President’s Report for May 2006 

Ann Sasaki 

After a long winter, we jumped right into summer and then last weekend, back into winter for a bit.  Very odd. 

However, this is shaping up to be a really good year at the coast, after a few recent mediocre years.  For weeks, it’s been good several days per week.  Instead of tailoring one’s schedule around the one day that the NWS says will flow from the West, now you can choose which day to go flying.  How about Tuesday?  No, let’s go on Wednesday.  OK, that sounds good….and Thursday and Friday too.  So that’s a pleasant surprise – day after day of flyable weather.

Ann flies at Elk Creek - photo by Tom Bair

The first weekend in May was the Anderson Flat fly-in.  What a beautiful spot that is!  The hills and meadows were green and the streams running.  As you benched up, you could see many snow-covered peaks in the distance.  The flying was varied – it ranged from pretty turbulent and ratty, to strong and soarable to light and soarable.  I think everyone who went to the fly-in had a great time and got some good air.  Thanks to Gene Pfeiffer for opening the site and for organizing the annual fly-in. 

In mid-May I went on vacation to Elk Creek and Woodrat.  It was enjoyable to meet, fly and hang out with some really nice pilots from Chico and from the Woodrat area.  Although the whole region was under an extreme high pressure condition, we managed to get in some good soarable flights both at Elk Creek and Woodrat.   

Peter Warren at Woodrat - photo by James Smyth

On May 20-21, Tom Moock led the 6th annual BAPA Thermal Clinic at Dunlap.  Saturday was a good day for flying – everyone got in two flights.  The morning flight was fairly strong with some pilots getting about 1600’ over launch.  The afternoon flights started off in somewhat windy conditions but even those who waited until later to fly were rewarded with relaxing, cruising around the valley flights.  I enjoyed sharing a light thermal with a hang glider who appeared suddenly and then dashed off across the valley. 

Tom’s lecture on thermalling was great as usual.  We were lucky to have use of the rec room at the Sierra Highlands campground – on Sunday it was really storming out and we had to take at least one break for folks to go out and save their tents from being blown away.  But despite Sunday’s weather, the clinic was terrific and I think everyone felt it was time well-spent. 

Apparently the Fouts Springs Road reopened in time for Memorial Day weekend.  This is good news as everyone loves to fly at Potato Hill, one of our most accessible sites.

Tom Bair's feet at Woodrat - photo by Tom Bai

We’re going to get some more BAPA hats made this year – the colors will be khaki and navy with an embroidered BAPA “logo”.  Julie will be putting photos up on the BAPA website in the not-too-distant future and we’ll work out the details of how to order hats. 

The third weekend in June, Gregg Hackett has a “patriotic” fly-in scheduled for Potato Hill.  More details to come. 

Not much to say in this column other than I apologize for not getting this issue out on time. However to make up for it I have contributed to articels. One describing the recent Thermal Clinic provided FREE by BAPA and the other a site reveiw of Torrey Pines where I fly over the Memorial day weekend. 

I will try write a site review for the  sites that I plan to fly over the coming months. I encourage you all to send in yours as well!

For next month's issue I am planning to write an article regarding adjusting harnesses. I am going to use my Woody Valley Velvet Harness to demo the adjustments with.

Hope you are all having a great flying season so far! Please think about contributing an article and OR photos of a recent outing soon!

Take care...get high and stay high! 

Rich 

A little over two years ago I was with a friend taking his nephew for a introduction flying lesson in a Cessna four seater for the nephew's birthday. I was in one of the back seats being bumped around by turbulence.

We were flying south along the coast of Southern  California when the instructor said "Keep our altitude at 1500 feet so we don't scare the Paraglider Pilots below on your left." I looked down and saw several Paragliders floating along the cliffs. One was parked and it seemed like the pilot was just enjoying the Ocean view. To say the least I was amazed and suddenly really excited!

I have always wanted to fly and a few months before I had taken a helicopter lesson. That was really cool but turns out it is a bit too pricey for me to learn to fly helicopters. I was then thinking about flying a fixed wing small plane (and still do) but when I saw what was going on at what turned out to be the world famous Torrey Pines Glider Port I knew my life was about to change. I was this event that convinced me to take up the sport of Paragliding.

Fast forward two years...I just received my P3 rating and was headed down to SoCal for some Memorial Day weekend fun. Torrey Pines was finally within reach and my dream of flying there was about to be achieved.

This is a GREAT site! The Layout, Kiting and Launch areas are all on a "golf course" like surface. The wind seems to be always perfect (12-15 mph). Being a former resident of Southern California I can believe it when they say the westerly winds blow at Torrey on average 320 days a year... about 80% of that time it will be blowing at least 7-8mph... which means lots-o-flyin'!

When you arrive at Torrey (very easy to get to) you go to the Site shop right there at launch and register. You need a minimum of a P3 rating to fly at Torrey. The web site (flytorrey.com) states that you need a P3 AND 50 hours of flight time but you can contact Gabriel or David Jebb at the Gliderport to discuss your rating and skills. They may need to observe you before you launch to make sure you are ready for Torrey.  Fees are about $12.00 for a day pass. You can get a yearly pass for about $60.00 if you plan to fly there often.

For first timers it is required that you watch a 15 minute video describing the rules of the Gliderport. It is a well done video that points out the launch and landing areas, how and when to use the launch window. Note that hangliders, sail planes and RC planes are other traffic that has to be dealt with as well. This is all covered very nicely in the video!

You will need a whistle to fly at Torrey. They are available at the Site shop. This is for safety as there can be a lot of traffic at the site.

If you bring your own spectators there is plenty of room and seating to watch the action. There is even a burger shack right there at launch with tables and umbrellas. Folks this is heaven.

Ok the ride. Killer, beautiful, awesome, spectacular...wonderful!

If you looking for a relaxing flight with FANTASTIC views (beaches, piers, bazillion $ homes that we would not see otherwise, a cliff side golf course, etc.) then this is the flight you have been looking for! The hardest part about this is getting to the edge of the cliff to elevator off into flight mode. I highly recommend Torrey Pines. Fly there as soon as you are able!

Check it out...

Air California Adventures, Inc. & Torrey Pines Gliderport
2800 Torrey Pines Scenic Drive, La Jolla CA 92037 - USA
Tel: (1) 858.452.9858  Fax: (1) 858.452.9983
Windtalker: (1) 858.452.6802
http://www.flytorrey.com  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Sorry I didn't have a camera with me and couldn't get permission to use stock photos from their site for this printing. Oh I didn't mention that you can also join the Torrey Pines "Twilight Patrol". With a strobe that you can buy at the shop you can fly for half an hour after a beautiful Southern California sunset!

The annual SFBAPA sponsored Thermal Clinic was held during the weekend of May 20th. Facilitating the clinic was Tom Mook assisted by Ann Sasaki. The clinic was held at Dunlap this year.

First off I have to again express my thanks to Tom and Ann for putting this together. This clinic really helped participants understand the art of thermaling. Everyone was able to get something out of the weekend.

Right up until the Friday the weather didn’t look like it was going to cooperate. Driving out of the Bay Area on Saturday morning was not encouraging either. However as you came closer to the Dunlap area the sun broke through and it looked like we were going to have an excellent day.

Thermal Clinic group - photo remotely by Tom Bair

We all met at the school parking lot to sign with the Dunlap Site Administrators, Connie and Russ Locke….Great  people who pointed out the dos and don’ts of the site. After signing us all in, providing an excellent site intro and providing us with their home and cell numbers, we sat together at a picnic table for our first of 2 ground schools.

Now we were ready to fly! We loaded up a few of the vehicles among us and headed up to launch. At launch Tom and Ann further elaborated on Connie’s site intro (altitude always is advantageous!).  With Tom on radio to coach us, Ann launched performed some recon as to which house thermals were kicking off best. We then launched one by one with Tom guiding us on thermaling techniques.

 My turn came and although I wasn’t very good at keeping an even bank while climbing, my body and mind definitely started to make a connection with what my wing was doing and what inputs were needed to keep my wing in the thermal and stable.

We were able to fly twice that day and some folks had more than an hour of flight. Afterwards we packed up a drove to the campsite next to launch.

All except for Patrick Allaire.

Patrick insisted that he stay in the landing zone for an additional 2 hours to take pictures of butterflies and goats. He loves the smell of the fields of hay and blooming flowers.

True be told…we left Patrick at the LZ…quite by accident. He was still folding his wing when everyone left thinking everybody was collected.

Patrick has allergies as well and he didn’t have his drugs with him. Doh.

All in all Patrick was in good sprits when we finally raised him on the radio…everyone had shut their radios off in the LZ since everyone was thinking everybody was collected.

 Well with Patrick finally back in the fold we all set up our tents and then had a wonderful meal cooked by Chip Sheppard…Sea Food Gumbo, pie, beverages…It was great!

After dinner we all rolled out under a very starry night…well at least for a little while. During the night the weather changed dramatically. High wind and rain were what we had in store for Sunday morning.  No worries though!  The camp management opened up the rec room right there at the camp site. We all huddled in and had second ground school session. This lasted a little over 2 hours. We discussed what we experienced the day before as well going in depth discussion regarding thermalling and cross country techniques.

Unfortunately we couldn’t fly on Sunday…we were all aching to put our newly learned skills to the test. All in all it was a fantastic weekend! I HIGHLY recommend that everyone take advantage of this FREE CLINIC offered yearly by your club.

James Smyth high over Dunlap valley - photo by Tom Bair

There was a parachute deployment involving a very experienced local pilot at the Dump with the pilot landing about 2/3 of the way up the cliff near the upper (easterly) end of the Walker Ridge. He was sore but basically uninjured. The pilot stated he did a ‘helicopter’ and the glider underwent some radical maneuvers of its own when he attempted to exit the helicopter. Being pretty low at this point he elected to deploy his reserve. At risk of stating the obvious, aerobatics are best done with LOTS of ground clearance both vertically & horizontally and over still water such as a lake and, of course, should not be attempted with out professional training. 

There was a helicopter rescue off of the Westlake cliff face. My information here isn’t complete and although I think the information is reasonably accurate I haven’t confirmed all the facts. Reportedly the wind at the end of the day had turned southerly and several pilots were scratching close on the Westlake cliffs. It is unknown to me if the pilot suffered a collapse due to rotor or simply hit the cliff. In any event he ended up on the cliff face near Avalon canyon and slightly above the old highway. He was uninjured but unable to extricate himself. The Daly City Fire Department was called and they tried to get down to him but their lines/cables were reportedly not long enough. The Coast Guard was called and they winched him up and deposited him in the parking lot. His glider remained on the cliff face for a couple of days and was reportedly retrieved by a couple of guys. I assume one of which was the pilot. The canopy had been blown around by the helicopter and possibly later winds and must have moved to a more accessible position in order for them to get to it. As I see it, the big lesson here is don’t scratch too close especially in cross winds and always try to watch the cliff and visualize how the rotors come off the ‘fingers’. The cliff slid quite a bit this last winter and is much more jagged and producing larger stronger rotors than before.  It is also much steeper in places than before and this combined with lots of moisture in the sandstone makes it more prone to sliding and giving way underfoot. Attempting to climb or descend on is very hazardous, much more so than in the past. Also this incident occurred very late in the day when it was almost dark. The degrading visibility might have contributed to the incident and certainly makes rescue efforts more difficult. 

Around the same time as the above incident there was a bizarre stunt gone wrong at Tam requiring a rescue by the Stinson Beach Volunteer Fire Department and the park ranger’s involvement. Four pilots of unknown ratings/licenses who weren’t signed in ad as far as we can tell did not have stickers were flying the mountain illegally. At least two of them and possibly all four were from out of the area and possibly one might have been from France. Two pilots were flying solo and the other two were flying tandem. The tandem pilot and passenger were flying out over the LZ area whereupon the passenger would cut loose and deploy his parachute and glide down. From witness descriptions I’m guessing this was a base jumping rig. They were successful the first two times, but on the third attempt the ‘base jumper’ ended up short landing in the swamp between Highway 1 and the parking lot. He was unable to extricate himself & had to be rescued by the Fire Department. For those of you not familiar with the site, the swamp consists of black primal ooze-like mud that’s very deep. If one fell from any height at all one probably could submerge oneself. From reports I have received from the rangers and witnesses statements these pilots were aware of the rules and sign-in requirements and even told a witness not to tell anybody what they were doing. At this writing the rangers are considering citing the pilot who had to be rescued and the BAPA executive committee is actively investigating the incident and considering what action should be taken.  

There is no excuse for this kind of stunt & blatant disregard for the sensitivity of the site and the rights of the pilots who do fly there, both paraglider and hang glider pilots. We do make every effort to accommodate visiting pilots and in fact, I personally was working from home that day and could have met these individuals and issued them stickers. I would have nixed the ‘base jump’ idea of course, but probably that was why they decided to just sneak off. I took a somewhat lengthy call from the state park ranger that evening and while the conversation was cordial, this obviously makes it seem like we can’t regulate and control ourselves. I would also like to remind everybody that the Stinson Beach Volunteer Fire Department is just that. When they get a call they have to run out of their businesses and jobs to respond to a call. Needless to say they aren’t happy when this happens especially if it was for something that shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place. 

That’s all for this month. 

Fly safely! 

Wally Anderson

BAPA Safety Director

Officer reports.

Tom Moock – Site Administrator

• Provided update regarding road condition at Potato Hill flying site. The section of the road that goes into the valley is closed. Apparently local authorities do not want heavy vehicles to use the road. Next week Tom will contact the authorities for updates. (Editor’s note – Fouts Springs Road is open as of 5/25/06.)
• Tom reminded that absolutely no commercial activity allowed on the Dump.
• Update regarding Dunlap. Roads are in good condition, the Sierra Highlands campground near launch has toilets and hot showers. Connie, the Dunlap site administrator, keeps count of how many people are flying there. Tom also mentioned an incident with a pilot who landed short and got yelled at by the landowner of the Rottweiler field. Tom emphasized the importance of a proper site intro prior to flying unfamiliar sites and knowing which landing zones are OK and which areas are not OK.
• Update on the Tollhouse. Even though it might be OK with Paul Splan for pilots to fly there, the road to launch is probably in bad condition.
  

Ann Sasaki – the President

• Ann talked about two incidents that resulted in reserve deployment. A P2 pilot at the Elk fly-in apparently got rotored on the lee side of the hill and had to deploy.  Also a pilot trying to perform for the first time the helicopter maneuver at the Dump had to deploy when the wing spun.
• Julie Spiegler talked about an accident in Columbia where the pilot hit some power lines and was severely injured.
• At the April meeting, Mark Bernier suggested that we have a calendar committee for 2007 that collects images for the rest of the year and puts them on a webpage for members to view.  In the early Fall members will have a chance to select the 13 images that go in the 2007 calendar.  Wayne Clingingsmith and Tim Sirianni volunteered to help with the calendar.
• Ann talked about getting more BAPA hats with the same “logo” that Gregg H used last year. This year’s hats will be navy and khaki, and the price will be about $14.  Julie Spiegler will put photos on the BAPA website so members can see the hats.  We will gather orders and place one order soon.

Rolf Bienert – Vice President

• Last year Rick Conger paid for the Dr. Jack Diablo blipspot.  This year Rolf paid the $50 for the blipspot. Rolf requested that BAPA reimburse him.
  

Old Business

• Ann proposed to approve meeting minutes for April 2006. Motion passed.

New Business

• Motion to allocate $50 to reimburse Rolf Bienert for his expense. Motion passed.
• Tom Bair proposed creating Google Earth waypoints and possibly launch-view pictures to help first-time flyers identify the LZ and avoid known hazards at flying site. Also the Dunlap site LZs posted on the BAPA website need to be updated.

Meeting was adjourned at 7:45PM. 

Entertainment

• Following the meeting, Tom Bair made a presentation about his flying in Alicante, Spain.