Bart and Tiki from Cowboy Up (www.cuhanggliding.com)
were towing out at Alpine again today, but the first tandem passengers were
Bart's dad and older sister from Holland. THen it was Belinda's turn, but Bart
felt that it was now too rough for a tandem flight.


I was ready to go in the Wills Wing Falcon 3 - 170, but the west on the ground
had gone from south, to north and now was a steady and breezy west, coming from
the range and the slot a few miles away. The morning had been blue but now there
were lots of high cu's.


I had seen Bart launch earlier with his sister. Bart has big plastic wheel on
the tandem double surface BIP glider that he flies (and he lands on those
wheels) but he launches the tandem glider from a cart. He and his sister stayed
on the cart for about four times longer than I had ever seen anyone stay on a
cart. Here at 6,000' Bart is serious about staying on the cart.


The landing field is a little rough, Bart was talking to his sister and not
paying attention and his cart bounced off the ground a couple of times before he
finally let go of the cart and got into the air. It was a real eye opener
indicating how long I should hold onto the cart before I got off. A lot longer
than I thought.


I held on, although not as long as Bart, but a lot longer than I had the last
time and I waited until the wind turned back from the west and not the northwest
before I took off. The launch was much better, and still I feel that I could
have held on longer even though I took the cart into the air.


Bart had mentioned that it was rough below two thousand feet and it was. After a
big jolt at 600' AGL, with the faint hope that I would get back to the house
thermal and get up, but no way. Tiki said it was the roughest she had
experienced there and she didn't want to tow anyone any more. Then the west wind
really began to blow.


We retired to lunch in Alpine.