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Meeting Minutes, News, & Articles

Time to Review Updated Site Guides

4/29/2017

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What to do on a windy Blown out Day?  
And before heading out to fly any other day?
Please take the time to review All the SDHGPA Site Guides.  This year most Site Guides were updated based on our Annual Risk Assessment Review. Many of the sites have had their Site Ratings changed in addition to site safe flight operating perimeters being updated.
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For instance, Palomar is now listed as: Minimum Ratings: H3 / P3 - (M1 to Bail out LZ; M2 to Main LZ); or H2 / P2 with other higher rated pilots present, site briefing for the day, and instructor sign off.

Also as a Reminder:
If you are an Instructor or School, please also review all Site and Instruction Protocols that include all Tandem Flight at all SDHGPA Sites.  Note that any and all Instruction or Tandem Flights from or to any SDHGPA Launch or Landing Zones / LZs must comply with our Site Protocols.   By not doing so puts the Site, Land Owners, SDHGPA, Students, and yourself at risk and violates SDHGPA flight SOPs.
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Spring is here - ready to fly?

4/24/2017

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Photo Cedit: Alex Turner

HG tips from a Jedi Master that cross over to the PG side.

Spring is here and ,maybe you are getting ready to fly after a bit of a layoff. Review your take off procedure. Do you like to have a wire crew? If you need a wire crew to stabilize your glider at take off you shouldn’t be at take off. You may want help getting to the spot where you start your run. This is especially true at the Laguna cliff launch where you have to get your glider up over a hump and get your wing tips past rocky bumps. It’s good to have some help, a little insurance, to keep the glider from getting away from you as you negotiate the obstacles. But once on launch you should be able to control the glider by yourself no matter what the wind does. Why? Well, when you say “CLEAR!”, you are the only one controlling your glider. What if at that instant, or during the first step or two of your run, the wind conditions where you need help, suddenly occur? You have to control the glider on your own.
You build a weather model in your head. At launch you study the wind conditions and see that there are times when the wind is too strong, or too cross, or too blustery. Then there are nice conditions. You decide that the nice conditions last long enough for a controlled take off. So you stand at launch with help controlling the glider during the not nice conditions and wait for a nice condition. It occurs and you say “CLEAR!”. What if you space-time weather model is wrong? What if the nice condition does not last as long as your model expects? What if the wind 20 feet down the ramp is not nice, that is the spatial aspect of your model is wrong? What are you willing to risk based on the weather model you have created in your head?
If you can’t control your glider during any conditions that could occur while you are standing at launch, you should not be standing at launch. This of course also involves a model. The model says that what you will experience at launch will be no worse than what you have observed over the past period of time.
Light wind conditions pose a different problem. Suppose you need a 10 mph wind on a shallow slope launch, and that is the maximum speed of the wind. Sometimes it is less. So you wait for a good cycle and off you go. If the wind holds, you are fine. If it gets lighter, then what? Again, you are basing your decision to take off on a model you have created in your head. If the wind is light you must be able to take off in no wind conditions.
Bill Helliwell
Photo Credit: Hadi - Henry Golian
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XC Season is On + Things to do in Preperation

4/6/2017

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Looks like the the XC Season has opened
 & SDHGPA Site Records will not rest again this year!



The E
​Chris Cote just re-set the bar for the E to 54.5 straight line miles on 4-5-17. With a clean ~ straight line to Marshal, then down range to Desert Hot Springs. Each leg a nice flight in its self. Not the easy route through. . . Well done. http://www.sdhgpa.com/-xc-records.html
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E to Marshal, then down range to Desert Hot Springs
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Nice Clean line through tricky tight air space

Big Black
This past Saturday 4-1-17 was no April Fools day at Big Black and 2 site record flights were recorded for the day. Chris Cote held the site record for 65 min of 34 straight line miles landing near Barrett Lake. Chris & Phil were team flying most of the way but Phil Wessinger fell slightly behind at Cuyamaca and their routes diverged. Phil persisted and held on to Horse and was able to get re-established into the convergence and flew on to the Mexican Border near Tierra Del Sol taking the site record of 48.3 straight line miles. ​
(Photos & Photo Comments - Phil Wessinger) 

When Flying XC, Fly Safe . . . and things to do in Preparation:
  1. Set-up Live Tracking with A Personal Satellite Tracker or Cell Phone
  2. Add Your Tracking device to the SDHGPA Group Live Tracking lists
  3. Join the SDHGPA XC Contest
  4. Study the Classic San Diego routes and information in the SDHGPA Members only section. Know Air space limitations and key hazards and places not to land out.

To qualify for SDHGPA Site Records and SDHGPA XC Contest: 
  • The full flight must be a Clean Flight without flight violations.  Any flight that results in a documented legal infraction (FAA or local law enforcement), will disqualify that flight from being a site record. Simply, flights violating air space will be disqualified and not scored for the SDHGPA XC contest or Site Record listing.
  • Flights after 2012 must have tracklogs submitted to Leonardo

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SDHGPA is a local chapter of 
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USHPA 
(United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association)
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