Cool – Mitch has solved all of our problems: it is indeed LEGAL to fly a foot launch aircraft from anywhere in the San Bernardino national forest. Maybe all of the local students will start landing out in the wash or in the bushes then? Seems like a wonderful solution versus paying a small fee and landing on a huge grassy LZ.

“Easy inexpensive mechanism for any unrated non-members to acquire a 30 day temp novice membership” – this has been up for a year now. Before that, there was a day-use fee (which was $10). $20 for a month doesn’t seem out of control to me, especially for how expensive our flight gear is.

”vindictive control freak attention whoring” – that’s a super interesting position from someone that posts insults a lot on a flying club’s forum for a club to which he neither belongs nor contributes.

Thanks Mario!

Just my personal opinion, and while I think that would be helpful for voters, I think we’re too late in the game to reboot the whole election. Both candidates have had a couple of months now to issue statements to the club and/or make their case, but neither have chosen to do that (perhaps they should have been encouraged to do so? Maybe that should be SOP for all future elections if there are contested seats).

There are still 2 weeks left in the election though, so maybe both candidates would like to state their position on what they hope to accomplish with their role. There are a LOT of members that still have not voted – hopefully some of those plan to do so before the 5th. Also, if the candidates make their statements and any members wish to change their vote, they are welcome to email info@crestlinesoaring.org – I can’t change (or even look at) anyone’s vote, which maintains anonymity and prevents cheating, but I can void/cancel a ballot and reissue a new one.

Anyone else, feel free to chime in on this – if there’s a sizable group that wants to do a reboot, speak up.

I don’t see how I’m attacking a group that I’m asking for assistance from, so if I was I apologize – not my intent.

Many messages have been sent to USHPA/RRRG regarding our repeat offenders (that’s one of the responsibilities of my board position), but to date, no intervention has been deemed necessary.

As far as presenting all the facts – I have the pilot’s account of the incident, and I watched the whole thing from directly above, start to finish. I have gotten no other information from anyone that contradicts what’s in the incident report. I was just sent a text stating that the instructor was on launch and on radio with the student, but due to the LONG straight path the student flew directly to terrain and a LOT of time available to pipe up on the radio and tell that student to turn away from terrain, I’m at a loss on that. Up to USHPA or someone smarter than me to figure out what’s true.

I’m also really baffled by this continued “screw USHPA and RRRG and let them cancel our insurance and who cares if the site is shut down” attitude. I see a lot of complaining about safety issues (AJ, the approach pattern, HGs getting cut off, etc), but then hear from the same people that “don’t tell me what to do” thing. You can’t have it both ways. I feel like I’ve done what I could over the past year to improve our safety record, and better our relations with USHPA (since we’re one of the problem child clubs for obvious reasons), but am definitely ready to be out of club politics. I didn’t manage to move the needle so hopefully the next one in the chair will be better at it.

If anyone has any facts to add to the report, please send them in to safety@crestlinesoaring.org. Otherwise, let’s move the “future of the club” chit chat to another thread.

We do, and no action / explanation to date.

Student had no CSS membership. They do have a USHPA membership but no rating and they were flying unsupervised.

This is the second (very similar) incident (unrated pilot with no club membership flying unsupervised) with the same instructor in under a month.

Election time, pilots!

For all general members with voting privileges, you should be receiving a ballot by email in the next hour or so. The link in that email is specific to you, and can be used only once. Just like the other elections, all results are anonymous (no one can see who you voted for). The email address that the ballots go to are the same one you used to buy your general membership, so if you don’t get one, either check your spam folder or email info@crestlinesoaring.org (we’ll have to verify that you’re a current member to manually send you a ballot).

Thanks for your participation. Progress on votes submitted below:

Looks like CL wind speed is back on the menu!

It’s that time again. As promised above, we’re again asking all P2 and under pilots NOT to launch from Crestline unless YOUR instructor is present. Please respect  the rules of the road and either fly at a site that’s within your rating or get the appropriate rating if you have the skills and necessary requirements.