August 2023 monthly meeting was held at Little Black.  Light winds, pleasant temperatures and Jersey Mike sandwiches.

New faces attending:

1. Mohid P2 working on P3 at TP
2. Kiro P2 working on P3 at Marshal
3. John P2 working at P3 at TP
4. Andrea P2 works at TP w/ the falcons (Say 'hi' if you are at TP)

Site Info and Updates

• Palomar and Big Black now marked on aviation sectional maps w/ glider symbols.  15 year process, but Steve tried again 6 months ago and someone responded.  Good job Steve!
• Palomar Outhouse:  Diamond not servicing anymore so Steve looking for alternatives since in our use agreement requires a facility at launch..
• Weather Stations:  Palomar has new firmware
• Laguna Reminder:  Read site guide, print out permit and make sure you call Norb Ruhmke (Supervising Ranger at Anza Borrego Desert State Park) to let him know you are flying.  https://www.sdhgpa.com/laguna.html 

Repack Clinic:  TDB

​Q&A From Telegram:

         Any recommendations for 1st Pod harness?

1. If you are testing one, make sure you sit in it for 20-30 minutes to determine pressure points
2. Lightweight hike and fly harness are appealing but consider difficulty getting into at launch and less protection.
3. Brands people liked:
   1. Advance (for dual density protectors)
   2. Woody Valley
   3. SupAir

        Where do people go for glider trimming and porosity testing?

1. SuperFly - Gin, Nova, Advance (Glider Trim & Full Service)
2. Eagle (Santa Barbara) (Glider Trim & Full Service)
3. Torrey Pines   ​From Milly, "At Torrey pines gliderport we do porosity, inspections, line repairs, fabric repairs, reserve repacks and misc gear repairs needed. We are with-in driving distance in San diego County."

       How to start XC flying?

• Baby steps - Read books.  Get comfortable thermalling and assessing weather conditions at several Sites and expanding your flight envelope.  You need to reliably thermal up then be able to read conditions and terrain for where to go outside of familiar terrain.
• Once topping off thermals, start to extend glides out front progressively to learn your gliders glide and performance into the wind, then back down wind. Build your confidence on knowing what terrain features to glide to and back to to get back up.
• Get comfortable flying the local triangles at sites like Palomar and Blossom along with building your flight duration stamina. 
• The more you come out and build your skills, more than likely you will meet others that will feel comfortable inviting you out with groups who are going XC and on days that might be appropriate for your skill set.
• Key thing: if advanced pilots are willing to take you out, you must respect their advice/ guidance. If they asses that you should stand down for the day or a period of time. They do not need the added stress if you don't follow their advice.

Photos from LB:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwGd23og6WX/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
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​

Updated Radio Etiquette slide from last night's talk is a good reminder for XC and all pilots even when Site Flying:

 1. Club Info and Updates

   a) Laguna Permit Status is in process.

   b) Laguna and Big Black Site Guides.
     Looking for site reps.  David Norgren to contact Paul Markham as possible site rep for Big Black.

   c) Weather Station Updates (Joseph)
        https://www.sdhgpa.com/weather-stations.html

• Palomar station battery dead.  Joseph working on fix.
• El Cap station needs firmware flashed to be more efficient w/ battery usage.
• Laguna Holfuy station should be considered unreliable and will be turned off.  Anemometer started to fail in January giving unreliable wind speed readings.  In the future this will be replaced by one of Joseph's stations. 

   d) Club USHPA renewal and safety review update (Steve/Rob)
  Deadline to renewal our USHPA chapter was Feb. 15th. Rob updating incidents and assessments. 

   e) Palomar point series update 
       https://www.sdhgpa.com/palomar-point-series.html 

• Brad and Katherine won the Serial and Fledgling classes respectively in January - congratulations!  The February tasks will remain the same as January -- no change.

      
    f) Reminder is renew you 2023 Membership.  Thank you to everyone that has renewed! Here's the link to renew:  
​       https://www.sdhgpa.com/store/p6/SDHGPA_Annual_Full_Membership_dues.html

   h) Call for future meeting presenter.  Looking for presenters on the following topics:
            Using Flyskyhy for Tasks (Palomar Point series)
            Using xctrack for Tasks(Palomar Point series)
            Using XC Soar  for Tasks(Palomar Point series)
            Techniques to build your flying skills

2. New Items / Roundtable / Stories from Mexico/Columbia

• Stan from Crestline Soaring said the Redlands Airport Advisory Board is meeting and considering banning launching and landing within Redlands city limits.  This would impact Hanger 24
• Fly-in still being targeted for March/April.

3. Rob talked about his recent trip to Columbia.  Conditions were fantastic w/ flights almost 100K every day.

• Getting to Columbia:   Rob flew SAN-MIAMI-CALI. Two hour cab ride to Roldanillo for $70. Cheaper bus options available.
• Where to Stay:  Rob booked an air bnb in town. There were lots of taxis in the town square every morning competing for your business to take you up to launch for $10.
• Where to Fly: Primary launch is Aguapanela that most use. We preferred to use the private Trevol launch which is a bit lower and out front. Aguapanela launches you a bit higher, but requires long glide to house thermal and you arrive only slightly higher than the Trevol launch. The Trevol launch puts you straight into the house thermal, has nice shade structure with tables and clean floors and bathrooms for setup. Costs $2 to use the launch. All launches in Roldanillo are behind high tension powerlines and I would probably recommend P4 skills for them. Conditions typically turned on between 930-1030 each morning. Run the ridge in the anabatic east flow in the morning. Once the sun gets high and clouds pop in the valley, push out and fly the flats. Expect the “Pacifico” to come in around 3pm each day, which is what they call the seabreeze. It will blow down hard on launch and everything on the east side of the valley will be in rotor. Land in Zarzal if the Pacifico is too strong to make it safely back to Roldanillo.
• Retrieves:  For retrieves, a $1 bus to get home from there. No matter where you land out, it is super easy to get retrieved. There are buses between every little town along the highways and they will stop in the middle of the route to pick up pilots. There are taxis in most towns. And if not, there are people on motos everywhere that want to give you a ride home for pesos. The people are very friendly and seem to like the pilots.

1. Club Info and Updates
   1.  2023 Membership Renewal is now open to not have a gap in your membership if you have not already renewed for the 2023 annual year.  Current status: https://www.sdhgpa.com/current-membership-status.html
   2. USHPA is rolling out new Chapter Renewal & Insurance rate changes.  Details coming

   2.   Site info Updates:
           Reminder that 2023 parking passes are needed at Palomar.

​    3.  WX Station updates:
    Laguna station having sporadic on/off issues, similar with Little Black, where batteries run   
    down.  Discussed a couple possible solutions:

1. Put one of Josef's new stations at Laguna
2. Move Holfuy station from Palomar  to Laguna
3. Plan is to upgrade current stations to have 2-3 battery cells vs 1. The current Holfuy stations have 3 cells in them.
4. Joseph also has  updated FW that should help reduce battery drain when the station loses signal an spends a lot of power trying to frequently reconnect. The new FW will have reconnect timeouts with progressively longer pauses between reconnect attempts. 
5. The logistics for Upgrading and fixing the El Cap Station will be a Challenge due to the remote location. We will likely need to build another and then swap it out. The question is if we have enough confidence in our prototypes to keep sending them out to this location until they are proven to be robustly stable.
6. Next steps to work on WX data Network feeds.   Joseph could use some help programming the data feed.  Specifically, help w/ Typescript from back-end Google Firebase.  During the meeting, we had an awesome volunteer from Kevin Sweeney to help out.  Thank you Kevin!!!!

    4.  Windsocks - Ordering some more windsocks

    5.  Chapter renewal and Annual Safety Review is due to USHPA Feb 15th to not have a gap in coverage at our Sites.

•         Round up of Accident Reports
•         Start of Risk Assessment & Site Guide Review.  Steve updated site guide for Palomar
•        Are our Safety Officers going to come back to ground & SD in time to work on renewal tasks?

    6. Calendar for the Year:
        2023 Fly-Ins Dates:

•             Tentative March/April 2023 for Fly-in and awards
•             Fall Fly-in ~October 2023 or early November

       
     7.  Palomar point series registration and scoring page is up!
          https://www.sdhgpa.com/palomar-point-series.html

The SDHGPA Palomar XC Point Series is an educational, task based, out and back style race-to-goal held at the Palomar Mountain paragliding site. The inaugural season will be held from January through April of 2023. It will run in two more seasons each (May-August and September-October) if there is continued interest in a year round contest. The series is free to enter for all SDHGPA Members as a membership benefit. Launch is the standard Palomar Mountain launch.

Scroll to the bottom of the page above and give it a test if you fly one of the tasks this month.

Kudos to Cam, Ana and Robb Milly for putting this together!  Awesome job!

    8.  For future meetings, we are looking for awesome topic presenters who would like to share their knowledge/lessons learned/tips.  Possible topics areas are listed below.  If you would like to share some knowledge, please email the board. 

•             Using Flyskyhy for Tasks (Palomar Point series)
•             Using xctrack for Tasks(Palomar Point series)
•             Using XC Soar  for Tasks(Palomar Point series)
•             Other instruments?  (Flytech . . .)
•         Things to work on to build your flying skills
•         The Classic SD XC routes:
•          SD Thermaling Clinic topics

​​

7:30 General Meeting via Zoom:
1. Club Info & Updates:

• 2023 Membership Renewal is now open.  Don't let your membership lapse!  

           Current status: https://www.sdhgpa.com/current-membership-status.html

• Site info Updates: 
  1. Palomar:  Reminder from Steve to always have your parking pass displayed.
  2. Blossom:  No new updates from Brad on the development.  Map finalization still in process but development seems to be a 'done-deal'

• Awards and Contest Rules  Refer to  https://www.sdhgpa.com/xc-contest---sdhgpa.htmlJeff  said there were two contest categories - 1 for Hang Gliding and 1 for paragliding.

1. PG: 9 sites to fly from.  Best flight counts as longs as you don't break airspace.  The 9 Sites in San Diego County or Southern California Basin are: Laguna, Horse, Blossom, Little Black, Big Black, Palomar, Elsinore, Soboba, Crestline/Marshall. (Note that Otay was removed from the list of sites starting in 2017 due to complications of Boarder activity, Airspace, and no place to go except over tiger country to avoid airspace). We can reevaluate Otay if pilots want to argue a case for adding it back in due to changes.
2. Contest Nov. 1st to Oct. 31st from Leonardo.  30 Days after Oct. 31st to get your flights in.
3. Shirt awards and based on passing the following milestones for your furthest flight of the year (Based on Maximum straight line distance between two points in Leonardo.)

• 10 miles - From one of the 9 sites for your first year achieving
• 25 miles - From one of the 9 sites
• 50 miles  - launching anywhere
• 75 miles    - launching anywhere
• 100 miles  - launching anywhere

Please check the Score sheets to make sure we have correctly captured scoring for all of your flights. If not, please contact Jeff Brown.

• Telegram Question:  Why we don't fly in Santa Anas?  

Palomar and Elsinore can be an option for 'mild' Santa Ana if gust factors within .  Gust factors should not be more than 2x base winds. Anything with an East component, the base winds should be less than 5 mph.  Hazard is the upper sheer winds

1. Ex) 5mph West meets 5 mph from East = 10 mph sheer.  This is doable.
2.  5 mph West meets a 15 mph from East = 20 mph and will turn your wing inside out.

Ref article on flying in Santa Ana conditions

SDHGPA Club Meeting Meeting Minutes
Thursday, Aug. 19th 2022   5:30 – 9:00pm
Little Black - Black Mountain Gliderport
15198-15442 Black Mountain Rd, San Diego, CA 92129, USA


Agenda:
5:30 - 6:30 After Work Flights (experienced pilots)
6:30 - 7:30+?  Glass off Flights
7:00 LZ Social Mixer & Pizza in the LZ (BYO_)
7:30 General Meeting:


Site Updates:

1. No updates on Blossom or other sites.
2. ​Discussion about adding Sites / Site Pioneering: Whales V near SD Skydiving DZ and the old Escape Country - Robinson Ranch in Rancho Santa Margarita / Orange county were used as examples of Sites pilots might want to make more legitimate for Site preservation. When is it a good idea to add in Sites and what is required. One key thing is to check for Landowner / Agency requirements of the Site and establish permision for use as a Part 103 requirement.

Weather Station Updates:

• Awesome work by Joseph getting his weather sensor prototype working and communicating through cell service back to Google Firebase to aggregate data.   To see prototype, go to Weather Station page under "More Coming Soon".  https://www.sdhgpa.com/weather-stations.html  ​
• Next Steps:  A motion was made to approved Club funds ($2000) to reimburse Joseph for development materials to date and to build 3 to 4 more Weather Stations. The Motion passed by a large majority of Club Members at the meeting. There where no objections.

 

San Diego Paragliding (Private) Facebook Group (www.facebook.com/groups/297854983577956)

• Discussion if this site is still relevant or should be removed. Right now  Steve is the only moderator.  Club decided to leave site 'as-is' with the same membership requirements of being active USHPA pilots and act as a landing spot, then direct to Club website (https://www.sdhgpa.com/).  Rob E will be added as a Group Admin for member adds.

Meme Chat:
Rob discussed meme chat… see his Telegram post for details. Meme Chat info has been added to the current Member Information page.















​Palomar Safety Update (Rob/Steve)

• Discussion on a couple recent incidents where pilots landing at Chickens and other les than desirable locations.  Reiterated that Chicken LZs should not be considered an intended landing zone and pilots need to assess if they are at or Below the proximity of house thermal knob to start glide to LZ. See the Blue time to glide to LZ line in the Site Guide.
• All Approaches to the Main LZ should be over the Air Strip LZ and not over the Orchards. Pilots should be targeting to land in the Center of the Main LZ then run long if needed. The Main LZ is very large and into the wind. It is very unlikely that even a high performance HG will use up the entire length of the LZ.
• Landing in one of the Orchards could put the Site at risk.
• Link to Palomar site guide:  https://www.sdhgpa.com/palomar.html

SDHGPA Club Meeting Meeting Minutes
Thursday, July 21 2022   5:30 – 9:00pm
Little Black - Black Mountain Gliderport
15198-15442 Black Mountain Rd, San Diego, CA 92129, USA

Agenda:
5:30 - 6:30 After Work Flights (experienced pilots)
6:30 - 7:30+?  Glass off Flights
7:00 LZ Social Mixer & Pizza or Subway in the LZ (BYO_)
7:30 General Meeting:
1. Club Info & Updates:

• Site info Updates: 
• 2022 Election Results: Welcome new 2022 SDHGPA Board.
  • President:             Steve Rohrbaugh
  • VP:                          Jeff Brown   
  • Secretary:              Russ Gibfried 
  • Treasurer/
    Acting Secretary:  Josh Gelb
  • Safety Officer:       Rob Eschbach
  • Safety Officer:        Alex Gray 
  • Member at Large:     Josef De Beer
  • Member at Large:     Robb Milley​
  • Member at Large:     Ron Davis​ 
• Weather Station 3G sunset activity updates - Jeff Brown
• SD PG FB Group policies? - USHPA Pilots only or more open? - Prior Policy concerns of prior Admins.  Need need Moderators/ Admins
• What the ___ is going on at CSS? Not sure but current status

 
Other Election and survey results:
Meeting Location responses:

• I like the idea of having it at a flying site. Either little black or Palomar
• We can meet at my place in Fallbrook (Greg Hunter). It is probably too far for most people during the week though.
• Marshall Crestline
• little black
• Mission bay!
• Balboa park?
• LB LZ

Due to recent events, the SDHGPA elections have been slightly delayed into June so that we can fill Bill Helliwell's positions. Bill is willing to stay on at an advisory level but feels that it is time for others to pick up his roles. We would like to thank Bill for his years of contributions and recent roles as Treasurer​, Landowner and Agency Relations, and Site Rep for the following Sites: Anza Borrego State Park, Laguna, Horse, Big Black, and Otay along with managing the SDHGPA XC competitions.

Nominations will remain open until election in June. Ballots will go out after the SDHGPA June 16th Meeting. This nomination list and posting date will be updated as we receive nominations with seconds.

If interested in a Nomination or volunteering for a position, please email SDHGPA@gmail.com

Club Officers 2022 Nominations with seconds to date:

President:             Steve Rohrbaugh    (Incumbent)
VP:                          Jeff Brown                (Incumbent)
Treasurer:            Josh Gelb                   (Nominated and seconded)
Secretary:              Russ Gibfried          (Nominated and seconded)  
Safety Officer:       Rob Eschbach         (Appointed as replacement  Mid Year)
Safety Officer:        Alex Gray                (Nominated and seconded)
Member at Large:     Josef De Beer     (Appointed as replacement Mid Year)
Member at Large:     Robb Milley​        (Appointed as replacement Mid Year)
Member at Large:     Ron Davis​           (Appointed as replacement Mid Year)
​
Also need help in the following Appointed / Committee Chair positions:

Appointed Non-Voting Extended Board Positions (could be part of a Board position):

• Social Committee: _____Open______ (Lead), Josh Gelb, Sharon Tang?, 
• Website:  Steve Rohrbaugh, Georden Grabuskie, Russ Gibfried, 
• Blog Article - Newsletter Content creators: Russ Gibfried, ____________
• Meeting and other Video post editing & content creators: Neil Karstetter & Jeremy Graham ???
• XC Competition:       Jeff Brown / _____________
• (New) Palomar Point Series Competition:  Robb Milley, _________

​Pilots in Command:
Coordination point for site information, Site Intro, and stewardship of Sites (need two per Site)

• Palomar                  Jeff Brown, Ron Davis, Robb Milley
• Big Black                  ____________ , Paul Markham ???
• Horse Canyon        Kris Souther, ______________
• Laguna                    Butch Peachy, _____________
• Anza-Borrego SP   Jeff Brown
• Little Black              Jeff Brown , James Acres
• Blossom Valley       Nik Hawks , Josh Gelb, Art ???
• Otay                          Rob Eschbach, ______________
• Elsinore Liaison:     Amber Carney,  Bill Soderquist ???

Advisory Board Representatives:
Black Mt Open Space Citizens Advisory Council:

• Jeff Brown
• James Acres
• Dave Metzgar
• Anto Metzgar