US Paragliding Nationals Round 1

April 27-May 2, 2009

I was honored to serve the paragliding community as the safety director and launch coordinator for the 2009 Nationals in Dunlap, CA.

Among the more exciting events was personally doing the search and resure on a pilot who came down under reserve and landed miles from roads in extremely steep, cliff side terrain without vehicular access. The following day I helped to coordinate the efforts of the resecue of two pilots who landed in a similar area with a joint S&R effort of several emergency crews. All this while launching 60 pilots each day, following the task and weather conditions and helping to organize retrieval and doing emergency repairs for pilots with broken gear. What a week!

Dunlap, CA

http://www.santacruzparagliding.com/natshome.html

For more great photos from Aaron Beck

Sky Paragliders news

Spring 2009

Today was my first cross country flight of the season. Although I have been teaching for 5 weeks and had lots of training hill flights, I have been itching to get my new Sky Antea up in the air. Today's flight  was 3 hours and 3 minutes and I flew from Ruch to Donato's LZ in the city of Talent. It was a slow flight and required lots of patience in the transition areas, but eventually I was rewarded with spectacular views of the valley at the 6000 ft. Great to be in the air again.

New PG Rig for 2009

As the season winds down, local pilots are enjoying the magic of evening glass- off flights at Woodrat Mountain. The club has grown in membership and it was an awesome year. We have moved our used gear sales to www.AerialAddiction.com. Due to the high volume of sales, it has become it's own business. www.FLYGEAR.biz  has its first products available for sale. Please stop by to check out these two new

Oceanside Open May 2-3, 2009  Oceanside, Oregon http://www.oceansideopen.blogspot.com/

Starthistle Fly-in May 23-25, 2009 Woodrat Mountain, Ruch, Oregon http://www.rvhpa.net/starthistle/index.htm

West Coast Paragliding Championships May 31-June 6, 2009 Woodrat Mountain, Ruch, Oregon http://www.freeflightcomps.com/?q=node/106

Rat Race Paragliding Competition June 28-July 4, 2009 Woodrat Mountain, Ruch, Oregon

http://www.freeflightcomps.com/?q=node/4

Festival of Free Flight July 2-4, 2009 Black Cap, Lakeview, Oregon http://www.lakecountychamber.org/ffs09.htm

US Paragliding Nationals Round 2 August 16-22, 2009 Inspo, UT http://www.usparaglidingnats.com

Pine Mountain Fly-in September 5-7, 2009 Pine Mountain, Millican, Oregon http://www.desertairriders.org/fly-in.html

May

The Star Thistle was awesome. Tons of pilots, great flights and Arrgh...Lots of piratey good times had by all.

Tom Mcune is putting on an XC clinic at Woodrat over the memorial day weekend. Contact us for more information.

We have a new order of 10 flight suits coming this week. 4 are spring and 4 are summer and 2 are winter suits.

Spring flying is here and the pilots are coming out of the woodwork.

Lessons are in full swing at the training hill. We start them early around here!

April

We call it the "Beast"

Our newest paragliding expedition vehicle is a 1990 F350 Centurion.

It can seat nine and pretty much go anywhere.

March

The newsletter is out

UTAH ROAD TRIP!!!

In the last week of March, I went to the Point of the Mountain to visit Revolution Paramotors and Superfly Inc.

In 4 day, I logged 30 flights and about 10 hours.

SWEET DEAL!

We have just purchased 50 stuff sacks and flight suits: check out the accessories page

April Clinc.

RVP is sponsoring a belaying clinic with the purpose of learing how to use the www.Towmeup.com tree self-rescue kit. The clinic will be held at the Rogue Rock Gym and two of their instructors will be there to "teach us the ropes." Space is limited to 10 people. Cost is $20 per head. Contact us for details. We are purchasing 10 of the tree kits. Because we are buying in bulk you will safe about 25 dollars. This is a safety course so it is at our cost as we want people to attend. This clinic is free to past and current RVP students.

Jan

The temperature has been in the 40's during the day and we are getting 10 minutes sled rides. It has been very stable lately with low level inversion layers. Temps are getting into the teens at night, still, the diehards are on the hill.

Medford view with a sunbeam on the city.

Ruch

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Fall

Fall flying in Hawaii    

John Ivey of RVP is teaching on the big island of Hawaii with Thermal Up Paragliding for the fall & winter seasons. He will be  in Oregon in December to prepare for the new flying year.

 Powered PG Clinic

Bill Heaner of Revolution Paramotors and Walkerjet USA and Chris Santacroce of Superfly at the powered PG clinic.

Aug 06 PPG Clinic

Island PPG and Thermal Up Paragliding are holding a powered paragliding clinic on the big island of Hawaii. Learn to fly powered. We have purchased 4 new Walkerjets for the ocassion! Limited slots, so sign up today!

June Towing Clinic

Learn to tow. We have recently purchased a new stationary winch. Chris Santacroce made this little beauty for us. He will be over  to supervise our session. This is a great traing tool for the company and a fun way to get into the sky