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Editorial Comments
Well, July started out nicely enough, albeit in a rather strange weather pattern that enhanced our drought conditions by blocking the normal onset of monsoonal flow. The 4th of July holiday was marred by a bit of monsoon push, but the Barney fly-in went well due to the efforts of Kiernan, Andrew, et al--and due to the flexibility of the membership in accommodating the Colorado weather by trying Williams and then moving to Dino when the TFR could be dealt with properly due to a north prevailing wind.
The Front Range sites started working even better than they had in June due to the rotation around the Great Basin high that set-up. Who woulda thunk that that kind of flow could wrap around through the Wyoming gap and create upslope here? The end result was fantastic soaring conditions for Lookout and North Boulder for most of July!
In fact, many long-time pilots remarked that they had never seen midday conditions as consistently strong as this on the Front Range. Unfortunately, we had some injuries (and near misses) associated with these strong midday conditions. The lessons learned are apparent and I hope that Doug, Mike, and Glen all heal well. I really dislike seeing my friends and fellow pilots get hurt, so you'll have to bear with me if I get on my soap box from time to time (I'm allowed 'cause of my fair share of bad judgment calls over the years!)
Then, just when our newer HG pilots had rediscovered flying Locust Street, and the PG lessons were going full swing there, we lost an extremely valuable training site to a fire caused by fireworks. This is a huge loss, particularly when one considers that we no longer have access to the Kenosha LZ. Fortunately, Scott and Leslie - as well as the other families on the ridge - did not loose their homes!
As for the Locust Street - and old North Boulder training hill - we really need to keep together on not violating the temporary restrictions placed on these sites if we want access to them in the future. So, until we can train there, we need to work together to find places where our instructors can teach and our newer pilots can continue to practice.
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