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 ( you could look here for essential boating parts) 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