Sonoma Wings Xmas Party 2011

 Leo Jones as a cockroach

 Tim Camacho as a rastafarian dragonfly

 Leo, Enie and Kurt

 Reavis and Anthony Abate hitting the chow

 Lots of good food

 Charlie Warren

Ernie captures the turkey award for flight at Hough Mt.

Oktoberfest McClure

Here's some shots of the MLSR president a couple days before the flyin!

I guess he didn't have his eyes open or something. The ones on his sail look cool though!!

He was a bit higher when he hit the branches, they bent and let him down too his tiptoes.

He broke a tipwand, but at least missed Dougs glider also a U2.

Will Brown in foreground.

Shannon Raby and I on the new synthetic grass breakdown area.

Nice!!

Lots of pilots showed up for the Flyin. Jon James was the only other Sonomawings pilot to show besides me.  Sat. it turned on late and pilots were getting 2500 over launch which is 2000'.

KM won the XC trophy with a big 3 miler into Coulterville. Brian Horgan won  speed gliding.

I had a great time as always.

Goat Rock

A couple of picts from a day where I was the only one out there. I launched at the south end by Peaked Hill. It was too strong to self launch at the north cliff.

Clouds started forming below me and I wanted to get a glory shot but didn't.

Russian River and Hwy 1 Bridge.

It got strong northy so I landed on the beach at the north end after 2hrs. Fun Day

Hot Air Ballooning in Moab

On my trip back from the midwest I stopped in Moab and checked out Lou Bartells Canyonlands Ballooning operation.

Lou firing up the burner on his 16 person 300,000 cu/ft. behemoth. He only had 11 paying passengers so he gave me a free ride.

We burned 78 galons of propane in 1.5hrs

Liftoff from Moab airport. Time stamp is still on Ca. time. It's actually 6:27

Sunshine through the clouds. We had a great ride and landed almost 16 miles from takeoff.

Thanks Lou.

Fly fishing for Muskies

No picts from the wedding but the fish made it into the camera.

My nephew Erik's proof that flyfishing for muskies is for real. I was doubtful when he told me that's what they do.

My first Muskie

Erik's roommate and fellow guide hooked this beauty. The fly is still in it's mouth. Barbless hooks are used and all fish were released.  Big fun!!

Hank Butzel

Hank unfortunately did a high speed downwind pass in his vintage sailplane  which led to a stall at around 400'. He spun to his death. He was a great guy and will be missed.

Hank at King Mt. Aug. 2011

King Mt. Glider Park

Alan Paylor landing his new to him Atos.

Full flaps.

I spent 10 days at John Kangas' King Mt. Glider Park attending the annual Safari. I had some good flights. One day I made Dell in a little over 2hrs. 70miles. My best flight happened on the day Hank crashed. It was along the route 2/3 border into Montana. It looked epic and I made good time to the north of the Centennial Valley, but then I pushed it too hard and ended up landing between the Snowcrest and Gravelly Ranges for 95 miles. Was also flying with only the mini vario for audio and this didn't help any.

Sweetwater

Shannon Raby, KM and I flew the Sweetwaters. My vario was not working, no sound and the altimeter was way off. We all managed to make it to Bridgeport and landed at the school yard.

You can see the plug from my helmet to my vario hanging in the breeze because it wasn't working. This is Bridgeport Reservoir with the town right in front of me. The Sierras in the background.

Walts Point/ July/ Mingus

KM and I flew Walts but there was a fire in backcountry and alot of smoke pouring into the valley.

We flew out to Lone Pine and landed at the airport because we couldn't get high enough to cross to the Inyo's. My vario blew a transducer also and said I was at -2000' when I landed.

KM and I went to Mingus for about a week also where he shot this pic of me launching the ramp.

No epic flights but some pretty good ones. I didn't take any photos this trip. Those can be found in my 2009 Mingus post in this blog.

More St. Helena Pics

How many gliders can you see?

A nice shot of the valley with Jane 's house right in front of me.







St. Helena 4/12/11

A good day at St. Helena. Reavis and I went XC into Pope Valley then past Berryessa. He landed on the Blue Ridge fairly high up, then relaunched and flew to a lower meadow . A bit of a hike got him to the road.

I flew through the Capay Valley gap at Hwy 20 and landed on the east side of the ridge.  John Dudley can be seen in the right hand lower corner of the picture below.

Here we are making the jump into Pope Valley from the Pinnacles southeast of the mountain.

I was hanging with Reavis because my radio wasn't working properly.