Crestline Soaring Society

The year is almost up, I suppose I should actually gin up some activities. While I can do a ham cram or some other non-flying activity, or an activity at our home site, in this case I am thinking about a road trip. Here's the problem with road trips: who wants to go anywhere in the Spring and Fall seasons, when it likely will be best at home?

But, December is another story.

December 13th, I invite everyone to join me in a day of chasing the wind. I'll call this a "Three Hour Tour," not because we'll only be gone a few hours (try all day), but because the radius of the chase will be 3 hours. That basically takes us up to Santa Barbara or down to San Diego.

We're having our annual toy drive on Saturday December 20. We collect unwrapped toys for all ages and add them to the nearby fire station's toy gathering efforts. The firefighters bring a truck out to the LZ and we get to interact in a non-emergency situation. We haven't seen them much this year, which is a good thing!

Club funds will be used, as usual, to purchase a cart or two of toys beforehand, so if you'd like to donate to that effort in advance, please do. You can leave a donation in the site drop box in a day-use envelope (write 'toy drive' on the envelope) or with any CSS officer.

We're having our annual toy drive on Saturday December 20. We collect unwrapped toys for all ages and add them to the nearby fire station's toy gathering efforts. The firefighters bring a truck out to the LZ and we get to interact in a non-emergency situation. We haven't seen them much this year, which is a good thing!

Club funds will be used, as usual, to purchase a cart or two of toys beforehand, so if you'd like to donate to that effort in advance, please do. You can leave a donation in the site drop box in a day-use envelope (write 'toy drive' on the envelope),with any CSS officer

Thanks to Dino for his tireless efforts and enthusiasm in putting together an historic aerobatics display in honor of Rob Kells and all other inhabitants of the celestial bird farm! At approximately 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 6, 2008 at Andy Jackson Airpark, Dino Dinaso, John Heiney, Bill Soderquist, Dave Biddle, and Erik Delf (Mitch would have been there, but he wasn't able to get back up to launch in time) all participated in the world's first simultaneous, smoke-trailed, five-man loop! It was spectacular and Rob, I'm sure, was joyous! Congratulations to all! YOU MADE HISTORY!!! CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE VID!

I’m FINALLY putting the wheels in motion for the Southern California XC League and I think it’s long overdue. Everyone has been talking about wanting a league – so here it is. The Northern California XC League has been, and continues to be, a huge success. The system works extremely easy and efficiently. I will be using the same format as the NCXCL with just a few exceptions. The league is open to both PG’s and HG’s and will be broken down into categories. The league is starting late this year so it will be abbreviated as compared to the plan for 2009. This will work well to get the ball rolling, spread the word, and work out any kinks before the league goes into full swing in 2009.

Location Changed - The morning church service will now be at a different facility, near the originally announced location. See the link below.

We have decided, with Juanita Jackson's blessing, to honor Rob Kells at this year's Andy Jackson Memorial Fly-In, Saturday September 6, 2008. Trish Kells has planned a church service for Rob that morning and all are invited to attend the church service or come to the fly-in, or both. Please see the announcement on the Wills Wing website for details.

With great sadness, we report that Richard Seymour was fatally injured while flying on Saturday, June 21, 2008. He was 57 and had been flying for nearly 20 years. He is survived by his wife, Julie.

The exact cause of the accident is uncertain, but Richard was unable to maintain control of his glider while on approach to land. The last hang gliding fatality in Los Angeles County was more than 21 years ago.

Hello pilots,

I went to Iquique, Chile with a paragliding tour group in November, 2007, and I want to recommend this trip for 2008. Several pilots from the 2006 trip recommended it to me, and I am glad I went. Iquique is in the northern part of Chile and sits on the ocean at the edge of a desert. That makes it both a ridge and thermaling site, and it is one of the most consistent flying sites I have ever been to. You can literally fly every day for hours at a time.

We figure it's the right day to start our Summer after work "FLY DAY" because of our horoscopes......Megret's says "ZOOM ALONG" and mine says, "DIVE INTO A PROJECT" See you all at the Crestline launch at 5:30PM Whack!

Our first fly-in of the summer is scheduled for July 12, 2008.

Contests will be spot landing, bomb drop, and glide (from training hill). Pilots can enter one, two, or all three. Activities Director John Wright has some twists in store for the bomb drop competition and will be at the LZ all day, starting from about Noon.

Contests:
5 dollars per contest, winners of each get half the pot. Trophies for top 3 in each class (plus best whack!).

The first Fly-In of the summer is scheduled for July 8, 2008, and we'd like to make t-shirts for it, since we haven't done a club shirt in a while.

None of the CSS Board members are artistically inclined, so we're counting on members or interested parties to come up with a design in time for us to get the shirts printed and ready for the fly-in.

So please brainstorm and draw using whatever tools you like and come up with something soon.

Sylmar Hang Gliding Association cordially invites CSS friends and pilots to join us in our Flight Park on Saturday May 3, 2008 for our annual Spring Air Festival and Competition. Among many reasons to celebrate, we are 25 years old! It should be a great day of flying, BBQ and festivities. And, we would love to set our best pilots against yours!

Pilot check in: 9:30-11am
Pilot Meeting for Comp: 10:45am

Well here it is folks, sorry it took so long, but I was too busy flying

Like my other videos, it comes in 2 flavors:

1. Streaming Flash, 540p video, located on my videos page: http://www.designbydave.net/hanggliding . I made a little improvement to make the site load faster.

2. 720p .mp4 HD video via bit torrent http://www.designbydave.net/hanggliding/Wallaby_08.torrent Plays best in VLC: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

1. Election Results
2. Follow-up on Lifetime Memberships
3. Establishment of dates for Fly-Ins (Proposed dates are July 12th AJ Airpark Fly-in and Sept 6th And Jackson Memorial fly-in)
4. Other possible club activities
5. Review of Dues/Fees

The CSS Spring 2008 General Meeting will be at the landing zone as the flying day ends, 12 April, 2008.

This is one of two General Meetings held each year by the Board, as directed by the club by-laws. Any member may raise any topic for discussion and vote at the general meeting.

It's the time of year to re-elect our CSS officers. For most CSS members it's something that just comes and goes and doesn't really affect them very much. And for those few that have volunteered to hold an office it's a time to wonder, why am I doing this?

Getting new blood into the CSS officer list is a good thing. The more we have members that have held an office and see the workings of how we perpetuate and grow the site the more strength the CSS has. But also, it is good to not make too many changes all at once. If we had all new officers in the same year, there would be a fair amount of reinventing the wheel as the new group tries to take hold of important items like keeping the site insurance up, having our tax returns done, paying our bills, processing new members dues and cards, etc.

Elsinore must be Kicken Ass right now, years ago, we used to get as much air time during the winter months as Summer......I'm LEGAL at Elsinore,and off work now and then pretty regular this time of year,and just bought my Winter Hang Diving warmies. anyone interested? WHACK!

The 2007 CSS Toy Drive was a great success. Santa Anas blew so no flying, but the donations topped the $1700 mark. Way to go CSS!!!

Fighting an opposing ENE wind flow the valley below Horse launch developed its own SSW to SW wind allowing launches from 1 to 4 PM. At the best part of the day (1 PM) 10 paragliders did a lighter than air impersonation with some reaching a nearly a grand above launch. The three hangs that ventured into the air did sled rides to the valley below. Josh who had one of the best flights of the day did a perfect top landing in the launch set up area.