the Tenancingo Valley, and there was a lot of emergency helicopter activity going on because of a visit from the governor and an unrelated bus crash, so I chose to land at the Insurgentes soccer field, at 2:20 for a 19 minute flight, and I waited there and the five others of the group eventually landed there. The owner provided beer and refreshments to the pilots and invited us to land there more.

Conditions were excellent for soaring and tandem flying, with strong thermals of good form, though we lacked cloud streets, and a few pilots who tried to fly to the north hit a barrier, plus flying to the east would not have been easy. Flying in the direction of El Piñon might have been the best XC call for this day.

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Monday, November 28th
Daniel Pedraza drove us 9 pilots up to launch around noon, including Andy, who is a champion paraplegic pilot.

On launch skies were hazy with a little cumie formation. Conditions were pretty dead when we arrived, but after a half hour a few encouraging cycles entered. I launched first on my small wing, struggled in very weak lift to the west of launch, after a few minutes tried the cliffs to the east of launch, and lost it completely and landed downwind kind of hard in the rock-field of the Cabañas LZ.

Meanwhile, some of the other pilots soared some on larger wings, and two got high enough to fly into the Tenancingo Valley, including Andy. I hiked back up for another try, but it was the shortest flight I have ever had, back to the Cabañas.
Soarable, just barely.

Here is a good video to illustrate the need for good ankle support in flying shoes or boots.

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Sunday, November 27th,
It was rainy and drizzly all morning, but the now larger CDP group of pilots headed out with a break in the clouds in the late afternoon, to see launch for the first time at least. I did not want to risk a sled ride when I had something more practical to do, to buy a few kilos of potatoes...

Here is Bernie's account-
"By now we were a bit late and the system started to shut down, most of the 6 pilots got ready anyway just to get into the flying mexico rhythm. There was not much happening and most landed down below in St Antonio. One of the pilots , Witek, got up 800m above launch but choose to fly south and lost right away as there was not much left. At least they had a flight and are now ready for tomorrow."

Peter landed in the brush on his first flight of a new wing. He would have to tell that story himself. Don't let yourself get low in front of LM I recommend.
Sounded soarable late in the afternoon, barely.

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Saturday, November 26th,
Iit was raining and drizzeling until late afternoon. We all went to visit Gerardo in Ixtapan de La Sal, who is recovering from a brused disk in his lower spinal column, from an accident a few days earlier when one of his lines clipped a tree on landing. It was also day two of the annual 3-day Ixtpan de La Sal free-flight event, and as far as we know, almost no one flew, except when we were leaving late in the afternoon, a crew of police and pilots were headed out to rescue one pilot who did fly, and was stuck in a tree. Not soarable, probably not even for the guy who got stuck in a tree.

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Friday, November 25th
Bernie said he was going to wait at CDP for an arriving pilot today, and that pilot arrived early in the afternoon but I did not get Bernies call so I stayed at my home and did domestic stuff today.

But it sounds like both Bernard and the new arrival had good flights into the Tenancingo Valley, the visitor flying to somewhere north of Tenancingo. Peter Peru arrived later.

Sounds like it was definitely soarable, and hopefully conditions are improving over the last 4-5 days.

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Thursday, November 24th
Today looked perhaps a little better by the cumies and streets that were forming mid-day, probably because of the heavy rain that fell last night. Better perhaps based on my theory that at this moment a little rain will help break the stable air of the last few days, rather than make it more stable, which you can't really because almost dead air is pretty dead. Anyhow the cumies faded to blue sky in the late afternoon, so the late afternoon was probably pretty dead.

Bernie and I hiked up to La Malinche around noon. Winds were from the south light to medium. I launched and flew directly to the right where I usually catch my first thermal, but it was too weak, and I continued to fly to the right down the ridge to the west. All the house thermals were there in their places but they were all a little too weak, to make up for the sink, plus with me on a small wing, and I landed at don Pablo's emergency LZ for an about 15 minute flight.

Bernie wisely waited some and immediately flew to the left where he caught the base of the main house "Matlalcueye" thermal, and with his great skill and a slightly lighter wing loading, thermaled up over the 2500 meter level, flew into Tenancingo and caught the Cristo Rey thermal, and landed at the Guadalupe Victoria Soccer Field. Way to go Bernie!

Guess I call it as soarable with cloud streets, but barely. Although I suspect that it might not soarable in the afternoon, even with ridge-lift.

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Wednesday, November 23rd
Today looked like a repeat of stable blue skies so we took the microbus to the Malinalco site, El Picacho. There were strong cumies developing about a mile to the north, but both of us got rather short flights in weak air, just like the last few days at La Malinche. Guess I'll call it soarable for Mali, barely, and probably the same for L.M..

But it was very beautiful. I wish I had my GoPro in video mode when I launched because I grazed a whole bunch of field animals and field hands as I hugged the hillside in weak air just after launching. On a small fast wing my flight was very short.

Bernie had a 15 or 20 minute flight working some real small thermals on his bigger wing, and came in with dead wind and I doubt if he was more than 6 inches off from a perfect target, a small margin of unplanted land on the edge of a field of sweet peas. 3 meters too far and he would have been in a really ugly sharp boulder patch ;)

We've got some rain late tonight, so it will be interesting to see if that breaks this stable air cycle. Not sure about tomorrow, maybe, but at the moment between noon and one the day after tomorrow looks promising.

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Tuesday, November 22nd
Bernie and I took the taxi and hiked up to LM. Skies were blue, no clouds, a little haze, temps were warm. It was entering very lightly at launch from the south, although windguru had predicted considerably stronger conditions for 2:30pm.

I launched first, flew to the right and sunk out insanely fast. Just before getting to the emergency LZ at the head of don Pablo's field, I caught the tiniest bird-thermal, did the tightest circles that I could, and managed to slowly climb back up. Meanwhile Bernie launched and sunk out like crazy and landed in the same field that I almost landed in.

For me it was just a little up and a whole lot of down, using all the skill I could muster to just rise up a little, and just outside the very few tiny thermals I found, there was very heavy sink everywhere. I managed to get up finally just a little above the ridgeline and worked my way over to the cliffs to the left of launch, and it was the same story there, fighting like crazy in the the weakest lift, surrounded by heavy sink, and finally put down in the Cabañas emergency LZ for a 44 minute flight.

Even though I was able to fly for 44 minutes, that was VERY difficult, and I am calling this day not soarable. It really sucked, like some days in the middle of the rainy season, although at first glance everything looked good for soaring. (but don't get me wrong, I actually really enjoyed the challenge) I guess it was a problem with the lapse-rate.

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Monday, November 21st
I met up with Bernie at CDP around noonish. It was great to see him and it felt like just yesterday since we had met, although it has been something like 4 years. Daniel Pedraza was out of town on business so we went up to launch with the Acatzingo taxi and hiked.

Skies were generally clear blue, with just a few small but high cumies popping off of Santo Desierto. I launched first at 1:38pm, and Bernie soon after. The thermals were strong but ratty, surrounded by very heavy sink, and did not have duration of more than one minute in general. It was up and down, and a down cycle eventually flushed me down to the Cabañas emergency LZ, where I caught a tight thermal and was going up for one minute more, and then hit a heavy down cycle and got flushed back to the Cabañas, at 2:13, for a 45 minute flight.

In the meanwhile Bernie got a better thermal with the minimum altitude to jump to Tenancingo, and flew into the Tenancingo Valley. He later said how the thermals were better on the Tenancingo side. We noticed how upper level winds were from the north, while lower level winds were from the south, and that sort of seemed to be part of the explanation of why thermals were broken up and why cumies could not form. In the LZ's on both sides, winds were switching, gusty then calm, and unpredictable.
It was soarable, but not a good day for cross-country flying.

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Sunday, November 20th
Not sure, but I think that the skies lacked the cloud streets for me to call it a good XC day, but it probably was a good day for soaring from LM.

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Saturday, November 19th
The skies looked like they had potential. My original plan was to hike up to launch at noon, but Daniel P. asked me to wait till 2. I called around 1 to tell him that it was over developing some and better if we left early, but he said he had work to do and that I should go alone.

I hiked up alone. There had been a somewhat OD cycle around 12 or 1, and now skies were kind of clearer, but there were not the strong thermals that might have existed earlier.

I launched at 2:40. The thermals were sort of difficult and ratty and away from the ridge line. My maximum altitude was 2834 while well back behind the ridge, and en route to Tenancingo. I landed at 3:15 at Insurgentes for a 35 minute flight.

Insurgentes is mostly recently bulldozed in dirt, with some natural grass towards the edges, where I landed. Looks like the Causerinas is a nicer place to land this year.

I think it might have been better conditions earlier on, but I did not hit them, and the past couple days were not optimal XC days either, so I will call this one as simply, Soarable.

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Friday, November 18th
Contrary to what windguru predicted, we had skies overcast with high cirrus. Its the first time in maybe a month or two that windguru has been flat-out wrong concerning the clouds.
I think that it was probably barely soarable with weak to medium thermal conditions.

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Thursday, November 17th
As far as the blue skies with developments of cloud-streets it looked excellent, but there were rather strong winds from the east, which would indicate some problems with dangerous rotor at La Malinche if one were to fly to the left of launch, and tricky conditions to the right, but the possiblity of still great XC conditions if one were to rise up to 200 meters above launch, and choose a westerly course out across the San Jeronimo Valley.

Summary, initially tricky but possibly good XC conditions for an experienced pilot at L.M. flying to the west, but possibly a better day for the nearby SE facing San Simon launch if it were a question of tandem flights.

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Wednesday, November 16th
I hiked up to L.M. with Daniel Pedraza and flew alone while he worked on the road up to launch.

Skies were mostly clear blue with just a few far apart high level cumies showing up. I launched at 1:20, worked my way up the main house thermal with a group of 3 eagles to 500 meters above launch, where I bailed out towards Ixpuichiapan, caught another thermal at the east end, and worked my way over to the Tenancingo side, where thermals got better and I hooked up with maybe the same eagles again. There was strong and rather rowdy lift over the city of Tenancingo. I got up to 2974 meters over Cristo Rey, but I was getting some heavy collapses even on my stable small DHV1 wing, and the thought of having to throw my reserve over the city spooked me, so I headed to the east over the countryside, and eventually landed at the Causerinas mowed grass field, at 2:06, for a 46 minute flight.

It was definitely soarable and with good tandem conditions, but in my opinion lacked the cloud-streets for me to call it a really good XC day.

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Tuesday, November 15th
It looked like another great XC and good Tandem potential day.

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Monday, November 14th
It looked like another great XC and good Tandem potential day.

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Sunday, November 13th
I met up with Daniel Pedraza at his home at midday. We had not heard of any pilots coming to LM to fly today, but headed up, me with my wing, and Daniel with a big tank of water and a weed whacker to tend the grass lawn on launch.

Skies were blue with lots of smallish medium altitude cumies to mark the lift. I launched at 1:27 into good thermic conditions. It was no problem to get up to 500 meters over the ridge-line and maintain or gain on that altitude. I flew down to the antennas of the Santo Desierto national forest. At that point, to follow the cloud street and the lift would have taken me over some 6 or 8 kilometers of "badlands", where there are no apparent decent emergency landing fields. Only a few pilots have made this easterly crossing, which is the most direct and obvious route if flying to the east from La Malinche with Cuerna Vaca or Puebla as a goal.

I had 3352 meters of altitude, over a kilometer over the terrain, and probably could have done the easterly crossing under the cloud street, but I did not feel like attempting it alone. Flying to the NE to Malinalco seemed not good because even with 1km altitude above the ground, the 8km gap of badlands to get to Mali would have fallen in a sink zone between the next cloud street, which was about 10km to the north.

I chose to fly to the north, over the Santo Desierto forest triangle, into the zone where there is almost always heavy sink, and today proved no exception, which placed me as dropping out of the air in the Eastern Tenancingo Valley, where I landed at Las Causerinas recreational park, at 2:03 for a 35 minute flight, (marked as field A in the diagram from a few days ago). It was a good day for XC or tandems in general. If another pilot had been with me maybe I would have crossed the gap and flown to Chalma.

Here is a photo of coming in on final at Las Causerinas. I have never found a rotor problem with the tall pines around this field. Maybe enough wind passes through that they don't make rotor. It is a great landing field for a visiting pilot because the store with refreshments is always open. The owners and staff are friendly but leave you alone, and are there to help if you need it. It is a comfortable hangout place for people on the ground, and the taxis and buses pass constantly on the highway, and cost only 4-6 pesos to Tenancingo.

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Saturday, November 12th
It looked like it might OD this afternoon so I stayed in the shop and did more grunt work today but it looked from the ground like another good XC day, with cumies all over the place to mark thermals, but enough blue sky to power the lift. Tomorrow looks like a great forecast however, albeit perhaps very strong.

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Friday, November 11th
We had heavy rain the night before and it was cold and cloudy in the morning. The afternoon cleared up with rather a lot of cumies in blue skies. I imagine that it may have been soarable within a narrow time window, but not strong.

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Thursday, November 10th
Kind of like the prior days by with more nubies early on and over-development and socked-in skies by early afternoon. It was probably soarable early on, with possibly dramatic lift and cloud-suck. It would have been a good day for a tandem flight at 12:30pm at launch, but too narrow a time window for good XC, possibly.

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Wednesday, November 9th
A repeat of yesterday with excellent XC and potential great tandem conditions. The French pilots flew, some of them flying into the Tenancingo Valley, and some staying in front of launch. They left for Valle this afternoon.

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Tuesday, November 8th
Skies were blue with a little haze and nicely formed cumies and cloud-streets. I hiked up to LM at noon. Daniel P and the French pilots were there but perhaps were concerned that conditions were too strong. It looked to me to be a little strong, but not too strong for an advanced pilot. My stated purpose was to play wind-dummy for them, and fly back to my shop in the Tenancingo Valley, because I had a lot of work to do.

I launched at 12:58 and shot straight up like a rocket. In 60 seconds, by the time I started to make my first rotation, I was already 121 meters over launch.

By 1:09, 11 minutes into the flight I was at 2970 meters, 700 meters over launch, nearing cloud-base, and already drifting north towards Tenancingo.

There was excellent cross-country potential, with cumies marking lift for the easterly route over Santo Desierto, and the northerly route east over San Simone, and pretty much any other direction an XC pilot might want to fly as well. I could have gone for a longer flight in theory, but not only did I have work to do down on the ground, but honestly the “big air” in this region sometimes scares the $#!+ out of me, despite the fact that my small DHV1 wing is so stable and flies so lovely, so I landed by my shop at 1:22 for a 24 minute flight.There was a lovely breed of swift that I have never seen before in these parts. They were grey and white with yellow accent marks. They seemed metallic, as if from some kind of computer animation. They were flying in groups of 10-20 near cloud-base about a kilometer above the ground.

The following image shows paraglider friendly landing fields in the Eastern Tenancingo Valley. All are next to the main highway with constant public transportation to downtown for 4-6 pesos.Field A) Is "Las Causerinas", a public entertainment and recreation facility, has mowed green lawns (3 manicured soccer fields), 2 large swimming pools, beer and refreshments, banquet and entertainment facilities for a thousand, etc. etc., and an open invitation to pilots to land by the owner, although I am the only person to ever have landed there, about 4 times now. No talk of landing fees. The owner refused 20 pesos last I offered. It is ringed by tall pine trees, which are not much of a problem given the size of the fields, and also the trees seem to lower wind velocity rather than create rotor so they are not to be feared.

Field B) is really big (6 soccer fields in size), clean, not used and easy to land in if you have any doubts about field A, and one block away from the main highway.

Field C) is really big (10 soccer fields in size), but not so clean, and one block from the highway and a local store with cold beer, refreshments, and a little of everything.

The French pilots flew later, some for Tenancingo, and some stayed in front of launch.

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Monday, November 7th

Skies were just a little hazy as compared to the last few weeks. But there was some cumie development and it was soarable.

I got a call from Daniel Pedraza around 4 about how a French pilot landed in Tenancingo, on a flight from Malinalco, and how a group of French pilots had arrived in Tenancingo to fly this afternoon and tomorrow.

I knew it was hopelessly late to fly La Malinche, but Pablo of Malinalco came too and we all headed up to launch, arriving when the sun was just setting. On my small wing it was a sled-ride. I went to the right because that was the ridge facing the wind, but there was not enough wind to stay up, and I did not have the altitude to land at the Cabañas with the other pilots, so I landed at the field by the highway, and at least I was already back in Tenancingo while they were still packing up and waiting for a ride in the dark. I saw that about 4 of the French pilots were able to make some passes by the ridge-line before sinking out too.

See the video from October 8th where I show myself landing at that field by the highway for reference, in case you ever decide to fly La Malinche and sink out in front of the ridge-line.

The thing is, at the corner of that particular field is a small log footbridge that crosses a canal. The other similar fields do not have the foot bridge, so even if you land in a field nearby you will still have to cross this field on foot if you want to get to the highway, which is on just the other side of the canal, without walking a kilometer up the road.

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Sunday, November 6th
I rode up to La Malinche with Daniel P and Favio of Mali. It was mid-afternoon and windguru showed that it would already be over-developed by this hour, but in fact it was fairly pleasant flying at LM, but indeed ODed some 10 miles to the north with big anvil-head cu-nimbs. It was blowing in a little strong at launch, cause for concern because of the activity to the north, but it was within my wind velocity range.

I launched at 2:30pm. The lift was a little broken and difficult to work down low, but improved with altitude. I left the LM area when I had about 500 meters altitude above launch, and still some hundred meters from cloud-base, but the clouds were too small in the LM area. I flew towards Tenancingo where the lift improved under more developed cumies and got up to near cloud base, at 2904 meters ASL maximum.

To the north it was OD'd and there was building risk, so I opted for the safest and easiest option, I left the cloud area over Tenancingo altogether and flew through sinky air to a convenient field next to where I live in the eastern Tenancingo Valley, and landed for a 36 minute flight.

Favio stayed in the LM area and landed on the San Antonio side.

There was good soaring today IMO, but I think that the lay-out of the cloud formations precluded safe XC options.

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Saturday, November 5th
I hiked up to La Malinche but it was already over-developed to the north and raining over Villa Guerrero and Tecomatlan. It was blowing down at launch. I hung around an half hour but it did not look like it was going to change for the afternoon.

I suspect that it was very soarable earlier, like around noon, but the afternoon was not soarable at La Malinche.

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Friday, November 4th
Blue skies with just the right kind of cumie cloud-streets. Good XC and tandem conditions it looked like.
The best time to be in the air for serious flying looked like from around 2pm to 4pm.

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Thursday, November 3rd
It looked very soarable today. Blue skies with just a few small cumies.

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Wednesday, November 2nd
It looked soarable with generally clear blue skies, just a few small cumies, but with an easterly wind.

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Tuesday, November 1st
It looked soarable with generally clear blue skies, just a few small cumies, but with an easterly wind.

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Daniel Miller Weather Blog, October 2011

2011-10-01T06:58:00.000-07:00

October 2011 Summary
Days of possible Good XC or better Tandem Conditions from La Malinche – 0 days
Days of possible Soarable Conditions from La Malinche, including the above XC days. – 23 days
Non-Soarable days from La Malinche – 8 days
(Once in a while I might mark a single day as both Soarable and Non-Soarable, like when part of the afternoon is soarable, and the other part is not.)

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Monday, October 31st
I think it was soarable at La Malinche today, despite some gusts from the north in the morning.

Oh, and here is some interesting information that may be of interest to my friends living in the Seattle/Vancouver area. http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1688990/pg1

(In Tenancingo one can survive on $50 a week, or live comfortably on $100 per week, or very comfortably on $150 per week, although that figure might not include buying paragliding equipment. On that amount most of my friends in Seattle/Vancouver could retire for life here now, and never have to work again.)

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Sunday, October 30th
Daniel Pedraza and I drove 20 minutes to nearby San Simone El Alto to visit Despegue Bistro, the new SE facing launch site in the Malinalco Valley. It is the vision of owners and tandem pilots Pablo and Roberto to not only offer paragliding rides, but by some miracle, they have placed a cargo container converted into a gourmet kitchen, in the location which is only accessible by several hundred meters of foot-trails.

We were 7 pilots, and Pablo and his wife Blanca prepared us a delicious bacon and eggs breakfast with all the extras. Conditions were still light. After breakfast Pablo launched first and managed to make it around to top-land, and start cooking an afternoon meal, while the rest of us launched and struggled in the weak lift that not even the birds could get very high in, and landed shortly afterwards in one of the many open fields by the highway below, where Roberto came to pick us up for a ride back up for an afternoon supper and more flights.

I just flew once. I launched at 12:58pm, at 2415 meters asl. I landed at 1:05pm at 2035 meters asl. And skipped out on the food and flight, but I am sure that at least the food was excellent. It looked like he was cooking some kind of meat with lots of apples. =)

I think the region needs perhaps another week to dry out before real thermals start to kick in. Despegue Bistro appears to offer a good option when conditions are SE and generally thermic, or as a morning flying site, but possibly not a late afternoon site, when it is in the shadow. It appears to be the best located site, and has been reported to be, the best place to launch if one wishes to fly to the south over the city of Malinalco, and then to the west towards La Malinche, or to the east and Chalma/Cuerna Vaca. This site should start working a few hours before La Malinche turns on, in general, and is located on a well-flown series of east-facing cliffy 400mt hilltops.

(Google Despegue Bistro for more details)
I suspect that it was soarable at La Malinche in the afternoon.
I think the region needs perhaps another week to dry out before real thermals start to kick in.

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Saturday, October 29th
Pablo of Despegue Bistro, the new SE facing launch in the Malinalco valley, came to visit L.M.. "Jano" also came and drove us along with Daniel Pedraza up to launch in his new monster 4x4. The truck made it up the road easily.

Just like the last week, it was cold at night, clear blue skies all day, warm sun but cool temps, with just a little medium level cumie action in the afternoon. I launched first at 1:30pm, as wind dummy, and worked some really weak small thermals to the right, and then tried the left of launch by the cliffs and hit sink. The next five or so minutes I struggled to work weak lift down the western ridgeline, and then landed at the emergency LZ above don Pablo's field.

Some ten minutes after I launched, Daniel Pedraza launched, and then Pablo on tandem with a passenger. They both had similar flights as mine of about 15 minutes. Pablo and passenger landed in the same emergency lz as me, and Daniel Pedraza tried the cliffs to the left and immediately sunk out to the Cabañas LZ.

There were no taxis, as usual, on the road from the "don Pablo" LZ that Pablo and I used, so we had to walk with packs for kilometers to get to the main highway.

Soaring conditions might have been just a little better just a little later in the afternoon, and Alfredo called me while I was returning to let me know that he was headed up to launch, but my back is more limited from past injuries so I opted out of the more hiking with packs that would be required for another flight, for a mediocre flight at best. I heard the next day that Alfredo soared along the ridge line considerably longer than our flights. Conditions are still barely soarable. Maybe with another week for things to dry out, it will get better.

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Friday, October 28th
Like the prior days we had a cold clear night, but day time temps were higher, and there were signs of stronger thermal development, a little medium altitude thermal induced cumie development, and perhaps tempered by just a few cirrus streaks in the mid afternoon.
It looked like a stronger day for soaring today, than the previous days this week.

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Thursday, October 27th
Like prior days with relatively dry clear blue skies, just a couple of cumies kicking off in the Tenancingo Valley in the late afternoon. Winds supposedly were from the S - SW this afternoon and things can get blown out easier from that direction at La Malinche, so I would guess soarable but maybe blown out around mid-afternoon. Things are drying out so thermal forces should be building a little each of these days.

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Wednesday, October 26th
Something like the day before, probably soarable.

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Tuesday, October 25th
It was very cold the night before and all morning, and even the afternoon was chilly. Skies were clear blue and very clean smelling like mountain air, and it was sunny. I hiked up to La Malinche alone, and launched at 2:49. The thermals were to the right of launch, as if easterly conditions. The thermals were mild, very small diameter, and did not go too high. My highest altitude was about 500 meters over launch when I flew over the back, found temporary light lift at the east end of Ixpuichiapan hill, and landed in the cow pastures down below for a 35 minute flight.

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Monday, October 24th
Clear blue skies, no clouds. There was a slight north upper flow, but was probably blowing in at La Malinche making it mildly soarable.

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Sunday, October 23rd
Winds from the north once again, but light enough that it was probably soarable at La Malinche, but with weak thermals in a blue sky, so maybe not the easiest conditions.

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Saturday, October 22nd
Winds were from the north. A group came down from Valle but didn't fly. Not flyable at La Malinche.

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Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, October 19th, 20th, 21st
Probably soarable from La Malinche, but less than optimal with light east winds.

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Tuesday, October 18th
High winds, looked not soarable.

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Monday, October 17th
It looked soarable.

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Sunday, October 16th
I hiked up to launch with Daniel P. and Alfredo around 1pm. The skies were all clear blue in the area of launch, and the wind was entering a little strong, from the south-east. I launched first. The thermals were broken and not easy to center. Alfredo launched some ten to 15 minutes later and after scratching for a few minutes flew over the back with less than optimal altitude, and landed outside of town by the highway that goes past Tepotzingo.

I stuck around and kept working it till I got a thermal up to about 2800 meters, when I flew over the back into Tenancingo, got no thermal activity along the way, except a few weak ones near the Insurgentes LZ, where I landed for an about 40 minute flight. It was soarable.

---------------------
Saturday, October 15th
I hiked up to launch alone in the afternoon, and enjoyed La Malinche in total solitude. The pilot from yesterday was just here for one day. Today there was less cloud-cover than Friday, and a little more blue sky.

I launched and tried all areas up and down the ridge-line for about 45 minutes, and down to the antennas where there was rotor and headwind, and never found a thermal that went high enough to get me out of the area, whether to Malinalco, which was my original intent, or simply to Tenancingo.

But finally back at the ancient Acatzingo fortress hilltop, two of the local eagles came along, got real close to me, and showed me exactly how to circle a certain thermal. When I achieved the altitude for Tenancingo they took off and I continued to thermal a few hundred meters higher, to a maximum of 2781 meters, where I crossed over the back, and landed at Insurgentes which is chest high in wildflowers, for an hour nine minute flight.

Conditions were definitely soarable, but the countryside is still too damp to generate stronger thermals for good XC conditions.

---------------------
Friday, October 14th
A "European" pilot from Luxumborg (and also from a bunch of other places) named G. came to visit. The 1pm forecast in the morning was for north winds, but by 11am it changed to an east forecast at 1, and then up at launch at 1pm, and at higher altitudes, it seemed to be more of a southerly flow. (go figure...)

I launched first around 1pm. Lift was decent up to a low cloud-base of around 2450 meters. G. launched later on his late model Ozone competition-class wing. The last I saw him he was in a thermal near the Cama del Rey, and I was sinking out for a landing by the highway. My flight was a little over a half an hour long.

Daniel Pedraza called me later to tell me that G. flew down to the antennas, crossed the valley to Ixtapan de La Sal, and came back up the middle of the San Geronimo Valley, crossed over to the Tenacingo Valley, and landed in Tenancingo. A pretty good flight for early in the season with a low cloud-base and over developed skies, even if he was flying on the latest technology!

Soarable, and I won't go so far as to call it "good XC", even though G. did do a very good XC flight.

---------------------
Thursday, October 13th
Mostly cloudy with lightly adverse winds. Could have been soarable just around midday though.

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Wednesday, October 12th
Cloudy and rainy all day long. Not soarable.

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Tuesday, October 11th
Cloudy and rainy all day long. Not soarable.

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Monday, October 10th
Overcast and rainy all day long. Not soarable.

---------------------
Sunday, October 9th
It was already over developing by midday and winds were east so I would have guessed not soarable, but Daniel at launch clearing brush and said that it looked soarable midday. In any case it did OD and rain by mid-afternoon.

---------------------
Saturday, October 8th
Alfredo and I hiked to launch. Skies were mostly clear and blue down below but by the time we got to launch the cumies were already developing rapidly. It was blowing in marginally strong. Alfredo opted to wait. I read the skies as there being a possible half hour to one hour flight window, with the necessity to keep options open to get out of the air quickly in the event of OD or storm activity.

I launched at 12:31pm in a lull cycle. In the air there were probably portals to cloud-suck and up to cloud-base, but flying alone with few clues I did not stumble on those lift zones. In general there was a strong south wind from hilltop level down, and SE from hill top level up, and lift was very strong but not easy to center, more like rotor turbulence bands than thermals.

My maximum altitude was around 300 meters above launch, and easy to maintain that altitude but not rise above it. I flew for 38 minutes while Alfredo watched but did not fly. I landed in a field that is of strategic importance for those who fly here, because it presents possibly the fastest turn around time to get back to Tenancingo, or back to launch. There are more details in the YouTube data.

It OD'd with sprinkles after I landed, but all out storm activity never transpired. Soarable.

---------------------
Friday, October 7th
Cloudy and overcast with mild north winds all day. Not soarable for La Malinche I would think.

Saturday and Sunday look to possibly have some (perhaps spectacular) soaring conditions around 1pm, maybe leading to rapid over-development and possible storm activity later.

How's that to hedge a prediction?

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Thursday, October 6th
Blue skies with nice cumies. Good soaring it looked like. Murphy had other plans for me.

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Wednesday, October 5th
Blue skies with nice cumies, and slightly NE upper winds, but probably not enough to matter at LM. Good soaring I suspect. Murphy's law did not allow me to fly this day, and neither on Thursday.

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Tuesday, October 4th
I decided not to fly today because windguru was predicting east winds, and the clouds did look slightly east, but I think that it probably turned out to be a good day for soaring in any case.

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Monday, October 3rd
Skies were clear blue with some nicely formed cumies and it was blowing in from the south at mid-day according to wind guru. I think that it was very soarable, and I was thinking of flying, but spoke with Daniel and decided to try it a different day this week. I think it is too early to call for good XC conditons, but it looked like the first good day of the new flying season.

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Sunday, October 2nd
Skies were generally overcast and it was blowing down from the north. Not flyable.

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Saturday, October 1st
Winds were from the north 7-10kmph according to windguru. Skies were were generally overcast at midday and over developed later on. Not soarable for La Malinche I would guess.

Daniel Miller Weather Blog, September 2011

2011-09-04T07:06:00.000-07:00

----------------
September 2011 Summary
Days of possible Good XC or better Tandem Conditions from La Malinche – days
Days of possible Soarable Conditions from La Malinche, including the above XC days. – 11days
Non-Soarable days from La Malinche – 19 days
(Once in a while I might mark a single day as both Soarable and Non-Soarable, like when part of the afternoon is soarable, and the other part is not.)

---------------------
Monday the 19th through Friday the 30th
I would guess that about half of these twelve days were soarable, and half were not. Although there was not much midday storm activity, the ground is still most, and most days were easterly and some northerly action too. However as you may know we had about a week of solar storm activities with rather higher radiation levels hitting the earth at times, and I stayed indoors more for that too. http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/alerts/warnings_timeline.html

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Saturday the 17th and Sunday the 18th
These days had generally clear blue skies with nice thermal induced cumies. There was an east wind, but it was not very strong, leading me to believe that La Malinche was soarable, but tricky with east winds and still moist soil.

---------------------
Monday the 12th through Friday the 16th
Monday generally had blue skies with small nicely formed cumies. Monday looked like good soaring potential. Tuesday and Wednesday looked possibly not flyable due to more overcast skies and easterly and northerly wind directions (but possibly still soarable). Thursday and Friday looked very good for soaring conditions. I hear that Hector in Ixtapan had a good flight on Thursday.

We had little precipitation these days, just a little at night on a few nights. I would be hesitant to call for good XC weather yet, since the area is still moist, but from the point of view from the ground we had some good days, and it looks like we are indeed leaving the rainy season. There is also the question of getting more southerly winds rather than easterly and northerly.

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Monday through Sunday, the 5th through the 11th
All days were non-flyable due to wind directions from the north and east. Thursday night was the first night of the season where the skies were clear, and it was cold. Also coinciding with the clear skies that night and the next day was a major solar storm. On Friday the skies were clear too, but winds were from the NE so it was not flyable for La Malinche. The solar storm cause power waves in the electrical system, and I could correspond that real-time on the web watching the solar wind. On Sunday, at the hour that the phase of the solar storm abated, the clouds came back again, and it rained later.

Aside from the solar activity, the locals marked Friday as the change in seasons, where things will gradually dry out and by late October and November the strong thermals and southerly wind direction should be back again. I expect a little more rain this month too.

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Thursday through Sunday, the 1st through 4th
All four days overcast, rainy and east all day and not flyable.

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The goddess Matlalcueye and La Malinche

2011-08-29T18:47:00.000-07:00

Directly adjacent to the La Malinche launch is the site of the pre-columbian hilltop fortress of Acatzingo, and the approx. 2 meter tall rock carving of the goddess of female water (as opposed to masculine water) Matlalcueye.

By coincidence, or not, this rock carving sits directly at the geographic center of the most common area house thermal, and of the location higher up where the other local house thermals join up together, to create one of the best lift situations in the entire region.

She is also the most known archeological symbol in the Tenancingo area. Up until now many have felt that a good quality reproduction of the goddess has not been produced. As a career artist in bronze and copper I took it upon myself to produce my interpretive representation of the Matlalcueye of La Malinche, Tenancingo.

The original idea and impetus to produce this statuette was as a trophy for the paragliding event which Daniel Pedraza holds at La Malinche every December. This year Daniel Pedraza's event will become the XAztecas event organized by Peter Peru, so I don't know yet if Peter will have any use for my little ol' statue of the goddess of the house-thermal for his international event, but I am ready to produce a few more if they are desired.

In the mean time a fan of my art in Washington DC ordered one, so that got the product finished at this time, and maybe some locals will buy one or two of these art objects.

Since the original is a simple line drawing, and my plan was to produce her more in 3 dimensions, I had to make a number of interpretations concerning the aspects such as the clothing, the head-dress, (and the exposed vagina, which some embarrassed locals said was added later, but the experts say it is original, because that is where the "feminine water" comes from). I consulted with some local archeologists, and some of the local "shamans" with academic knowledge of the ancient Aztec culture before finalizing the details of the original model.

Here is the web page with more information about this statuette.

http://www.sumocobre.com/Matlalcueye.html

Daniel Miller Weather Blog, August 2011

2011-08-06T13:14:00.000-07:00

August 2011 Summary
Days of possible Good XC or better Tandem Conditions from La Malinche – days
Days of possible Soarable Conditions from La Malinche, including the above XC days. – 15 days
Non-Soarable days from La Malinche – 16 days
(Once in a while I might mark a single day as both Soarable and Non-Soarable, like when part of the afternoon is soarable, and the other part is not.)

----------------
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, August 29th, 30th, 31st
Monday was possibly soarable with blue skies and cumies around midday, but difficult with SE winds.

On Tuesday some Mexican government workers came from Mexico City and Valle de Bravo to meet with the Mayor and Juan Estevez to discuss the XAzteca event. In the afternoon about 5 of us hiked up to La Malinche. I was the only pilot prepared to fly. There were cumies in blue skies, but not popping off of LM, and winds clearly from the east placing launch cross and in rotor. I launched anyhow, managing to stay above the ridge-line for a few minutes, but drifting to the west along the ridge-line, and finally I turned downwind and landed down by the Zumpahuacan highway. I soared barely, but need to mark Tuesday as not soarable. Wednesday was overcast, rainy, east, and not flyable.

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Monday through Sunday, August 22nd through 28th
Most days easterly, (but light easterly winds do not rule out La Malinche), and some days overcast, with rain most afternoons and nights, and some cloud-suck mixed in. Not real scientific, but I would guess 3 days not soarable and 4 days soarable.

Friday looked like good soaring conditions. On Saturday G.C. and doc Miguel came to fly La Malinche with Daniel P and myself. It was overcast and rather ODed by the time we were hiking up to launch around 2pm. On launch it was blowing in fairly steady for all the shade on the ground so I guessed cloud-suck and volunteered to play wind-dummy.

Sure enough it was light cloud suck, with a rather low cloud base. On hind sight I wish I had played around in the area for a while, but I felt some small amount of risk that forces could grow quickly, or it could start to rain, or of lightning bolts, so I entered the cloud with the idea to drop out of the clear area to the back near my shop in the middle of the Tenancingo Valley. The cloud let me out sooner so I landed by the highway goes to launch, a decision based on taxi availability.

It was a short scenic flight through a cloud which I recorded. Perhaps the video is not so exceptional, except that this time I learned to convert into .avi instead of the default .flv, and the video came out with much better resolution for the same relative file size.

Learn something new every day!

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Monday through Sunday, August 15th through 21st
2/3rds of the days were generally blue skies with small puffy cumies at midday and storm activity late in the day, with light east winds. While these days are not impossible for soaring La Malinche, especially with a group, they are definitely a challenge. The other days were overcast with east winds and not flyable. I will call it as 2 days soarable, barely, and 5 days not flyable.

Some pilots from Valle came to visit Juan Estevez on Thursday who is organizing the XAztecas project. They went to La Malinche, and from what I heard had sledders, but one pilot broke a leg near the Cabañas LZ. From what I gather he was setting up approach higher up that little ridge-line, by the pond and hit heavy turbulence and got a collapse on final.

I know that spot and also got a heavy collapse while flying through there once years ago, so as far as I am concerned it is a danger zone. It has been rare for anyone to be flying low in that spot so we have little experience with that particular patch of air yet, but the topography of the spot also suggests rotor and danger to me.

----------------
Monday through Sunday, August 8th through 14th.
There has been a continuing pattern of generally blue skies in the morning, small puffy cumies at midday and early afternoon, and storm activity late in the day.

On Monday I hiked up to launch in the early afternoon and there were light thermal cycles blowing in. I should have waited for some cloud activity directly over the launch area on hindsight, because I launched into light thermals and struggled for about 10 minutes hardly rising above launch level, and landed down in the farmers fields below. An extended sled-ride.

For Monday through Sunday in general I will rate it as soarable for 4 days, and 3 days not flyable, just guessing. Could have been that all the days were soarable for the person who launched at the right time and centered the lift well, and none of the days were soarable otherwise.

On Saturday the 13th pilots Guillermo C., Martin, Daniel P., Alfredo C., and myself all showed up at La Malinche to fly. As usual for this season we were all struggling at lower altitudes, but after some 40 minutes Guillermo got the altitude to make the jump over the back, followed by myself flying into the clouds and landing by my shop in Tenería, and then Daniel P. who landed at Insurgentes, and Alfredo Carsolio who landed next to his home in Chalchihuapan. It helped immensely that there were 5 of us in the air spread out to help each other find where the best lift was. Once near the clouds the lift was stronger.

I got a great video out of the flight-

On Sunday I hiked up with Daniel P. and Alfredo. Conditions were lighter than the day before. Alfredo and I struggled in weak lift for about 15 minutes and landed by San Antonio, and Daniel Pedraza got a little stronger thermal and flew over the back at rather low altitude.

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Monday through Sunday, August 1st through 7th.
Monday through Friday had generally clear skies with cumies, but mostly north or easterly flow, so there were probably about 3 days not flyable for La Malinche, (but possibly soarable at Malinalco), and maybe two of those days when it was sunny enough and the easterly was light enough that it could have been soarable. There was also some afternoon storm activity most of the days.

Of course the countryside and the view is absolutely beautiful this time of year. Alfredo called to see if I was going to fly. My spirit really needs it, but I am still in crisis mode so I turned him down. Tomorrow, Sunday looks good, and even though I don't have the time, I hope to duck out to fly.

Alfredo told me on Sunday how he went up to launch and it was too strong and the cloud cover too thick so he didn't fly. I will mark it as not flyable, although it probably was soarable in some narrow time window. We spoke of flying on Sunday but at noon the clouds were over developed and we canceled our plans to fly. Later it cleared up a little and looked like beautiful flying weather.

Daniel Miller Weather Blog, July 2011

2011-07-02T01:27:00.000-07:00

July 2011 Summary
Days of possible Good XC or better Tandem Conditions from La Malinche – 1 days
Days of possible Soarable Conditions from La Malinche, including the above XC days. – 13 days
Non-Soarable days from La Malinche – 18 days
(Once in a while I might mark a single day as both Soarable and Non-Soarable, like when part of the afternoon is soarable, and the other part is not.)

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Saturday and Sunday, July 30th and 31st
Not flyable due to north and east winds and storm activity.

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Tuesday, July 26th through Friday July 29th
What beautiful days!! without much rain, blue skies with little puffy cumies, emerald green countryside, winds from SE to S. Probably soarable at least somewhat all of these days, and maybe even some decent XC potential (I'll mark one day as XC for the stats), but I have been so occupied with work that I have not broken away, or by the time I even think of flying it is too late in the day. Got to plan it the day ahead of time in any case.

Man I miss flying in the clouds, just a little (with my two compasses). Something real spiritual about that. It's been over a year since that has happened to me.

For sure there has been some good days for El Picacho Malinalco. Malinalco generally works better in the rainy season, because it is more easterly.

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Monday, July 25th
The most beautiful clean blue air, a few nice cumies, and a SSE wind, which might have made it a little difficult at LM down low, but it looked very soarable. I had pressing business and could not fly.

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Sunday, July 24th
Marco and Olivar came to La Malinche to fly and had good flights from what I understand, and with lots of altitude according to Daniel P, but I was not out on the street corner at the right moment and missed a ride up. Very Soarable.

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Saturday, July 23rd
Skies were clear blue in the morning so I projected that soarable cumies would develop my mid-day. Someone wanted to fly tandem so Daniel P gave us a ride up. There were very light cycles, and none of the cloud formation like I had hoped for. However off by El Picacho the cumies were forming nicely. It could have been good flying other there. Our flight was basically a sled-ride in conditions too light to support us. We hiked up for a second try but by 4pm things were going still, so we did not fly. Might have been soarable, at the right moment, but I will call it as not soarable.

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Friday, July 22nd
Overcast with east winds. Not soarable.

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Thursday, July 21st
Once again clear blue skies with nicely formed cumies at around noon. At around 1:30 I left work and by 2:30 I was by the side of the road waiting for a taxi to give me a ride to the base of launch. It was overdeveloping heavily at that point and started to rain. I returned home although it didn't rain more, and the skies cleared up again, somewhat. It looked soarable within a several hour time window.

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Wednesday, July 20th
Beautiful clear blue skies with nicely formed cumies, but I was occupied with work and by the time I thought of flying it was probably too late to head up to launch. Soarable I think, within a time window.

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Tuesday, July 19th
Beautiful clear blue skies with nicely formed cumies, but with east winds so I suspect that it was not soarable (or tricky) at La Malinche, but probably a fun day for flying El Picacho, Malinalco.

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Monday, July 18th
Overcast with easterly winds. Not Soarable.

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Sunday, July 17th
Overcast with easterly winds. Not soarable.

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Saturday, July 16th
Overcast and rainy with easterly flow. Not soarable.

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Friday, July 15th
Some blue skies with nice cumies and a southerly wind direction. Probably soarable.

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Thursday, July 14th
Like yesterday, probably not flyable.

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Wednesday, July 13th
Low clouds and rain at certain times of the day. Generally not flyable I suspect.

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Tuesday, July 12th
Beautiful cumies in clear blue skies, (after another night of heavy rain). I think it was possibly soarable, but in mild easterly conditions, making it tricky down low at La Malinche.

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Monday, July 11th
Rain in the morning and torrential thunderstorms in the afternoon. Not flyable.

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Sunday, July 10th
Low clouds and rain in the morning and east winds in the afternoon. Not flyable.

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Saturday, July 9th
East winds and low clouds covering the LM launch most of the day. Not flyable.

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Friday, July 8th
There were open blue skies with cumies before it OD'd and rained and hailed dramatically in the afternoon, but the winds were from the east, so it was not-flyable from La Malinche. Possibly yes for El Picacho.

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Thursday, July 7th
There were some open skies and cumies in the early afternoon before it OD'ed. It looked soarable for a while.

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Wednesday, July 6th
Overcast all day. Not soarable.

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Tuesday, July 5th
In the afternoon there were nice formed cumies in blue skies. It looked soarable.

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Monday, July 4th
Possibly soarable, but maybe barely or with some luck, with light east winds and mostly overcast skies. At least it wasn't raining.

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Sunday, July 3rd
Overcast skies most of the day with rain and east winds. Not flyable.

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Saturday, July 2nd
Low clouds and rain in the morning and late afternoon. There were blue skies and nice cumies in the mid-afternoon but the local wind was due east and kind of strong, so in terms of La Malinche I say the whole day was non-flyable.

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Friday, July 1st
Drizzle and rain for 24 hours. Not flyable.

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Daniel Miller Weather Blog, June 2011

2011-06-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

End of Flying Season and Mid-Year Summary and graph for more than one year.

Spring time in the region was excellent in terms daily soarablility, and so-so perhaps in terms of XC potential, but then I am pretty much the only pilot flying regularly here, and I don't consider myself an XC type pilot.

While chatting with Hector Araujo of nearby Ixtapan de la Sal this spring, who I consider to be a more knowledgeable XC pilot than I, we both agreed that in even the strongest thermic type weather of the last 12 months, we have just not been getting the really high altitude gains that were occasionally possible in prior years.

We also had a winter season with unusually stable air, due to especially cold air from the US and Canada extending all the way down to central America. Not that it was so cold at this latitude, but in place of being cold it was stable.

The regular flying season gave way to the rainy season this year on June 20th. The locals say that it started 2-3 weeks later than usual. This flight log shows that the rainy season started last year on June 30th. Rains should diminish by September and by October the landscape should dry out enough to regain thermal force.

In the mean time the good flying days in the off season can be the most beautiful and spectacular of the whole year. It's just that they are separated by more non-flyable days, which is less favorable to the concerns of tandem passengers or visiting pilots.

Late November last year seemed especially good for XC potential, and that is when this year there will be a test run of an XAztecas XC flying event to be held the following year. Contact Peter Peru for details.

----------------
June 2011 Summary
Days of possible “Good XC or better Tandem Conditions” from La Malinche – 8 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. – 22 days (The previous category overlaps into this one)
Non-Flyable days from La Malinche – 8 days
(once in a while I might mark a single day as both Soarable and Non-Flyable, like when half the day is soarable and the other half Non-Flyable)

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Thursday, June 30th
Low clouds and rain all day. Not flyable.

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Wednesday, June 29th
Lots of low clouds and rain. Probably not soarable.

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Tuesday, June 28th
It OD'd and rained early and I suspect that it was generally not soarable today.

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Monday, June 27th
The afternoon looked very soarable with blue skies between medium sized active cumies.

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Sunday, June 26th
Skies were overcast all morning but around 2 or 3 it broke into medium sized cumies in blue skies for a few hours. Few pilots would have predicted it, but I think it may have been soarable for a few hours.

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Saturday, June 25th
Skies were overcast all day and there was rain in the afternoon and the winds were from the SE. Not soarable.

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Friday, June 24th
It just might have been soarable early but by mid-afternoon it was raining. I'll call this one non-flyable.

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Thursday, June 23rd
Lots of moisture and significant over development and some rain in the afternoon, but I expect that there was also some soaring potential in the early afternoon with distinct well separated cumies in blue sky, along with southerly wind directions.

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Wednesday, June 22nd
After several days of rain and drizzle day and night, the area is very moist. In the afternoon skies opened up to some 20% small cumies in clear blue skies. I hiked up to LM to test conditions. Basically it was a struggle down low to stay up in thermals, but once with altitude under a cloud the ascent rate improved dramatically. I would rate the day as soarable, after the rain stopped in the early afternoon.

I launched at 5:01, reached a maximum altitude of 2748m, and landed 50 minutes after I launched.

While trying to fly by cloud, I crossed over the back on a course that is situated more to the east, where there is often heavy sink, because there was a small cumie over Ixpuichiapan beckoning me. However the sinky air pretty much sucked my altitude down and I made it near to but not quite at the Insurgentes LZ where I landed next to the old prison walls, where, scarily enough, the government now appears to be constructing a prison inside. ;( Guess the world is bigger than I understand.

Here is a video of the flight.

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Tuesday, June 21st
Cloudy and rainy all day, not flyable.

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Monday, June 20th
There was considerable rain the night before, heavy low clouds all morning, and rain from mid-afternoon on. Not flyable. This looks to be the real start of the rainy season.

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Sunday, June 19th
Today was father's day in mexico too, and the town was especially quiet, and I don't know if it is related, but the sky was especially clean, clear and blue, with little cumie streets leading towards the north-west, a bank of haze and clouds to the west, and blue skies to the east. The predominant wind was south-east.

Last day of the flying season
(Click on photo to enlarge)

I hiked up to LM alone and launched at 2:13. The lift was tricky and turbulent close to the ridge lines because it was lee-side lift, but I got into some stronger more consistent lift that brought me up to 2933m, and into a sort of cloud street that was heading to the NW over Villa Guerrero and on to the Toluca plateau. I did not want to fly that way, yet at least, so I flew into Tenancingo, where the skies were blue, and landed for a 30 minute flight.

Could have been decent XC weather for a pilot flying to the NW, but the SE airflow made the La Malinche area turbulent to fly in down low, so I'll give the day a soarable label.

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Saturday, June 18th
Cloud formations were nice but winds were light from the SE which is often flyable but not optimal for La Malinche, so I did not hike up around 1 or 2 when I expected the best flying of the day, closer to mid-day because the countryside is more moist now.

Around 4pm pilots Filipe and Vladimir of Ixtapan, Daniel of Australia, & Marco G. and a couple of his students showed up. We hiked up while Daniel drove the equipment to launch.

There was a small cycle entering when we first arrived and I opened my equipment immediately and volunteered to play wind-dummy. Within a few minutes clouds threw shadows over the area and the light breeze went to absolutely no wind at all, dead-still. Various clouds came and went and it basically stayed dead-still for about the next hour.

We were all thinking about leaving, and I just started to fold my wing and another pilot chimed in and joined my thoughts, that "If I fold the wing, the wind will start blowing in". I think all pilots have same common superstitions if they admit it or not. I agreed that I was folding up in order to bring in a breeze for everyone else.

As soon as I was half-folded, less than a minute, a weak thermal cycle started and I opened my wing up again. Daniel Pedraza was hungry and made a joking offer of 20 tacos to me if I fly.

I launched, made two passes and took no chances with the light breeze and top-landed, as in this short video. One of Marco's students launched on a green wing, and worked light lift by the cliffs and point to the left, never much above the ridge-line, and landed at the Cabañas LZ after about 10 minutes. Filipe and Daniel launched next and were flushed to the Cabañas in minutes.

I think today was less than optimally soarable around midday, due to a SE and moist dampened thermal conditions , but I had a fun time with my very short flight, and of course the hike up, which is why I went.
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Friday, June 17th
10 to 20% thermal induced cumies in clear blue skies. Good XC and tandem potential it appeared.

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Thursday, June 16th
Looked soarable with cumies in blue skies.

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Wednesday, June 15th
About 40% well formed cumies in blue skies. I'd guess that there was decent XC potential and good tandem potential.

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Tuesday, June 14th
Overcast skies all day. I might be wrong but I would guess not soarable except for sled rides.

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Monday, June 13th
30% cumies in hazy blue skies. Good soaring conditions, possibly better.

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Sunday, June 12th
50% cumies in hazy skies. About the same as yesterday. Good soaring I would speculate.

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Saturday, June 11th
There were about 50% cumies in slightly hazy skies. The ground is moist.

I hiked up and launched at 1:25pm. Thermals were generally weak and not well developed, but it was a very beautiful day in terms of the green countryside, and would have been a decent day for tandems as well. Between the clouds and indicators on the ground today there was information to know where to find the thermals. I landed at Insurgentes at 2:16 for a 51 minute flight. It was a good day for soaring or tandem flights.

I did a video, not like it was such a great flight, but I am still experimenting with the camera. Next time I need to have the sound on high. This video includes clips at the beginning of getting to launch and Daniel Pedraza working on his launch site cabin.

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Friday, June 10th
There were cumies early and it OD'ed by 2pm and it was raining by 3:30. Soarable early in the afternoon.

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Thursday, June 9th
Blue skies with some 10 to 40 percent cumies through mid-afternoon when it started to OD, resulting in a minor storm in the late afternoon. Good XC and great tandem conditions early, but within a several hour time window, so I will downgrade it to simply soarable.

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Wednesday, June 8th
By midday, skies were a little over-developed over the Tenancingo area, and more open in surrounding areas. I hiked up to launch around 2:30pm, launched at 3:07pm. There was a strong headwind preventing me from flying to the south, so I flew north towards the cloud development. But on arriving at Tenancingo I needed to fly more to the east for the LZ's and flight plan which I prefer. I could not fly well towards the east end of the valley and the lift seemed to be a little out of reach on the other side of town so I landed at 3:35 for a 28 minute flight.

Here is a video. I am still not satisfied with the sound quality and will try placing a foam wind buffer differently next time. I want it to pick up vario signals and voices while flying, which my earlier (modified) camera could do.

Good XC potential perhaps at an earlier hour, or if there had been other pilots to mark the lift, or if one had flown on a NW direction, a direction that I have not flown very far, still waiting for some Canadians to show me how to do that;) (risk of very high tail-winds when flying to the north in the afternoons, sometimes, and then sometimes not...) Realistically then if XC means flying to the east, then I would rate the day as just soarable. But for sure there was great tandem potential, and also maybe flying to the west was more viable for XC potential.

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Tuesday, June 7th
Blue skies with 20 to 50% nicely formed cumies. Great XC and tandem potential it appeared.

I hiked up to launch late in the day after work. With the sun at a low angle and the cumies the whole area was in shadow, but it was still entering moderately. This time the batteries on the GoPro failed me, but good thing, because I had some really awesome soaring with the eagles, and if I had had the video, I would have been up all night editing and uploading it. Anyhow here is my flight log entry.

I launched at 5:40 pm. Although the area was in shadow there were still some small thermals and larger areas of late day "restitution" type lift. The 4 local eagles were out flying and they showed me where the lift was. I got up to 2852 in the LM area with them. I cruised into the Tenancingo area with lots of altitude, but found no lift there, and landed at LZ Insurgentes at 6:08 for a 28 minute flight.

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Monday, June 6th
Blue skies with 20 to 50% nicely formed cumies. Great XC and tandem potential it appeared.

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Sunday, June 5th
Thermal induced cumies in blue skies. It looked like good XC and tandem potential.

I joined up with native traditions teacher Ariel and his girlfriend Lilian from Toluca. At 1pm it was clear in the San Jeronimo valley but lots of cumies were dropping in from the Tenancingo Valley to the north.

I launched with Lilian at about 1:30pm. My GPS had battery failure so precise data is not available. First we flew some 15 minutes in scratchy lift along the ridge lines until catching a thermal up to around 300m over launch, and then a while later the main LM house thermal brought us up to about 1000m over launch.

I flew towards Santo Desierto and there we got up to approximately 3700 meters or 1500m over launch, and might of flown towards Malinalco, but it only looked like a 50% chance of arriving there and since it was a tandem flight I did not want to inconvenience the passenger so we headed back towards Tenancingo, not hitting the lift along the way, and landed after an approx 50 minute flight.

I am still experimenting with the GoPro and video software. In this video I tried a few time-lapse sequences. The natural sound is better but still not clear enough. I am going to cut an opening in the back of the camera case bigger and put a foam insert in to dampen the wind noise. Good video though IMHO. Enjoy!

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Saturday, June 4th
Small thermal induced cumies, more than yesterday. It looked like XC and better tandem potential.

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Friday, June 3rd
Skies were blue with a street of cumies coming off the Antennas/Desierto peak all day leading to the north towards Toluca. It looked like good soaring and good XC potential if flying towards the north.

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Thursday, June 2nd
Skies blue with a few little puffy cumies. I would guess that there was XC potential.

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Wednesday, June 1st
Daniel Pedraza had been reminding me of this date for over a week. The Wind Guru forecast had shown several days in advance that this day would probably be not-flyable due to east and north winds, but the date seemed unchangeable so myself and tandem pilot Hector of Ixtapan met the two would-be passengers, a young couple from Mexico City, and rode up in Daniel P's truck, along with Gerardo and a 3rd Daniel, a Sydney Australia pilot.

Winds were clearly from the east in the drift of the small cumie clouds and in the Tenancingo Valley, but from the La Malinche launch, as is common, it was still blowing in from the south and in the San Jeronimo Valley. Hector and I encouraged Daniel the Ausi or Gerardo to play wind dummy... given that the winds just above us were blowing the wrong way and there was potential for rotor.

The Sidney pilot volunteered, although he had flown La Malinche only once before, and also his total airtime was very little, but we counseled him well about the hazards ;) He got immediate good lift, but flew over the back with insufficient altitude and landed in one of the alternate LZ's behind launch.

Hector launched next with the female passenger and also crossed over the back and sunk out heavily. I launched next with Juan, the male passenger at 2:03pm and we worked thermals up and down the ridgeline that runs to the west, (avoiding the main ridge to the left because of potential rotor) for over 20 minutes but never getting beyond 2501 meters altitude.

We landed at 2:33pm in one of my favorite fields by the Zumpahuacan highway, for a 30 minute flight. The passenger fell rather than ran when he hit the ground, but nobody was hurt. The field was recently plowed and he was wearing cowboy boots, plus there was a strong wind gradient down low. Gerardo did not fly.

Surprisingly, it was soarable today, but not a good cross country day from La Malinche.

Daniel Miller Weather Blog, May 2011

2011-05-02T18:07:00.000-07:00

weather forecast for La Malinche -
http://www.windguru.cz/es/index.php?vs=1&sc=237111
meteorlogical summary for Mexico
http://smn.cna.gob.mx/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55&Itemid=58
----------------
May 2011 Summary
Days of possible “Good XC or better Tandem 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. – 31 days (The previous category overlaps into this one)
Non-Flyable days from La Malinche – 0 days
(once in a while I might mark a single day as both Soarable and Non-Flyable, like when half the day is soarable and the other half Non-Flyable)

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Tuesday, May 31st
Hazy blue skies with a few cumies. Soarable, or possibly better.

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Monday, May 30th
Cumies in hazy-blue skies which sort of OD'ed in the late afternoon, but no storm activity came of it. Soarable I think.

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Sunday, May 29th
Skies were hazy-blue with a few small cumies, although they were a little blown-out from a southerly wind. There were no good "streets" that I could discern in the the Tenancingo area when I flew. It was a day for decent soaring possibilities.

I hiked up to launch where I was all alone. Thermal cycles were strong with decent lulls in between. I launched at 4:14, and struggled more down low than up above, got up to 3304 meters, but did not find good thermal activity over the back in the Tenancingo area. There was a nice cumie over the Antennas to the south, but the headwind that way was too strong.

Lots of sink over Tenancingo so I landed soon after at Insurgentes for a 23 minute flight. It OD'ed to the west after I landed.

I made a short video clip for what its worth.

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Saturday, May 28th
Skies were clear blue and somewhat stable most of the day. It was probably soarable in the early afternoon.

I accompanied Alfredo for a late afternoon flight. We flew around 5pm. I saw no raptors in the sky, and the region appeared very calm and we could barely inflate our wings. Alfredo launched and worked his way over to the Cama del Rey house thermal and I saw him scratch a few turns barely above the ridge-line.

I launched and went to the right for what turned out to be a sled-ride with just a few minor bumps, for some 7 or 8 minutes, to the upper mero part of don Pablo's ranch.

In flight I could not locate Alfredo again and thought that perhaps he top landed soon after.

Turns out he got to 3970m, 1705 meters above launch, and top landed around 7:30. I should have observed Alfredo better, and visited the Cama del Rey too.
Sounds like it was a good blue thermal type soaring day.

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Friday, May 27th
Skies were mostly clear blue and stable looking most of the day. It was probably soarable midday.

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Thursday, May 26th
A few cumies in hazy sky around midday. I had the opportunity in time to try flying in the afternoon, but by 3 it was overdeveloping, and by 5 pm powerful winds hit and then a hail storm that lasted for half an hour with hail up to the size of marbles. There was damage to the delicate roof of the home of the family above which I live, so we were up the night, without electricity, doing clean-up work. The bed of my truck got filled with hail over half an hour, and now the next day there are still berms of hail in Tenancingo which have not melted.
It looked like good soaring earlier in the afternoon.

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Wednesday, May 25th
Nice little cumies embedded in a high hazy inversion layer most of the day, with a little overdevelopment, but no storm activity, late in the day. Good XC day.

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Tuesday, May 24th
Nice little cumies embeded in a high hazy inversion layer all day. Looked nice for XC but I had to work. Pilot Favio stopped by today and said the same.

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Monday, May 23rd
There was nice cumie development until about 3pm when it over developed with high clouds, but no storm activity. It looked like it was soarable.

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Sunday, May 22nd
There was small high cumie development in the La Malinche/Tenancingo area from midday on. Early on there was good cloud street development at the southern end of the Ixtapan valley. Cloud formations improved after 3pm in the Tenancingo area.

Two Low Saves
Alfredo Carsolio came by early and we headed up to launch with Daniel Pedraza. Alfredo launched around 12:45pm into tricky early air, but made it up into better lift, to easy flying into Tenancingo, and headed off that way. Daniel Pedraza launched about 15 minutes later and made a valient struggle down below the ridge-line, thermaling back up to ridge level once out over the valley, but ended up having to put down at the Cabañas LZ below launch.

I launched at 1:20 and struggled in punchy up and down air until sinking out down by the Cabañas LZ, where Daniel P was waiting to see me land. At about 100 meters off the deck (Daniel P. says it was more like 50 meters) I caught a tight diameter "bird thermal", and worked it up to where the lift steadily broadened and increased. I took that to around 3000 meters where I headed north towards the Tenancingo Valley. There was more lift near the military base and I worked that up to 3487 meters, the highest altitude of the flight. From there I flew down the center of the valley along the highway, towards the ridges that lead to the Malinalco Valley. However when I got there I found more sink than lift, and had to fly back into Tenería in the rotor zone on the downwind side.

I was preparing to land in a big field in Tenería, and dropped my wind direction ribbon. I was about 200 meters off the deck and once more caught a thermal in which I slowly crossed the Tenancingo Valley in an NW direction, arriving near downtown Tenancingo again at around 3000 meters. Instead of landing in Tenancingo I flew to the NE to Tecomatlan, found no lift along the way and landed in the soccer fields of Tecomatlán at 2:45, for an hour twenty five minute flight. I would have gotten some good video but my GoPro was out of battery or memory.

There was good soaring conditions most of the day (up above the ridge line), and probably XC potential for the type of pilot who would know how to take advantage of it (and especially over in the Ixtapan Valley.)

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Saturday, May 21st
There was some cumulus development starting around 2pm, and I hiked up to La Malinche and was there at 3pm. There were street formations between the cumies that were forming, disappearing, and reforming in like 10 to 20 minute cycles. Cycles were moderately strong, separated by almost no-wind lull cycles.

I launched at 3:11 into weak but useable lift. The lift improved with altitude, but the cloud over LM was dissipating so I flew over the back, first towards the east side of the valley, but then I noticed how the whole region was clearing out while a big street was developing over the gulch west of Tenancingo. I had topped out at 3086 and it looked half possible to make it the 6-8km to make it to the cloud street. However I hit heavy sink all the way over to the other side of Tenancingo, and to go further would possibly put me in an area without good LZs, so I 180'ed back, staying in heavy sink the whole way, to land at Insurgentes at 3:35 for a 24 minute flight.
A few minutes after I landed lightning started, and then the whole cloud street scooted in over La Malinche and the LZ, and then gusted and rained about a half hour after I landed. It could have been interesting if I had launched about a half hour later.

General good soaring today in the afternoon I think, but timing could make the difference between a spectacular flight or a sled ride.

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Friday, May 20th
Nice cumie development most of the day and possible good XC conditions, until it OD'd late in the afternoon with gusts and rain.

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Thursday, May 19th
Possibly soarable in the early afternoon but it OD'd and rained and gusted around 2, and then cleared up again in the late afternoon with probably rather stable air.

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Wednesday, May 18th
Good XC conditions in the afternoon until it overdeveloped late and rained and hailed at nightfall.

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Tuesday, May 17th
I hear that this day looked soarable but not the best for XC.

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Monday, May 16th
I hear that this day looked soarable but not the best for XC.

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Sunday, May 15th
I was out of town but I hear that this day looked like a good XC day.

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Saturday, May 14th
I was out of town most of the day but I hear that it looked soarable but not the best for XC.

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Friday, May 13th
Hazy inverted skies, warm rather stable air, and cumies only late in the day. Soarable but not the best for XC.

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Thursday, May 12th
Hazy inverted skies, warm rather stable air, and cumies only late in the day. Soarable but not the best for XC.

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Wednesday, May 11th
Hazy inverted skies, warm rather stable air, and cumies only late in the day. Soarable but not the best for XC.

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Tuesday, May 10th
There were cloudless but hazy skies most of the day over the Tenancingo region, and cumie development in the last four hours of the day. It was a potential XC day and good for tandems I think.

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Monday, May 9th
There were cloudless but hazy skies most of the day over the Tenancingo region, and cumie development only in the last few hours of the day. It was soarable and good for tandems but not the best for XC.

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Sunday, May 8th
There were cloudless but hazy skies most of the day over the Tenancingo region, and cumie development only in the last few hours of the day. It was soarable but not the best for XC, but there was a great cloud-street over Ixtapan extending northward, so I presume it was good for XC in Ixtapan.

I rode up to launch with Daniel Pedraza and Alfredo in the early afternoon. There were decent gusts and decent lulls, but there were only one or two occasional cumies forming down by the antennas, where-as off in adjacent regions, there was more interesting cumie development. Alfredo launched around 1:30 into really dramatic lift for short spells, and really dramatic sink for short spells, and landed shortly after at the cabañas LZ.

I waited an hour, and although my appraisal of conditions had not improved, I launched at 2:35 into real difficult punchy air. The general air was very sinky, and the thermals were very tiny, strong, and sharp edged. Good thing the small wing I'm on is so stable. I was getting some moderate collapses and feeling a few G's at times on entering the thermals. Anyhow they were broken thermals and did not last for more than a few turns.

Penetrating a headwind to the antennas seemed not-an-option, so the second chance where I had the altitude to jump towards Tenancingo I went, reached a maximum altitude of 2671 meters, hit heavy sink over the Tenancingo region (there must have been powerful lift nearby causing that sink), and landed at Insurgentes at 3:04pm, for a 29 minute flight.

Daniel Pedraza decided not to fly, but hours later in the afternoon it looked like better flying conditions.

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Saturday, May 7th
There were blue skies in the early afternoon, cumie development for about 3 hours, and then over-development in the late afternoon and thunderstorm activity at nightfall. I think that it was very soarable, good for tandem, and good for short XC within a time window. Alfredo Carsolio and Daniel Pedraza flew early and reported mild thermic conditions. Later in the afternoon there were better cumie formations.

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Friday, May 6th
There were blue skies in the early afternoon, cumie development for about 3 hours, and then over-development in the late afternoon and gusts at nightfall. I think that it was very soarable, good for tandem, and good for short XC within a time window.

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Thursday, May 5th
There were blue skies in the early afternoon, cumie development for about 3 hours, and then over-development in the late afternoon and gusts at nightfall. I think that it was very soarable, good for tandem, and good for short XC within a time window.

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Wednesday, May 4th
It was slightly overcast but with nice little cumies throughout most of the day. It looked definitely soarable and good for tandems, but a little weak for good XC.

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Tuesday, May 3rd
I was out of town but I suspect that it was overcast with a little wind from the NE, but still soarable at times.

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Monday, May 2nd
Skies were slightly hazy but cloudless, with warm temperatures. It was probably soarable, but not the best for XC.

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Sunday, May 1st
Skies were slightly hazy with decent cumie and street action, but over development and gusts in the late afternoon. I think the day had good XC and tandem potential.

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Daniel Miller Weather Blog, April 2011

2011-04-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

April 2011 Summary
April 2011 has been the best potential XC month since I started keeping records a year ago.
Days of possible “Good XC or better Tandem Conditions” from La Malinche – 14 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
(once in a while I might mark a single day as both Soarable and Non-Flyable, like when half the day is soarable and the other half Non-Flyable)

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Saturday, April 30th
Skies were hazy with the high inversion layer of the last few days, temperatures were warm, and there were no cumies except late in the afternoon. Soarable but not the best for XC.

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Friday, April 29th
Skies were hazy with the high inversion layer of the last few days, temperatures were warm, and cumies and a few "streets" formed within the haze throughout the afternoon. Soarable and possible long flights, good for tandem (but not so for photography).

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Thursday, April 28th
Skies were hazy, temperatures were warm to hot, and cumies and a few "streets" formed within the haze in the late afternoon. I've had some great flights under conditions like these, but I will still just call it as very soarable and good for tandems, but not the best for XC.

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Wednesday, April 27th
Skies were without cumies, hazy, and warm surface temperatures. Soarable.

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Tuesday, April 26th
Skies were without cumies and a little hazy, with warm temperatures. Soarable, but high winds kicked in the late afternoon.

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Monday, April 25th
Skies were clear blue with just a few cumies around midday. It was soarable I think.

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Sunday, April 24th
Skies were a little hazy with the same type of cumie development as this week. It was good for XC and tandem in my humble opinion.

I launched with tandem passenger Laura H. of Tenango at 2:12pm. Skies were a little over-developed, and some rain was falling in places 5-10km away, and a few drops hit us too throughout our flight. The flight started with a lot of sink and what looked like it would be a sled-ride to an emergency lz in San Antonio, but at about 100mts off the deck I got what was perhaps the lowest low-save ever, or at least in a few years. (a low-save on May 22nd was better than this one, but the camera was not working)

The save started with real careful turns barely gaining a meter at a time, but the more we gained the more we accelerated upward, and ten minutes later, when we were far above the whole region, nearing 3000 meters and climbing ever faster, my concern became one of cloud-suck and the possiblity of storm activity. By that time we were arriving over Tenancingo with mega-altitude and I decided that it would be prudent to land.

The lift bands were broad and powerful but I was able to find some narrow bands of sink over the city which I spiraled in for a while, (all the while noting how unusual it was that the passenger was not airsick) and we came in for a landing at Insurgentes, which now has some green grass, at 2:45pm for a 33 minute flight.

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Saturday, April 23rd
Cumies developed later than yesterday but later in the afternoon over-development to the west threw a lot of shade over the area. Could have been good XC and tandem conditions in the early afternoon, but I will mark it as merely soarable.

I was hanging around home because D.P. said that there might be some visiting pilots or potential passengers, but none ever showed so I hiked up and flew late, launching at 4pm. Over-development to the west threw shade over the area so I worked the ridgelines for 45 minutes without gaining the altitude to leave the area, until I finally got flushed down to an emergency field in San Antonio.

I landed precisely on a small bridge over a ditch between fields, but my wing fell on a small clump of weeds that contained Wisatchi, the cats claw plant, and I was there for an hour getting it unstuck. Meanwhile rain and lightning was starting. Time to pack the umbrella in the harness.

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Friday, April 22nd
It looked like great XC and tandem conditions with nicely formed cumies and streets and over development only very late in the day.

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Thursday, April 21st
Skies were clear blue with small puffy cumies in nearby regions, ranging to big cumies and overdevelopment farther away from the NW to the NE.

I gave a tandem flight to Luis-Angel of Mexico City. He is a small boy, don't know what age, and weighs around 30kg. I got a good video of the whole flight, but still don't have the RAM to edit or thus upload it. My GPS did not work for this flight.

I was trying to time it for when there would be just enough thermal activity to make it to Tenancingo, but hopefully not too strong because we would be flying lightly loaded. I flew with 10 kg of lead ballast. We launched at 12pm.

I flew first to the right down the ridge, because SSE had been predicted, and sure enough. The house thermal was waiting down at the bowl at the west end of the ridgeline. It was a rather weak thermal but we took full advantage of it being so light on the big sail.

We made it up slowly to about a hundred meters higher than usually necessary to fly to Tenancingo, maybe 2700 meters, and as I flew over the back with real poor penetration and speed from being light, sunk out like crazy, and would have had to land in an alternate by the highway, except I caught two good thermals on the way to Tenancingo, and arrived with more altitude than we left with.

There was relativly smooth lift everywhere I flew near or over Tenancingo. I wanted to land as soon as possible before conditions might get stronger. I started flying big ears all the time and took a course towards the north side of Ixpuichiapan where there is normally sinking air, but this time there was only more lift. We flew several kilometers still rising with about a third of the wing area collapsed. Finally I found a patch of sinking air over colonio San Jose, and that brought me into a nice landing where happy parents were waiting at Insurgentes. We gave them time to arrive, it was about a 40 minute flight.

I ran back up for a late afternoon solo flight, but made the mistake of flying to the left when I should have gone to the right, and got flushed big time barely making it to the Cabañas. I think that the flying was still great too, btw.

No big OD or storm this afternoon. I think that there was good XC potential and it was also a great day for tandems.

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Wednesday, April 20th
It was probably very soarable and even good tandem weather early in a certain time window, but in the afternoon giant cunimb development occured over the region, producing some gust fronts and also some brief periods of light rain by 4pm.

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Tuesday, April 19th
Cumies and streets all over from midday on, and it did not OD until really late in the day, but then the "now usual" cunimbs gust fronts and rain as night set in. Looked like good XC and Tandem conditions.

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Monday, April 18th
It was probably very soarable and even good tandem weather early in a certain time window, but in the afternoon giant cunimb development occured over the region, producing a whole lot of gust front activity, and also some brief periods of heavy rain.

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Sunday, April 17th
It was probably very soarable and even good tandem weather early in a certain time window, but in the afternoon giant cunimb development occured over the region, producing a whole lot of gust front activity, and also some brief periods of heavy rain.

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Saturday, April 16th
Windguru forcast east winds and that was fine with me because I really had to work today. However beautiful formed cumies reigned most of the day, and I did not notice any strong or even notable easterly influence, so most of the day I would rate as good XC and tandem potential. Like yesterday a giant cunimb formed over Tenancingo, accompanied by high winds and a little rain very late in the day.

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Friday, April 15th
Skies were slightly hazy and there were a few scattered cumies until around 3pm when a giant cunimb developed directly centered over La Malinche. It was probably soarable early but one would have needed to have left the region early to do any XC. Heavy rain, lightning, and gust fronts are just really hitting now at 7pm.

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Thursday, April 14th
Skies were slightly hazy and there were just a few scattered cumies but they started developing more around 3pm. There was probably some decent XC potential for someone launching earlier with a plan of flying to the north or west.

I slipped out of work a little early and accompanied D.Pedraza up to launch, arriving at around 4. By this time there was big cunimb development off to the west throwing lots of shadows over the Tenancingo area. The general gusts were too strong but there were lulls of several minutes every ten minutes or so.

I launched at 4:37 and the lift was of the cloud suck type, starting weak and ratty down below but getting broader and stronger with altitude. However heavy overdevelopment to the NW was creating a wind which was breaking up the lift a little and making it strong on launch. There were a few cumies in the area and I got 3208m in the LM area, but I lost the lift at that point, still perhaps 500-1000 meters below cloud base. (and I forgot to wear my shoe compasses).

I drifted behind launch in an unaccustomed direction, to the NE over Sn.Martin/Teneria valley, and while I did not get dramatic lift, I did get a little lift and a lot of zero sink. I pictured the area as being in a wave effect from the Santo Desierto area.

I flew towards Tecomatlan but it looked like sure sink that way and I still had good altitude, so I hung a left and flew back towards Tenancingo and stayed up a little longer, flying over town too, but with the shadows of the big clouds to the west the whole area was sort of shutting down to thermals, and I landed at the Insurgentes LZ 50 minutes after I launched.
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Wednesday, April 13th
Cumies and streets in blue skies. Nice drift. Looked like good XC and tandem conditions.

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Tuesday, April 12th
The "little bit of rain" that I had been hoping for came last night in some areas but not others. At my house it rained hard for about 20 minutes around midnight.

Today there were lots of puffy cumies in blue skies, but the only hitch is that there was often a distinct easterly drift, which would probably create lee side thermals at La Malinche (tough down low but good flying higher up). The Malinalco/Picacho site, or the new Malinalco/San Simone Antennas launch site, could have been especially good launch points.

I think there was good tandem potential at Malinalco today, and good XC potential from both Mali and Malinche, possibly favoring a direction towards Valle de Bravo. No one has ever flown that way as far as we have heard, but everyone seems to agree that it is doable. I was rather stuck with work today, and the next few days too. Shucks!!

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Monday, April 11th
There were hazy inverted skies, warm temperatures, and no clouds. Soarable but not the best for XC or tandem.

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Sunday, April 10th
There were hazy inverted skies with mid-level embedded cumies. The thermals were strong but narrow, accompanied by large patches of heavy cream... uh, I mean sink. The turbulence was moderate to strong. There were cloud streets towards Zumpahuacán at times and also a corresponding street over on the Ixtapan side of the valley much of the afternoon. An (unpredicted) upper level easterly wind, which I did not really cue in on until the end of the day, made the La Malinche area a little problimatic, but still doable. There was XC potential at times, depending on the direction one would take.

I hiked up to La Malinche at 11am. H.A. launched with a male passenger and did an exteneded sled ride to San Antonio.

I launched at 11:52am with Emiliana V. of DF. We initially got a quick altitude gain to 230 meters over launch along the westerly spine to the right of launch, in air typically crazy for La Malinche when it is too early. I tried the southerly running spine and cliff faces to the left of launch and the heavy sink outdid the occasional strawberry... oh, I mean't to say "thermal". I made a few passes near launch because the clients had requested an attempt at top landing, but sunk out heavy on the second try, and soon after was landing in the Cabañas LZ. We had a 21 minute flight, and I got a pretty cool GoPro video out of it, but I still don't have my computer up to par to edit and post it.

Emili and I hiked the trail back up to launch, and she helped a ton by carrying half of the tandem equipment. Before we had gotten to the top, H. had launched with the remaining client and this time got a good thermal to the right of launch and made it to Tenancingo.

I returned home and switched to my solo equipment.

At 3:59pm I launched again into strong conditions, and took a while to figure out that the better thermals were to the right. I crossed towards Tenancingo starting with the minimum altitude, but found a few decent thermals along the way, and finally got tucked into broad steady lift under some clouds on the north side of Tenancingo. I would have liked to have seen some cloud street heading towards the Malinalco valley, but there was none. At 3273 meters I chose to leave the lift, flying towards the clearer skies to the east, and finally landed at the soccer fields of Tecomatlan about an hour after I launched. A thousand some meters over launch isn't much in the average flying season, but for this season it is pretty high. Forgot to take some photos on this one.

I was glad I had a small super stable DHV1 wing today because some of the turbulence was pretty nasty :)

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Saturday, April 9th
There were hazy inverted skies. I was pinned down with some tandem passengers that D.P. had lined up, that were supposed to arrive at 1pm but didn't show. Finally around 4pm I hiked up myself determined to at least get in a late day flight. Daniel P. called me repeatedly telling me to wait because "they were on their way up".

After waiting a couple more hours on top I launch alone at 6:15pm into weakening but still decent thermals. I had the lift to leave the area but I hung around in the La Malinche bowl waiting to see if they really would arrive. At 6:45 they drove up and H.A. of Ixtapan jumped out quick and launched with one of the passengers. I top landed at 7pm and decided against setting up for a passenger so late, not caring for the landing options, aside from top-landing, which was not certain. I launched again solo into very light air and landed soon after at the Cabañas (long hitch-hiking journey out late at night). H., with his passenger top-landed later, long after the sun disappered, just barely staying up in real scratchy lift. It was definitely soarable today, but not the best for XC.

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Friday, April 8th
There were hazy inverted skies and no cumies. I think it was definitely soarable but not the best for XC.

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Thursday, April 7th
There were hazy skies with nicely formed cumies and cloud streets most of the day. I think there was good XC potential. (earlier than when I flew)

I had not been planning on flying but Daniel P gave me a ride up late in the day. I launched at 5:30 and got good steady lift up to 3800 meters, to where I left the lift band to test the lift to the south towards the antennas. I did not find anything better there and returned to the La Malinche area, got up to 2842mts before topping out. By this hour there were no longer good cumies forming over the La Malinche area. I flew into the west end of the Tenancingo valley as usual, and sunk out quickly and landed next to a circus tent at the Insurgentes LZ, at 6pm exactly for a 30 minute flight. A cloud street was forming over the east end of the valley but I did not give it much attention in the air, but after I landed it strongly overdeveloped there and then some gust fronts hit. Good thing I did not enter that lift band.

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Wednesday, April 6th
It was probably soarable early, before about 2pm, but by two an omonous cunimb formation developed over Tenancingo, and a hypothetical pilot would not have launched for safety concerns. Although the cloud did not ultimatly drop any rain.

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Tuesday, April 5th
Slightly hazy skies with small cumies but no overdevelopment at the end of the day like yesterday. XC potential.

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Monday, April 4th
Today it was probably soarable within a time window before 2pm, but by 2pm ominous cunimbs were developing over Tenancingo making flying the area not a sane option. It never rained in Tenancingo but probably did in Malinalco.

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Sunday, April 3rd
Basically a repeat of yesterdays report except I rode up with Daniel P. Only I flew, as far as I know. There was a giant cumulonimbis off to the north over Toluca and I was cautious to watch for possible effects it might have on our region, but it did not seem to affect us.

This time I waited for the gusts to diminish a little, but tried to be ready before clouds a kilometer or two to the west threw shadows over the area, but the clouds developed faster than I calculated and I still ended launching into the shade. Lift under the shade was better at first, but once again I ended up working the area after, looking for a ride up to cloud base, which never materialized, but there was a lot of heavy turbulence, tight swirling air, and finally I tried flying upwind to the west towards mid-valley generated clouds, but I sank out and landed at don Pablo's ranch in San Antonio for an about 40 minute flight.

I think once more that this day had good XC potential but neither me, nor the other local pilots cared to launch ourselves into the strong stuff earlier these days (ref - a few rumors). I suspect that there were lulls between the gusts for launching throughout the day, and the overall wind speed has been low. It is thermal gusts which come and go and change direction that are strong. The mid-day thermals must have been really strong. Big local dust-devils have been churning since around noon, and they are made more impressivly visible because the dry air is dusty.

I would like just a little touch of rain in this area to reign in these conditions... um, please, thanks.

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Saturday, April 2nd
Skies were blue with nicely formed but not overdeveloped cumies. In the afternoon I headed up to La Malinche on foot.

In front of the Probiomed plant was Pablo and some other pilots who had returned from earlier flying. They suggested it was strong up on launch. I said that one could not tell from where we were at, and perhaps it was not so strong now (and besides I had already decided to go up there anyhow).
(Heard the next day that they had great flights.)

I arrived before 3pm all alone. Wind seemed to be entering from the SSW, but smoke down in the valley was east, apparently the air mass feeding a cloud street in the middle San Jeronimo valley. There were lulls that made launching possible, but the gusts were rather intimidating so I dozed off until around 3:30. By that time the cloud street had developed more in the mid-valley, and with the lowering sun, moving shadows were cast over the La Malinche area. The wind direction and velocity down in the valley was very variable judging by several smoke sources.

But with the shadow came some lulls in the still sometimes strong conditions so I launched at 3:40. I struggled all up and down the ridges and away from the ridges in gusty but ratty air never getting over 2702 meters. Penetrating upwind to the cloud street a few kilometers to the west may or may not have been doable, but the winds in the valley floor out that way looked risky so I did not try that direction very much. I landed at the Cabañas LZ after an hour.

I still think that there was XC potential today with the cumies and streets out there, but perhaps by risking a launch in stronger conditions earlier, or on a higher performance wing, or by launching from Ixtapan de la Sal.

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Friday, April 1st
Today there were the most perfect small cumies and cloud streets in the afternoon. It looked like great XC potential.

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Daniel Miller Weather Blog, March 2011

2011-03-02T05:41:00.000-08:00

Weather Summary Through March 2011

The sweet-spot noted for good XC weather in this graph was November 20th, 2010, more or less. The conditions for the first quarter of 2011 have been dryer than usual with a general lack of cumie formation. Conditions have ranged from cold and stable, to strong conditions on launch, but thermals have not been as tall or well formed as usual, so not so great altitude gains.

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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.

Daniel Miller Weather Blog, February 2011

2011-02-01T05:39:00.000-08:00

February 2011 Summary
Days of possible “Good XC Conditions” from La Malinche –
9 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. –
24 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. –
25 days.

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Monday, February 28th
Skies were clear blue in the Tenancingo and La Malinche area all day, but there were cumies and cloud-streets far off to the north between Tenango and Toluca. There was possibly also an easterly influence in the winds. Today we also had the warmest afternoon in maybe 9 or 10 months, don't know, WindGuru showed 26C/79F, but it felt a few degrees warmer than that. Made me almost want to sweat without my sweater on. Soarable but not the best for XC for lack of cumies.

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Sunday, February 27th
Skies were clear blue in the morning and midday, with small cumies in the afternoon and cloud streets in the late afternoon. It looked and felt like decent XC flying conditions.

In the afternoon Olivar came by with a passenger, and also german pilot and journalist Tomas of Mexico City. Daniel Pedraza drove us up to launch at 4pm and while the cloud formation looked great, there were some powerful cycles moving through every ten minutes that gave us pause.

Things had calmed down some after a while and I launched first at 5:20. In the first 4 minutes I gained 400 meters and then followed the cloud street south towards Santo Desierto. Olivar and passenger launched about that time but they were already specks from my point of view.

The N-S cloud street had a dog-leg which cut behind Santo Desierto to the NE on the Tenancingo side and I followed that gaining altitude all the time (one of the few times I have flow that route). Arriving over Teneria I could have flown to the Malinalco Valley or Tecomatlan and landed, (there being just blue sky there), but another cloud street ran to the west over Tenancingo and towards Volcan de Toluca so I took that route. My highest altitude at that point was a thousand meters above the level of launch, and 1265 meters over Tenancingo.

I left the street and entered decent sink over the Insurgentes field, and landed in a rather strong SW wind, just barely penetrating without speed-bar. It was a 34 minute flight of about 16km on Google Earth.

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Saturday, February 26th
Skies were clear blue with nicely formed cumies and streets throughout the day. Looked like great XC flying conditions.

I got off work at mid-day as usual and it looked like great flying conditions, but Daniel Pedraza was not around, and I was kind of hoping to hear from some other pilots who wanted to fly LM, but I didn't, so I hung around home until 3:30 when I took a taxi to Acatzingo and hiked up to launch.

Conditions looked great on launch with cumies marking the thermals, but the gusts were strong and I did not feel like metting myself in rough air, especially being all alone at launch, so I waited about an hour until some clouds to the west cast their shadow over the La Malinche area and the winds got calm.

I launched at 4:59pm and worked up and down the ridgelines in thermals that did not want to lift me up much above the ridge. Finally I flew down to the western point and took a course upwind towards San Antonio and the flat lands, barely penetrating in sometimes rough air. I was making slow progress but not losing altitude, and when I got past San Antonio, I started rising at a steady rate from about 1-3 meters per second, flying into a cloud street that had formed over the middle of the valley. I continued flying over the gorge and the middle of the valley till I almost reached Zumpahuacan, but with lots more altitude than I had started at. I was looking down to Ixtapan de la Sal, but did not want to leave the cloud street and fly up wind into the rotor of the hills behind Ixtapan, so I turned around and flew downwind back to La Malinche, still gaining more altitude the whole way.
My highest altitude was 3309meters, 1055 meters over launch. I followed the cloud street into the Tenancingo Valley, where the street extended past Tenango and towards Toluca. I did not want to risk that route with high winds down low, so I crused over to Tecomatlan with tons of altitude, and bled that off over the predictably sinky air there, finally landing in the soccer field to a grand reception of kids and soccer players at 6:10pm for a 1hr:11mn flight.

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Friday, February 25th
There were slightly hazy skies with small cumies. I rode up with Daniel Pedraza to La Malinche at 3:30. The lulls were fine but some of the thermal gusts were too strong for my comfort. I waited until things calmed down quite a bit, perhaps too much because I could hardly inflate my wing.

I lauched at 5:29 scratched around in lift that generally did not want to carry me above the level of the upper ridgeline to the left. But then there was rotor to the left because wind was blowing in from the east, something WindGuru did not predict. Finally I got up to 300 meters over launch by working the westward ridgeline, and cruised into Tenancingo, not finding lift but more rotor-like air patterns created by an easterly wind late in the afternoon when the sun is setting in the warming the western side of the hills. I landed at 5:53 at the Insurgentes LZ for a 24 minute flight.
I think that there was good XC potential today, but earlier than when I flew.

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Thursday, February 24th
I was out of town all day and don't know what the weather was like in Tenancingo. There were nice little XC type cumies in Mexico City.

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Wednesday, February 23rd
Skies were slightly hazy and had scattered small mid-level cumies in the late morning. I was out of town in the early afternoon, and it looked soarable but a tad overdeveloped in the late afternoon. I was thinking of flying when I got back in the afternoon, but I was a little late, the clouds were over-developed, and Daniel was not heading up to launch in his 4x4 so I did not attempt to go up there. I'm pretty sure I can say that it was good for XC today from the early afternoon on. I noted good XC conditions over the Toluca plateau as well today.

WindGuru shows that tomorrow, friday and saturday might be similar to today. I'm pinned down by some work commitments these days, but I'd like to break free to fly one of these days.

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Tuesday, February 22nd
Skies were clear blue most of the day, but a few small high cumies started developing around 3pm. It was probably a good day for soaring.

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Monday, February 21st
Skies were clear blue most of the day, but a few small high cumies started developing around 3pm. It was probably a good day for soaring, or maybe close to being a good XC conditions in the afternoon.

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Sunday, February 20th
Skies were clear blue. Surely it was soarable within certain time windows, but the NAM reading of WindGuru showed it to be blown out in the afternoon. That coupled with no other pilot interest in flying today swayed my decision to not attempt free-flight today, although from the Tenancingo Vallley, being down in the wind-shadow of La Malinche, it is hard to judge if it was really blown out on launch (when a southerly wind is involved). In any case I chose it as a day of personal, family, yoga, entheogenic, rest, and it came off as a really cool day at that.

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Saturday, February 19th
Skies were clear blue. It was soarable with powerful thermals around mid-day, and gentle glass-off conditions in the late afternoon, but not the best for XC for lack of cumies.

A few known tandem pilots showed up to fly La Malinche with a large group of people that wanted rides so a few other tandem pilots were invited. I got off work at mid-day and first passed by the Insurgentes landing zone where Hector of Ixtapan had just landed with a passenger, reporting 9 meter per second thermals around Ixpuichiapan hill, and very rowdy air.

We got a ride up with Daniel Pedraza. The two tandem pilots had just returned from an earlier flight. At launch it was generally mellow, but about every ten minutes a waaaay toooo strong thermal would hit like a freight-train. We figured out who would ride with whom, and then the two primary tandem pilots launched. By the fact that most of the time they were not turning, but barely penetrating, once even getting blown behind the ridge and barely penetrating out, and yet never getting much above the ridge-line, based on that, and the gusts, myself and Hector decided to wait for conditions to mellow. We waited maybe an hour or two.

By 4pm the gust cycles were getting lighter and I launched with Ricardo F. of Toluca at 4:22. Thermal activity was strong enough to get the altitude to fly to Tenancingo, but weak enough to be comfortable. Our maximum altitude was exactly 2700 meters above sea level, or 444 meters over launch. Over the Tenancingo Valley we found patchy but not very strong lift, and sink, but we did manage to make a pass near Cristo Rey. We landed at 4:43 for a 21 minute flight. Gerardo, Hector and the others landed on the other side near San Antonio.

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Friday, February 18th
Skies were clear blue. I suspect that it was soarable with decent thermals around mid-day, and gentle glass-off conditions in the afternoon, but not the best for XC for lack of cumies.

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Thursday, February 17th
Skies were clear blue. I suspect that it was soarable with powerful thermals around mid-day, but not the best for XC for lack of cumies.

I rode up with Daniel P after work to give a tandem flight. It was blowing in gentle thermal cycles when we arrived around 4:45.

We launched and worked our way around the ridgelines in weak thermic air for over half an hour before getting to just over the minimum 300 meters over launch to fly over the back. In the crossing there was just a little lift but no heavy sink. Ditto in the Tenancingo valley. We landed flawlessly in light winds at the Insurgentes LZ for an about 45 minute flight. The passenger was very pleased with the mellow but substantial flight.

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Wednesday, February 16th
Skies were clear blue. I suspect that it was soarable with powerful thermals, but not the best for XC for lack of cumies.

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Tuesday, February 15th
Skies were clear blue. I suspect that it was soarable with powerful thermals, but not the best for XC for lack of cumies.

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Monday, February 14th
Skies were clear blue. There were cumies far off to the northwest. I suspect that it was soarable with powerful thermals, but not the best for XC for lack of cumies.

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Sunday, February 13th
Skies were generally clear in the Tenancingo and San Jeronimo valley but there were cumies to the far northwest. Winds were SSE at launch and up to mid level altitudes, but high altitude cumies were drifting slowly in from the north.

I road up with Daniel Pedraza to La Malinche where Georgio, a pilot who has been to a few fly-ins, was waiting. The overall conditions at 2pm were not that bad, but there were occasional gusts that were way too strong, and I was not looking for flying in heavy duty air.

I waited until around 4pm when things were getting more stable; launched at 4:20; thermaled up in the house thermal that had unusual drift away from the ridgeline due to the easterly element in the wind; topped out at 400meters over launch. I flew over the back to Tenancingo because I was not sure if things would get weaker at La Malinche. I flew over the mid area of the Tenancingo Valley, not finding a good thermal, but not loosing much altitude either, and then flew back to town and hit real heavy sink at the Insurgentes LZ and landed 20 minutes after I launched.

Daniel Pedraza tells me that Alfredo arrived later and he and Georgio launched and flew around the La Malinche area for over an hour, but not getting the altitude to fly over the back to Tenancingo, and landed at the cabañas.

It was a good soaring day, but with an unusual thermal drift and layout, and not the best for XC,(or more likely I did not understand the thermal drift and layout this day, yet invisible potential still existed).

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Saturday, February 12th
I was out of town today, but Daniel Pedraza reported that there were cumies today and about 9 or 10 pilots flew like Hector Gerardo Xevi Olivar Roberto Favio and who knows who else. Favio and some others flew to Malinalco. It was a day with XC potential I would guess.

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Friday, February 11th
Skies were a little hazy with scattered mid to high level cumies, and not overly strong winds. It looked like another day with good XC potential. I have "down to the finish line" kind of stuff at work so I couldn't break away to try flying.

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Thursday, February 10th
Skies were blue with about 20% cover of mid-level puff-ball cumies and streets.

Hector, Gerardo and Xevi launched from Ixtapan around mid-day and Xevi and Hector landed at Insurgentes LZ Tenancingo, and Gerardo landed in the San Jeronimo river valley, south of Villa Guerrero. They got a ride up with Daniel Pedraza for a second flight from La Malinche, and Gerardo and Xevi skied out and flew over the back towards Tenancingo, and Hector worked his way at high altitude with a cross headwind in an attempt to return to Ixtapan. Don't know yet if he made it, or where the others flew to.

Anyhow I got off work after they headed up, and hiked up and arrived to see that some serious wind gusts had just begun to hit about every ten minutes, and prevented Daniel P from launching after them. I hung around for a while, but the gusts did not let off, so we drove down.

It looked like a day with great XC flying potential.

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Wednesday, February 9th
Skies were clear blue but not too windy. I went up to launch late in the afternoon and launched at 5:30 into mildly thermic air, getting up to about 500 meters over launch about ten minutes later before crossing over the back. Flying over the hills and the Tenancingo I did not hit too much sink but got a little lift, made a pass over Cristo Rey and a spin around town, and landed a half an hour later.

I think that it must have been good soaring conditions today, but just lacked some cumies to merit a good XC day.

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Tuesday, February 8th
Skies were were mostly blue with a few cirrus and small cumies in the Tenancingo Valley in the afternoon. There were gusts in just the corner of Tenancingo where I live, from the midday till the late afternoon, indicating strong winds at launch with a westerly element.

Les from Yalapa flew El Picacho Malinalco in the morning until 1 or 2pm, when it got blown out and he came to Tenancingo for the afternoon.

I met up with Daniel P, Les, and Favio from Malinalco around 4pm and Daniel drove us up to La Malinche. It was blown out and we couldn't fly, although it looked like perhaps good flying in the Tenancingo Valley where winds were low and there were cumies, but there were no cumies in front of launch, just a hard WSW wind and it didn't look worth waiting to see if would drop down.

I would guess that it was soarable at Mali, and not flyable at La Malinche due to high winds.

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Monday, February 7th
A pilot named Les from Yalapa came to visit late in the afternoon. We road up with Daniel Pedraza. I launched first and went to the left and sunk out like never before, not even making it to the Cabañas LZ. Les launched after and went to the right and skied out and flew into Tenancingo with lots of altitude. I did a good job as a wind dummy.
Probably was a good soarable day, but not the best for XC for lack of cumies.

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Sunday, February 6th
Skies were about 50% cirrus early in the day, and 100% cirrus late in the day.
I road up to La Malinche with Daniel P arriving around 11:30am. In the valley I saw indications of a medium strong west wind, but it was rather mellow at the south facing launch, so I set up while watching conditions so as to not waste time because it was predicted to get stronger. By the time I set up one strong gust had come through, followed by a prolonged lull. I tried to launch but aborted because the wind had switched suddenly to the west, then it blew down strong and after packing my equipment up it was blown out from the west all the rest of the day in the whole region. Not Flyable.

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Saturday, February 5th
Skies were filled with rather large cumies, sometimes mixed with high cirrus clouds, throughout the day.

I was sick today with vomiting and diahrrea. The likely culprit: some of the most delicious carnitas tacos I have ever eatten, yesterday afternoon, and prepared in a very clean environment... Go figure.

Daniel Pedraza drove Gerardo and Hector and also producer Peter Peru up to La Malinche launch at mid-day. Cycles were too strong for them to fly in with powerful large cumies forming over La Malinche. They waited around until about 2pm and left. I suspect however that late in the afternoon it was in fact soarable. Not the best for XC conditions most likely, unless a pilot were very daring around mid-day.

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Friday, February 4th
The skies were generally overdeveloped with cumulus formation much of the day. Although surely there were hours where spectacular soaring flights were possible, safety concerns or periods of stable air caused by too much cloud cover probably meant that it was not the best conditions for XC.

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Thursday, February 3rd
There were larger cumies and streets than yesterday. Most of the day looked like excellent XC flying conditions. I was needed at work again today and I was thinking of an afternoon flight, but late in the afternoon the cumies comming off La Malinche were overdeveloped and a few drops of rain even fell.

After most of December and January without clouds the last few days have seemed glorious. Also I heard the crickets start to chirp again at night. An early peek of spring weather.

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Wednesday, February 2nd
Skies were clear blue with little puff-ball cumies and streets. Winds were SW and not too strong. Looked like great XC weather! I got snagged at work, left early to fly, but got snagged again at home.

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Tuesday, February 1st
Skies were clear blue with high fast moving cirrus at times. Throughout most of the day I saw occasional dangerious high winds. It might have been blown-out at launch, or it might have been soarable but risky. Late in the afternoon conditions were calmer and it might have been good for a "glass-off" flight.

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Daniel Miller Weather Blog, January 2011

2011-01-01T17:00:00.000-08:00

January 2011 Summary
Days of possible “Good XC Conditions” from La Malinche –
8 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. –
30 days (The previous catigory overlaps into this one)

Non-Flyable days from La Malinche –
1 day

Days of possible “Training Hill” conditions at Malinalco, or better, albeit at times within a certain time window. –
29 days.

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Monday, January 31st
Skies were clear blue and very thermic with cumies forming around mid-afternoon when the winds seemed too strong. It was clearly blown out around 3 or 4 in the Tenancingo Valley. Daniel offered me a ride up but I declined. He said that it appeared soarable around sunset. Soarable but with possible risks for strong conditions and winds. Not the best for XC.

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Sunday, January 30th
Skies were clear blue and soarable, but with hightened risk in the midday, due to dust-devils and overly strong thermal conditions, and rowdy boyant conditions in the late afternoon. Not the best for XC.

I took the bus to Ixtapan de La Sal (15 pesos) to try the flying there for the 4th time. I joined up with Gerardo and he drove us to the (newer) launch. The gust cycles were too strong, and sometimes 90 degrees cross, but the lull cycles were launchable. Gerardo took off first at around 10:50 and caught a monster thermal down the ridgeline to the east.

I launched at 9:14 and while following the spine out forward, where the thermals would be expected to be centered, hit massive sink and landed 4 minutes later 388 meters below launch in a difficult little field sloping steeply downhill and pinned in by powerlines. I jammed the left brake line hard when I was about two meters off the ground, and intentionally did a rather high velocity spin into the ground to avoid not being able to land on the steep field, and to avoid possibly getting snatched up by a gust.

I chatted with the old man in the tiny tiny pueblo of Reynoso, and after an hour his grandson gave me a ride out to the highway where I caught a cab back to Ixtapan. I met up with Gerardo there and he told me how he was in the jaws of a monster dustdevil and thermal but watching my flight with concern. He flew over the back towards La Malinche but saw giant dustdevils in Tenancingo and decided to turn back and land in the valley below Villa Guerrero. He hit a massive wind gust while trying to land in a soccer field and quickly pulled a B-line stall just a few meters off the ground so as to not get dragged away.

I got back to Tenancingo before Daniel Pedraza and Alfredo Carsolio took off to La Malinche for a late afternoon flight, but I passed on that because I had enough flying activity for the day and had things to do at home.

Alfredo said that he got up to around 2700 over La Malinche, and 2900 over the Tenancingo Valley in late day "restitution" air, but that the lift consisted of broken thermals and it was a real challenge to work it. He landed at Insurgentes I think.

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Saturday, January 29th
Skies were clear blue. Conditions were probably soarable and possibly rowdy broken thermals, but not the best for XC.

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Friday, January 28th
Skies were clear blue with just a small amount of cirrus partially blocking the sun. Conditions were soarable. I had thought conditions were more stable. Peter's appraisal was of rowdy but broken thermals. Either way, not the best for XC.

Daniel Pedraza and I hooked up with Peter in the late morning and we drove up to La Malinche with two tandem pilots, Roberto of DF and another one whose name I remember not, who were here with two novice passengers.

Peter launched first and worked what appeared to me to be weak lift off to the left by the cliffs. I launched second and since the lift looked weak to the left and it was early for those cliffs to work, I headed to the right instead, but sunk out heavily and came back to the face that Peter was working, but it was too little too late and I landed at the Cabañas LZ for an 8 minute flight, and hiked back up to launch.

Peter in the mean time worked air that he reports was super rowdy but hard to center lift, but at the time I mistakenly appraised as weak air. I was paying more attention to setting up, my short flight, and landing. He said he had a lot of collapses. I know what that air is like. That is what I was flying in last Wednesday. That's why I generally prefer La Malinche in the afternoons.

Peter got some altitude over the main peak and was able to fly back to Tenancingo, do some spirals, and land at the Insurgentes LZ.

I probably took about an hour to hike back up to launch, and saw that Roberto had already landed at the Cabañas LZ, and his buddy had not launched yet. So finally the other tandem pilot launched, this time into more thermic air, and caught some good thermals, his pasajera squealing with delight. We met up with them at Insurgentes where they landed.

We weren't able to establish contact with Peter, but met up with Gerardo, Hector and Philipe at the end of the day and they drove us up for another late afternoon flight. It was blowing in moderately in thermal cycles.

I launched first and worked the ridge to the right. Meanwhile Hector launched and centered strong lift right over launch. I scooted over and joined him. When I got up to about 400 meters over launch I headed over the back, arriving at Tenancingo with ample altitude but not finding any lift, and landed at Insurgentes for a 20 minute flight. Gerardo landed soon after me.

The others landed on the other side I presume, along with two Valle pilots who showed up after we launched.

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Thursday, January 27th
Peter and Daniel P and I got a ride up to La Malinche with Hector and Gerardo who came to visit from Ixtapan, for a late afternoon flight. We got up to launch real late, like around 5:30pm. Moderate "ridge-lift" type winds were blowing in from the WSW.

Peter launched first, and I second, and later Daniel P., Gerardo and Hector launched. I employeed a late day type stratigy to arrive to Tenancingo in weak ridgelift, buy flying down to the antennas of Santo Desierto to get more altitude. Peter was flying close by me on this one, probably getting some good photos. My GPS did not work, but we got to around 2700 meters at the antenna, and we had over 2500 meters when we got back to La Malinche, which usually would be enough to make it to Tenancingo, but a strong crosswind while making the pass put me down in one of the alternate LZs along the highway leading to launch. Peter landed there too, and Daniel Pedraza landed in the field right across the highway from us. We were walking distance from our homes, but a taxi made it even shorter.

I found out later that Gerardo landed in the turbulent danger zone behind the ridgeline to west, but along the highway. He got the *!%¿ scared out him in the dangerous switchy winds, a universal experience among pilots who go down in that zone.

The skies were clear blue and I suspect that it was soarable with strong thermals around midday, but not the best conditions for XC for lack of cumies.

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Wednesday, January 26th
Skies were generally clear blue with a few scattered cirrus and a few mid level small cumies. Wind was south, but switchy between SE and SW.

Daniel Pedraza drove Peter and I up to launch at about noon. There were moderate strong cycles with moderate lulls. Peter launched first into dynamic air and had caught a good elevator at the main house thermal by the time I launched.

I launched at 12:22 and tried catching up with Peter who had more altitude, without finding any good steady thermals along the way, just off the scale tiny punchy thermals, separated by heavy sink and all sorts of wind-shear. Peter was headed off over Santo Desierto on a course towards the "bad lands" and then Malinalco. Peter experienced the same type of air but later he was flying rather low behind the back in a zone that I would not fly in, but since I did not get the boost up to the middle altitudes right away, I couldn't catch up to him either.

Peter apparently flew to Malinalco and thought he discovered Tenancingo, not unlike Columbus thinking he discovered the East Indies, but kudos to ya Peter!! Comes out to about 14km as measured along two lines, or perhaps more like 20-25k, because Peter says he flew to El Picacho and back in that flight, maybe not real far by many standards, but what spectacular scenery along that route!

Here is the link to Peters own account-
http://www.explorex.net/main.jsp?artid=438&tofu=n

Peter Crossing the Badlands
(but way too low IMHO

For the next hour I worked up and down the western facing ridge area in some of the most turbulent thermal conditions that I have flown. The lift was so broken up but violent that all gains were a zero sum and I stayed more or less at ridge level.

After an hour of rowdy collapses and thermals that lead nowhere I got bored of the puzzle and headed over to the south facing ridgeline and found the grand ma ma of thermals, surrounded by her guardians of wind shear and caught the express elevator up to 3058 meters where I bailed out towards the northeast.

When I left the thermal I hit extreme wind shear and my whole wing collapsed and fell in front of me in a little wad. I raised my arms and recovery was so sweet and automatic on the small DHV 1 :) Daniel Pedraza saw it happen from the ground and was a little shocked.

I crossed the Tenancingo Valley on route towards Tecomatlan, finding house thermals in the right places but with exagerated turbulence. I landed in the Tecomatlan soccerfields, the only place where I have landed hundreds of times, and conditions have always been the same. For so many reasons Tecomatlan is a "perfect" landing area, and to think that no gringo pilot has landed there yet.

Except Norm. I think that Norm landed there once. And then there was Brad's notorious crash landing in Tecomatlan, but I am sure the east side of the valley often nasty downhill rotor stuff. The football fields are centered in the valley and have had south or southeast winds every time I have landed there and the air is real sinky there for quick easy landing.

Later in the afternoon Daniel drove a Spanish pilot and I up to launch. The new visitor pilot caught the house thermal and a ride up to the minimum altitude to fly to Tenancingo, which he did, and I didnt catch the house thermal but ran around trying to strike it rich out in the turbulent zone, but ultimately finding some heavy sink.

The landing was interesting, not making it to the upper edge of a plateau where I had intended to land because of increasing headwind over the flat-land. I put down instead in a several hundred foot gully behind that plateau, in the rotor in theory. Turbulence from the rotor was minimal and I put down exactly where I was aiming at, an about 50 x 50 foot square, the only flat spot, surrounded on all sides by thorn trees, jutting rebar, big nasty rocks, and a cliff to the stream. I did the spot landing PERFECTLY, like I never would have been able to do in a competition, or maybe my angels were just watching out for me. An amazed neighbor gave me a ride to the highway.

Today there was better than usual XC potential, although either my flying style or just luck was preventing me from keeping up with the two other pilots today, but I was kind of working away from the ridge, for safety as I am still getting used to this new wing, and because usually when it is turbulent at the ridgeline then better lift is out away from the ridge, but not today.

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Tuesday, January 25th
Skies were clear blue with some cumies off towards Cuerna Vaca.
I would guess that all sites were very soarable all day, but not XC conditions only for lack of cumies.

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Monday, January 24th
Skies were clear blue, and perhaps it was blown out on La Malinche in the afternoon. Just a guess but I would think soarable for Mali, and perhaps just early at La Malinche.

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Sunday, January 23rd
We drove to La Malinche and at the soccerfield of Terrenate Marco and the french group said that strong winds were predicted and they were off to other far away places. We drove up to launch anyhow and it was medium strong when we arrived, like around 10am, and soon built to 'too strong'.

Hector and Gerardo showed up on launch from Ixtapan driving up the 4x4 section of the road in a small 2wd sedan. In addition to Daniel P, there was photographer Juan and his wife Juanita both from Seattle and nearby Tecomatlan. We passed some quality time just partying and picnicing. Daniel showed his nearly-finished cabin built right next to the site, I did some yoga, and most importantly of all...

Hector showed me how when viewing the WindGuru forecast, how the first section of the forecast called GFS, pertains more to upper level winds, while the second section called NAM pertains more to winds at the surface. He showed me how the GFS readings which I had referred to that morning showed lower wind speeds than the NAM readings for near the ground, and low and behold, but some rancher lit a fire not far behind the ridgeline, and we witnessed how the winds down low were really fast, but as the smoke rose higher the winds were much slower. Taking this into account it looked like the forecast was for it to be blown-out all day, and it very much was. All near sites blown-out too, I am sure.

We went to the carnitas restaurant next to the Oxxo where I had never eatten before and it was really clean and nice and the food was excellently prepared, pure and healthy. There wasn't enough of us to justify occupying the seafood restaurant to see Peter's films, so we went to Daniel Pedraza's home.

First we saw a short film pertaining to two trips into the mountians of northern Columbia, and interaction with one of the most isolated and intact groups of precolumbian peoples of the Andes, called the Kogi, and a paraglider flight from that high altitude location.

Next we watched most of an extended version of a work in progress, 'Paracinderella', which is full of fascinating biographical material of Peter's long and pioneering involvement in "extreme" skiing and paragliding, with lots of great old film clips of his early paragliding activities.

Interwoven through all this another storyline develops of Peter's long world-wide search for the perfect woman, a woman who paraglides like he does, and who also is looking for such a relationship. (something which most experienced pilots agree can rarely ever, or never, be found) Lots of interviews with the women he has known and who know him, and the interview with his mom was real 'choice'. She summed it up the best IMO. There is a lot of sport action, heart, love, friendships and humor, all mixed together in this film.

What he has so far is pretty good, but he probably appreciates hearing peoples reactions so that he will know how to edit it down or add to it, or how to complete the project for that matter.

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Saturday, January 22nd
Skiing and paragliding film producer Peter "Peru" Chrzanowski has come to stay at Casa del Piloto. http://www.explorex.net/

We got to La Malinche a half hour later than we had wanted to and the cycles were strong but it was still launchable. Skies were clear blue all day with mild winds from the S to SW and the thermals were rather strong, although I did not notice dust-devil activity. The winds were low and thermals were strong, a good combination.

I launched first at 12:12pm, after one abort for not breaking hard enough when I brought the wing up. I got yanked up vertical the second time in a spectacular elevator ride, although Peter described it more accurately as "a rocket shooting straight up". I immediatly used the speed bar to not get blown over the back, and in seconds centered the thermal that was just entering. In a matter of seconds I was above the cliffs to the left of launch and proceeded to make a pass along the length that ridge. Along the way there was very strong lift, punctuated by moderate strong sink. It was like entering the mouth of the lion but the new small Icaro handled the whole flight great with a minimal amount of collapse activity in very dynamic air.

I had wanted to wait for Peter to launch, but all could do is hang on for the ride up, and dared not venture into the turbulence and sink surrounding the house thermal. After some ten minutes I was about a kilometer above launch and the lift was getting choppy and I decided to bail out over the back towards Tenancingo. I flew on a north-east course towards Tecomatlan crossing the Tenancingo Valley, flying in sink the whole way, but it made little difference with the altitude I had. On the southeast corner of the lake in the center of the valley I caught another thermal that was drifting east along the highway towards Teneria. That brought me up to 3385 and I was eyeing the possiblity of flying east to El Picacho, but I wanted to stay local to help Peter out if he should need it, so I flew into the predictable heavy sink over the football fields of Tecomatlan and landed for a 46 minute flight.

I found out that Peter had landed at the cabañas LZ below launch on the way back, and drove out to get him. We met up just as he was hiking down the steep road from the LZ. He said that he had flown around for about 20 minutes, but away from the ridge, ultimately hitting more sink than lift.

In the late afternoon we met up with Marco Guillermo and the group of French pilots that come here to fly around this time every year. Same ones as before, about 9 pilots I think.

We got to launch around 5:30 and it was blowing in steady but a little too strong. It started to drop of a tad and the French pilots started to launch, flying with almost no turns, following the ridgeline slowly crosswind down to the antenna towers of Santo Desierto gaining steadly along the way.

I let Peter launch first this time and I launched afterwards. We caught up with eachother somewhere down by the towers. The view of Chalma off in the next valley, and the edge of Cuerna Vaca beyond was spectacular at that moment. Everyone made their way back slowly to La Malinche, but with considerable altitude in ridge lift with the sun setting, so alot of us did big ears to loose altitude. We could have easily flown over the back and landed in Tenancingo by CDP, but Peter was following the French group who were landing at the San Antonio cemetery. It would be a hell of a long walk out of there and I did not think that I would fit in the van with the French pilots (I hope Peter fit in that van ;) that's a long lonely cemetery road under a cold full moon sky, and werewolves a howlen off in the distance...), so I flew out to the main highway and landed in a favorite field. It was already dark when I made it to the highway and picked up a taxi back home.

The day was very soarable at all sites, but not the best XC weather only because it lacked cumies to mark the thermals.

Tomorrow maybe Marco and the French pilots will be back, and Peter will be screening his new movie at the seafood restaurant across from the main LZ at 6pm.

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Friday, January 21st
Mostly blue skies with just a few high cumies marking out the heads of the thermals. Assuming that it was not blown out on launch (no signs of excess wind down in the valley, but just of strong thermal cycles), then it was a good soaring day with XC potential, except late in the afternoon, when it might have been blown-out, but not as much as before.

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Thursday, January 20th
From the point of view of the Tenancingo Valley skies were clear blue with strong blue thermals early on and blown out from the SW in the afternoon. I wasnt at these launches but a guess that Mali may have been soarable for a few hours early on, and just maybe La Malinche, but surely they both got blown out early.

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Wednesday, January 19th
The skies were clear blue with S to SW winds from midday to sunset. There were also several broadly spaced disc shaped lenticular clouds indicating high winds aloft.

I hiked up to launch in the late afternoon, arriving at 5pm. It was blowing straight in steady but too strong to launch into. It was pure wind and any thermals were highly fragmented. I waited till 5:45 and the sun was getting close to the horizon and the winds did not diminish at all so I hiked back down.

I suspect that it was soarable at La Malinche from midday till about 2 or so and then got blown out. Malinalco was probably soarable early as well. Not the best for XC though.

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Tuesday, January 18th
I was out of town most of the day so I am not as sure today, but I think that it was clear blue skies with decent strength blue thermals from mid-day and possibly blown out at La Malinche in the afternoon, and good flying at El Picacho Malinalco. Soarable but not the best for XC.

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Monday, January 17th
Today the skies were clear blue. Except for thermal gusts the winds were mild and from the west in the Tenancingo Valley and more from the south at La Malinche.

At 2pm I spotted a white paraglider at about 2000 feet over my shop in Teneria, 6km east of Tenancingo. He did a few turns in the middle of the valley house thermal, and headed off to probably San Simon el Alto, and El Picacho, with lots of altitude. The event in Ixtapan was to continue today, so I assume that it was one of the comp type pilots who launched from Ixtapan going on XC.

I would rate the day as very soarable and not blown out, but with "blue thermals", not the best for XC.

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Sunday, January 16th
I left with Daniel Pedraza in the morning to attend the flying event at Ixtapan. We went in my truck but Daniel drove. It looked like it was going to be a rare excellent XC day for La Malinche, and even as we were leaving little puff-ball cumies were forming.

As we were approaching Ixtapan we both noted high winds on that side and knew that the launch would probably be blown out since it is vulnerable to high winds. It appeared that we made it clear between us that if it was blown out that we would quickly return to Tenancingo so I could fly, or whatever. We got to the Ixtapan launch and everyone was leaving because it was blown out.

We passed by Los Soles down in town just to say Goodbye and Thank You to everyone, but on the way out Daniel wanted to stop by Gerardos (very beautiful) hotel. Gerardo was a great host as always and offered refreshments and stuff while the pilots continued to chat chat chat uninturruptedly. I indicated to Daniel various times how I wanted to leave but he kept telling me to wait just a little more.

Alfredo Carsolio called us from Tenancingo and told us he was going to fly and asked if we wanted to join him which I surely did. We could see from Ixtapan how the little clouds were perfect over in the Tenancingo Valley.

Anyhow they continued to chat chat chat for hours on end, Gerardo arranging for some food that never seemed come. If I had been flying in Tenancingo I would have already landed and been eating whatever it is that I like to eat. I did have a lot of hunger because it was already late in the afternoon and I had not eaten yet.

Alfredo called again and told us how it was blowing in perfectly up on La Malinche launch. We went to another place in the hotel complex and more beers were offered (I don't drink) and they continued to chat chat chat. Finally Gerardo brought some ceviche and, thanks Gerardo, it was really good, but not really the kind of thing that I needed to eat, and besides I was getting more and more pissed off about such a wanton waste of my precious sunday, which is not only the day which I dedicate to flying, but now of all days, I see one of the few really good XC days that I have seen in about a month.

Finally after we ate some ceviche I decided that I would not put up with this shit for anymore and made a big scene that we must leave NOWWW! And we did. It was too late to fly when I got back to Tenancingo.

It looked like a day with great XC potential from La Malinche.

Once more, another day in which I need to learn by my mistakes and dumbly tell myself "Won't Get Screwed Again!"

Of course I am angry with myself because it was my own fault. I should have stuck my ground with Daniel right from the start and never allowed myself to get roped into another social event.

I think that Gerardo would have gladly taken off to La Malinche with me, but he was pinned down by people too.

(I can't really blame them, most people that is. They carry the illusion of immortality, just like most common people around the world... but sometimes I get the feeling these people got some double helping of that immortality. I can try to be nice, but I have learned that I have to be fair to myself and I try to cut my losses early, when people are hell bent on wasting my time.)

I've heard Marco and Morgan and others with an outsiders point of view with the same complaint. That the pilots here are more interested in hanging around chatting than flying.

I can fume about it all next week while I am working.

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Saturday, January 15th
Cumies started forming around midday, with southerly and westerly drift, but this time they were higher and more substantial than yesterday.

At around 1pm I was walking downtown and looked up and saw a blue paraglider flying high over Cristo Rey. Today was the first day of the two day flying event in Ixtapan de la Sal so Daniel Pedraza and I conjectured that it was a pilot that jumped the pass from Ixtapan.

The clouds continued building and overdeveloped and then we actually got rain in the late afternoon, for the first time several in months.

Today was a good day for flying XC as evidenced by the pilot arriving from Ixtapan and the cumie formations and the wind directions.

I found out the next day that the pilot was Xevi from Spain, and he landed in the plains between Tenango and Toluca. Kudos!

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Friday, January 14th
Bob and I were at La Malinche early, around 11am, and there were very small and early cumies in the Tenancingo Valley at a rather low altitude, several hundred meters over the hilltops, and they were blowing from the northeast over the back of the ridgeline to the left of launch. The upper level winds were all blowing the wrong direction, from the north and east, but at launch and down in the valley there were constant gentle cycles blowing in, it was a possible rotor situation unless the valleys were to heat up well and create a decent southwest flow. The air at noon was cold even with sweaters on if you were anywhere but in the sun. The birds tried to do some soaring but couldnt so they stuck to mostly low level flights. Later the small cumies gave way to clear blue skies. We decided to wait for things to change. The peace and quiet was awesome and we laid in the warm sun of launch dozing off into dreamland for several hours. The place has a powerful hypnotic effect at times.

By 2:30 there was still not the sort of signs that we wanted for good flying, but it was blowing in better, not from over the back, or not so much maybe, but even more remarkable, it was not blown out at this hour and there were still considerable lulls. We decided to go ahead and launch and see what we could make of conditions.

We encountered tiny cannon-ball thermals that were tough to center and lacked duration, surrounded by moderate turbulence and heavy sink. The thermals seemed to me to lay away from the ridge, consistent with a mild flow from over the back, although it was blowing in from the SW up to several hundred meters over the ridgeline. We struggled in that for about 20 minutes and my highest altitude was only 300 meters over launch. I saw Bob circling around pretty far behind the ridge line at that altitude and I went there at lower altitude, but when I started to sink out I decided to go ahead and jump over the back at lower than usual altitude and maybe get lucky on the way... Instead I sunk out like crazy and landed in one of the alternates along the highway.

Bob crossed at a decent altitude and found good lift along the way, but after the last hill flew towards the Insurgentes LZ and hit 4 mps sink, and landed. 20/20 hindsight IMHO, he should have followed the last hill as it extends towards the east and crossed between the lake and the military base, and he might have found more lift, but then I should not have tried crossing so low and should have been there leading the way. Bob's flight from LaMalinche arriving back at Tenancingo is a good thing, convenient flying for sure, and also some conditions that made the task a more challenging victory than usual.

Some interesting cloud streets formed after we landed, but I think that the day was still generally weak. Today it was soarable, but probably better at Malinalco, but for sure not the best for XC. It was not the XC day we were hoping for and probably not as good as yesterday, but it was a real relaxing day and we had a good lunch and Bob helped me repack my reserve.

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Thursday, January 13th
Bob called me at work this morning at 11 and asked me what I thought of the weather. I did not notice any clouds in the sky at that moment to judge the drift, but WindGuru had called for SE, and besides I was kind of pinned down to my work at the moment, so we both kind of decided that he would fly Mali again like yesterday, which he did, and had a great time (maximum altitude 3800 meters).

But I noticed not long after the phone call that there were nice small thermal induced cumies forming in the Tenancingo valley, and they had in fact a south and west drift and streets were forming from La Malinche and Desierto, so I am ashamed to report that it looks like it would have been a good possiblity of a good XC day from La Malinche, but Bob or I did not go to fly there. Tomorrow looks like a good possible XC day from La Malinche.

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Wednesday, January 12th
The skies were clear blue with winds from the southeast and thermal induced cumies forming in regions north of Tenancingo by midday, and extending into the north side of Tenancingo by the afternoon. Given the easterly element Bob decided to fly El Picacho today, and reports that he had a great time with thermaling and dozens of top landings. It was soarable at Malinalco today, and possibly from La Malinche if one stuck to the west end of the ridgeline and beyond.

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Tuesday, January 11th
The skies were clear blue, probably soarable and not blown out, but not the best for XC.
Bob and I hooked up with Daniel Pedraza for a late afternoon flight. We set up fast upon arrival and launched quickly because it was blowing in real nice. Bob and I worked rather gentle thermals often in the same airspace for some 20 minutes until I decided to fly over the back with 2785 meters, which is 521 meters over launch. Bob followed me during the rest of the flight using the lift or sink I hit for a stratigical advantage which added to a several hundred meter differience at the end.

I got to the edge of Ixpuichiapan, without finding any useful thermals so far but we still had a useful amount of altitude. I angled northeast across the Tenancingo Valley with a plan to fly towards the Tecomatlan soccer fields. By the time I got to the middle valley and the highway where there is often a house thermal, there wasn't any there this time. I changed plans and followed the highway east to Teneria, because if I did not make it to the Tecomatlan soccer fields and landed along the way, it would have taken significantly longer getting out of there, and the sun was close to setting. Instead we both landed in a nice field near my shop, and waited about 10 seconds for a taxi, and were very soon back at home relaxing. :)

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Monday, January 10th
It may have been soarable and not blown out at La Malinche today (with winds from the south), but most likely not the best for XC.
I went with Bob and Sherida to visit Hector and Gerardo in Ixtapan de la Sal. Skies were clear blue with a few high altitude streaks with winds from the SSW midday and from WNW in the late afternoon.
Ixtapan Launch 2455 meters, Valley floor LZs 2030 meters .

Hector launching at the new Ixtapan Launch site.

We arrived at launch at around 12:30. Hector launched first and worked with a mix of strong thermals and strong winds, slowly working south along the ridgeline at about 800 meters over launch, eventually flying the some 10km back to Ixtapan and landing near home.

Gerardo launched next and hit some heavy sink along with lift and turbulence, but made it out to the regular LZ by the highway.

I launched next at about 1pm and hit a little turbulent lift that I could not center, and then very heavy sink (there must have been some heavy lift nearby), landing five minutes later at the nearest emergency LZ at the base of the hill. It required walking a rather long and difficult road that goes down into a deep ravine to get to the highway. Bob and Sherida decided not to fly yet and waited up at launch, not really having any choice since there is no regular transporation up there.

I returned to Ixtapan with Hector and Gerardo and we had a quick lunch and brought some sandwiches up to Bob and Sherida, arriving back at launch at around 4:15. Now the wind had shifted to west and northwest, causing the wind to come in 90degrees cross at launch (rotoring over the trees) and rotoring over the back of the spine that juts out about a kilometer to the right of launch.

Hector launched first and got more and more parked in heavy winds. Gerardo launched second and barely made it out to a field near the highway. I launched third and after working some thermals for about 15 minutes on a spine in front of launch, encountered heavy winds and with full speed bar barely progressed and made it to the emergency field again, having to walk the long road again to get to the highway and get a taxi back to town.

After I landed Hector was still in the air and very slowly penetrated to the other side of the spine to the right of launch that was producing rotor, and followed that slowly in the high winds to a convenient field by the highway. From the ground I saw Sherida attempt a launch but her wing got wrapped up in a small tree to the left of launch (due to the cross wind no doubt).

It was dark when I drove up for Bob and Sherida and I got lost several times, so they were pretty cold and tired when I got there, and unfortunately did not get to fly today. As always Hector and Gerardo were great hosts.

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Sunday, January 9th
It was soarable today only within a very limited time window, and not good for XC.
Daniel Pedraza drove Bob, Guy and I up to La Malinche at like around 11am. Skies were clear blue, smoke in the valley indicated SW, and cycles were about 10 minutes apart ranging from a little too strong to light. We waited around till after 12 while the strong cycles got even stronger and the calm lull cycles got even shorter, and meanwhile the birds were limiting their soaring to down below us, and none of the desired cumies were forming.

We drove back down for lunch and returned to launch later in the afternoon. It was still blowing in too strong, but wind was more laminar than before and more from the south. I took a nap and finally about a half an hour before the sun set we decided the wind was dropping down enough to launch safely.

It was big ridge lift. Bob launched first, got to 2500, and flew with full speedbar over the back and through the strong sink patch, and made it to the Insurgentes LZ near Casa del Piloto. I launched second and crossed with around 50 meters less than Bob and flew with half speed bar over the back and landed short of the Insurgentes field, in a field near my house. Guy launched third and crossed with even less and flew more slowly through the sink and landed in a field not far behind launch.

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Saturday, January 8th
It looked like good XC potential today, but from La Malinche, and one may have needed to launch early before it most likely got blown out later.
First the CDP crew and I went to check out a rumored new launch site in San Simon El Alto. It took us a while to find it, there were no pilots, the supposed launch areas appeared to have hazards from trees and maguey plants, and the lift below the ridge line appeared to be rotor type of lift. Not reliable. It appeared soarable, but only if one were to take some risk. It would need a SE wind direction, and this day was SW.

We went across the valley to the Malinalco Terrazas launch. There were pretty strong, almost too strong, thermal cycles when we arrived, but the lull cycles were also rather pronounced. Marco G, Alejandro M., and a female pilot were also there. Bob and Guy launched and the lift appeared a little too strong and broken at times, and they appeared to be in marginal situations at times for penetration. Guy had a really low save and got a lot of altitude after. It was expected to continue getting stronger at that time, so I decided not to fly.

From the Malinalco launch one could see two distinct cloud streets comming generally from the La Malinche area, one passing miles to our left to the northern Cuerna Vaca area, and the other miles to our right passing over Tenancingo to Tenango/Volcan Toluca area.

Logistics did not work out for a late afternoon La Malinche flight, so we planned on an earlier flight from La Malinche for the next day.

In the video is first Bob V doing ground handling, then Marco G. playing around, then Guy top-landing while Bob gives his suggestions over the radio.

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Friday, January 7th
Generally hazy blue somewhat stable skies throughout the day, but late in the afternoon there was a cloud street down the middle of the San Antonio (Jeronimo) Valley (behind the Ixtapan launch and in front of the La Malinche launch), extending over Villa Guerrero and up to and around volcan de Toluca.

The Casa del Piloto group contacted me and Daniel Pedraza drove Bob, Guy and me up to launch. It was blowing in moderately from the SSW but at first the smoke signals in various parts of the valley were disparate, possibly due to the thermals driving the cloud street down the middle of the valley. We waited until those clouds drifted to our side and also started to dissipate before deciding to launch. I launched first, Bob after, and Guy had to wait a while longer due to a cycle of stronger wind. I hung around at 2600 meters for a while (usually more than enough to fly over the back) in broad lifty restitution type air, often well ahead of the ridgeline.

Finially I decided to fly over the back before conditions died, and flew right past Bob at exactly the same altitude (surprising him a little), who was topped out in the main Malinche house thermal. He followed me. We had a tail wind but also heavier than usual sink in making the crossing, and we only had just enough altitude on arriving at Insurgentes to make a turn into the wind and land. Guy landed some 15 minutes later. I think that all three flights were about 30 minutes in duration.

It was soarable but not the best for XC (unless perhaps one were launching from Ixtapan and flying to the north).

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Thursday, January 6th
There were clear blue skies with generally stable air and subdued thermal activity. It was soarable but not the best for XC. Daniel Pedraza drove Alfredo Carsolio, Bob V, myself and Guy up to the La Malinche launch where we arrived late in the afternoon, like around 4pm. I launched first, Alfredo second, and Guy third, and Bob did not fly. There was a SE wind down in the valley and the thermals seemed to be set out away from the ridgeline. The three of us struggled for about a half hour to get the altitude to fly over the back. I crossed with about 2500 meters altitude and flew straight to the Insurgentes LZ (6km) finding no lift along the way and landed in almost zero wind. Guy landed some 10 minutes later, and Alfredo straggled behind in perhaps diminshing lift and landed in the valley behind the Ixpuichiapan hill.

Guy landing at Insurgentes

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Wednesday, January 5th
The skies were clear blue, and as usual for the last month or so, more subdued thermal activity than usual for this time of year. I would guess that it was soarable with decent medium sized "blue thermals", but not the best for XC.

The CDP group flew Mali early and I guess it was soarable, but one of them had a minor conflict with a rock and guess what, the rock won. They did not make it to La Malinche because of that.

We'll see how it goes tomorrow. They are calling for some high clouds, but that might not be a bad thing as far as soaring is concerned. No lack of sun intensity here, but other factors, (cold air masses from the north) which have been making this last month so mellow. All in all it is a good thing when compared to last year when it was often blown out from excess thermal activity.

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Tuesday, January 4th
The skies were mostly clear blue with puff-ball mid level cumies and cloud streets late in the day only extending to the northwest, towards Villa Guerrero, skirting volcan de Toluca, and possibly extending towards Valle de Bravo. I have never flown in that general direction to the north of Villa Guerrero, but I have heard a few second hand stories of pilots launching from La Malinche and flying that way.

The Casa del Piloto group went cave exploring instead of flying today so I am not aware of anyone who flew today.

My guess is that it was good soaring in the Tenancingo area with decent but not too strong thermals, and good XC potential only in a northwest direction from La Malinche.

I found out later that Hector from Ixtapan on this day launched in Ixtapan and landed in Tenancingo.

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Monday, January 3rd
The skies were mostly clear blue with scattered mid-level puff-ball cumies throughout and some high cirrus later on. I didn't get a chance to fly it but the Casa del Piloto crew apparently got a good dose of quality flying at el Picacho Malinalco.
I would guess good soaring with XC potential for the Tenancingo valley today.

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Sunday, January 2nd
There were blue skies with just a few non-thermal related clouds. Bob V. and crew went to Malinalco to fly and had a good day flying. They had decent local thermals most of the day but did not get above 2800 meters.

Alfredo Carsolio, Daniel Pedraza, and myself drove up to La Malinche late in the afternoon and launched into mild thermic air. Alfredo launched first, I second, and Daniel third. The house thermal was working good and strong but the other areas of the ridge did not seem so active. We shot up fast in the rather turbulent house thermal. For my part I bailed out at 3000 meters but it felt like I could have gone up a lot higher, but I was getting tossed around alot and I was already pretty high and cold. We cruised into the Tenancingo valley where nobody found any lift. Alfredo landed by his home, I at Insurgentes, and Daniel at a field near his home.
It was definitely soarable but not the best for XC.

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Saturday, January 1st
Windguru correctly called for mostly overcast skies today in Tenancingo so the Vancouver group went to Valle de Bravo today to visit the monarch butterfly forests.

Daniel Pedraza and Alfredo Carsolio invited me to fly La Malinche late in the afternoon. It was blowing in real light when we arrived around 4pm but by the time Alfredo and I were set up the wind was almost dead, at least not enough to support a paraglider aloft. We did not look forward to the prospect of landing down by the highway but not having many taxis passing because of New Years day. I sat there dozing whilst we bid our time.... watching the faint subtle thermals change directions.

Finally we saw some slightly stronger thermals cycles of a late afternoon restitution cycle and a bird thermaling off to the right. Alfredo launched and climbed a little ways above launch. I launched second and also managed to work the weak lift and climbed slowly and with a lot of effort. The precise control on the Icaro Cyber was excellent and allowed me to do tight turns in the small thermals.

Alfredo got enough altitude to jump to Tenancingo, and later I did too. My maximum altitude was 406 meters over launch. We both got to the Insurgentes LZ and landed parallel at almost the same moment. My flight was 23 minutes. Good flight since we made it to Tenancingo, but like Alfredo said, it was probably better flying earlier. It was soarable but not the best for XC.
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Daniel Miller Weather Blog, December 2010

2010-12-01T18:04:00.000-08:00

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.
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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
-----------------

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.

-----------------
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.

-----------------
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)

-----------------
Wednesday, December 1st
Clear blue skies and nicely spaced puff ball cumies. Looked like good XC conditions.

-----------------

Daniel Miller Weather Blog, November 2010

2010-11-02T06:58:00.000-07:00

weather forecast for La Malinche -
http://www.windguru.cz/es/index.php?vs=1&sc=237111

November 2010 Summary
Days of possible “Good XC Conditions” from La Malinche –
17 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 –
2 days

Days of possible “Training Hill” conditions at Malinalco, or better, albeit at times within a certain time window. –
28 days.

-------------------
Tuesday, November 30th
Blue skies with small cumies. Looked like good XC weather.

-------------------
Monday, November 29th
Like the prior two days the skies were hazy throughout the day, but not so much, and the cumies in the slightly hazy sky had good form. It was definitely soarable and I will go out on a limb to say that there was XC potential.

-------------------
Sunday, November 28th
Like yesterday the skies were overcast all morning and changed to cumies in haze by midday, to overdeveloped in the late afternoon. Definitely soarable, but maybe not the best for XC.

I missed the ride up to launch with Daniel Pedraza and had to take care of other business at noon, but Alfredo Carsolio caught that ride. He reported later that he climbed quickly up to 600 meters over launch and flew to Tenancingo. He said that he cut his flight short only because he was short on time, but could have flown much longer.

-------------------
Saturday, November 27th
There was a rather dense high cloud layer in the morning giving way to cumies in haze in the afternoon. I got a ride up with Daniel Pedraza. There were mild cycles at launch, and a weak easterly which was not enough to mess with the thermals at launch, but just enough to make the wind directions switchy down in the valley.

I launched at 2pm on the Nova Mamboo that Alfredo Carsolio loaned me. It still has a 80kg minumum which is too big for me, but when I flew it with ballast at least it wasn't flying at stall, but I was flying cautiously on it this second flight. I climbed up rather quickly in mild but steady thermal columns. At 2560 meters I sort of topped out and bailed for the Tenancingo side. I made some passes around Ixpuichiapan where I would normally find some good thermals, but not this time. I sunk out quickly and did not even make it to the Insurgentes LZ, but landed in the soccer field next to the old prison that never existed (walls started and project abandoned many years ago), for a 12 minute flight.

It is an excellent quiet and manicured LZ area and is only a "block" from the insurgentes LZ as the crow flys, except it sucks because it is on the other side of two small rivers, and you have to walk a long way around to get out of there, and then take a taxi to get back to town.

I heard that Alfredo Carsolio flew later in the day and had a good flight.

It was soarable but not the best for XC flying. It should have been a good day for El Picacho given the conditions.

-------------------
Friday, November 26th
A simi-transparent cirrus high cloud layer formed around noon and thickened towards late afternoon. It still looked soarable, but most likely not much for XC.

-------------------
Thursday, November 25th
Early in the day there were blue skies, and then little cumies forming around midday, and in the afternoon areas to the north with about 50% cloud/blue sky density, with areas to the south more open. Looked like there was some long distance XC potential along easterly or westerly routes, and a generally awesome day if one were to fly.

-------------------
Wednesday, November 24th
It looked like it must have been great soaring at all sites, but with no cumies to mark the thermals, I won't rate it as a great XC day, unless you already know where the house thermals are at. All the townspeople ask when pilots are going to arrive from Canada. I tell them that they come here when they get tired of building snow-men.

-------------------
Tuesday, November 23rd
Blue skies with little cumies to mark out the thermals. Excellent XC conditions it appeared.

-------------------
Monday, November 22nd
Blue skies with little cumies to mark out the thermals. Excellent XC conditions it appeared.

-------------------
Sunday, November 21st
Blue skies with little cumies to mark out the thermals, and bigger cloud streets over in Malinalco and beyond. Excellent XC conditions it appeared. Daniel Pedraza was not driving up and no other pilots were flying, so I opted not to fly since my previous back injury would have been strained by too much hiking with the pack.

-------------------
Saturday, November 20th
Blue skies with little clouds, but this time they were higher (mid?) level clouds, perhaps not so directly related to thermals down low. Still looked pretty good, like there was XC potential.

-------------------
Friday, November 19th
Blue skies with puff ball cumies forming little cloud streets and a drift towards the Malinalco valley. Looked like a great XC day.

-------------------
Thursday, November 18th
Clear blue skies but no small or large cumies to mark out thermals. Definitely soarable.

-------------------
Wednesday, November 17th
Blue skies with puff ball cumies forming little cloud streets. Looked like XC heaven.

-------------------
Tuesday, November 16th
With clear blue skies and little puff ball cumies to mark out all the thermals it looked like excellent XC conditions.

-------------------
Monday, November 15th
With clear blue skies and little puff ball cumies to mark out all the thermals it looked like excellent XC conditions.

-------------------
Sunday, November 14th
Cumies developed early. Alfredo was so kind as to take me flying at El Picacho Malinalco, and loan me his Nova Mamboo size small, possibly for a few weeks until I can get another wing. The thing is that the minimum weight on the small mamboo is the same as the medium force, 80kg, and I only weigh 61kg. Anyhow we kited a lot and flew various round trips doing top landings at the Terrazas. I got tossed around kind of rough in some of the Picacho thermals. The Mamboo displayed nice ground handling properties. I'll have to try it in La Malinche thermals to see if I want to fly it more.
There was the same rather dense cumi cloud cover along with haze in the Malinalco valley, but the thermals were rather strong considering, and I saw a number of the usual pilots there, top landing and final sleds late in the day. Daniel Pedraza was at the la Malinche launch with some non-pilots and said that conditions looked good. It might have been good XC conditions.

Here is a video of Alvaro Cartin top landing at the Terrazas, El Picacho, Malinalco.

-------------------
Saturday, November 13th
Cumies developed early. I called Alfredo Carsolio at noon when he was on launch and he said that the thermal cycles were too strong and he probably wasn't going to fly. In the afternoon it was clearly overdeveloped. Possibly soarable earlier at La Malinche, and possibly better conditions for flying at El Picacho, Malinalco.

-------------------
Friday, November 12th
Clear blue skies with just a few cumies to mark out the thermals. Soarable with XC potential.

-------------------
Thursday, November 11th
Clear blue skies with just a few cumies to mark out the thermals. Soarable with XC potential.

-------------------
Wednesday, November 10th
A cold night but not quite so cold, and in the day clear blue skies, a little warmer, and a few cumies formed. Soarable with XC potential.

-------------------
Tuesday, November 9th
Same really cold night and chilly day with clear blue skies, but late in the day a convergence ridge formed to the south, indicating that the mass of cold stable air is breaking up. Soarable but not the best for XC.

-------------------
Monday, November 8th
Same really cold night and chilly day with clear blue skies. Soarable but not the best for XC.

-------------------
Sunday, November 7th
Today was like the previous four days with clear blue skies, cold nights, cool days, and no cumies. In the afternoon I flew La Malinche with Gerardo and Hector of Ixtapan, Henry Morgan who brought his cousin from Pasadena who he flew tandem, and Alfredo Carsolio. Thermals were not well developed but punchy given their small size. Hector flew to Tenancingo, Morgan and his cousin flew to the cabañas LZ, and Alfredo and I landed in a field by the the Zumpauacan highway. My wing felt unstable as always, practically stalling if pulling on either brake, and I vowed to not fly until I get a smaller wing. The cool thing is that Alfredo offered to loan me a smaller wing until Bob brings me one. Maybe I will be able to fly in the competition in December after all. Soarable at La Malinche and Mali, but not good XC conditions.

-------------------
Saturday, November 6th
I expect that it was soarable at La Malinche and Mali, but there were no cumies to mark out the thermals. Henry Morgan swung by late in the afternoon to head up to launch with D. Pedraza.

-------------------
Friday, November 5th
Must have been soarable at La Malinche and Mali, but blue thermals, no cumies, so I won't call it as XC potential. It's been getting coooold at nights, like near freezing.

-------------------
Thursday, November 4th
We had an exceptionally cold night which clear skies throughout the morning, and strong winds gusting from the north, staying pretty cold throughout the day. Not flyable.

-------------------
Wednesday, November 3rd
Blue skies and cumies forming early, and it was seriously overdeveloped by noon, and raining by 2pm. I would rate it as not soarable for La Malinche or Mali, but perhaps suitable training conditions at Mali early on.

-------------------
Tuesday, November 2nd
Beautiful small high altitude cumies most of the day to mark out the thermals. Overdevelopment around 3pm, but in an hour it resumed to nicely formed cumies. Good soaring with XC potential.

-------------------
Monday, November 1st
It looked like an excellent day for soaring at all sites with definite XC potential.

Daniel Miller Weather Blog, October 2010

2010-10-02T18:46:00.000-07:00

October 2010 Summary
Days of possible “Good XC Conditions” from La Malinche –
22 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. –
27 days.

-------------------------

Day of the dead is really like 3 days of the dead and officially starts tomorrow, but really starts in effect on Halloween, when people prepare the alter to the dead, and children dress in costume and hit business store fronts (not residences) up for candy.

Sunday, October 31st
It looked excelintisimo today for soaring and XC, with nicely spaced small high cumies to mark out all the thermals. I heard that Alfredo Carsolio went to fly today, but I have not heard how his flight was yet.

-------------------------
Saturday, October 30th
It looked like it should have been soarable today, but it was a little strange, recovering from the northerlies yesterday. Early there were blue skies (blue thermals) and almost no general wind direction. Later in the day a huge convergence ridge of thick clouds set up north of Tenancingo, but blue skies still prevailed over La Malinche and south.

-------------------------
Friday, October 29th
Strong gusty winds from the northeast. Not flyable.

-------------------------
Thursday, October 28th
It looked like another day with soaring and XC potential throughout the day, but high winds from the north kicked in at nightfall.

-------------------------
Wednsday, October 27th
It looked like a day with soaring and XC potential.

-------------------------
Tuesday, October 26th
It looked like another day with excellent soaring and XC potential.

-------------------------
Monday, October 25th
Henry Morgan and Gerardo flew tandems twice each from La Malinche, flying to high altitudes, and to the antennas, Cristo Rey and all over the place with the passengers. Excellent soaring with XC conditions.

I printed some new T-shirts today for myself. If any of you will want some, let me know what size and color early, because I probably won't have any in stock.

They say, "Conocía La Vida, Sobre Tenancingo México"
Translation - "I knew what life was, over Tenancingo Mexico."

-------------------------
Sunday, October 24th
Henry Morgan, Gerardo, and Hector showed up to fly today. I opted out till I can get a more stable wing. They had great flights and achieved great heights and flew around the various routes. Excellent soaring with XC conditions.

-------------------------
Saturday, October 23rd
Henry Morgan from Valle came to visit. Henry, Daniel P. and I arrived at launch around 5pm. It looked like it had been another day with good soaring and XC potential with small cumies in blue sky. It was blowing in smoothly and moderately from the south at launch, and Henry launched on his Gin Boomarang, while I waited for things to calm down a little cuz my wing's too big for me. By the time I had set up Henry was going up in the main house thermal and then was flying over the back to Tenancingo. I launched, got up to 2592 meters, and landed at Insurgentes next to Henry. Henry enjoyeed his flight but landed early because of overdeveloping clouds over Tenancingo. My 19 minute flight felt unstable as usual on the wing I am flying, stalling out in mild turbulence at times.

-------------------------
Friday, October 22nd
It looked like another day with good soaring and XC potential, but the cumies were small, at rather high altitudes and rather far apart.

-------------------------
Thursday, October 21st
It looked like a good day for soaring and XC. Gerardo vistited from Ixtapan and Daniel Pedraza drove him up to launch late in the day. He did some high altitude soaring and landed on top.

-------------------------
Wednesday, October 20th
It looked like a good day for soaring and XC.

-------------------------
Tuesday, October 19th
It looked like an awesome XC day. Once more there was some overdevelopment in the afternoon, but this time it was limited to specific cloud streets, and other areas stayed blue.

-------------------------
Monday, October 18th
It appeared soarable at La Malinche and Malinalco until the early afternoon when it clouded over heavily with giant cu-nimbs. We got just a few sprinkles in the late afternoon.

-------------------------
Sunday, October 17th
I imagine that it was soarable at both La Malinche and Malinalco earlier today, but it clouded over early in the afternoon. Not any rain-clouds, but the type of clouds that just shut down thermal activity. Soarable at all sites.

-------------------------
Saturday, October 16th
I got off work at 1pm as usual for Saturdays, and joined up with Daniel Pedraza for an afternoon flight. He had been accompaning a new pilot from Moreleos on a morning flight. In the morning there was some easterly action and Daniel had warned the pilot about the leeside rotor to the left by the cliffs, but the pilot flew there anyhow and had some scarry collapses in the turbulence. When I flew around 3pm the wind had mostly switched to from the south, and there was no more rotor by the cliffs, but the thermals were still working away from the hill on that side and the thermals to the right, west along the ridgeline were working better.

I flew about 40 minutes and landed by the giant Circus-do-Portugal, now in Tenancingo, skimming the flagpole on the big-top, and setting down between a one humped and a two humped camel at Insurgentes. The two-humper was definitely the better deal and she even let me caress her. I don't know about Daniel and the other guy. They flew after me. Good soaring and XC conditions I would say.

-------------------------
Friday, October 15th
Looked like a great day with soaring and XC potential everywhere in the region.

-------------------------
Thursday, October 14th
From the morning to mid-afternoon there were strong to moderate winds from the north and east, probibly making La Malinche and Malinalco not flyable, but possibly soarable at Ixpuichiapan. In the late afternoon an opposing front came in from the south and the northeast wind died, and what looked like a big convergence cloud formed. It could have been soarable from La Malinche with high altitude possiblities in the late afternoon.

-------------------------
Wednesday, October 13th
The air was unusually dry and the skies were clear of cumulus clouds but with a like 50% dense high haze layer. I would suspect soarable for La Malinche and Mali, but maybe not the best for XC flying. Strong gusty winds from the north hit at night-time.

-------------------------
Tuesday, October 12th
Looked like another great day for soaring with XC potential.

-------------------------
Monday, October 11th
Looked like great soaring and XC conditions in the region today.

-------------------------
Sunday, October 10th

A whole bunch of pilots showed up in the morning to fly La Malinche from Mexico City, Ixtapan, and Valle. Perhaps some 15 pilots, which is the most activity we have had since the fly-in last December. Four were tandem pilots and about a dozen tandem flights were done in total. Of course the tandem passengers brought family and friends, and the crowd drew local spectators as well, so there were a lot of people on launch.

I flew twice for over an hour on each flight, and landing at the Insurgentes LZ both times. The thermals were punchy, but not so strong as in mid-season, like January. None the less, even with full ballast my medium size Icaro feels way too big for me and unstable. I can't break too hard to steer because the whole wing just sort of mushes into a stall...

But then I got spooked in May by the wing going into a spin next to the ground by braking a little too hard to the left, so I can't really seperate the psychological factor from its true stability, unless I were to put it through some manuvers, which I don't care to do. I am sure that it is a great wing within its weight range. I look forward to a size small wing that I hear might arrive this winter. Fingers crossed.

Conditions were soarable with some XC potential, although this crowd did not seem interested in doing much XC past Tenancingo.

-------------------------
Saturday, October 9th
Another day with great soaring and XC potential. When I got off work at 1pm and was passing the LZ Insurgentes I saw Daniel Pedraza preparing for a landing and stopped. Soon after, Gerardo of Ixtapan de La Sal, and Henry Morgan of Valle de Bravo were landing. They were talking of great flights and Gerardo even got tossed out of the back of the main house thermal in rather strong turbulence. Strong conditions for this early in the flying season. Sounds like Henry can help Daniel a lot to get a competition meet organized and promoted for early December, and he seems interested in doing so.

-------------------------
Friday, October 8th
It looked like great soaring conditions until about 2 pm when it clouded over with high clouds.

-------------------------
Thursday, October 7th
It looked like another day with great soaring and XC potential for all sites.

-------------------------
Tuesday and Wednesday, October 5th and 6th
Clear blue skies with nicely formed cumies. Prevailing winds were predicted slightly from the north or east, but so weak that the general flow was undecided and so most likely all the house thermals were working well. I would rate it as good soaring and XC potential in all areas and directions.

Here is a 2pm photo from the roof near my shop.

-------------------------
Monday, October 4th
Skies were clear blue with small cumies. Prevailing winds were lightly from the east. I would guess that it was soarable from both Malinalco and La Malinche, but with an easterly flight plan from La Malinche.

-------------------------
Sunday, October 3rd
Skies were clear blue with small cumies, but prevailing winds, at times gusty, were from the NNE, so I would guess "no" for La Malinche and Malinalco. It was possibly a good day for soaring from Ixpuichiapan, an easterly and northerly facing launch. Nobody has flown there in several years as far as I know.

-------------------------
Saturday, October 2nd
Skies were clear blue with small cumulus clouds all day. The prevailing direction was east, but weak enough to be blowing in at La Malinche. Good soaring with some XC potential.

-------------------------
Friday, October 1st
Skies were clear blue with small cumulus clouds all day. The prevailing direction was east, but weak enough to be blowing in at La Malinche. Good soaring with some XC potential.

-------------------------

Daniel Miller Weather Blog, September 2010

2010-09-01T18:22:00.000-07:00

September 2010 Summary

Days of possible “Good XC Conditions” from La Malinche –
3 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. –
12 days (The previous catigory overlaps into this one)

Non-Flyable days from La Malinche (except for a possible sled-run) –
18 days

Days of possible “Training Hill” conditions at Malinalco, or better, albeit at times within a certain time window. –
5 days.
--------------------------
Wednesday and Thursday, September 29th and 30th
The skies were clear blue with small nicely formed cumulus clouds mixed in, and no thunderheads. It looks like good soaring weather, and I might even say XC, except that there is still so much moisture in the ground that thermals are probably weak. Winds aloft have been easterly every day, which is not good for La Malinche, except that it has been a weak easterly, so maybe La Malinche has been good anyhow. Malinalco, yes.

--------------------------
Tuesday, September 28th
Skies were foggy and cloudy in the morning and midday, but by late afternoon the skies were clear. PLUS... the skies were clear all night long, the first time we have had clear skies at night in months. This appears to mark the change in seasons to the fall season, which is dryer, but some thunderstorms are still possible. Possibly soarable Mali and La Malinchi.

--------------------------
Monday, September 27th
Skies were cloudy all day. Not flyable.

--------------------------
Sunday, September 26th
The morning dawned with clear blue skies, but by 10am things had clouded over. There was a prediction for easterly flow so I drove down the highway to Malinalco. I paused at "La Cumbre", the mountain pass between the Tenancingo and Malinalco valleys, to where the clouds had almost descended, and I could see that El Picacho was in the fog, so I turned around and headed back. On my way back Daniel Pedraza called me and announced that some pilots were visiting from Ixtapan and Valle.

It was Gerardo and a few pilots who I recognize from Valle de Bravo, one Brit and one gringo from Seattle, both living permanently in Mexico, like me.

I lauched first and got sucked up rather quickly, but clouds were lowering and moving into the launch area so I flew by compass in and out of the clouds for some ten minutes, but with the clouds darkening, and the daily thunderstorms, and flying waaay too lightly loaded on my wing, I decided to call it quits and landed out by the highway. The last I saw, the other pilots were flying around, and conditions did not turn to rain in the next few hours, but given daily conditions, I still think I made the right decision to cut the flight short. Big time sucky cloud cover with no clear margens is not my cup of tea.

It was soarable at La Malinche today, but not at Malinalco, I would guess.

--------------------------
Saturday, September 25th
There were nicely formed cumies in blue sky, with an easterly wind flow, until around 2pm when they started to overdevelop, and by 4pm there were powerful thunderstorms. Soarable at Malinalco around mid-day, but not at La Malinche.

--------------------------
Friday, September 24th
There were nicely formed cumies in blue sky, with an easterly wind flow, until around 2pm when they started to overdevelop, and by 4pm there were powerful thunderstorms. Soarable at Malinalco around mid-day, but not at La Malinche.

--------------------------
Thursday, September 23rd
There were beautifully formed cumie clouds in blue sky all day again, but this time there was a distinct easterly flow, so I will rate it soarable at Malinalco but not at La Malinche. There was thunderstorm activity just to the north, later moving into Tenancingo, late in the afternoon.

--------------------------
Wednesday, September 22nd
There were beautifully formed cumie clouds in clear blue sky all day! Looked good for La Maliche and Malinalco with XC potential.

I did not fly for three reasons.
1- It was a work day and I was busy. 2- I am waiting for a size small wing to arrive in December so that I can fly safely in turbulent air. No big sky flying in the mean time. 3- After work I was busy making some comfy chairs for my home.

--------------------------
Tuesday, September 21st
There were low clouds all day. Not flyable.

--------------------------
Monday, September 20th
Low clouds rain and drizzle all day. Not flyable.

--------------------------
Sunday, September 19th
Low clouds rain and drizzle most of the day, with some clearing late in the day. I would rate it as not soarable, just possiblity of some sled rides.

--------------------------
Saturday, September 18th
Low clouds rain and drizzle most of the day, with some clearing late in the day. I would rate it as not soarable, just possiblity of some sled rides.

--------------------------
Friday, September 17th
Low clouds rain and drizzle most of the day, with some clearing late in the day. I would rate it as not soarable, just possiblity of some sled rides.

--------------------------
Thursday, September 16th
Mexican Revolution Day, and the Centenial/Bicentenial of the Mexican Revolutions.

Dangeriously heavy cumulus development over the Tenancingo Valley from midday, on into the afternoon, with thunderstorms in the late afternoon. Not flyable, unless it were a sled ride in the morning.

--------------------------
Wednesday, September 15th
Dangeriously heavy cumulus development over the Tenancingo Valley from midday, on into the afternoon, with thunderstorms in the late afternoon. Not flyable, unless it were a sled ride in the morning.

--------------------------
Tuesday, September 14th
Dangeriously heavy cumulus development over the Tenancingo Valley from midday, on into the afternoon, with thunderstorms in the late afternoon. Not flyable, unless it were a sled ride in the morning.

--------------------------
Monday, September 13th
Dangeriously heavy cumulus development over the Tenancingo Valley from midday, on into the afternoon, with thunderstorms in the late afternoon. Not flyable, unless it were a sled ride in the morning.

--------------------------
Sunday, September 12th
Daniel Pedraza and I went to El Picacho (Malinalco) around noon. The sky was mostly cloudy. We both had sled-rides, which we both enjoyeed since we have not had much flying lately. We landed in a field where Roberto of DF had landed. He told us that Marco is gone to France right now. The launch fogged in at that point and we returned to Tenancingo.

In the afternoon Daniel and I drove up to Malinche for sled-rides there. Skies were mostly cloudy, with just a little sun peeking through. My sled-ride was extended, about 10 minutes barely scratching and maintaining near launch and the cliffs. It rained heavily later and in the evening like every night these days.

Not soarable at either site, and not good for training either.

Brad asked for some photos of launch so here they are.

--------------------------
Saturday, September 11th
Cloudy in the morning and midday, but late in the afternoon it cleared up for a spell. I was too busy with other things to go test conditions. Maybe soarable for a few hours.

--------------------------
Friday, September 10th
Possibly looked soarable in the late afternoon at La Malinche, but the clouds were rather ominous.

--------------------------
Thursday, September 9th
Possibly looked soarable in the late afternoon at La Malinche, but the clouds were rather ominous.

-------------------------
Wednesday, September 8th
There were low clouds and rain in the morning, but by late afternoon the skies shaped up with well formed cumies for a few hours and it may have been soarable at La Malinche.

-------------------------
Tuesday, September 7th
There were low clouds and rain in the morning, but by late afternoon the skies shaped up with well formed cumies for a few hours and it may have been soarable at La Malinche.

-------------------------
Monday, September 6th
Low clouds and rain all day. Not flyable.

-------------------------
Sunday, September 5th
Low clouds and rain all day. Not flyable.

-------------------------
Saturday, September 4th
Low clouds and rain all day. Not flyable.

-------------------------
Friday, September 3rd
After the fog cleared this morning there was a surprising period of clear blue skies (have not seen that in months) but then followed by seasonally unusual strong gusts from the east, and then followed by a rapid cloud build-up and over-development by 11am. Late in the afternoon there were torrential thunderstorms. Not flyable today.

-------------------------
Thursday, September 2nd
Conditions and cumies looked right for a few hours at midday for soaring, but conditions rapidly overdeveloped by mid afternoon, and there were thunderstorms in the late afternoon and evening.

-------------------------
Wednesday, September 1st
Low clouds and rain all day. Not flyable.

Daniel Miller Weather Blog, August 2010

2010-08-01T18:47:00.000-07:00

August 2010 Summary
Days of possible “Good XC Conditions” from La Malinche –
9 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. –
23 days (The previous catigory overlaps into this one)

Non-Flyable days from La Malinche (except for a possible sled-run) –
7 days

Days of possible “Training Hill” conditions at Malinalco, or better, albeit at times within a certain time window. –
23 days.
---------------------------
Tuesday, August 31st
Low clouds and drizzle all day. Not flyable.

---------------------------
Monday, August 30th
Nicely formed cumies well above the hill tops prevailed most of the day for possibly soarable conditions. However an upper altitude haze blanket probably diminished thermal forces.

---------------------------
Sunday, August 29th
Low clouds throughout the day with rain in the afternoon. Not flyable.

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Saturday, August 28th
Low clouds throughout the day with rain in the afternoon. Not flyable.

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Friday, August 27th
Perhaps it was soarable around midday, but it OD'ed early in the afternoon and the day ended in rain showers.

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Thursday, August 26th
It was cloudy and drizzly in the morning and mid-day. It opened up a little late in the afternoon, so it was possibly soarable for a little while then.

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Wednesday, August 25th
It was cloudy and rainy in the morning and mid-day, but by late afternoon cleared out to nicely formed cumies and sunshine. Soarable in the afternoon at La Malinche and Malinalco would be my call.

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Tuesday, August 24th
It looked like a beautiful day for flying, with nicely formed and spaced cumies. Daniel Pedraza called me towards the end of the day inviting me to a ride up to launch after work, but I needed to work on a project for my brother. Rats. Soarable with XC potential.

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Monday, August 23rd
Cloudy and stormy conditons. Not flyable.

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Sunday, August 22nd
I have more or less recovered from my back injury but am still working on it with some personal therapy. I showed up at El Picacho Malinalco to try flying again at around 2pm. There were many of the Mexico City pilots there, about 20 pilots, and their families and they were having a going away party for the two french girl pilots who have been living here for a number of years. They are returning to France. Nobody was flying. They had already flown. They said conditions were stronger earlier. It looked like sled-ride conditions, and that is just what I did. A short flight and it all went well. They said that Marco and a group of students were at La Malinche flying. Maybe soarable for a few hours at either site.

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Saturday, August 21st
Rather dense cloud cover, but well above the hill tops. Looked like it could have been soarable at La Malinche and Malinalco in the morning, but by the mid to late afternoon storm activity developed.

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Friday, August 20th
Clouds looked right. Wind direction looked right. Looked like a great soaring day for La Malinche and Malinalco, with XC conditions.

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Thursday, August 19th
Possibly soarable at La Malinche but the clouds were pretty dense.

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Wednesday, August 18th
Possibly soarable at mid day, but the cloud cover was pretty thick and it rained in the afternoon.

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Tuesday, August 17th
Low clouds throughout the day. Not flyable.

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Monday, August 16th
There were low clouds and drizzle, and then heavy rain, throughout the day. Not flyable.

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Sunday, August 15th
Beautiful sunny skies morning and mid-day with nicely formed cumies. It looked like good soaring and possibly XC conditions for La Malinche and Malinalco. There were thunderstorms late in the afternoon.

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Saturday, August 14th
Low clouds and drizzle in the morning and mid-day. It opened up a little in the afternoon but the clouds were still ominous so maybe it would qualify as soarable in a narrow window for La Malinche.

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Friday, August 13th
Cloudy and rainy all day. Not flyable.

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Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
August 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th
These days all looked soarable for both La Malinche and Malinalco with sufficently high nicely spaced cumies. There were generally large areas of open blue sky, but also varied patches of high cirrus. Therefore I would make a call as soarable but not necessarly good XC conditions for these days.

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Sunday, August 8th
It looked like another great day for flying from La Malinche and in the Tenancingo Valley.

I went with Daniel Pedraza at noon to El Picacho, Malinalco to practice kiting. Marco, Roberto, Olivar, and some four students were there practicing as well. El Picacho was pretty much in the clouds and fog for the two or three hours that we were there, and we had to be careful to not actually launch. A few pilots did launch in breaks between the clouds and barely made it back to top land before another cloud moved in. My back caused me some pain in general, and especially on landings so I can see that I am not ready to be flying yet.

Upon returning to Tenancingo it still was generally sunny with nicely spaced high cumies. It is important to remember that the Malinalco valley has its own microclimate and can often have distinctly differient conditions than Tenancingo.

--------------------------
Thursday, Friday, Saturday

August 5th, 6th, 7th
Looked like excellent days for flying from La Malinche (or Mali), perhaps with some XC potential. I hiked up to launch twice.

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Wednesday, August 4th
It overdeveloped heavily by about 12pm. Could have been soarable within a narrow time window, or for the daring.

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Tuesday, August 3rd
It overdeveloped heavily by about 11am. Could have been soarable within a narrow time window, or for the daring.

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Monday, August 2nd
It looked like another great day for flying with evenly spaced cumies. I hiked up to launch again in the late afternoon, and it was blowing in and looked real nice.

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Sunday, August 1st
I hiked up to the La Malinche launch at noon. Conditions looked good with cloud base some 1000 meters up, and well spaced cumies. Alfredo Carsolio had been flying at high altitude and landed by San Antonio. After about an hour Daniel Pedraza arrived with a whole lot of pilots including Marco Guillermo, Roberto who flew tandem, Olivar, Pablo, and a bunch of other pilots too. They flew around for over an hour, and I drove Daniel's truck for retrieval so that he could fly. Daniel landed in Tenancingo and the others landed at the panthion (cemetary) of San Antonio.

Daniel Miller Weather Blog, July 2010

2010-07-01T18:57:00.000-07:00

(I am recovering from a back injury, see May 19th, and not flying at this time.)

July 2010 Summary
Days of possible “Good XC Conditions” from La Malinche –
4 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. –
7 days (The previous catigory overlaps into this one)

Non-Flyable days from La Malinche (except for a possible sled-run) –
24 days

Days of possible “Training Hill” conditions at Malinalco, or better, albeit at times within a certain time window. –
11 days.

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Saturday, July 31st
Looked like good flying conditions in the afternoon. I had heard that Marco and about a dozen pilots were comming to fly, but I already had a trip planned to Xochicalco planned so that is where I went. I heard today that they had some good flying at La Malinche. Here are photos from Xochicalco-http://picasaweb.google.es/sumocobre/XochicalcoJuly10#

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Friday, July 30th
Looked like good XC conditions for La Malinche or Malinalco

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Thursday, July 29th
Like yesterday, blue sky and cumies that were perhaps good for a little cloud suck, but at Malinalco with the easterly flow.

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Wednesday, July 28th
There was some blue sky today and the cumies were separated and limited in height. Given the easterly flow it might have been soarable at Malinalco but not at La Malinche.

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Tuesday, July 27th
Overcast and rainy all day, not flyable.

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Monday, July 26th
Overcast and rainy all day, not flyable.

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Sunday, July 25th
Heavily overcast with a slight easterly wind, but no rain. Perhaps it was mildly soarable at Malinalco.

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Saturday, July 24th
It was heavily overcast, with drizzle and heavy rain throughout the day. Not flyable.

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Friday, July 23rd
It was heavily overcast, with drizzle and heavy rain throughout the day. Not flyable.

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Thursday, July 22nd
Not flyable due to wind direction and solid cloud cover and storm activity, except a small window around noon when the wind direction might have been favorable and just before it socked-in.

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Wednesday, July 21st
Not flyable due to wind direction and solid cloud cover and storm activity.

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Tuesday, July 20th
Not flyable due to wind direction and solid cloud cover and storm activity.

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Monday, July 19th
Not flyable due to wind direction and solid cloud cover and storm activity.

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Sunday, July 18th
Not flyable due to wind direction and solid cloud cover and storm activity.

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Saturday, July 17th
I was in Mexico City all day, but I would speculate that it was not flyable due to a northerly or easterly wind direction in the morning and overdevelopment and rain in the afternoon.

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Friday, July 16th
Nice cumie formation throughout the day like yesterday, but with overdevelopment by 3 to 4 pm and thuderstorms from around 5pm into the night. Prevailing winds were light to nill and variable so I would guess that it was soarable at La Malinche and Malinalco.

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Thursday, July 15th
There were some high altitude patches of haze and others of blue sky in the morning through mid-day, and by the afternoon there were a few far off "storm cells" developing, although by nightfall still no direct indication of storm activity. Aside from that there were well formed cumies throughout the day from La Malinche in all areas to Malinalco. Given a SE airflow it may have been non-flyable at La Malinche, or launchable but given to an easterly thermal drift and flight plan, like towards Ixtapan (or Valle!). There were probably good soaring conditions at El Picacho, Malinalco.

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Wednesday, July 14th
It was overcast all day with sometimes low and sometimes high clouds. With the easterly conditions I would call La Malinche as non-flyable, but most likely there were at least training hill conditions at Malinalco.

I vistited a local artist in Tecomatlán the other day and here are some photos. http://picasaweb.google.es/sumocobre/TecomatlanArtistAbel?authkey=Gv1sRgCMTl0_eWq_C87wE&feat=directlink

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Tuesday, July 13th
In the morning there were blue skies with developing cloud streets until about one or two pm when it overdeveloped and rained. In the late afternoon it opened up to clear blue skies with cumies again. There were easterlies throughout the day so I would call flyable early and late in the day at Malinalco, but not flyable at La Malinche.
This photo is of the Tenancingo Valley from the road leading to Santo Desierto today. Click on the photo to see the beauty of it.

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Monday, July 12th
Blue skies with large high nicely spaced cumies and mild south winds. I would be hesitant to call for good XC conditions with the ground so moist, but with cloud formation looking so excellent throughout the day till sunset it looked like there was potential. I would imagine that it was weaker down low and stronger towards the clouds today.

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Sunday, July 11th
In the morning and midday there was blue sky and well formed but separated cumies with a high cloud base. The southeast wind direction combined with weak water sogged air may have not favored La Malinche but could have favored Malinalco. There were low clouds and rain in the late afternoon.

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Saturday, July 10th
There were low clouds and rain throughout the day. Not Flyable.

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Friday, July 9th
There were low clouds and rain throughout the day. Not Flyable.

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Thursday, July 8th
There were low clouds and rain throughout the day. Not Flyable.

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Wednesday, July 7th
There were low clouds and rain throughout the day. Not Flyable.

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Tuesday, July 6th
There was rather solid cloud cover most of the day, but the clouds were not over developed, and there were blue patches between. There was a distinct cloud base around 300 to 500 meters above launch most of the day. Winds aloft were from the SSW. It rained lightly late in the afternoon.

I would conjecture with the above conditions that it was possibly soarable from La Malinche, and Malinalco too. However with the ground so wet and the clouds rather dense, it would be a situation not so much of forces from the ground as thermals, but forces from the clouds as cloud suck (longer cycle periods than with thermals), meaning that one would need to launch when a particular cloud above was drawing the air mass up, that the lift might be light down low, but increase with altitude. As an educated hunch I will say that it was soarable around midday today.

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Monday, July 5th
There were low clouds in the morning and rain, hail and thunderstorms in the afternoon.
Nonflyable.

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Sunday, July 4th
There was blue sky and sun at the break of dawn, but quickly turned to cloudy and rainy all day. The clouds were higher than launch at times, so I don't know if some windows opened up, but I would rate it as nonflyable again.

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Saturday, July 3rd
It was rainy and cloudy all day. Not flyable.

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Friday, July 2nd
It was rainy with low cloud cover most of the day, with the clouds lifting a little by late afternoon. I would call it as non-flyable. I took some photos on a hike this afternoon.
http://picasaweb.google.es/sumocobre/LocalFieldTripJuly210#

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Thursday, July 1st
It was rainy and cloudy with low cloud cover all day and not flyable.
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Daniel Miller Weather Blog, June 2010

2010-06-03T05:28:00.000-07:00

(I am recovering from a back injury, see May 19th, and I am not flying at this time.)

June 2010 Summary

Days of possible “Good XC Conditions” from La Malinche (some thermal induced cumie formation necessary, not just blue sky) –
15 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. –
24 days (The previous catigory overlaps into this one)

Non-Flyable days from La Malinche (except for a possible sled-run) –
6 days

Days of possible “Training Hill” conditions at Malinalco, or better, albeit at times within a certain time window. –
26 days.

The only human air traffic from La Malinche in May that I know of was a group of about 8 pilots with Marco one afternoon.

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Wednesday, June 30th
It was very cloudy and rainy all day. Nonflyable for all parts I would say.

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Tuesday, June 29th
There were beautiful nicely spaced cumulus clouds all day. I suspect at least nearby XC possibilities.

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Monday, June 28th
There were beautiful nicely spaced cumulus clouds all day. Looked like good flying conditions with XC possibilities.

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Sunday, June 27th
There were rather OD'ed conditions much of the day, but at times blue skies between cumies.

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Saturday, June 26th
I was in Mexico City all day, so I am not sure how it was in Tenacingo, but I suspect that there were some mixed conditions mid-day, and upon returning to Tenancingo late at night there was intense thunderstorm activity, but just over Tenancingo, not Toluca or DF.

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Friday, June 25th
It was overcast all morning and only by around two pm the upper level haze started clearing and cumies started forming. By late in the day it was nicely formed cumies in blue sky. I would guess that it was soarable late in the afternoon, but given that the ground is dampened, thus conditions are dampened, I might speculate that it was too little too late for XC conditions.

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Thursday, June 24th
By late morning the skies were solid overcast and stayed that way all afternoon. Possibly not soarable and possibly not a good XC day. It rained late at night.

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Wednesday, June 23rd
Ditto, there were beautiful nicely spaced cumulus clouds in a clear blue sky all day. Looked like great soaring and XC potential.

Horacio who has been living up on launch stopped by my place to visit this evening. He said that two weeks ago Marco Guillermo visited La Malinche with about 8 student and visiting pilots, and they all had great flights.

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Tuesday, June 22nd
There were beautiful nicely spaced cumulus clouds in a clear blue sky all day. Looked like great soaring and XC potential. It rained intensely late at night.

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Monday, June 21st
In the Tenancingo Valley there were beautiful nicely spaced cumulus clouds in clear blue skies most of the day. Looked like good soaring and XC potential. Here is a photo from 1pm looking towards La Malinche from the Insurgentes LZ. It rained late at night.

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Sunday, June 20th
I was all day again in Mexico City. The weather pattern there, and probably Tenancingo too, was scattered cumulus clouds in blue sky most of the morning and afternoon. There was over development by around 5pm, but it cleared up to scattered cumulus and sunshine by late afternoon (after 8pm at the summer solstice). It rained late at night. I mark the day once more as having soaring and possible XC potential.

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Saturday, June 19th
I was all day in Mexico City. By what people told me in Tenancingo, the weather pattern was the same as in DF. There was scattered cumulus clouds in blue sky most of the morning and afternoon. In the late afternoon it over developed, and by 7pm torrential thunderstorms hit all of Mexico City, Toluca, and Tenancingo. I think that it should have been soarable with XC potential at mid-day.

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Friday, June 18th
It was cloudy and rainy all day. I would rate it as non-flyable all day, both here and in Malinalco.

Got a flood of calls for tandems in the last few days. The people know subconsciously when the weather and my condition do not permit tandem flights, and that is when they call, because, I am convenced, that very few people REALLY want to fly, at least not down on the subconcious level, where this seems to be taking place.

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Thursday, June 17th
The skies were overcast all day today. The cloud cover looked higher than La Malinche most of the day, but winds were from the east or south east. Malinalco could have been good for training given those conditions.

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Wednesday, June 16th
Today was the first day of the season where it was solid overcast and cloudy all day. It looked like it was about to rain most of the day, but it never did. I will rate it as non-flyable.

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Tuesday, June 15th
Skies were clear blue and without clouds in the early morning, but by 10am scattered cumulus started and by 12 it was socked in. Some blue spaces opened up between the clouds in the afternoon, and in the late afternoon storm cells developed and it rained some in the early evening. Soarable only for a die-hard like me, and at the right time window.

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Monday, June 14th
The skies were clear blue in the morning and by 11am cumies were forming. There were beautiful formed and separated high cumies and cloud streets through out the day, and not overdeveloping until very late in the afternoon, like around 7pm. However the ground is damp now from rain each evening, and I would speculate that the lapse rate is not so strong in general because of that. Soarable.

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Sunday, June 13th
The skies were clear blue in the morning and by 10am cumies were forming. It looked very soarable but it overdeveloped around 3pm, but then by 4 it was back to scattered cumies with big blue patches again, and stayed that way until 7pm, when it OD’d quickly, and another big thunderstorm and rain shower let loose.

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Saturday, June 12th
Pretty much a repeat of the day before, except without the hail. Looked good for XC until late in the afternoon.

I went to visit an abandoned ghost hacienda that I found by chance on Google Earth. It dates back to the 1600’s but was a working sugar plant until 1962. Most of the buildings are 200 years old. You can see the photos here - http://picasaweb.google.es/sumocobre/GhostHaciendaCocoyotla#

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Friday, June 11th
The skies were clear blue in the morning, but cumie development started early, like around 10am. The cumies were high enough and there was enough space between them until about 3pm, that I would rate that time as good XC possibilities.

By about 5pm a huge thunder cell was forming on the north side of Tenancingo and towards Tenango. A powerful wind came rushing out of the north, no doubt generated by heavy hail there. At about 5:30 it started hailing pretty hard in Tenancingo, not bigger than a pea, but it lasted about 15 minutes, followed by heavy rain, wind and lots of lightning for an hour or so, and no electricity until the early morning.

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Thursday, June 10th
The skies were clear blue in the morning, with cumies developing around 11am, and growing to a rather over developed state, but with openings. It stayed that way on into the late afternoon, until 5pm when I started to hear some far off thunder, so presumably rain. I would just rate the day as soarable, earlier in the day, but it looked too developed or risky for good XC later.

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Wednesday, June 9th
Skies were clear blue all day. Winds in the Tenancingo Valley seemed reasonable. It should have been soarable today, but I would not rate it as good XC potential, for the lack of cumies.

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Tuesday, June 8th
Last night in the wee early morning hours there was a brief powerful thunderstorm that dropped about 3 inches of water. At sunrise there were some residual clouds which soon gave way to clear blue skies. By mid day there were small nicely formed cumies and later cloud streets, lasting late into the day. The winds on the ground were thermally, but not toooo strong, probably because most of the soil was damp. Now at sunset a giant cu-nimb has formed over town and is rumbling.
I’d rate it as another day with XC potential.

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Monday, June 7th
The skies were clear blue this morning with less haze than the previous days. By 11am small cumies were forming, and throughout the day on into the afternoon there were nicely formed, but separated cumies. Looked like a good XC potential day.

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Sunday, June 6th
The skies were clear blue and free of haze in the morning hours. There was cumie formation starting around 10am in surrounding areas.

I rode up to La Malinche with Daniel Pedraza. I gave Horacio a watermelon to say thanks for the help he provided when I crash landed down below in the soccer field of Terrenate on the 19th of May. Pilot Jorge Santos was there visiting from Mexico City. Horacio and Daniel showed us progress on the little habitation built into the hillside to one side of, and below launch. Now it just lacks doors and windows so that Horacio can have some security to leave the place alone once in a while. Daniel Pedraza had brought some baby fir trees and Horacio and Jorge (with two pretty chicks in tow, one in each arm) helped to plant them, on the back side of launch of course.

I could not help with that because of my back, but I sat and watched the weather. It looked very soarable and launchable when I arrived, but by the time that Jorge was ready to fly, around 2pm, it was getting too strong and the clouds were building dark and stormy behind launch, like yesterday. Jorge decided to not fly. On the way down I stopped at the soccer field where I had crashed and threw a few kilos of hard candies on the grass there. The community was out there for soccer games, so the gesture was not lost. (the rumor is going around that I died!)

Later in the afternoon, there was wind and thunder, and just a little rain. I think that it was good and flyable from like around 10am till about 1pm.

----------------------
Saturday, June 5th
The skies were clear of clouds in the morning but hazy, with some cumie formation by 11am and increasing haze, to a point of over development by 1pm. By three o’clock there were gust fronts from the north, and rain and lightning in some surrounding areas. Not flyable.

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Friday, June 4th
The skies were without clouds but somewhat hazy in the morning, giving way to nicely spaced cumies and cloud streets, through the haze, in the afternoon, finally clearing to just blue haze in the late afternoon. Gentle thermal cycles on the ground in the Tenancingo Valley.

I would rate it as another potential XC day. On days like this if it weren't for the haze, overly strong thermals would develop early, progressing to high winds in the afternoon. The hazy conditions take the edge off the intensity of the blue skies with a near 90 degree sun angle in the region at this time of year, making for a good balance in flying conditions, that is when accompanied by nicely formed cumulus clouds.

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Thursday, June 3rd
The skies were clear of clouds but a little hazy in the morning, and by noon nice thermal induced but separated cumies were forming. By the late afternoon they formed nice cloud streets to the east towards Cuerna Vaca. On the ground in Tenancingo there were mild thermal cycles coming from the west. Good XC day.

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Wednesday, June 2nd
The skies were clear of clouds most of the day, and like yesterday a little hazy, but between about noon and 2pm there was also some cumie development. Good flying day it appeared, perhaps better than yesterday.

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Tuesday, June 1st
The skies were clear of clouds all day, but a little hazy. Looked like good flying.