Blanchard March 24

Another beautiful Blanchard day, on a day when the inland sites were overdeveloped and stormy (lots of anvil clouds inland!), and lots of pilots were taking advantage of the weekend sunniness.

Oodles of lift around and some pilots decided to fly to the US-Canada border but I stayed local and flew south to Bow and Edison, using the plentiful flatland thermals which are so reliable this time of year.  With the exposed mudflats (the tide was out) the thermals were way out over the water so it was easy to get to cloud base over the water and look down at the oyster farms.

Blanchard March 20

My first real thermal flight of the season!

Blanchard is awesome this time of year since it's often snow-free before the higher and inland flying sites, and the presence of the water mitigates the strong spring thermals which could otherwise result in cloud overdevelopment and storminess.

Conditions on launch were a bit cross for both the south and west launches (typical!) so pilots were using both launches.  But once in the air it was straight to cloud base (which was admittedly low, maybe 1000m), and then it was easy flying all over the place.  As per usual at Blanchard on a good spring day, the flatlands to the south were working very nicely and it was easy to fly to Bow Edison, or even beyond to the airport if you wanted to.

Woodside March 19

After an almost 5-month flying hiatus (winter!) it was time to test out my new BGD Lynx and get everything ready for a new flying season!  I suspected it wasn't going to be a great flying day but I was OK with that as I was feeling a bit rusty and didn't want to jump in too quickly.

It was quite overcast at Woodside but there was some thermic activity, but not much.  Kevin and I spent a few minutes scratching below launch in *very* light lift (barely above zeros!) before losing it and landing in Riverside.  A short flight, but enough to get the feel for the new glider and ascertain that I still knew how to fly :)

Compared to the Cure, the Lynx is very similar but feels a bit more "refined" in general.  The speedbar is much lighter and is the biggest change IMO, very easy to use and little effort required to hold it, very nice for long transitions I'm anticipating!  The launch characteristics are also a bit easier (the Cure was already quite good at this, but the Lynx is even lighter mass so it's super-easy to pull up).  I do find the Lynx a bit more turny vs. the Cure (maybe because there's less mass to move around?) so I will have to adjust my flying a bit so I don't inadvertently put it into a dive if I'm turning aggressively in strong lift!