July 2008 Meeting Minutes
Dan Wells
Cascade Paragliding Club Meeting Minutes
July 1, 2008
New members and guest introductions
Scott, an experienced pilot from Telluride moving to the Portland Area, and Mary, a new pilot being taught by Dan Coombs, introduced themselves.
President’s comments
Dan will miss the August 5 meeting because he will be at Mount Howard.
Dan had asked for people interested in a ‘Get out the tree’ clinic and had about 5 names. If you are interested in doing this, contact him quickly!
Site and Non-site reports
A few pilots made contact with the owner of the Chehalem LZ. We said we would supply him with a copy of our standard USHPA insurance. The owner was very happy with us flying there and there are no immediate problems to us using the LZ. The foundation has been removed but the new access road is still there. It is conceivable that the owner could rent out the field for crops in the future, though.
After Steve F’s recent great flight, there was a lot of interest in Gales Creek, but neither Steve not Mark were there to provide any information. The problem with LZs at the site was briefly discussed (the fields are used for grass-seed, the roads have power-lines).
Reed suggested that both sites are cases where the club should discuss compensating land-owners for any damage we do to crops.
Flight and event reports
There were a variety of flight reports, including Pine Mountain, Area B, Bandon, Yaquina Head, Bald Butte, Bingen and even a non-flight report from Detroit Lake.
Treasurer’s report
There’s lots of money in the bank.
Upcoming events
July 3-6 Lakeview festival of Free flight
July 6-12 Rat Race
July 28 - Aug 2 Chelan XC open
Aug
30-Sep 1 Pine Mountain
Fly-in
Sep 14-20 Owens Valley US Paragliding
Nationals
August 2 Flugtag comes to Portland
August 9-10 Grouse Mountain Fly-in Vancouver, BC
August 8-10, Hillsboro Air Show
Hillsboro Air Show
The possibility of using the Hillsboro Air Show to generate interest in paragliding and hopefully attract more people into the sport was discussed at some length.
a. The club voted to underwrite up to $500 on insurance for the event. This will likely be the USHPA event insurance plus some special powered paragliding insurance for Gabe.
b. The cub also voted to spend up to $500 on paragliding promotional material. This would probably include some ‘postcard’ style information packs people can take away.
c. Mark Volunteered to lead the publicity efforts.
d. Gabe, Mark Forbes, Mark Sanzone and Sarge will work together with the local instructors to make an interesting display (e.g. with a simulator, magazines and a video) and some interesting offers (e.g. daily drawings for a free tandem).
There’s a lot to be done and not much time!
ICOM F-11
Mark Forbes showed this new radio that addresses some of the issues with our existing radios. The radio can be pre-programmed so that you can receive on a range of frequencies (e.g. NOAA) and transmit only on the 5 USHPA approved business-band frequencies. This virtually eliminates the possibility of accidentally broadcasting on non-approved frequencies. The pre-programming also simplifies use – there are less buttons to press, though (of course) this could be restrictive.
Ham Radio Class
Dan Coombs, Bethany and Mary talked about the possibility of putting on a Ham Radio class, so that pilots could get their Ham license. This wouldn’t really affect our existing use of radios (on the business bands) but would have two advantages…
a. A small group of Ham licenses pilots could communicate on the Ham frequencies
b. Pilots would be better able to use their radios in an emergency situation.
There was considerable interest, and anyone interested in being on the course should e-mail Bethany.
Thermaling Discussion
Bret led an interesting discussion of thermaling!
Steve Forslund
Site and Non-site reports
A few pilots made contact with the owner of the Chehalem LZ. We said we would supply him with a copy of our standard USHPA insurance. The owner was very happy with us flying there and there are no immediate problems to us using the LZ. The foundation has been removed but the new access road is still there. It is conceivable that the owner could rent out the field for crops in the future, though.
After Steve F’s recent great flight, there was a lot of interest in Gales Creek, but neither Steve not Mark were there to provide any information. The problem with LZs at the site was briefly discussed (the fields are used for grass-seed, the roads have power-lines).
Plenty of room to land and avoid crops. As I stated in my flight report the owner is fine with landing below just pick the right field.