By Kingsley Wood:
Two months in a row, wow, hope we can make this stick…
As the season begins to wind down, days get noticeably shorter, average flights reduce in grandeur, length and altitude and that beastly Easterly rears its ugly head more often than we would like, we can at least look back at a great month…
What a fun time at Black – huh (bloodygiladi pics) ? That place continues to delight us all, with record attendance, spectacular flights, awesome crowd / food and entertainment (great balls of fire !). Thanks the James and Della for pulling it all together, and the Barberchoo rocked !
The Annual Mike Miller fund raiser might not have resulted in the most impressive Tiger Tag flights of the year, but a lot of heart, generosity and a sack of shuttle potatoes came through for the kids : final numbers to be announced at the next club meeting – Mike ?
Doesn’t sound like Grouse was very exciting this year either - reports / pictures / write-ups anyone ? but Vancouver is always worth a visit flying or not, I heard some of our pilots even hiked up despite the weather…! Blanchard and Whidbey continue to offer magical experiences – if you haven’t flown there yet, get out there and try it out before the end of the summer !
We bid and envious farewell to the lucky Bali Paragliding Tour on the 14th as well – hopefully they can spare sometime between packing, preparation and training to join us for a drink at the next club meeting (hint hint) and we look forward to full and detailed reports on their return at the October Club meeting too.
Be sure to attend the next enthralling club meeting – September 11th at Pogacha’s 8:00pm. We will feature some exciting new entertainment in the form of a “name that pilot/site/wing/maneuver” competition, you could well cover your entire dinner and drinks for the evening ! ( Check all negative angst at the door please. )
Thought for the month – with all the talk of regulations, laws, insurance and policies of late, perhaps we don’t always keep in mind that we are brought together after all for the purposes of sport, enjoyment and for many, relaxation. Sure, some might take it more seriously than others, a spectrum from weekend warrior hobby to passionate pursuit of perfection. But as we share the common air space, launches, LZ and trails it should be expected that a certain minimum level of respect be shown and etiquette be followed.
I’m not suggesting we could or should enforce any specific behaviors, and you’ll always get a wide range of attitudes, personalities and quirky senses of humor in any collection of people, especially a crazy crowd of yahoos that jump of mountains ! But there shouldn’t be any reason for unpleasantness or a lack of common courtesy shown to all.
- Helping someone lay out a wing, irrespective of what make, model or color it is, just moves the flow along…
- Holding off on your 23rd top landing of the hour to allow another pilot a window to launch…
- Stepping aside on the launch pad if you’re not quite ready when there are 9 sweaty pilots itching to get off yesterday…
We all know what it’s about… not surprisingly, it’s at the fly-ins that this collective assistance really shines – why not every day at your local site ? Be nice or go home !
Kingsley