http://www.facebook.com/tom.weissenberger?ref=ts&fref=ts

Thomas Weissenberger <<tomtom>>
writes:

The last three days have been stable here. While driving down
south on Friday observing the ridge, the sea breeze was strong from SSW, a bit
too cross at some parts. Also not landable all the way. It is an impressive
drive all the way on the bottom of this beauty! Of course there is a super
tricky part at km 100 with a long land nose coming out which will be hard to get
by with lot of head wind and rotors first.

Saturday and Sunday I wanted to fly all the way back but a strong inversion kept
the wind weak with broken thermals and tailwind at launch. On Sunday I even
didn't rig up the glider. We decided to drive back launching at half way in the
afternoon when the sea breeze picked up. But no wind at all. Seems like no good
flying conditions on weekends, as we know.

Geri and I are now back in our base camp in Iquique waiting until the good
flying weather returns. Local weather forecasts are not very precisely showing
wind strength. They says that it always comes from the same south westerly
directions, with sunny skies, sometimes cloudy. Thermal activity and strength of
sea breeze vary a lot and days can suddenly explode.

On Monday conditions got better again, thermals up to 4m/s, cloud base 800m,
winds still southerly picking up at 2 pm. So the plan is first flying south when
headwinds still not too strong, then back with tailwind. I have to try now every
day to see how conditions will develop and testing its possibilities. We start
Tuesday. Track logs then.

Don has been monitoring this area for years, wondering if long
coastal cross country is possible. Here is the wind tracker, tracking wind every
15 minutes since 2007:
http://donburns.net/~don/WindTracker/index.php.
.

First flight
here.

Tom writes:

Launched 10 am finding myself soon on final at 80 meter above then
ground with an open harness. Then I found week lift and it was worth giving a
try.  I got back up! The wind was weak so the ridge just worked with
thermals and here was no dynamic lift. Later the weather got worse with cirrus
coming in.  A big lee rotor brought me to a landing place like this: