There will be no general meeting of the CHGPA this December. Instead, we'll be celebrating the holidays at our annual CHGPA Christmas Party! This year, Karen and Matthew will be opening their home in Takoma Park to we scruffy pilots, at 6506 Westmoreland Avenue.

Parking is extremely limited near their house. In the directions below, consider parking on Second Avenue at the bottom of the hill near the end of Westmoreland, and then walking up the hill. Call 301-270-1862 if you have any problems.

Directions:

• Take the Beltway (I-495) to the University Blvd East (Langley Park) exit.
• Follow University 1.5 miles
• RIGHT onto Carroll Avenue (landmark: a Shell gas station on the right corner)
• Follow Carroll for 1.3 miles to a T-intersection
• RIGHT to stay on Carroll, then immediately move to the left lane.
• Continue on Carroll, through the next traffic light and past the fire station on the left.
• Continue 2/10ths of a mile further, passing high-rise brick apartments on the left and a blue-roofed gazebo. *Slow Down*
• LEFT onto Westmoreland Avenue. It's a hard left, almost a blind turn. If you reach a square with a small clock tower, you missed it.
• Bear slightly RIGHT at the first stop sign, to stay on Westmoreland.
• Proceed through two more stop signs to the top of the hill (where Westmoreland dead-ends).
• The Grahams home is on the right, at 6506 Westmoreland.

By Metro:

• Exit the Takoma Park station and follow Carroll Street towards the 7-11 convenience store. Continue to a T-intersection.
• Cross street, and turn LEFT to stay on Carroll.
• RIGHT onto Westmoreland Avenue
• Proceed downhill, then bear slightly right at the first stop sign to stay on Westmoreland.
• Proceed through two more stop signs, and up the hill at the end of Westmoreland.
• The Grahams' home is on the right at the top, 6506 Westmoreland Avenue

Please reserve a place on your calendar for the Fall CHGPA General Meeting, to be held at The Quarry House Tavern in Silver Spring. On the agenda: Club officer vacancies in 2007 and how to fill 'em, and making plans for the annual Christmas CHGPA Party.

Quarry House has an awesome beer selection for the brew-heads, and $2 PBR's for the cheapskates. We challenge anyone to find a place in the metro area that will give us space for free and $2 beers! Also, the best burger in town, TATER TOTS on the menu and soaring tall-tales, why would you want to be anywhere else on a Wednesday night? For more info and reviews, here's another Q-House link

The CHGPA and MHGA will be holding their annual Fly-In and Just-For-Fun XC Competition the third weekend of September. Details and the latest info can be found at the Festival website

We're going to have a ton of great raffle prizes, a cook-out and party on Saturday night, trophies and awards for the winners of the XC comp, and fireworks too!

Our Festival benefits the Rescue Squad of McConnellsburg PA, so your participation will also help out a very worthy cause. Please consider buying a few extra raffle tickets so that we can make a larger donation.

Reserve the 16th and 17th of September for our Fly-In, we guarantee you'll have a great time if you do!

We will be flying and partying at the end of July, during the Annual High Rock Fly-In! This Fly-In marks the 31st year of hang gliding from High Rock, and 31 years of friendship and support from Emma Jane and the rest of the Carbaugh family.

This year's Fly-In is also our opportunity to wish 'Spark and his family farewell and good luck, as they are moving to Colorado just a few days after our event. 'Spark has been a true cornerstone of our flying community, both HG and PG, so a memorable send-off is a must!

The High Rock Fly-In website has all the latest details about this year's event. We guarantee a great time for all those who can attend!

Our summer CHGPA general meeting will once again be held in the second floor meeting room at the Arlington Central Library in Arlington, Virginia.

But Please Note: The 27th is the fourth Thursday of the month, rather than our usual meeting day of the fourth Wednesday.

Hands On Glider Displays! Both a hang glider and a paraglider will be on display in Quincy Park, immediately adjacent to the library, from 5:30 to 7:30. Stop by and learn how these unpowered craft can achieve multi-hour flights, at altitudes anywhere from 5000' feet to 9000' feet here in the eastern US. All are welcome!

Likewise, both club members and interested members of the public are welcome at the meeting which follows the displays. We hope to have a speaker who can describe the scene at the recent East Coast Championship hang gliding competition out on the Eastern Shore. And we will also discuss plans for CHGPA's annual McConnellsburg Hang Gliding Festival in south-central Pennsylvania, in late September or early October.

Arlington Central Library is located at :

1015 North Quincy Street
Arlington, VA 22201

Here's a link to a map courtesy of maps.google.com that should help get you there.

Directions From Maryland:
Take I-495 W across Cabin John Bridge.
Take Exit 45B (VA-267), following the signs for I-66 East.
After merging onto I-66, take Exit 71, Fairfax Dr.
Go straight. Then turn left on Quincy St by a funeral home.
Library is one block on the right.

By Metro:
Ballston station stop on the Orange Line. At the top of the escalator, proceed straight ahead along Fairfax Drive, toward the Intl. House of Pancakes (east). After three blocks, make a left on Quincy Street. The library is on the right, after a block or so on Quincy.

Get ready for some fun at the towpark! The gang at Highland Aerosports will be holding their annual fly-in this weekend. They write:

Just a reminder that we'll be having our annual fly-in on June 24 and 25.

We'll be having our usual events such as spot landing, XC, and duration along with dinner and awards on Saturday. On Sunday, check out the Demos from Aeros and Wills Wing. If you are planning on attending please shoot us an email.

Blue Skies,
The Highland Crew

There will be many pilots, lots of flying, and plenty of space to camp after the inevitable late-night carousing. So be there!

Please reserve a place on your calendar for the Summer CHGPA general meeting, to be held at Arlington Central Library in Arlington, Virginia.

This will be another experiment for a new meeting venue for our club. The neat thing about the library is that there is space available for setting up and demo'ing (weather-permitting) both hang gliders and paragliders. Another great idea of prez-Dan!

In addition to glider demos, we also have a presentation by Ben and LE about their recent paragliding adventures in Nepal. A flyer about their talk is available, see:

pg_in_nepal.pdf

If you know of a location where the flyer would get some attention, please print out a copy and post it!

Arlington Central Library is located at :

1015 North Quincy Street
Arlington, VA 22201

From Maryland:
Take I-495 W across Cabin John Bridge.
Take Exit 45B (VA-267), following the signs for I-66 East.
After merging onto I-66, take Exit 71, Fairfax Dr.
Go straight. Then turn left on Quincy St by a funeral home.
Library is one block on the right.

By Metro:
Ballston station stop on the Orange Line.
From Ballston walk three blocks up Fairfax Drive
to Quincy Street and turn left. Central Library is one-half block on the right.

The CHGPA will be exhibiting at Women In Aviation Day at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly Virginia.

This is a very high-profile event, and an excellent opportunity to educate aviation-minded people about hang gliding and paragliding! Volunteers will be needed, so send an email to our prez Daniel if you can help out. Note that WiAD and the Smithsonian Kite Festival (see below) are on the same day, so we are going to need lots of help this weekend.

More details about the event, including directions, are available at the Air & Space Museum website.

The CHGPA will once again be exhibiting at the annual Smithsonian Kite Festival held on the National Mall in Washington DC. This is our club's premiere event for spreading the word about hang gliding and paragliding to the general public!

Set-up starts at 8:30am, and the festival runs until 4:00pm. We need many enthusiastic pilots on-hand to help explain our sports and the many opportunities for learning to fly in this area! You will be amazed at the number of genuinely-interested people who flock around the gliders and want to learn all about them. It's a kite festival after all... And we fly big kites... How can anyone resist?

Please contact Daniel if you can help with set-up, tear-down, or staffing the booth. Even an hour's shift talking with people and answering questions would be much appreciated. And you will have fun, trust me on this one!

The KiteFest is usually held on the east side of the Washington Monument, between 10th and 14th streets. But the location is not currently indicated at the Kite Festival website, so you might want to check back as the date nears.

The rain date for the Kite Festival is Sunday, March 26th. You can obtain info about any possible postponements via the KiteFest hotline : 202-357-3030 .

By the way, the Kite Festival is also part of the larger National Cherry Blossom Festival, with all kinds of events all over DC. So this a perfect opportunity to do something for our sports and have a fun weekend at the same time!

Please reserve a place on your calendar for the Spring CHGPA general meeting, to be held at The Quarry House Tavern in Silver Spring.

More details about the agenda will be posted here as the date approaches. Note that the Quarry House has a dinner menu available. So you might want to stop by around 7:30 or so and grab a bite before the meeting.

Please come on out to support your club!! If this location does turn out to be a winner, a large crowd will certainly make the QHouse happy to have us.

Location

The Quarry House
Downtown Silver Spring
8401 Georgia Avenue
301-587-9406

Directions

• I-495 (Beltway)
• Take the Georgia Avenue exit (Rt 97 south, toward Silver Spring)
• Follow Georgia into downtown Silver Spring
• Watch for the Colesville Road intersection (Rt 29)
• Continue 2 blocks, passing Ellsworth and Wayne
• The third block is Bonifant Street
• Make a left onto Bonifant
• The Quarry House will be on your left, just after you turn.

The bar is in the basement, so look for the flight of stairs going down. A nearby bank has a parking lot, but we don't yet know if there are parking restrictions. If there are, it seems like there's a decent amount of street parking in the area.

The Quarry House is about a five minute walk from the Silver Spring metro stop.

Please reserve a place on your calendar for the January 25th CHGPA general meeting!

Prez Dan-the-Man has come up with another great idea for a meeting place: The Quarry House Tavern in Silver Spring. We'll have the dining room to ourselves, which should make the business part of the meeting easier to conduct. Perhaps the Quarry House will be 'the one', our new post-Lasick's location? Come on out and see!

The main purpose of our January meeting is elections, for the Board-Of-Directors positions which are opening up for 2006. We will also be leaning on members to renew for 2006, so please remember to bring your checkbooks! CHGPA annual awards will be presented, and some pilots will be recognized for 'firsts' in 2005. It will be a busy night!

Please come on out to support your club!! If this location does turn out to be a winner, a large crowd will certainly make the QHouse happy to have us.

Location

The Quarry House
Downtown Silver Spring
8401 Georgia Avenue
301-587-9406

Directions

• I-495 (Beltway)
• Take the Georgia Avenue exit (Rt 97 south, toward Silver Spring)
• Follow Georgia into downtown Silver Spring
• Watch for the Colesville Road intersection (Rt 29)
• Continue 2 blocks (passing Ellsworth and Wayne)
• The Quarry House is at the third block past Colesville, at Bonifant St