SCXC in SB November 22 2008

[Robb]

Today was the first day of the SCXC to be held in Santa Barbara. Quite a crowd gathered at the T, with pilots from San Francisco to San Diego in attendence. Think that's something? Even Mark Pratt (Nitrous) came to fly the front range, something I havn't seen in seven years.

There were probably 8-10 pilots that had never flown in SB before, so Little John gave the details and requirements, and hit them up for memberships. There must have been at least 20 competitors, and at least 10 more free fliers, so a really great turnout. We also had lots of drivers, so we piled everyone into a half-dozen vehicles and headed up to launch.

For some reason most pilots stood around at the road, so I ran down front and got my gear ready. There was some wind on launch, with a strong east component. Some interesting launches, but Bo managed to duck and cover and didn't get hit. I was about 5th off, and managed to get up between launch and WB. The lift was weak, and tops were about 42. The task was start at WB, then Thermal Factory, back to WB, then Cathederal and goal at the T. [Plumbers will have to post their task, I didn't note it down].

The east wind was the factor that seperated the men from the boys; or more correctly the DHV-2 and up from the 1-2's. Lots of pilots tried to make the connection from WB to Cathederal only to turn back if they were lucky, or land out at Robins if not. Same thing pushing east to the Thermal factory, with some landing at the newly enlarged St Marys LZ.

Seven pg pilots made goal. Dean Stratton called me to gloat that his cousin, Brian Stratton had beat me. Now I'm not saying nepotism, but I was the first to hand out beers to Dean and Bob, and I think that should count for a few points...

A great time, even if the weather was not as good as we expected. Lots of fun, lots of pilots including many new to SB, and no one got hurt. Cheers to Dean for a great event.

[NMERider]

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[ravenclaw]

Nice job Deano, I'm sorry I missed the gathering. Ty and I watched from the training hill, it was quite a site seeing all those pilots getting some. I think about when I first started flying around here, and how much different Santa Barbara is than any other site I had flown. I've always said flying SB exposes you to many tough cross country decisions at high speeds. It doesn't take but one or two poor choices to find yourself on the dirt. People that learn to fly here are forced to make good decisions from day one. We taught an 11yr old girl yesterday, she flew maybe 7 flights. It was amazing to give someone the gift of flight at that age. And Robb by the way I think this 11yr old might be taking you and Brian Strat to the cleaners in the months to come. Can't stop the youth. A big thank you to everyone taking part in Deano's event. And a massive thank you to Deano. kev dog

[Dean S]

Well, we snuck a task in on those fickle SB weather gods this last weekend. I haven’t seen that many pilots at Alternator in a long time. There was a bit of SE upstairs but several pilots made it through the course and on to goal. Most of the HG’s smoked the course and flew to the beach; however, those same pilots missed some of the turn points. Hammer, Lil’ John and a few of us were hanging out at Marge and Bob’s house on Saturday night laughing about how easy it is to forget about making sure you hit the turn point before continuing along the course. Both Hammer and Lil’ John missed a turn point by less than 50 feet – ouch! I have a feeling they won’t let that happen again any time soon. We all hung out at the “T” after the task and were entertained by Ivan, busting out some tunes on his guitar – that guy is very good. On top of that Owen Morse, one of the hang glider pilots in the league, let a bunch of try out his Seaway scooter that he brought out. That scooter was a kick.

I’ll have results from this last weekend posted on the league website by tomorrow night. Preliminary results show Michal Hammel winning the PG open class, Erik Kolberg winning the PG serial class (also second in the open class), and Zach Majors winning the HG open class.

Sunday was a bust, but we kind of expected that anyway. I want to thank everyone who came out, participated, and supported the league. There were a lot of regular participants that didn’t make it out this last weekend, but even without those pilots we still had 27 paragliders and 5 Hand Gliders flying the course on Saturday. There were a lot of pilots hanging around this last Saturday that didn’t participate, and it would sure be nice if some of them joined in. The So Cal and Nor Cal leagues will be going head to head in at least two events next year, so we need to strengthen our team so we can open a can of whoop ass on the Nor Cal league  The Nor Cal league has been around for 5 years and they’ve got some very good pilots. We’ve got some work to do but I think we can give them a run for their money next year. The next league event is scheduled for Dec. 6-7 in SB, less than two weeks away.

Here’s some shots from this last weekend:
http://www.pbase.com/fllspdahd/santa_ba ... 3&page=all

http://www.usxcleague.com

[Southside]

Nice job Dean. Woke up to the high clouds, lousy lapse rate and a splitting headache so I decided it was better to just climb back in bed with my wife. I'm glad you were able to get a task in. I regret not going up, but on the otherhand, I still have my passes for the next time.

Again, good job!

John