Great News!  The Laguna Upper Launch in the Anza Borrego State Park is back open, with our Permit for launching and landing within the State Park being renewed for 2021!

The Laguna Site Guide and Permits pages have been updated with the latest protocols and Permit information. Please read through the complete site guide before heading out to Laguna, as things have changed in the past year. Also, be sure to print out the Permit and COVID-19 Safe Reopening Plan along with your Membership cards to have on hand for the rangers. 

Proposal to change bylaws in order to un sync chapter elections with chapter renewal paperwork timing.  USHPA Chapter Renewals are typicaly due Dec - Feb.

Figure out better onboard process for new board members

Need Volunteer Help:

• Would be great to have help with membership processing. Candidate should have good Excel / Google Sheets & Google Forms knowledge. 

Next weather station?

• -Vulcan
• -Blossom if we can figure out a location?
• -where current streamers are?  Is that in Open space area?
• -Brad, where is open space?
• -mobile station to test potential sites
• -Kestrel
• -Holfuy

-expand capabilities of Palomar (and other) WX stations

• -solar radiation
• -barometer

​Phil Russman suggestion: on all site guides, Pilots should use flight tracker (Implemented: Not is on all Site Guides)

Tracking Conversations:

• -LiveTrack 24 still merging cell data & satellite track? Need to test. Worst case is that multiple tracks are listed.
• -what’s the cheapest hardware you can buy to be on XCFind?  (Spot)
• -If running Cell Tracker App, run cell with battery backup (Anker brand recommended)
• -run 2 phones
• -does XCFind charge money for cell phone tracking? (suggested Donation)
• -XCFind doesn’t use cell phone tracking
• -use LiveTrack24 (free)
• -look on club page under Whats Happening “Tracking Maps”
• -inReach mini, $100 off at REI
• -older Spots don’t have altitude
• -syncing Sat & Cell GPS to LiveTrack 24 see SDHGPA Live Track24 Group page under more

-meshtastic talk lead by Nik

-suggestion to hear about their notable flights

• -Brad’s notable flight from Blossom past Dudley’s

-what type of shirt do we want to do for flight distance shirts?

• -collared shirts
• -Patagonia t-shirt
• -Patagonia fleece
• -Randy to print shirts?

-how to get awards out?

• -have shirts for past 2 years

-work party at Palomar and Horse?

• -need to mow bailout
• -need to mow Horse

-Wild Bill weather flow at Karnezis house

 Kiwi SAR - As of 9/17/20  
Kiwi was found the next day.  The latest hypothesis is that he went unconscious during a spin, the wing ripped away from his harness and he hit the ground hard enough to render his GPS tracker inoperable.

Telegram evolution and management for a SAR.   
Multiple threads, including Ground Search, Air Search, General, Satellite Imagery, Machine Learning, Logistics, Fundraising.

David Hunt & Nik Hawks flew up to assist in the air search on August 26/27th

Recommendations for all pilots:
Passive Safety
Make sure your wing & reserve are super bright colors and will contrast with the ground.
You may not be able to activate any of your rescue tools.  Make sure you can be found even if you're unconscious.

Active safety
Radio and GPS tracker are mandatory but didn't function in this case because Kiwi was unable to deploy them in time.
​PLB406 beacon, $400
Carry a strobe or light

Rene Falquier
Briefed satellite imagery and resolution.  Keep in mind that satellite resolution is pretty low, on the order of a 1 meter grid
Shoutouts to Chris Galli for tremendous effort and to David Wheeler of XC Find

Brad Stevenson
Don’t clog up the comms 
If something looks funny, look into it. (Kiwi’s position stopped)
Set up Livetrack24 to ping off cell phone, not inReach

Zach Armstrong
-active vs passive comms
-satellite comms
-ham
-APRS, every 2 minutes it sends out GPS data, programmable
-APRS.fi
-radios (VHF) talking to buddies & other pilots, voice com
-bluetooth headset (handsfree)
-LoRa: open dev, open software, 4 km - 100 km depending on antenna/transmission power
-meshtastic.org
-comms, distance & bearing to other nodes
-Gotenna
-there is a national distress freq but it can also vary state to state

Phil Russman
-keep your radio on until everyone is in the car
-don’t wait to start the search.  Better to start and quickly call it off than to start late.

Lessons Learned G-doc

Steve Rohrbaugh
Use Livetrack24 & SDHGPA LIvetrack24 group
Connect & Feed both devices (GPS & cell) into Livetrack24


Wing Choice & Weather Calls - Elsinore
-flying Elsinore on a Santa Ana day.  Santa Ana days are wild, and even the tamest SA day can kill you.
-There isn’t a good AND easy AND safe test to assess pilot skills; P3 can mean lots of things
-Ron Davis; the nice thing about waiting at Palomar is it usually gets better
-Steve R: The uncomfortable choice of the experienced pilots.  Take new pilots under your wing or ignore them.  When you’re new, ask to tag along on big days.
-when to learn (shoulder seasons, with your crew)
-Wing choice is NOT formulaic
-Phil volunteered to take someone through their next wing choice so we see the process


Club Business & Announcements
Site Status - Check for updates
All National Forests closed due to high fire hazard
-Marshall, Crestline, Elsinore
-Elsinore used to require an Adventure Pass
Horse (Cleveland National Forest)
Big Black (CNF)

Laguna (HG launch is open, BLM land, but upper launch is closed)

Other:
Laguna : ABSP has not renewed event/special event permit for us
Other PG clubs also have closed sites, check before you go to fly
Phil R points out that air authority rests in the FAA, when you touch the ground the law reverts to the landowner
Fines in the region of $150-250

Once it cools off, we need to schedule another work party to clean out the brush in the Palomar bailout as part of our use agreement with Pala

2. Blossom Ownership Change:  Much Ado About Nothing.
Nik thought Blossom had been sold, but it turned out that only a small chunk of the property on the south side of Quail Canyon road had been sold.  ​

3. Dusting off the idea of Adding in Waypoint buoy races for our sites: 
Examples:

• -Point Rat Series in UT: http://www.uhgpga.org/event/point-rat-series/
• -http://freeflightcomp.appspot.com/comps/pointratseries2020/ 
• -Other series using the same SW: http://freeflightcomp.appspot.com/

1. -Santa Barbara Free Flight Hoe Down
2. -CSS Cross Country Rodeo (Just starting but they need to reformat/ scale back to comply with the guidance along with submitting Risk Management and other)

Butch suggested we hold a "Rookie meet".  Experienced pilots are paired with rookies, the mission is to get your rookie to a specific goal.  This got lots of thumbs up!

Actions:

1. Need some members to volunteer to organize & run the activity
2. Lay out the Comp and select scoring platform
3. Waypoints for each site, keeping in mind safety factors for intended pilot base
4. Risk Management for the Waypoint Comp activity
5. Update the Site Risk Management Documents in the RRRG system with a Change request. 
6. If we did things right, it could be accepted, could be included as a normal day of flying activities. (better and more flexibility)
7. If activity gets pushed out of a normal day of flying, would need to apply for ACE coverage for the activity. (like the NorCal XC League)

4. Weather Forecasting
a. Bill’s forecasting and recent forecasting updates have been awesome, thanks Bill!
b. Some great videos on the subject added to the SDHGPA YouTube playlist
i. Lisa Verzella Explains XC Skies (NOAA Pilot) on Cloudbase Mayhem / Gavin's
ii. Top 10 Wind Forecast Models
iii. SD Weather Overview, V1

5. Site guide updates (SDHGPA Site Guides)
-syncing data with USHPA/RRRG data
-goal is to produce a template for any club to use
-site guide for Blossom will be the first one
-raw video has been shot and is being edited and worked on
Bill Helliwell recommends we submit that video for a “best USHPA video” award

6. Blossom Safety and Landowner relations at the Base of El Cap
a. landing north of the power lines on El Cap, where to navigate to and where to hit the road

7. July Meeting: Q&A with USHPA Executive Director Martin Palmaz July 16 2020

8. Nik's advice:  Keep the banter a little friendlier.  My personal guidance on this: aim for fun, joy, and building things up.  Stay away from controversial non-flying issues.  BUILD the community wherever we can.


Next club meeting suggested topics:

• -USHPA Exec Director Martin Palmaz Q & A
• ​-how to use websites to understand weather and how to use all the latest gear.  
• -Butch asked for help using all the sites and geeking out on his gear.  Maybe hook him up with Connor?
• -Brad updated property knowledge on Blossom.  We’re safe for now.

Chat Text:
19:38:49 From  Jeff Brown : http://www.tasma.org/repeaters/2m-repeaters/
19:38:56 From  Jeff Brown : http://www.tasma.org/TASMA-2m-Band-Plan.pdf
19:42:17 From  Jeff Brown : Maybe try 145.525 or 145.600
20:00:48 From  tom zylak : Blossom sign-in book, with a space for USHPA#?
20:01:36 From  Nik H : Interesting idea Tom.
20:06:18 From  Nik H : Love the Rookie Meet idea.
20:07:32 From  Scott Larson : as a rookie, that sounds very cool!
20:16:25 From  Jason Virskus : There's a free app called Drone Deploy that you can use for creating 3D models also. Very cool
20:16:57 From  Jason Virskus : https://www.dronedeploy.com/



__________________________________________________

Notes taken:

Elsinore Site Guide, Bill Soderquist
-About a dozen locals fly it
-Been landing over by O’Hara’s (terrible place to land if it starts to blow down)
-Mostly top land in cleared areas (via chop and controlled burns)
-The bank may own it, caretaker usually is the only one to come out and interact.

Sites we know are open:

• Palomar - watch out for drilling rigs, look for new parking lot area, walk Palomar before you fly the site.: via Bill H: well pipe, about a 1’ in diameter and 4’ high, requesting that we land to the NW side of the building where HG typically land.  Need to update site guide regarding LZs
• Blossom  - keep it Chill
• Laguna is open if flying the Cliff Launch, but we do not have an Active permit for the State Park and the Upper Launch being in the State Park is technically Closed due to COVID-19 .  The ABSP haven’t cashed the check paying for our permit. The Earthquake Valley LZ is also closed (being in the State Park. All entrances to Anza-Borrego (Earthquake Valley) have been fenced off with tape.  Nothing has been put on our gate at the upper launch.  Rangers unlikely to be cool about us going to the upper launch.
• Otay is probably open

Site that we know are Closed:

• Horse closed
• Little Black closed die to being in a City Park
• Big Black closed

In San Diego, the situation for impacted hospitals and service workers is just starting to ramp up and we can expect hospitals to be triaging similar to what was experienced in Colorado this past weekend.

There was an incident in Colorado this past weekend where a snowboarder ended up with a broken clavicle (collarbone) and at the ER, he was turned away from treatment at triage with the explanation that collarbone surgery is elective. They were an impacted hospital and not doing any elective procedures . . . that are not life-threatening. At Tiger (WA Site), there were also two separate incidents requiring ER and hospitalization in an impacted area this past week. 

Hoping we get through this and back in the air without complex social health concerns.

Regards and Safe Flights!

Steve Rohrbaugh  (SDHGPA President) and the SDHGPA Board

Here are Nik's notes:

This month's meeting was generously hosted at SportRx, just east of PB.  We had a strong turnout, with 40+ pilots showing up including a bunch of pilots from Torrey.  Thanks to everyone who showed up and mowed down the pizza!  

Robert Michiels attempted a livestream of the meeting on his YouTube channel, and while he wasn't psyched on the results (in fact, I think he's deleted the 2nd half of the meeting from his channel) it was a step in the right direction.  Live-streaming is an often requested action item for those of us who can't make the physical meetings. If YOU are a tech-geek who wants to commit to attending the meetings and live-streaming 'em, please let me (Nik) know so we can do this.


Presentations:
6:30 - 6:45
-Thanks to SportRx, quick explanation of what they do:  Offer a TON of sunglasses that they can make prescription.  They're offering a 15% discount to any pilot who showed up at the meeting, contact Nik for how to get that.

-Try ’n Fly day with SportRx, location TBA (though probably at Torrey since that's the easiest for most pilots to get to and fly/land safely.)

6:45-7:00
News Items (see below)

7:00—7:30
Phil Russman, Voice of Darkness - Flight Safety
Steve Rohrbaugh & Ryan Bloum,  accident reports

7:30-8:00
Phil Russman, Team Flying
  - How To
  - Commitment
  - Team Building

News Items
- Kinetik has offered up their space for us to do a Mon or Thurs reserve repack 7-9 pm, we've got to coordinate someone who'll run it (Betty?) and then set a date.

-Any interest in starting up a stolen gear telegram thread national and international?  This met with lukewarm feedback, probably not worth it.

-Blog post, spots to kite in San Diego
    -Torrey
    -Mission Bay
    -near Little Black 
    -ball fields at the western terminus of the 8
    -where else can you kite in San Diego?  Let's build a map and post it on the SDHGPA site!

-Blossom updates
    -fire hazard/BBQ concerns to fire hazards (neighbors are complaining on the NextDoor app, one of them came up and talked to pilots on launch. Robert M got the neighbor psyched on flying, BUT others are still unconvinced.  It seem as if other groups of Off-roaders have been seen partying and BBQing up on the hill creating this valid concern. )
    -parking issue on the road (neighbors are complaining that it is hazardous to have so many cars parked on the road.  No solution offered.)
    -RC pilots invited to meeting, and while I didn't see 'em (maybe they came and I didn't realize it) I think involving RC pilots and inviting them to our meetings is a step in the "build a strong flying community" direction.

-El Cap weather station    
    -Bill Kimball’s proposed position has been accepted.  We still need to hike out there to figure out how we're going to anchor it, AND we're waiting to hear from wildlife agencies re. golden eagles, they’ll give us a 20 min presentation on it Nov 21st
    -Dave Metzgar’s advice for climbing up at the Cap:  Stay out front to avoid a North vs staying in tight to cliff.

-Palomar is still a tender site.  You MUST check in and check out, they keep track of this pretty rigorously in order to make sure pilots have landed safely and are off the property. All other Palomar Site Protocols must be followed regardless of the launch used to keep all landowners happy and the site open for all to enjoy.

-SDHGPA member Sofia Puerta Webber wanted to make sure you guys know about her tour down to Columbia with Kari Castle.  Reach out to Sofia if you're game to head south and LEARN!


Ideas if we have time:

-opening up new sites…check with landowners first, be ready to hike a TON, the "best" sites are the ones we already fly.

-what does membership mean?  Why join?  What does USHPA & SDHGPA get you? For a listing, see : SDHGPA Benefits 

-why carry a radio?  What should you get?  What should you know how to do?