Flying sites in SF and other areas

[Guest]

Hi guys and gals,

My name is Tom Moock, and I get down to Santa Barbara to fly occasionally. It is a great place with wonderful people, and I always enjoy the flying there.

I'm the Site Director for the Bay Area paragliding club, and am responsible for keeping the sites open and making sure everyone is following the rules. And we have lots of rules: ours are some of the most heavily regulated sites anywhere. Most of the local places require waivers and stickers, and also require pilots to sign in whenever they fly. Our sites are open to everyone and we invite people from all around to come and give them a try.

I was asked to publish a reminder to everyone to please contact the locals, learn the rules and follow them; you will soon understand why. We had an incident a couple of months ago at Mt Tamalpais. The site administrator described it below:

"...Four pilots or possibly 3 pilots and a skydiver flew Tam three times on Friday. They didn't sign in and likely did not have stickers. Two of them were flying solo a one of them, a French guy, was flying tandem with the fourth. You're not going to believe this but what they were doing was flying out in unison, and when the tandem glider neared the beach the passenger would cut away and deploy his canopy. Reportedly it was a BASE jump rig and the deployment altitude was 150 meters.

“They were successful doing this and landing on the beach the first two times. On the third, the jumper landed in the marsh opposite the parking lot. An alarmed resident called out the local fire department, who arrived at the scene shortly thereafter. These are volunteers who must leave work to respond to emergencies.

“I received a call from one of Tam State Rangers early that evening. I also got feedback from two hang glider pilots who ran into them. Another hg pilot was told not to tell anyone about what they were doing, she was also asked directions to get their car to the beach and when being told to turn right at the ranger station the pilot responded 'you mean where the sign-in box is located?'. Obviously they knew they were breaking the rules..."

I am sure all of you recognize how important site preservation is, so please join us in doing our part to help keep the sites open.

Thank you

Tom Moock