It's been a rough start to the season with a few sublime days poking through a seemingly endless sequence of storms. On the bright side, the first Social XC league meet was timed perfectly and the rain has given everyone a chance to get all their gear in order and skills dusted off.

Last weekend's reserve clinic was a great success--big thanks to Wally Anderson for putting together the clinic. Between that clinic and the one back in May we should all be prepared for some booming (and safe) summer flights.

In competition news, the Worlds were held this month G.V. Brazil with the US Team placing 13th among countries and local pilots Eric Reed and Josh Cohn placing 20th and 71rst overall respectively. Nice flying guys!

Do you want to know what it's like to be a world class pilot and fly the Worlds? Check out the excellent comp. pilot blogs at www.pgcomps.com!

As for the coming US comp season, looks like a ton of local pilots have signed up for this year's RatRace. Maybe we should calculate a Team BAPA score for the event (and open a can of Whup-A** on all those Santa Barbara guys who've signed up).

I'm looking forward to an end to this extended rainy season and some excellent Bay Area flying in the next month!

See y'all in the sky.

As I sat down to write this month's note, I found myself reflecting on my own personal flying journey over the past few years. Each year I found myself doing something a bit different, not completely on conscious thought, but more like a dandelion allowing the currents to sweep me into new horizons. I would find that there was some aspect of flying that really excited me and focused most of my attentions on it, trying to become an expert at the technical nuances. Each step I took built on the last and as my experience and confidence have grown I have come to realize that it is in direct relationship to what I don't know. I hope that doesn't mean I'm growing up!

Building on those thoughts, my focus for this year is to seek out and publish articles that will be useful to our full range of membership. From kiting and choosing your next wing through the usual safety and event write-ups. I also hope convince Chip and Rich to revive a column that discusses the previous and upcoming months' events. Susan Kent has provided some excellent ideas already and I'm always looking for more suggestions and help.

For this month, Susan wrote on her year long transition to XC flying. Starting with last year's thermal clinics through this year's first Social League XC competition, she offers some great anecdotes that just about had me rolling on the floor.

Ginny writes about the PASCO XC seminar and it sounds like an event not to be missed when they have it next year.

Wally has some great news for P3 pilots who want to be approved to fly at Mt. Tamalpais up in Marin County and in his monthly safety article analyzes two recent, relevant accidents in Mexico.

The Anderson Flat Fly-In dates have been set for April 31 - May 1. Read Gene's event note and generous accomodations offer in his article.

Well, that's it for March. You'll notice that it's pretty light on pictures - that's because you are all slackers for not contributing! So, send in those group shots taken on the hill!

As always, you can reach me at editor@sfbapa.org.

We have had no official accident reports filed in the last month. There was an accident involving a Bay Area pilot in Mexico resulting in a back injury and some of you may have seen the stall/spin/deployment video from Valle.

I only have second hand reports of the Mexico accident so if I'm off on this please let me know and I will print a correction. As I understand it, the very experienced advanced pilot was working the ridge in front of launch in an attempt to climb out suffered one or more collapses and started to head to the LZ but was low and felt he needed more altitude to make it. He turned back to the ridge in order to regain altitude whereupon he suffered another major collapse, fell through a tree and landed on a rock injuring his back. Fortunately the back injury apparently will not require surgery. The reports afterward from pilots in the air stated the air was not 'normal' and quite turbulent. One pilot stated that he didn't relay this to the ground as he felt sure that it should have been obvious to observers at launch.

We all know that 'scratching' on paragliders is dangerous, but often a necessary risk we take in order to get up and soar. The only thing that I can glean from this is that if a report had been received from the air the pilots at launch would have been alerted and more wary, perhaps allowing more ground clearance or opting not to fly.

Many of you have seen the Valle video on the news group and hopefully also read Enleau's analysis. Although he wasn't a Bay Area pilot and didn't get injured I'm mentioning it here as there are several lessons to be learned from it. It involved a newish P-2 pilot w/not much airtime and thermal experience and no maneuver clinic experience. Against strong advice he purchased a new performance DHV-2 glider. The day before he had been observed overreacting to the turbulent air. The incident started with a big thermal surge and the pilot 'stomping' on the brakes causing a stall with a big forward surge and garrote, whereupon the glider entered a spiral dive which looked recoverable. It did not appear that the pilot made a serious effort to do so and the spiral degraded into a fast high-g situation where upon the pilot went for his reserve. The next thing you see is the pilot hanging on to his riser w/the deployment bag still in his hand. The g-force must have been so great that the weight of the bridle and shroud lines opened the reserve. The pilot did not make any effort to collapse his canopy which was semi-down-planing in front of him. His fall was temporarily arrested by a tree and he was suspended some distance from the ground. He reported his position and situation by radio. Then he started tweaking w/his lines in the attempt to free a small broken branch. Apparently this wiggling about caused the glider to dislodge from the tree and drop him the rest of the way to the ground.

As I see it the following factors contributed to this incident. We have a pilot eager to progress and move up with a low level of experience, flying a glider that requires somewhat more skill to fly safely, significant thermal conditions, over-reaction and inaction during crisis mode. Please remember one should progress steadily and not rush things in order to build a good table of experience to fall back on, only fly places and equipment suitable to your experience level and when you are ready to challenge thermals and mountain air take a maneuvers clinic to prepare yourself for extreme conditions. If you fly 'big' air you will need these skills sooner or later.

As I reported at the last meeting the question of carabineer failures has re-arisen once again. Finsterwalder (Charley Helmets, hg wheels, etc.) has issued a report on pg carabineer fatigue failure. You should take into consideration here that Finsterwalder manufacturers and sells their own harness/riser attachment system that doesn't involve carabineers so there is a potential conflict of interest here. Over the past 10 years or so there have been three reported. So far they have all been Austri-Alpen ParaFlys. According to the report all carabineers including steel ones are subject to fatigue failure. This reportedly can occur because of the small amount of free play between the gate main body of the carabineer which allows up and down flexing when loading and unloading during flight. The DHV has issued a safety note for all carabineers and requested fatigue test data from the manufacturers and also issued an airworthiness advisory for the Austri-Alpen Parafly (aluminum) carabineers. You can find the full text at: www.dhv.de/typo/Safety_Notes.849.0.html

Finsterwalder has suggested to use a back-up to you carabineers at least until more testing has been done.

See picture below.

My recommendation is that definitely if you have the Para-Fly carabineers change them out for new carabineers and if you've had your carabineers on your harness for ever you might also consider changing them out and of course, a the back-up system, while somewhat cumbersome won't hurt. It's important to note here that the Austri-Alpen PowerFly carabineers are not included in the airworthiness advisory. My understanding from a knowledgeable source is that the number of cycles necessary to induce failure increases exponentially with the rated strength of the carabineer and to date there has been no failures of the PowerFlys.

There should hopefully be more information coming out of Europe soon and I will update the list with any new developments.

As they used to say in Hill Street Blues, ""Y'all be careful out there now!"

When the local XC League was formed several years ago, I believed I would never want to attempt to fly cross-country. Why leave a nice area with a perfectly good LZ nearby, or why give up a nice day of coastal ridge soaring for thermals and possibly landing out and trudging back miles from nowhere?

But last year when BAPA held its thermal clinic at Potato Hill, I decided that I could at least get more experience and time thermalling by participating in the "social" part of the XC Social League. Accompanied by my friend and good pilot, Celia Pender, we attended several little meets, which due to the loss of Tollhouse and Dunlap as flying sites, were all held at Potato. At first I was terrified at the thought of venturing very far from launch and the LZ, didn't go far, and was happy to watch the experienced pilots fly their routes and do retrieves. Gradually I got more experience and finally had the courage to try following a route. When I made it to the next peak, Snow Mountain, I was ecstatic, and felt that I was ready to try my first little comp. With a lot of trepidation and anxiety, I officially entered, and of course, the first thing that I did was sink like a rock and end up in the LZ. But by watching, asking questions, and learning the site, I gradually started to improve, and so did Celia. It was great attending the comps with a female pilot of the same level, and we provided support and encouragement for each other when we didn't do well and sank to the LZ.

Late in the season, one comp involved pairing up an experienced pilot with a more inexperienced one. To my surprise, I was paired with a very experienced pilot who has competed internationally. But some of the other pairings looked really good, and there were some high fives, and "we're going to kick ass" phrases flying around. As it turned out, conditions were tricky, but I managed to stay up. Apparently I did well enough that my partner didn't see anything that I was doing wrong, and he sailed off across the course. I followed a more slowly, then managed to turn my radio off in flight, and was totally confused by my new GPS, which I turned on, but had no idea of how to use. One by one, I saw the better pilots sink out at the third waypoint, and despaired of even making it there, but kept working at it. Some of the "high five guys" sank out even before making the first point, but I kept going. Somewhere between waypoints, I felt rather nauseous, but it didn't bother me as I was concentrating hard. As I reached the point near St. John, where the big boys had sunk out, I had a little altitude to start back across the valley toward the LZ, but wasn't feeling that good and decided to land near my partner. As I was turning and bleeding off altitude, I was overcome with retching, but still kept control as I came down to a safe landing in a nice bare spot. My first non-LZ landing! But everyone on the ground, and in some in the air, had heard me making rather vigorous barfing noises. Being the fine male specimens they are, the men wasted no time in making fun of me. But I had the last laugh as my partner and I had won the competition for the day.

This past weekend, March 12 and 13 kicked off the first XC League for 2005, which was held back at Potato. After a thrilling morning of setting routes into our GPS's, Saturday was a para-waiting day of sitting around in the dust and heat watching cross winds and unacceptable conditions for flying. Based on a similar day last year that had resulted in a reserve toss and lots of collapses, no one decided to fly. But Sunday the conditions looked great-the meet was on, and so was the traditional jockeying for position, fiddling with instruments, fretting, and in my case, the oh-so-nervous-on-launch jitters. Although it is the XC "Social" League, it is still a competition, and the adrenaline definitely rises on launch as do the determined looks.

Once in the air, I found the thermals, sporadic and light, and watched in frustration as the better pilots made it above launch and then started off to the first waypoint, SnowLo, on Snow Mountain. After 45 minutes of barely managing to stay up and watching several people bomb to the LZ, I finally managed to get substantially above launch, long after the lead gaggle had left. With a lot of work, I managed to get to SnowLo, but was still fighting with my GPS since I still don't have the knack of flying, thermalling, paying attention, and using the darn thing. So basically I was eyeballing the waypoints. Clawing my way back to the next waypoint (above the LZ), then back to Potato launch, I managed to complete three out of four of the points of the route. Seeing that not even the best of pilots had made it to the fourth point, I elected to go to the LZ and land believing that I had done the best that I could.

At the LZ, the excitement was high, with a lot of stories, beating of chests, scratching of balls, and pontificating as everyone discussed their flights. My fear was that my GPS had frozen, but the track log was still there. On examining other GPS logs, a least one pilot had accidentally not tagged SnowLo, and a lot of other pilots never had the opportunity to try. Much to my surprise, I took fifth out of 11 pilots, which I believe was the result of hard work and some luck.

The XC League has been a great way for me to improve my skills, learn more about thermalling and following routes, and has generally been fun and interesting. At times it does get very testosterone heavy, but wives, girlfriends, and some mellower pilots usually nicely offset that. Now I look forward to being able to fly XC at new sites, and to learn even more about flying in different conditions. If you are looking for ways to improve your flying, come along and join the fun. You don't even have to compete, but I would recommend at least one good thermalling clinic first, and some of the sites may be limited to only P3 and P4 pilots.

Iím glad to announce that we have successfully renewed our Mt. Tamalpais permits for the coming year. Additionally both the State Park and the County of Marin have approved the new proposed rules which should be posted to our web site soon. Intermediate (P-3) pilots can now get their own sticker and fly unsupervised after an introductory day and approval by an approved Mt. Tam sponsor. Any P-3ís wishing to get checked out for Tam please contact me and Iíll arrange it with either myself or another Tam sponsor.

Each time I learn to fly a new soaring craft, I am impressed by the many similarities that all soaring pilots share. Strategizing on how to best work the lift and go the distance safely; how to use technology to set, fly and analyze a course; familiarizing oneself with new flying sites and soaring playgrounds; and perhaps most importantly, how to safely transition from local to XC flying are topics of interest to most soaring pilots.

These were the topics covered at the Pacific Soaring Council's 7^th Annual XC Seminar, held in Berkeley on February 26. In the past, this seminar has been primarily presented to sailplane pilots. However, with increasing performance of paragliders and hang gliders, increased pilot skill, and the use of flight instrument technology that is used by all communities, the information is becoming relevant to all soaring pilots.

Speakers and Agenda were:

Kenny Price, CFIG: Fledgling Pilots Transitioning to XC Soaring

Rolf Peterson: Familiarization for Pilots to Parowan Nevada Soaring Ground

Kempton Izuno: Familiarization for Pilots to Ely Nevada Soaring Ground

Carl Herold: Improving Your Achieved Speed Skills by Avoiding Low Points

Marc Ramsey: Current Developments on Flight Recorders and Moving Map Displays

Carl Herold: XC Soaring Tools and Techniques for Cruising in Light Rain and Virga Streets.

All were professionally presented with Power Point, lots and lots of beautiful, inspirational photos.

For those pilots who missed the seminar, (you blew it!) watch for the announcement of the 8^th Annual XC Seminar next spring. The seminars are organized by Carl Herold, PASCO XC Seminar Chairman, who lives and flies in the Great Basin. Pacific Soaring Council or PASCO is a non-profit corporation that is dedicated to promoting education and development and safety in soaring. For upcoming events, please see the PASCO web site www.pacificsoaring.org.

Submitted by Ginny Farnsworth
Paraglider, hanglider and sailplane pilot
PASCO Marketing Director

Anderson Flat Fly-in April 30^th / May 1^st weekend.

This year's Fly-in will be held on April 30^th/May 1^st weekend. This is the prime time for Anderson Flat flying. The mountains and meadow are green and the thermal are working. If you are a P2, you should have some mountain thermal experience. For information about flying at Anderson Flat, see Kim and Mike's excellent web site for Anderson Flat at: www.flyzephyr.com/aflats.htm

Again our cabin will be open to you. Email me at genep10302@aol.com for directions to the cabin and to save a bed. Bring your own sheets or sleeping bag. Saturday night will be pot luck, so bring your favorite dish. Some pilot's may camp in the campground LZ, but the launch is only 25 minutes from the cabin. Bring your mountain bike, kayak, or hiking boots for alternate activities if the flying is questionable. I hope you can make it for a fun weekend. The picture is of me launching last year at the fly in from the Anderson Flat launch site.

General Members Meeting

The March meeting was conducted by President, Jeff Wishnie. Officers present were Vice-President; Rolf Bienert, Safety Co-Director, Wally Anderson, Co-Activity Directors Chip Sheppard and Rich Leggett, and Pete Norlander; Secretary. A total of 23 members were present. The meeting was held at the Round Table Pizza on Calaveras Blvd. in Milpitas.

New Members/Visitors

New member Rob Cook joined us for the evening. Rob, a former student of Juan Laos, learned to fly in March of last year. Welcome Rob, we look forward to seeing you at future meetings and BAPA events.

Officers' Report

President Jeff Wishnie called the meeting to order. Jeff reported on a short video clip of a pilot in the Seattle area who experienced a collapsed wing and spiraled to the ground. The pilot landed in trees. After a few minutes he fell about 50 feet to the ground. Fortunately, he suffered no major injuries. Jeff, who was present at the site the day of the incident, offered insights. For example, if the pilot had not tried to free his own lines while hanging in the tree; he might not have fallen the remaining 50 feet to the ground. Separately, Jeff reminded us about an article written by Ann Sasaki in the last issue of the Ridge Dancer. The article discusses the hazards of launching from the West Lake slide area and that it should be avoided.

Vice President - Rolf Bienert reported that five 2005 BAPA Calendars remain. If you would like one the price has been reduced from $20.00 to $10.00.

Activity Co-Director, Rich Legget outlined plans for up coming events. The annual Jody Lucas Fly-in at Ed Levin is scheduled for Sunday, April 24. The Anderson Flat Fly-in hosted by Gene Pfeiffer is the following weekend, Saturday, April 30 and Sunday, May 1.

Safety Co-Director, Wally Anderson announced that with an introduction, Mt. Tam has been approved as a P3 site. Wally reported the third failure of an Aluminum carabineer. He is waiting for more complete details on the circumstances.

Old Business

Minutes From Past Meeting - A motion was made to approve the February Minutes as published in the January Ridge Dancer newsletter. The motion was carried and approved.

New Business

Jug Aggarwal has received permission to hold an XC Social League competition at Dunlap the weekend of April 2 and 3. The maximum number of participants will be limited to 20. The maximum number of people allow to camp at the LZ will be 10. Hotel accommodations are nearby. Miller Lake has campsites. The competition will be for P3 and P4 Pilots.

Greg Hackett has arranged to have the BAPA logo embroidered on hats and jackets. Greg noted the price of the jackets is $135.00, not $125.00 as reported before. Contact Greg if you are interested in obtaining one.

Gene Pfeiffer said 6 flying days have been approved at the new Coyote Lake flying site in April and May.

A motion was made to approve an expenditure of $150.00 ($10.00/person x 15 people) to subsidize the March reserve clinic. The motion was approved. Wally Anderson will be the instructor.

A club member noted that Ed Stein is willing to conduct a paraski clinic this season. If anyone is interested they should contact Ed.

Entertainment

The entertainment for the evening was provided by Jug Aggarwal. Jug talked about the skills needed to participate in the XC Social League competition. The topics included formatting a GPS, setting up waypoint locations and cylinders, the pros and cons of different data sampling rates and reading a topographical map. For illustration Jug brought in a large and detailed topographical map of Potato Hill and the surrounding area. Thank you Jug. Your presentation was informative.