Just hoping you all are doing OK down there. Freaking WINDY.

I have always loved this time of year strong Santana winds from the desert east of SoCal was jacket and R/C glider flying weather for me.
When I was kid in elementary school in La Crecenta, Ca at the base of Angeles national forest. We had 20 foot fence that surround our school we would do Jacket flying You could throw your jacket up in the air and it would fly about 40 yards in to the fence would catch our Jackets. Once a kid threw a down jacket up in the air and it went over the fence in to 50 foot pine tree at a house that was behind the school.

Back about about 12 years ago I was flying R/C Power slope scale gliders quite bit as a hobby.My R/C flying buddies and I loved this time of year we would tape about 3 to 5 pounds of lead ballast on our gliders and head out to Lake hills estates in Corona,Ca. That Cajon pass emptied all it power full winds at. We would fly our gliders to about 50 to 60 mph in the wind on that lake hills slope.


But this also is the time of year the Dynamic Slope soaring R/C gliders pilots come out of the wood work to break world speed records with their planes the world record right now is 446 mph. They use to blow the gliders up from structural failure at these speeds but they have come up with new glider building techniques.
Dynamic soaring was discovered by Joe Wurts for R/C gliders who is one of the best R/C glider pilots in the world in all kind of R/C glider competitions.


Check out these You tube links and it will blow your mind to see a R/C glider go this fast.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByOB4luuvy4&feature=related
Wiki link explaining Dynamic Soaring
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_soaring
Enjoy the wind fun,
Terry

Edited by socal-nomad on 12/02/2011 10:08:46 MST.

My garden is destroyed, a whole lot of art and sculpture broken, gazebo shredded and flipped (it had a 50lb. block tied to each leg and weighed 350lbs by itself!), chicken coop had the roof ripped off, our roof shingles are destroyed...TONS of huge trees down all over the city. I saw some people contemplating an oak on top of their new car- crushed it like a toy.

Kids have been home for two days, schools are closed.
We've had no power since Wednesday evening, likely won't' for a few more days.

But overall, no big deal relatively speaking. It's not like anybody is dead or many houses were flattened. Home just feels like luxury camping without electricity, messes can be cleaned...whatever.

Comparatively, I can't imagine living somewhere with tornadoes or hurricanes....

"I have always loved this time of year strong Santana winds from the desert east of SoCal was jacket and R/C glider flying weather for me."

You ever do those dogfight battles with those wing-style glider thingies? I worked with a commercial airline pilot that would have these amazing battles with those RC wings...

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It snowed in Idyllwild last night, it's not warm right now. Weird since we had 65 degrees last week. Yay for socal

+1 to hoping you're all o.k. Hurricane strength winds, I heard. Somebody tell Carlos to turn down his amp!

Craig, wow you had it much worse than us up here. Sorry to hear that. We had 50-70 mph winds that essentially shut down Scotts Valley yesterday. We were out of power for 15 hours, but nothing like my neighbors down south. Wow

Good to hear you are OK Craig. I lived in Hurricane country before. Good Call.

@Jeffrey, lol!

We had a little damage. Lamp post at the front of the house was torn apart. Our teak outdoor dining table was split in two when the umbrella went for a sail into the neighbors yard. Various small objects destroyed and loss of groceries due to loss of power. I live near Pasadena for reference.

Not bad compared to Craig. Sorry to hear you had extensive damage.

Thanks for the concern.

They're saying we got gusts up to 100 MPH where I am...pretty nuts.

Couldn't help thinking I should've gone out to set up my winter shelter...but something tells me with 100mph gusts it would've ended up a mile away.

Craig wisner,
Where do you live near San Bernardino, Inland empire,Santa Clarita ? Most of those area down in the valley west of desert get the brunt of the wind. I remember about 20 years ago a friend of mine worked for Pepsi in San Bernardino and all the Pepsi delivery trucks flipped over and blew all over the yard.
I am glad your okay.

Craig Savage,
I use to play combat every weekend I used warbirds of world war 2 AKA power slope scale gliders. Instead of Zagi flying wings and other flying wings . Entered quite a few combat contest also all over the state. Dynamic soaring started about the same time because the planes for combat are made out of EPP foam and packing tape and colored tape or ultracote and 3m77 spray adhesive. They were called flying trash because you could crash and pick it up and throw it out again. Most of the composite plane guys called our planes flying trash. But the flying trash it made R/C flight easier to do for the masses pushed the envelope of R/C flight what was not possible before became the possible because of new flying skills learned.
Terry

"I use to play combat every weekend I used warbirds of world war 2 AKA power slope scale gliders. Instead of Zagi flying wings and other flying wings."

Zagi! yep, that's the one my buddy let me fly - I crashed it. I prefer the simpler RC controls of:



^but I haven't had the cash to take this out for a long while now

While the homestead in Chatsworth was...breezy this weekend, we had nearly still air out near Warner Springs at Mataguay Scout Ranch this weekend. My 'droid app recorded temperatures at the tent wall at 24 and 22 degrees for Fri/Sat night, but winds were absent.

Back here in San Diego, things are brisk but calm. I don't miss the howling winds of Chatsworth much at all. :)

My street is lined with large trees and was hit pretty hard. Several large branches fell down, making the street impassable the next day. A large 60-foot tree toppled over about a block away. Near my house, one of the branches fell on a power line and ignited into a small fire. The fire department came out and put that out. We didn't have power for about 48 hours, and other people further down the street still still haven't had their power restored since last Wednesday night - about 5 days ago. Half the roof on the deck in the backyard was blown off, and several shingles off the main house was blown off.

The weather forecast is for the return of the Santa Ana winds this week, is expected to be bad for the next couple of days.

To keep on topic their more wind headed to Ventura, LA, Riverside,Orange county and the high desert today so batten down the hatches everybody up there.

Craig,
Is that the Futaba Champ car or carpet racer? Flying R/C gliders gets easier and you progress really rapidly with the EPP gliders because you can just iron the wrinkles out. Back before EPP planes made out of balsa wood or Composite fiber glass you would be rebuliding for a week after one crash.
Just remember R/C glider can become really addicting to fly what I liked about slope flying was it combined my love of hiking to unknown slopes in San Diego,Riverside county and R/C glider flight.
Check these guys out for slope flying they mostly fly molded PSS warbirds but they also fly foamies for fun.
http://www.inlandsloperebels.com/
Terry

Several cities have declared a state of emergency. overner Brown declared the area a disaster area. About 350,000 households were without power initially. Some households still don't have power...5 days later and counting. Thousands of trees have been blown down. The winds gusts were as high as 100 mph. The winds are coming back and the wind gusts are expected to be about 60 mph in the next couple of days. A lot of trees/branches were weakened from last week's windstorm. I had a large branch fall onto my driveway yesterday and I can see another large branch suspended in the tree, about to fall off as well.

Good to hear the citizens of Cali weathered the storm fairly well. A bit of damage, but not much in the way injury or loss of life.

Perspective is a funny thing... A "little wind" like that out here in Tornado Alley would barely make the news, but if we get an earthquake registering over 4.5 or more than 6" of snow, you'd think the whole world was caving in on itself.

It looks like the city of Pasadena has not maintained the large pine trees in the neighborhood for a long time like they use to.To keep wind damage from trees falling to minimum during high winds. It is to bad all the cities and the state is broke and they can't pay for simple maintenance like road work,tree trimming and other city maintenance.
I remember when I lived in La Crecenta not far Pasdenna every summer my Dad and I would be trimming our front and back yard tree. Then we go over to my grandfathers house in La Canada/flintridge do the same to his big pine trees. Then one year we paid a friend of the family Charlie Mote's tree service to cut down my grandfathers pine trees because they were just to tall.

I know after the Cedar fire and the big fire in Rancho Bernardo the city and people cut down or trimmed almost all the old growth eucalyptus trees so we would not have repeated fire storm or wind damage.

Terry

Edited by socal-nomad on 12/06/2011 01:00:40 MST.

"Is that the Futaba Champ car or carpet racer?"

That is a Tamiya F103 setup for carpet racing (foam tires). I did all the paint and some of the decal work from scratch, the rest of the decals were imported from Japan. The livery is Jean Alesi's '89 French GP winner from Camel Racing Service, this particular one was a birthday present for my oldest boy.

"... what I liked about slope flying was it combined my love of hiking to unknown slopes in San Diego, Riverside county and R/C glider flight."

that is an excellent point. What a really neat way to get out there and explore, certainly not something I'd ever do with that car.

Meh, I'll probably never run that car again. I haven't even bought any new backpacking equipment in years and really don't have the room in my budget to pay for gear, planes & toy cars. It's actually quite liberating to not put energy into buying or "researching" garbage. Gives my wee brain more room to focus on the intimately real aspects of life, like family and work. Anywho, I'd never seen the PSS "warbirds"... Thanks, very cool!

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Those are some intense pics of the wind damage, thanks for sharing and I hope the rest of the season has less damage in store! There has been barely a breeze, locally.

Craig,
The body on the car threw me off I am more use to the modern formula one bodys on Tamiya F-103. Don't get rid of it you can get some rubber tries and run it at the asphalt Tamiya factory track in Alesio Veijo every saturday for free. It a really nice track for tamiya cars only and fun group of hang out with.

Pick up a micro flying wing or one that can break down in two pieces for hiking flying.
terry