[Martin]

Mansfield August 8th

This mornings forecast…. “Severe thunder storm watch…. Gust fronts expected through the area with peak gust over 30mph”. Hmmmm, sounds great, you go first. What better may to put the “spark” back into your flying!

Can’t say we have ever put a lot of weight in the local state forecast…. That was until we had experienced a little of what they were trying to warn us about. About a month ago, a severe thunderstorm warning was issued. Other then a few scattered low level Q’s in the morning the day looked pretty good. Approximately 15 miles away, I guess a few of these cumulus got together and gave the ground a hell of slam. One farm that raised “bucking bronco bulls” for rodeo’s got hit particularly bad. 24 bulls were all gathered together on some high ground…. All 24 were killed by a lightning strike. (Gee, just a few hours earlier, I was up a tree with a chain saw……)

It may have been a flyable day, but we felt no need take the risks (and the day looked like it did have very high risk of severe instability).

For the morning Mia and I put our time in doing yard work. We were both watching the sky all day. As it turned out, it probably would have been ok to have gone towing but there is always another day.

Well we may not have flown, several pilots back in Chelan had taken some extended sledders off of the Butte (Jeff Beck from Bellingham and another Tri Cities pilot).

Jeff Kohler, after work put in some airtime at Airport Ridge just north of town, landing on top, back at the airport. He met up with us down at “Blue Lagoon” down near the power station in Chelan Falls. Shortly afterwards, a westerly gust front came blasting down the lake with lenticular’s clouds forming high overhead. Fortunately, no thunder cells, so no lightning strikes in the area.

Mia and I, pretty much avoid the tourist crowds of Chelan. The swimming hole at Blue Lagoon and the restaurants are some of the reasons we venture in. Particularly a little place near the Safeway in Chelan called the Hungry Belly. It’s what you might call one of them little “hole in the wall” restaurants but both of us highly recommend checking it out!

One bit of news to pass on for Chelan in 2007. There are big plans to rebuild the McNeil Canyon road (the primary road that connects the Butte to the Flats to the east. These plans include closing the road to all but “local traffic”. The dates as to when and how this is going to be done are not clear. One thing is for sure, it will make for a major pain to get from the Butte to the flats for XC retrieves! There are other access points, but they make the McNeil canyon road look like a freeway (which to anyone who has traveled this road will agree… the Canyon road is far from a freeway).

There is rumor that when or if the construction goes ahead, some effort will be made to help accommodate local users…. Perhaps the flying community can be included on the list of eligible users?