Sun 17…on the road
Early morn wake up and brekky…pack up and get ready to move but off to launch first…have to fix my priorities after all..meet some e (elsinore)team members on launch and loaf around watching the hangies rig and study conditions…this really is a great spot to fly and I am once again almost 2000ft over launch a couple of mins after takeoff with vultures circling close by…most e-teamsters are old school hangies but a few baggies pepper their ranks…the flying conditions are for intermediate + pilots… a wide but short and steep launch runoff with a large and hotly contested landing field…so the story goes 25 or 30 years ago when free flight first started in the area there was nothing much around and the landing field was just a worthless patch of scrub…the landowner at the time gave legal permission in writing to the e-team to land there with impunity…times change though and the 40 acre site is now worth something like $30million to its current owners and the amount they can make scrapping empty e-team beer cans dosent quite cover it…they are being badly out laywered as this goes to press and it may even be gone within 12 months…the ugly face of capitalism taking the free out of free flying…the performance of the hangies makes me jealous…pushing forward over the lake anytime they are ready to escape the sea breeze and find lift on the other side…a glide which would leave me swimming the last few hundred meters im sure...hmmm…i top land after chasing two bags in and out of the abundant thermals but never catching them…how do they do that…I top land next to the little suzuki after playtime shortly followed by the twin taunters and see one is everyday (flys everday)mike with whom I spent an enjoyable après vol emptying the cooler…the other is mitch(no nickname nessecary)mcaleer a 30 year vet legendary in these parts who has so many national level acro trophies he keeps them in boxes all over his house…so that’s how they do it…we are joined by joe and eric…we chat on launch and I get the skinny on my next stop…marshals about 40 miles away…I am hoping to get there in time for the evening glassoff but my crappy navigating means I wont do much but get set up tonight…ah well theres always tomorrow…and that’s about my biggest problem in life right now ...eat… crash