NorCal Slope Soaring

There are many facets of slope soaring. Most are weakly covered in the magazines - which cater to the majority of soaring enthusiasts who do not spend all of their soaring time on the slope.

This page will cater to those hopeless masses bitten by the slope bug. Those junkies that go through withdrawls after three days without a good flying fix. Those possessed by speed and flustered by flutter. Those with ten planes in the arsenal and another ten in their head. Those that have a relationship with each plane that reflects countless hours of tuning and repair. We are talking about pilots that strive to master the concepts of construction, tuning and technique with the sole purpose of carving more air in less time.

I'm not professing to be the lone resource on any of the topics, but I do realize that this facet of soaring can be a solitary pursuit. I'd like to offer a focal point for people with our condition, so that we can all thrive off this unbelievable resource and continue to push the speed envelope. I'd like this page to be a continuously evolving resource for seriously hopeless slopeheads.

About two years ago I had reached a personal plateau with inland sloping. Only the real heavy days would get the juices flowing. My flying buddy Randy Bush took me to Pacifica and exposed me to the next level of flying. PSS jets, Rodents and homemade missiles were flying at speeds I could'nt believe. Landings in a 20'x20' patch of iceplant with the nose sunk to the wings was the preferred method. I went home with two broken planes and had never been more excited. The next weekend Randy took me to a spot in the Berkeley hills with the winds blowing 55-60. Again I went home with a broken plane, but also the memory of Dave Reese doing screaming (literally) passes from speck altitude with his Rodent. Double digit rolls up the vertical line and a few hanging at the top were almost too much to take-I needed to make the jump to the next level.

Inland sloping then became something to do between runs to the coast. We built up some homies that were short coupled with glassed-on wings and had at it. We then stepped up to John Higgin's F-20s and the ramp racing just became better and better. The thrill was so intense that it felt as though a whole days volume of slope juice was getting pumped into your head on a single flight.

Now we have DS. Thanks to Joe Wurts we now have a technique that brings tremendous speed to the inland locations. This is great - high speeds are happening at sites that are not blessed with 500' ocean cliff and 40+ mph wind. The average speed of a flight is much higher. The time spent floating has been trimmed to a minimum - just enough to catch your breath ... perfect.

A special thanks to my brother Jason Toutolmin at The Helix for building, hosting and teaching me about website stuff. I get credit for all the update errors.

Thanks bro.

Current Arsenal

Woody

Rodent

Carver

Big Mudda

F3B Eagle (bagged version)

UFO (105" RG-15 1/2" joiner testbed)

The Duck

BD-5 (Slope Scale)

Whip (coming)

<< articles ::: projects ::: gallery ::: contact ::: upcoming ::: links ::: for sale ::: home >>