Sonoma Wings Meeting Minutes

 

Thursday, February 28, 2002

 

President Larry Roberts called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.  The members in attendance were: Larry Roberts, John DeAguiar, Charley Warren, Bob Storms, Matt Jagelka, Todd Robinson, Derk Steggewentz, Sterling Calder, Brian Sharp, and Greg Sugg.  Several of our club members were unable to attend the meeting because of schedule conflicts.  Jon James and Ernie Camacho were in Maxwell representing Sonoma Wings at the East Park Reservoir Resource Management Plan meeting.  Scot Huber was representing the club at a public meeting near Watsonville in support of establishing a new flying site at Coyote Lake/Harvey Bear Ranch.  Wings of Rogollo had solicited our support at this important meeting.

 

We also had some visitors and prospective new members: our new Regional Director, Tim West and his son, and Greg Hackett, J.W. Seely, Nicholas Tappan, and Keith White.  Nicholas and Keith are two paraglider pilots from the Bodega area who came to join the club so that they could legally fly Goat Rock/Vista Point and the other regulated coastal sites.  It’s good to have more paraglider pilots joining the club.

 

Old Business

 

Round Table Pizza is still trying to coordinate and resolve a scheduling conflict with their meeting rooms.  The manager would like Sonoma Wings to move our regular meetings from the fourth Thursday of the month to the fourth Tuesday of the month.

 

The club parachute repack get together will be held at Justin’s place in Geyserville on March 9th at 9:00 a.m.  If  your reserve chute hasn’t been repacked yet, show up and repack it with the support and collective wisdom of the other club members who are still brimming with expertise from the excellent two day parachute clinic and work shop that Betty Pfeiffer, owner of High Energy Sports, presented last year.

 

We are still looking for interested pilots to man a Sonoma Wings exhibit at this years Sonoma County Rose Parade.  The theme of the parade will be “Stars and Stripes and Roses”.  Some people have previously expressed interest in manning the exhibit and representing the club.  We need to firm up the arrangements.

 

It is once again time to renew site insurance, waivers, and permits at the various regulated flying sites which the club administers.  The sites we will be insuring this year are: Goat Rock/Vista Point, Mt. St. Helena, Crazy Creek, and Mt. St. John.

 

New Business

 

As mentioned earlier, our new Regional Director, Tim West came to the meeting to brief us on things he picked up at the recent USHGA Board of Directors meeting in Southern California.  For complete information on the B.O.D. meeting check out the USHGA web site.  Some of the items covered at the recent meeting were:  1.) A new pilot classification is in the works at the FAA called the Sport Pilot Class.  This new classification is likely to impact powered ultralight tandem operations and ultralight towing like the aerotowing we do at Crazy Creek.  2.) Apparently there is an FAA NOTAM in effect since the events of September 11th that requires all general aviation including hang gliding to at least check in with a local flight service center before flying.  According to Tim, if a group of people are going to be hang gliding somewhere, a member of the group is supposed to check in by calling 1-800 FX BRIEF.  We need to look into this further.  I can’t think of any possible benefit that this can provide to anyone when applied to hang gliding.

 

It was very nice of Tim to travel up from San Francisco to meet the club members and report on the B.O.D. meeting.  Tim is the pilot who had a very bloody and exciting experience a couple of years ago at Hull mountain when his glider failed structurally when he attempted a 3,000 foot vertical dive.  Imagine that.  Tim flies mostly at the beach.

 

The meeting was adjourned a 9:00p.m.

 

Greg Sugg, Secretary