CHGA Meeting Minutes March 28, 2001 taken by Ed Reno

Pre meeting video:
Extreme Explorer "Earth, The Solar System's Most Dangerous Planet!": Floods, tornadoes, people getting struck by lightning. Horrifying yet compelling.

New Faces:
Sonna Hellick, one of John Middleton's students, a private pilot looking into paragliding.

Flight tales:
Marc and Ed related their XC's from the Pulpit.
Mike C told about his XC at WD and subsequent splashdown into a puddle OTB. Steve Kinsley's advice was 'In order to adequately assess conditions in an unknown LZ always wait until someone lands before you'. There are reportedly lots of pretty good LZ's OTB near Lurray.
Mark Cavanaugh reported on flying sailplanes in San Diego and Horse Canyon in Ca. He still likes HG much better: "It's much more visceral!"
Steve Kinsley had a low save at Manquin going from 350-3500.
Highland has a new tug that will do at 1100 fpm. Prepare for vertical towing!
Joe Gregor and Co. were successful at the Smithsonian Kite Fest. The weather shut things down around 3:30.
Tom McGowan accepted an award for Davis Straub at the Smithsonian. Davis Straub, who holds the HG distance record of 350 miles, was presented with a Notable Flight Achievement award by the Federation Auronautique Internotch-she-an-all (Must be French....meustbe). Tom held his audience rapt with stories and descriptions of HG, thermalling etc.
Steve Kinsley reports there are no Hang Checks at Lake Elsinore in Ca. Remarkable!
Local Pilot Dave Pretise was very picky about his cycles and reportedly spent 90 minutes on launch at Sandia and then BACKED OFF! He is now a Nationally Recognized POTATO, making us East Coast Pilots infamous by association. We are considering an award.
SilverWingsHangGliding.com has arrived!
By setting your GPS waypoint to Hagerstown Airport you can always tell when you are approaching the 5 mile no fly limit.

Officers' reports:
Treasurer reports that 49 people have re-upped (yes, that is a real word, no, I didn't check).

Next month the newsletter will have an application form. The following month non re-uppers will be taken off the mailing list!

Tee shirts are still available! Sorry, we are out of calendars. Our operating expenses are 4.4K/yr, so far we have 2.3K. We need more money.
(So what did you EXPECT the treasurer to say?) As of April 24 the Pulpit fund has $7045, $5300 of which is in a CD. MD club will be Pulpit Treasurers this year.

Buy that new 10min USHGA video! Cragin showed it to his mother and now she feels much better about his flying. My mom pounded in, destroying her pilot, and she is still enthusiastic. It's gotta make ya proud!

President at Large will schedule the next BOD meeting. Flight Director announces that the Pulpit Fly-in will be the 15th and 16th of Sept. MHGA says HR may be in the middle of August.

President reports that we are still looking for solutions to Fisher Rd LZ.

Remember to pay your Lasick's bill!

I know you all always wanted to know the fundamentals of hand gliding. Well, here is a depiction of the forces present during hand gliding. For further details of the underlying theory of hand gliding you can start by consulting a textbook like "Analytical Mechanics" by Grant R. Fowles. You can then continue your studies with "Low-Speed Aerodynamics" by Jospeph Katz.