President’s End of Year Report
December 22, 2011
It’s been a remarkable year for paragliding in the
Northwest. In many ways, particularly
for cross-country flying, it has been a terrific year. Records were set and broken and many pilots
had new personal bests. If you saw Dave
Norwood’s posting of the results of the North West Paragliding League, you have
a feel for what a great year it has been for XC flying. And while we are used to seeing big XC
flights from Baldy and Chelan, many of the really fine XC flights this year originated
at Tiger, Blanchard, Saddle and even Kiona.
In past years, a good day at Tiger
meant you got up, flew around the towers, maybe over to Squak and landed back
at the LZ or maybe on the Sammamish Plateau after a couple hours. This year a good day meant many pilots flying
to Fall City ,
Carnation, Redmond , or North Bend; or south to Covington Monroe Snoqualmie Pass
In some ways 2011 has been a
frustrating year. Many of our plans to improve Tiger have been
on hold pending the completion of land-use-license (LUL) agreements with DNR. For months it seems we have been a signature
or two away from being able to improve the Cut, drive directly to launch from
the LZ, and install a container and improve instrumentation on north launch. Despite the Herculean efforts of Rich Hass to
deal with DNR, we still do not have the necessary LUL agreements.
And it has been a tragic year, with
the loss of Ken Blanchard in the first-ever fatal accident at Tiger.
We have had our successes in 2011
as well. Just keeping our sites open and
flyable by maintaining good relationships with their owners and managers was a
major accomplishment. The parking lot at
Tiger was expanded, and we were able to trim many of the trees around the Tiger
LZ and around both launches. Although
not our doing, construction is underway at Blanchard which promises to improve
the launches and provide additional parking.
We also dealt with Mike Miller’s
accident which totaled the van and left us short of shuttle vehicles. Bob Hannah helped secure a new shuttle van
for Michael and the Club stepped up to help Michael financially.
As usual, the Club sponsored
several fly-ins this year. The Tandem
fly-in at Tiger raised about $9,200 in revenue for the Club while providing a
great flying experience for about 80 non-pilots. The Baldy Butte Fly-in was not blessed with
the best weather but still, many pilots had good flights. By all accounts the Women’s fly-in at Chelan
included good weather, fun flights and a great Saturday night party. Many of our pilots also enjoyed the
Beach-N-Fly and the Bike-and-Fly at Chelan, the CAN-AM Fly-in at Black Mountain
The Holiday Party at Pogacha’s on
December 13, 2011 was a great success, as more than 75 of our friends and
family members enjoyed each other’s company and a very good Italian
Buffet. Tom Allen announced the
following awards for 2011:
·
Two Rookie of the Year awards: to Travis LaMance and Ken Swenson;
·
Two Flight of the Year awards, to: Chris Amonson
for his 143K flight, and Conrad Kreick
for his flight from Saddle to Oregon;
·
Pilot of the Year: Matty Senior who had a number of
awesome flights, including Tiger to Blanchard and Tiger to Cle Elum;
·
Presidents Award: Rich Hass, for his
relentless efforts to advance the Club’s interests with the Washington State
DNR and King County;
·
Two Volunteer of the Year awards, to: Roger Brock for his work with DNR and numerous
landowners in developing and maintaining flying sites in Skagit
and Whatcom counties. And Rick Hubbard for his work maintaining
and improving our flying sites.
·
Tech Mentor of the Year award, to: David Wheeler for his efforts with the north launch camera,
airspace education, and the fantastic Spot page for tracking pilots.
·
NWPC Ambassador: Meredyth Malocsay, She knows and is
known by pilots all over the world.
·
Perpetual Poo Poo Point Outhouse Trainee:
Marc
Chirico – few people realize how much they should appreciate Marc’s
efforts, and
·
NWPC Old-Timer and Mr. Fix-It: Wally
Adams, another behind-the-scenes worker who improves our flying world.
In a surprise appearance, Matty Senior’s award was presented
by Tom McCune, a Tiger Mountain pilot once ranked No. 1 in the U.S.
Club Officers
In November, a new board of
directors was elected to serve for 2012.
The new officers include the old officers with two exceptions. Scott Stabbert replaced Beth Friesen as
treasurer and Keith Papenthien replaced John Schnebeck as secretary. Beth asked to step down after three years as
club treasurer. Beth did a fine job
keeping track of the Club’s finances and paying its bills, and we greatly
appreciate her efforts. John was reelected to the Board in a
director-at-large position, replacing Rob Leonard, who had served us well in
2011. Keith and Scott are new to the
club, but both bring welcome enthusiasm and expertise.
The NWPC Club’ officers for 2012 are:
Ralph Boirum - President; Lawrence
Wallman – Vice President; Keith Papenthien – Secretary; Scott Stabbert –
Treasurer; and Directors Paulo Escobar, John Schnebeck and Ken Swenson. Andy Wood remains our Webmaster, and Chris
Amonson will continue his fine work as the Club’s Blog Editor.
The Board meets monthly, generally on the second Monday of
the month.
Status of the Club’s
projects:
·
We have received the proposed LUL agreements
from DNR. (There are three.) The
agreements appear to give us permission for most of the improvements we want to
make; however, we have concerns about the insurance requirements demanded by
DNR. Rich is attempting to get DNR to
revise the insurance requirements. Once
the LULs are completed, the Club will proceed with the improvements for which
funding has been approved by the Club’s membership. They include widening and
paving the entrance to the Cut at Tiger
Mountain Road
·
These improvements will make the Cut a legal
entrance to the interior Tiger
Mountain
·
Funding for the purchase and installation of a
steel container near north launch has been approved by the Club’s membership,
and completion of the LULs will allow that project to proceed.
·
The LUL will also provide DNR’s permission for
us to erect a tower on north launch. A
used tower has been purchased and re-conditioned by the club. We hope to install the tower on Tiger’s north
launch. It would allow us to fly a
windsock well above the 65-foot-tall trees on north launch so that it will
indicate wind from any direction. We also
plan to install web cams on the tower and move Wind Talker to the tower,
improving its usefulness. Funding for
installation of the tower has not yet been approved.
·
The floor of Class B airspace ceiling at Tiger was
recently lowered from 6,000 to 5,000 feet.
Lowering the ceiling forces hang and paragliders at Tiger and general
aviation aircraft passing through the area into reduced airspace, greatly
increasing the potential for dangerous encounters. The Club and USHPA formally opposed lowering
of the airspace; however, our cries went unheeded. We now may not fly higher than 5,000 feet
until we are about 2,000 feet east of the Tiger launches.
·
Thanks in large part to Chris Amonson, the
Club’s blog editor, there are several new articles and great photos on the
club’s blog. Chris has kept the blog
active and it is a good place to go to read about other pilot’s experiences. Feel free to write up your flying experience
and share it with the rest of us.
·
Andy Wood continues a good job of keeping the
Club’s website up to date. It is a great
source of information about the Club’s flying sites and activities. It also has links to weather information,
USHPA, Leonardo and other useful sites. Andy
also makes voting on-line on club issues possible.
·
The AED (defibrillator) has been temporarily
located under the outhouse at north launch.
It will probably be moved to the container if and when the container is
installed.
·
The Club is awaiting a decision by the
Washington State Parks Department which may open up Ebey’s Landing (on Whidbey Island ) to paragliding.
·
Paulo Escobar continues to represent the Club in
efforts to develop a recreational site near McDonald Mountain McDonald Mountain
·
The Club has been looking into placing carpet on
the upper slope of Tiger’s north launch.
Improving that area could significantly shorten your wait by providing a
better secondary launch site.
·
The Club is also considering the possibility of
sponsoring an USHPS-sanctioned paragliding competition this summer at
Chelan. This proposal is still in its
infancy and is waiting for a few volunteers who are willing to put it
together.
Looking Ahead to 2012
This coming year we plan to change
the monthly meetings to have greater emphasis on flying and less on the Club’s
business issues. Each month we will
devote most of the meetings to topics like understanding the weather, using a
GPS, and mountain and flatland cross-country flying. We will have technical talks on thermaling,
flying etiquette and techniques to improve your flying; and we will have
orientation-type discussions about each of the sites we fly. More
photos, videos and discussions about flying should make the meetings more
interesting and informative.
Your Club officers are always ready
to hear new ideas to improve our flying experiences. Please feel free to share your thoughts with
me or any of the other Club officers.
Thanks, and have a great 2012.
Ralph Boirum
President, NWPC
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