Capital Hang Gliding
and Paragliding Assn
|
| Apr 2002 |   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 
|
Volume 40, Issue 4 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Pre-Flight
Ralph SickingerAhhh, Spring! When the days get warmer, flowers start to bloom, and a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of... FLYING! Of course, while everyone else is out flying and having fun, I'm stuck inside on a Saturday afternoon trying to put a newsletter together. <sigh> But, the hard work and long hours are all worthwhile, because I know I have hundreds of faithful readers out there, anxiously waiting for the next edition of "Skyline" to hit their mailboxes. (I don't really believe that, but it's what I keep telling myself while I'm working on the newsletter.) Right now, I'm trying to figure out what to do with the newsletter. I want to do new things with it, and make it better; I want the newsletter to serve the club membership, but I don't know exactly what that means. That's where you come in. I need to hear from you. I want to know what you like or don't like about Skyline; what to keep, what to change, and what you want more of. Please email your comments directly to me at skyline@chgpa.org. breathless, her chest heaving, she just stood there fascinated; she couldn't help but stare, as he slowly began to remove In the meantime, this issue has some new things, that I hope you'll like: first, we have a new banner, that better reflects our club's bi-wingual nature. Second, the newsletter is now available in two different electronic forms. You can still get the html version at http://go-get.com/skyline OR... you can get a PDF version at http://skyline.sickinger.net Check it out, and tell me what you think! So; getting back to my original thought... Spring also means America's favorite pastime has started up again. That's right, it's baseball season! Right now I'm listening to the O's game, and they're losing. Again. But you know, as I sit here listening to the game, I'm thinking about the different kinds of games that we Americans seem to enjoy. It occurs to me that most of our popular sports either involve hitting something, or throwing and catching stuff. (There's some weenie European sports that only involve kicking, but we won't go there...) Hang Gliding is no different; some of the best fun I've had comes from throwing people off of the Pulpit ramp. It's kind of like throwing paper airplanes off a balcony, only on a much larger scale. On any given weekend you can go out to the mountains and hear something like this:
"So, how fast do you think the wind is blowing?"
"I'd say 20-25..." "Are you kidding?! 15... tops!" "No way! You're out of your mind!" "Well, let's see; we can throw Brian off, and see if the wind blows him back..." "Hmmm... Ok, sounds like a good plan." ... "Way cool! I've never seen a Falcon fly inverted before! I guess maybe it IS blowing a little stronger than I thought... Oh well! You win some and you lose some. Who else can we throw off?" "How about some hang-2s? It's always fun to watch them thrash around after you let go of 'em." "Yeah... I know, let's throw Paul off; he'll fly in anything!" "Hey! He likes it! Maybe it's calming down some. Who else can we get?" "I know - Karen! I'll make some excuse about being a gentleman and letting ladies go first - the women always fall for that kind of stuff - and then we'll see what it's really like up there." ... "So, how's she doing?" "She's lookin' pretty good; she hasn't crashed, she hasn't puked, and she hasn't fallen out of the sky yet; I'd say conditions are pretty close to perfect." "All right! Time to do some flying ourselves! So, how'd we do today?" "I beat you, 4-3. Sorry, better luck next time!" "Yeah, you just wait until next weekend..."  Lauren Tjaden throws (pushes?) Carlos Weill off of the Pulpit (Photo by Ralph Sickinger) 
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
