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