SO Cal XC League event one

[Marge]

A fantastic weekend was had by all thanks to a lot of hard work and sleepless nights on Dean’s part. No one would have known this was the first event put on by the new Southern California XC League. The event went off like it had happened a thousand times before. It was so well organized and Marshall was such a great place to hold such an event. There were smiles all around and some amazing flying was had by all. It was the wedding that really made the weekend come together . Bo you need to post the picture of the bride and Dean. If you didn’t make it out, be sure to join in next time around, September 6&7 at Marshall. Thanks Dean. Here are some pics to check out
http://www.picasaweb.google.com/4marge/ ... alXCLeague
(Thanks Bo for the photography lessons)

[Robb]

What a blast!

This was my first time to Marshall; long ago, someone had given me the impression marshall was a hill in the middle of the city covered in smog. How wrong!


Bob's picture tells the REAL story! And check out Deans pictures here: http://www.pbase.com/fllspdahd/marshall_aug_23__24&page=all

The weekend had all the great things about comp flying: Great site, great flying, tasks that were achieveable if you pushed yourself a bit, retrieve if you pushed your self too much, plenty of landing options, and lots of great people having a good time.

What it was missing was points used for establishing pilot standing. That meant all the stress and aggressivness that sometimes shows up in comps was replaced with people having fun doing what they love to do.

And did you see that LZ? That puts the football field at Ojai to shame! And Parma - let's hope it rains before the meet comes to SB...

But I don't want people to think Dean's the whole story behine the success of the weekend. Sure he worked hard, and he's the national champ, and he stood in front of the whiteboard. But the real hero was Dean's dad Bob. He was busy doing all the grunt work while Dean was getting all the glory. And for that he deserves a big, fat, cigar! (Marge photo)

[BobA]

Saturday was fun but Sunday's Flight included great views and zipping up and down the Los Angelas Crest. Cheers !

[Mark Miyahara]

Wow!
What a great learning experience. Thanks to Dean and helpers for putting this together. Thanks to Bob Stratton and Marge for my retrieve from the Towers after dirting out coming back from East Peak. Another 200-300 feet and I might have cleared the ridge. Thanks to Robb Milley for sharing the ride up and all your advice and company, I know it made my stress level a lot lower then it would have been had I went by myself.

Mark Miyahara, Bo Criss, Robb Milley SCXC 08-23-08

One of the things I learned:
On a Flytec 5030...don't simulate flying PARTIALLY through a competition route without fully resetting prior to launch. On Task Day 1 the start and goal waypoints were the same but had different sized cylinders. So at launch it said the next waypoint was MARSH LZ. As I was flying towards the start cylinder...I was thinking...man a 1 kilometer radius is a lot smaller then I thought it was. Then my 5030 did its song and dance as I broke the cylinder and my next waypoint info area was... BLANK! What happened? So as I fiddled around with it trying to reset the route, I had lost altitude. Once reset I didn't have enough altitude to make it to next waypoint and couldn't find any bubbles to help me out. During the simulation I had flown it through all the waypoint BUT goal (so I could hear what the song and dance was like).Of course I didn't figure it out till later. It was to easy to say the Flytec screwed up. But it was me

It was great to meet a lot of the pilots I read of here online in person. You all made a newbie feel at home.

Looking foward to Sept 6-7!

[Bo Criss]

Well, finally found time to post my pictures from last weekend. Can't wait till next weekend. Hope to see more Santa Barbara and Topa pilots join us at Marshall for round 2 of the So Cal XC League! Doug, Jim, Roger, Eaglets, hang pilots, Topa Topa pilots - Let's represent!

Thanks again Dean for putting together this great series of flying events!

http://www.circlinghawk.com/SCXCL/SoCalXCLeague.html

Bo

[Tony de Groot]

Man. I guess I picked the wrong time to not keep updated on new events. Completely missed that one. So now I wanna go next weekend. But you mean I have to have a working gps AND a working radio!! OH man, this is going to be HARD. My radio is broken and my PTT is broken. Gotta charge the vario, and figure out how to use it. Geez, it's almost like you have to have your &#@! togethor to do this......