Locals + X-alps visitor = successfull meeting

Many have told me that the September meeting is called the “season opener” for the Santa Barbara mountains. Well if last nights meeting and enthusiasm about recent flight’s was an example of this then I’m a believer! While many or our SBSA pilots have had plenty of flying this summer in various locations, Ojai/Pine, local ridge soaring, Marshall, and Owens Valley to name a few…..well for me the real treat is getting to fly right here in my own backyard. Back to the business at hand…..
We had a great group of pilots turnout for last nights meeting. Maybe it was the fact that we lined up some great entertainment for the evening or it might have been simple enthusiam to share recent flight stories with like minded pilots? Regardless it was a great turnout with lot’s of smiling faces!
We started off the meeting with some minimal club business by announcing we still have club t-shirts for sale, upcoming events(Click the link below the calendar), elections coming up in November club meeting, spot landing contest planned for next Thursday at the training hill with sunset happy hour to follow.

Moving on to the entertainment for the evening!!!

We had Marty start us off with by sharing his slides and experiences at the Worlds PG competition held at Sopot, Bulgaria. He had some fantastic pictures and stories to share. While he mentionded that they had some great competition flying days(and pictures to prove it) there was also some downtime due to wind/weather. He might of mentioned the food a few times.. did anyone else at the meeting get the feeling that Marty enjoyed the food over there? Sounded like an amazing experience. Great job Marty!

Bob A was up next and showed some absolutetly amazing photo’s from his recent trip bobbing around Switzerland and flying the various alps sites. He really knows his stuff when it comes down to those ranges and names of all the sites and places to fly. I for one was pretty impressed with his knowledge of the alps and hope to accompany him over there one of these times. Nice job Bob!

Last but not least was our special guest and RedBull X-alps 2013 pilot Stephan Haase. Stephan lead us on an adventure through pictures and stories from his training and preparedness to the actual event. This guy can really tell a story and walked us though various stages of the race. All I can say is this guy has got some big ones! Some of the pic’s were absolutely unreal. Places that were deep and not where I will not likely find myself flying anytime soon. He topped off the evening with a personal video that described how he ended up where he is at in life’s adventure and what led him down this path. I truly hope he does the x-alps again next year so we can all support him and cheer him on! On a personal note, I also hope to get to fly with him while he’s in the area.

I hope this read finds you all well and you get to fly long, high and far soon!

Cheers,
Jon Blake
SBSA President 2013