I live in San Diego, near the coast, and we have a little RC spot that many guys will go fly at, known as Dave's Beach.
This little gem is an IDEAL spot to slope soar from:
Straight from Google Maps, you can see that we've got a nice hillside there that generates good amounts of wind when we have a nice W, WSW, or SW wind blowing. Most of the guys stand along the cliff edge and throw out over the beach, and if there's 8-10 mph winds, you can get plenty of lift.
My first attempt, I took the FT Simple Soarer out and was nervous as heck throwing it. All I could think was, "Please don't end up on the cliff, and please don't end up on the BEACH!" We've had incidents along the cliffs just a couple miles south of collapsing, and earlier this year, some people died when some boulders fell off the cliff and rolled into them while sitting on the beach below, so I REALLY didn't want to have to go down the cliffs to retrieve a downed plane.
It was a decent, stiff breeze blowing, so I pulled out the plane, strapped the wings on, and said, "It's only foamboard!" and tried to toss it into the wind. I say "tried", because as soon as I let go, the plane lifted up out of my hand and immediately started climbing. I had to nose it down into the wind almost immediately, and it picked up some speed, but there was PLENTY of lift along the bluffs there that day. I was able to fly about 50-60 feet out, actually over the sand, and still had plenty of lift to come back up at almost any time I needed it - simply point my nose into the wind, and bring the stick back to center, and it would climb up almost effortlessly.
My only problems were landing. As you can see, there's some asphalt right near where the cars are parked; this is where most people land. However, it's also where a lot of spectators stand, and people bicycle or walk along on the path. Trying to land, you have to keep an eye on people walking along the cliffs, and yell out, "LANDING!!!" to get people to look up as you bring something in, all while trying to avoid flying over the road that's RIGHT next to the cliff.
My first landing actually ended up going over the road as I was trying to bring it in, and "crashed" on the median. I'm SOOO glad there weren't any cars right there to cause an accident, or for the plane to get run over...It's happened before that planes have gotten run over, but I don't want to be THAT guy, you know?
At any rate, I looped back and forth along the bluffs for about an hour and a half, off and on, that day - and now I have a balsa Gentle Lady to head out and throw off the cliff.
I haven't been back out to toss yet, mostly because we've had Santa Ana winds that have been coming from the east, so you can't really do any soaring at that point. But hopefully I'll be able to get back out this weekend and try tossing something, and this time take my wife so she can walk along the beach while I fly.
This little gem is an IDEAL spot to slope soar from:
Straight from Google Maps, you can see that we've got a nice hillside there that generates good amounts of wind when we have a nice W, WSW, or SW wind blowing. Most of the guys stand along the cliff edge and throw out over the beach, and if there's 8-10 mph winds, you can get plenty of lift.
My first attempt, I took the FT Simple Soarer out and was nervous as heck throwing it. All I could think was, "Please don't end up on the cliff, and please don't end up on the BEACH!" We've had incidents along the cliffs just a couple miles south of collapsing, and earlier this year, some people died when some boulders fell off the cliff and rolled into them while sitting on the beach below, so I REALLY didn't want to have to go down the cliffs to retrieve a downed plane.
It was a decent, stiff breeze blowing, so I pulled out the plane, strapped the wings on, and said, "It's only foamboard!" and tried to toss it into the wind. I say "tried", because as soon as I let go, the plane lifted up out of my hand and immediately started climbing. I had to nose it down into the wind almost immediately, and it picked up some speed, but there was PLENTY of lift along the bluffs there that day. I was able to fly about 50-60 feet out, actually over the sand, and still had plenty of lift to come back up at almost any time I needed it - simply point my nose into the wind, and bring the stick back to center, and it would climb up almost effortlessly.
My only problems were landing. As you can see, there's some asphalt right near where the cars are parked; this is where most people land. However, it's also where a lot of spectators stand, and people bicycle or walk along on the path. Trying to land, you have to keep an eye on people walking along the cliffs, and yell out, "LANDING!!!" to get people to look up as you bring something in, all while trying to avoid flying over the road that's RIGHT next to the cliff.
My first landing actually ended up going over the road as I was trying to bring it in, and "crashed" on the median. I'm SOOO glad there weren't any cars right there to cause an accident, or for the plane to get run over...It's happened before that planes have gotten run over, but I don't want to be THAT guy, you know?
At any rate, I looped back and forth along the bluffs for about an hour and a half, off and on, that day - and now I have a balsa Gentle Lady to head out and throw off the cliff.
I haven't been back out to toss yet, mostly because we've had Santa Ana winds that have been coming from the east, so you can't really do any soaring at that point. But hopefully I'll be able to get back out this weekend and try tossing something, and this time take my wife so she can walk along the beach while I fly.
