On Saturday, at the invitation of Kevin Dutt, I went out to join
in the flying fun at Kevin's place near Antioch, eighteen miles west of Mt.
Diablo (BLIPSPOT),
in the Sacramento River delta region west of the San Francisco Bay.  Kevin
is putting a really big barn/hangar up on part of his ten acre spread situated
just west of the suburban onslaught, but there is a little slice of acreage that
allows for the four cylinder Bailey-Moyes Dragonfly to launch and land in the
prevailing westerlies.


Yes, his place is not that far from the river and not that far from Sherman
Island (Powerlines,
Kite Surf,
Wind Surf)
where the winds are strong, but far enough away so that the winds are a lot
lighter there. Still it is often possible to get going early in the day, catch
the convergence and ride it to the east.


Kevin had invited over a few flying friends to share the air with him. He used
to fly Mt. Diablo as often as he he could, but when he moved out hear to the
east side of the mountain the drive got to be two long (you get up the mountain
on the west side), so a year and a half ago he got the Dragonfly. Steve Daleo
came out to be the tug pilot for the day.


Kevin's house faces on a gravel road shared with a few neighbors. It wasn't much
of an imposition on them for us to setup the cart on the east side of the road
and then ride it through Kevin's not so smooth front yard when we had a little
less weight on the cart. This is not for everyone and only those pilot who know
what they are doing are invited to Kevin's.


Everyone was a rigid wing pilot, like Kevin, but I still have my borrow Wills
Wing Falcon 3 170 and as the day didn't look all that hot and Belinda was in
Colorado (although there were plenty of drivers for retrieval) I decided to see
if I could stay up in the light stuff with the Falcon. Besides, it's a lot
easier to set up quickly.


This is flat land flying, the delta, flat as a big river can make it, with wide
open farming areas to the south and east. There were quite a few thick cirrus
clouds coming over and that cut down the lift, still it was possible to hang out
at 1,000'-1,500' in the weak thermals. I could see the dust devils just one
field down wind of me, but I didn't want to walk the glider back if I didn't
make it up there.


I was first off and stayed up well while the pilots in rigid wings were able to
match my performance. It was wide open for a good cross country flight if we had
had better conditions (like today). I soared over an artificial lake that held
the US National Slalom Championships the week earlier.


As the day wore on the clouds got thicker and the lift died out as the winds
increased pushing the lift band to the east. Kevin says that he has had numerous
100+ milers out of his front yard.


We ended the day on an exciting note. The motor hiccupped while towing Chris
Gallagher up at about 400'. It may have had a semi clogged fuel filter. Steve
gave Chris the rope and made a dead stick landing. His first.


Chris didn't realize that he had the rope thinking that he had broken a
weaklink. He had broken two on the cart and therefore his attention was focused
on weaklinks and he didn't look around to see the rope.


As he came into land he suddenly saw the rope when he was as about 15' AGL. His
focus now was and making sure he didn't get pulled into the ground nose first.
When the rope momentarily snagged he pushed out to break it free and flared too
high, taking out a down tube.


Kevin's got a great setup and he's having fun flying. His neighbors don't seem
to mind his flying around (there is a small airport nearby) and while it is not
up to flight park standards, it is a great little operation among friends.