SBSA BOD elections and meeting

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We had an excellent meeting last night!!!

It started off with a discussion of some recent local flights (people have be flying daily all week), then yours truly  conducted some of the local club business and distributed some information that was important to communicate to our local flying community.  We then had some heavy voting (j/k) to lock in our candidate wins for the 2015 board of directors.

The highlight of the night was our guest speaker.  I want to say a big “Thank you!” to Tom “SD” Truax for coming out to meeting last night and giving an excellent XC presentation.  As always he was very enthusiastic about our backyard playground and all the possibilities of routes that we have to fly here.  He covered the weather and what to look for on skew-t charts for our surrounding ranges.  Showed flight logs from his recent, as he called them “Boutique” flights, most of us just called them incredible.  He explained in detail the routes he flew and why he chose to go where he did on those particular days.  Showed various bailouts and ways to get out of the back country if you happened to land out.  I heard from at least two people that it was the best meeting they have been to for the club.  I myself was thoroughly enlightened and learned a ton of new stuff about our ranges.   I’ve included a few pictures from the meeting and presentation.

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Here are your 2015 SBSA Board of Directors.  A hearty thanks to all those who volunteer their time to help make this club a success.  If you see or run into a board member,  congratulate them and do me a favor, thank them for their effort.

2015 BOARD OF DIRECTORS
President – James Zender
Vice-President HG – Willy Dydo
Vice-President PG – David Koski
Treasurer –  Cort Flinchbaugh
Secretary – Lauren Selonke
Activities HG – Jeff Galvin
Activities PG – Jon Blake
Public Relations – John Greynald
Elings Park Liaison – Rob Sporrer
Web Master – John McMahon

 

 

Reserve re-pack party

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Reserve re-pack party

Do you have 2 reserves?

When was the last time your reserve was inspected and re-packed??

Why not make sure that first one works correctly!
We are planning to have a reserve re-pack party on Oct 12th.  Here are the details:

Reserve clinic and repack for HG’s and PG’s
3:00 Sunday, Oct 12
John Greynald’s house
2774 Puesta del sol, S.B.
682-Three Four Eight Three
The Clinic will provide opportunity to practice throwing your chute in the simulator of your choice and then have experienced re-packers inspect your deployment system and repack the reserve with new bands and bungees ( if required ).
Your deployment technique will be analyzed and feedback provided 
The people who design reserve systems recommend that they get repacked every six months. Previous clinics have revealed that about 25% of us have systems that will not deploy correctly. The problems are usually from poor maintenance, improper equipment or limited understanding of deployment sequence issues.
The cost for the repack is $50 and includes simulator use, clinic, food and beverages
Bring your helmets for the simulation!—-kids and dogs welcome.
If you don’t need any repack stuff done, come for the party anyway.
If you’re only doing the repack and can’t stay for the party, you can drop off your harness on the front porch any time during the weekend. Don’t leave all your accessories such as varios and flight suits etc., and please ID your gear
You can pick up your harnesses from the fort porch any time after Tuesday Oct 14th.
See you on Sunday!

SBSA Big Sur Fall camping and flying trip

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October 24th – 26th 2014

It’s that time to head up to beautiful Big Sur for our semi-annual camping/flying trip. So get your camping gear dusted off, flying gear ready and come on up and join us for the weekend!!!

We’ve got a two big group camping spots at Plaskett Creek campground, so bring your family and friends!

Big Sur is appropriate for all levels of pilots and partiers.

There will be a potluck on Saturday night for those who wish to participate.

Plaskett Creek Campground
Getting There:
GPS Info. (Latitude, Longitude):
35.91722, -121.465
35°55’2″N, 121°27’54″W

From San Luis Obispo, take Highway 1 north for approximately 60 miles to the campground.

From Monterey, take Highway 1 south for approximately 55 miles to the campground.

We have some winners!

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I showed up at the training hill today thinking “oh no”, here we go again, the winds had kicked up and we had a pretty strong South West blowing in.  I was wondering if we were again going to get blown out for the contest.  I witnessed Cort, Neil and Chris specked out at Wilcox.  As Willy and I setup the targets I kept wondering if this wind would let up a little to let us get this contest started and working for all.  As Cort and Neil both easily flew from Wilcox to the training hill I was starting to worry it might be too strong for everyone to participate.  The goal was to have a safe contest for all participants.  Turns out it was just a magical night and as luck would have it the wind started to back off a little and the training hill was turning on big time.  We had a gaggle of five pilots turning 360’s and climbing straight out in front of launch.  Cort and I kept coaxing people to come out and land on the targets but none of the pilots in the air were having any part of it.  They were having way too much fun boating around in the abundant lift.   This was at 6:30pm!!  Eventually it started to let up a little and Doug Gothard was the first to put it down on the PG target and he set the mark to be beat for the rest the night.  He landed directly on the middle spot and kited his wing on one foot while standing on it.  Willy had a b0uyant flight and had a good thermal on the corner for a while before doing a wing over and putting it in for a tight spot on the HG target.  These two would turn out to be the ones to beat for the rest the evening in the spot landing contest.   Cracka put in some good effort in the spot category….uh…..hum…..well….he refused to use the target we put out and put it down on the van instead (all windows stayed intact this time).   As the wind laid down many pilots made excellent attempts at hitting the spot tonight for both the HG and PG prizes. If you didn’t make it out…..well, you should have, it was an epic night of fun but don’t worry, we’ll do it again soon.

These were the results:

Hang Gliding

1st prize $50 gift certificate REI + T-shirt  – Willy Dydo

2nd prize $35 gift certificate Trader Joes + T-shirt  – John Greynald

3rd prize Bottle of wine + T-shirt  – Sean (new pilot taking lessons from Willy :-))

Paragliding

1st prize $50 gift certificate REI + T-shirt  – Doug Gothard

2nd prize $35 gift certificate Trader Joes + T-shirt  – Tim Barker

3rd prize Bottle of wine + T-shirt  – Dave Koski

Special prize bottle of wine and t-shirt – Aaron “Cracka” LaPlante (Van spot landing prize)

We had a great turnout and I want to thank everyone who came out to make spot attempts or just enjoy the company and sunset.

Special thanks to Willy and Rob for providing the transportation to the top of the hill for all the pilots!

Here’s some pictures from the event.

Enjoy!

Jon Blake – SBSA President 2014

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And so it begins, whose got the skills?

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Gaggle climbing at 6:30pm

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It was stacking up to be a great night!

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Cracka eying the target

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Doug sets the mark!

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Spot Landing Contest

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Colored_Bullseye2 Got skills? Let’s see ‘em!

We got blown out by very windy west wind on June 12th, but tomorrow (Thursday, August 7th) looks good for another chance to show what you got!  Come on out and bring the family and friends.  We will be staring around 5pm.  Same rules and prizes apply as shown previously below for this spot landing contest.   We’ll have transportation running to the top for HG’s and PG’s.  Sunset viewing and some beverages to follow the contest.

Hope to see you all out there!

 

 

 

We will be having another spot landing contest at Eling’s flight park (training hill) starting at 4:30pm on this Thursday, June 12th.

Everyone is welcome to come out and enjoy so bring your family and friends. Plan is to have a little happy hour sunset watching following the contest. Come on out and try your spot landing skills. We will have some greats prizes to give away (see below) for those that come the closet to the target. Markers will be provided.

Some simple rules:

  • Hang Gliders and Paragliders will each be a separate contest.
  • We will have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place prizes for both.
  • Safety first, this is a skills contest so don’t do something crazy to try to win, we don’t want any injuries just good times!
  • The point of landing will be considered to be the first point of contact with the ground if the pilot is approaching the target.  If the pilot is leaving the target, the landing point will be the place where the pilot stops his forward progress.
  • You must land on your feet, on your bum or rolling it in does not count.
  • Max of 3 spot landing attempts per person (you only need 1 to compete)
  • In the case of a tie for first, a coin will be flipped and the loser will move to the next place. I.e., Tie for 1st, coin flipped, loser gets 2nd place and current second place moves to 3rd. Same rule applies for ties for 2nd and 3rd.
  • No drinking and flying

We will start at 4:30pm and end around 7pm (if students are still flying, please give them priority and stay out of their way).  If you can’t get it to the hill right at 4:30pm then come when you can, you will still be able to enter and try your skills.  You just may not get all 3 flights.

Prizes as follows:
HG prizes

  • 1st – $50 REI gift certificate + club t-shirt
  • 2nd – $35 Trader Joe’s gift certificate + club t-shirt
  • 3rd – Bottle of wine + club t-shirt

PG prizes

  • 1st – $50 REI gift certificate + club t-shirt
  • 2nd – $35 Trader Joe’s gift certificate + club t-shirt
  • 3rd – Bottle of wine + club t-shirt

Hope to see all of you out there this Thursday!

Cheers,
-Jon

 

Here’s a few pictures from the spot landing contest in September 2013.

 

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