This week was quite active in terms of wind intensity. Even so, we managed to make some good flights in different parts of the island…
Wednesday, March 01, 2023… Isabela
In the afternoon, Mario Muñiz, Sammy Badillo and Luis Ruiz met in the Villa Pesquera Isabela. The conditions to fly were good. Clear skies, steady winds around 15 mph with a few gusts to 18 mph.
For novice pilots, this would have been strong flying conditions, but for Mario, Sammy and Luis, it was just too good to enjoy a flight down the coast. We finished there late in the afternoon.
Saturday, March 04, 2023 – Hatillo
We went early to the Parque del Norte Hatillo. Present were, Pablo Cruz and his wife Millie, Ricardo González and his wife Ermelinda, Luis Ruiz his wife Jessica Cruz and son Noah Enrique, Alberto Sabah and Mario Muñiz with his wife Ivonne.
In the case of Mario and Alberto, they had pending to arrive flying all the way from Isabela. But given the unstable weather and the strong winds that had been going on since early hours, this was postponed for better days.
In Hatillo, the wind conditions became dangerous for flying. As Mario and Ricardo found out when they tried to inflate some paragliders. Only Luis Ruiz ventured to fly in these conditions with his small and fast 18 meter BGD Luna 2 paraglider.
We decided to pick ourselves up early, since the forecast for tomorrow, Sunday, is that the winds will drop a bit in intensity…
Sunday, March 05, 2023 – Isabela
We returned to Villa Pesquera Isabela, where, as indicated by the weather forecasts, we had at least good conditions to fly in the morning hours. Again, past past mid day the wind conditions would be 22mph+ with gusts to 28mph!
Saying present were Alberto Sabah and his wife Mercedes, Mario Muñiz and his wife Ivonne, Pablo Cruz and his wife Millie, Ricardo González and his wife Ermelinda, Luis Ruiz and prospective possible student Wilkins Torres.
Mario, Alberto and Luis managed to fly early in the morning. In fact, Luis managed to carry out a Demo Flight for Brenda, who is the mother of Miguel Nieves, who has flown with us on other occasions.
Miguel, took his mother to the place with the story that they would take a walk in the sand and to her surprise, the flight was what had been coordinated 😄. The fly of Brenda happens smoothly and she enjoyed a lot. Later arrival from other friends looking for Demo flights were not possible to do for security reasons.
Around noon, Ricardo Take Off flying with a SkyMax EOS 100 paramotor and a Cosmos Power 24 paraglider. But one he gets in the air, to his surprise, the wind pick up so strong that he could not fly forward speed. His Ground speed was no more than 3 mph and on a couple of occasions he was even flying backwards. Surely the intensity of winds at that time was higher than 25 mph+ 😱.
As expected, he had landing problems and we were there helping him getting out of that situation. That was a very good experience for Ricardo. After that, we were discussing all the details about the correct procedures to carry out when we encounter these conditions in the air.
So much for the day. God Bless!!!
Photos…
