It was a nice weekend gathering of 10 PPG pilots and numerous other 'real pilots' at a small local airport. It was a great time.
The weather wasn't conducive for GA [general aviation] pilots in large aircraft to do VFR [Visual Flight Rules] flights to this small airport due to the cloud cover. There isn't any special navigation equipment located at this small, grass runway airport to allow for local, electronic navigation landings there. The airplane traffic was limited to and from this event due to the cloud cover and limited visibility.
The winds were light for us powered paraglider pilots and the cloud ceiling was high enough that it didn't bother us in the afternoon. Then, later, we had clearing skies so it was great flying for us. A short-lived gust front interrupted the flying just before I arrived but 10 of us got airborne in our PPG craft and had a great evening of flying after that. Lance at one point trailed a 1000' streaming ribbon behind his flying PPG which was very cool.
Sunday morning was socked in early with fog. We could see the sun through it a bit later so we assumed that it was clear up higher. As the fog thinned a few of us did some tentative flights. There were some low clouds in the area. We flew around, below and above them until they dissipated. The views were spectacular. I really enjoyed taking the photos. The thin, transparent clouds [or wisps of fog] were from about 200' to about 550' and varied greatly in density. Some were very thin and wispy and some were thicker. Climbing above them and looking down through them was quite a treat.
The wind stayed fairly light but picked up greatly within an hour or so after the clouds cleared. It was getting quite gusty as the winds strengthened throughout the day.
It was a great weekend!
Here is a link to the photos that I took:
http://picasaweb.google.com/davidmcw3/090926PPGKoernerPigRoastFlyIn#
The photos can also be accessed by just clicking the title of this post.
