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May 1, 2024 at 9:55 PM in reply to: Group Morning Hike & Fly to Regionals, Saturday, May 4th, 2024! #20090
Good News! If you want to participate but you think your gear is too heavy, Sandy will be at the LZ at 7:30AM to load up the gear and she will drive it up to Regionals for you to make the hike a bit easier. If you don’t want to hike but you still want a morning flight, you can ride up with her.
Kathy has started up our “Wednesday Fly Day” mini event this year, which will keep going during spring, summer and fall. There should also be a late day shuttle on those days, going up at around 4:30PM.
We will be planning fly-ins when the weather is more consistent. We’re getting to that season now and I’m sure there will be event announcements as soon as the dates can be solidified. We will force ourselves to use the Events calendar on our website when we have those dates & plans ready. The club needs it, pilots want it and it will happen. 😎
Here’s how it works: When the election begins, every current “General” member receives a ballot in the e-mail they chose when they signed up to be a member. Whether they vote or not is up to them. The “Limited” and “Associate” members do not get a vote.
We have approximately 300 club members and only so many chose to vote. We can’t force anyone to participate. Those who care about what’s going on, they voted. We had about 30 days to vote and I posted reminders of the vote coming to an end soon.
We will announce the General member meeting via e-mail and on the forum when the time comes, so that everyone who wishes to participate, is able to. You do not have to wait for the meeting to suggest agenda items. In fact if there is something you want to suggest for the next meeting, you may do so now and we may be able to include it on the agenda for the upcoming meeting.
The vote information you see above is what we have. There are many more PGs in our club than HGs, but whether the PGs are as active during voting as HGs, is a guess for anyone to make. All votes are anonymous, so there’s no way to go back and see how any particular pilot voted.
Bille, please read my reply one more time. Hopefully you’ll see the answer you’re looking for.
Correct. I was told that the pilot came over the LZ too high, didn’t think he’d make the grass, and instead of going to the overshoot area to land safely, he unintentionally stalled his glider about 100-150ft and fell out of the sky with no pressure in the glider. It looked very bad to the witnesses present, but the pilot was extremely lucky to get away with just a dislocated elbow. It’s almost hard to believe.
When landing at AJX, every pilot needs to make sure they lose enough altitude between the house and the grass before their final approach. If the pilot finds him/herself still too high over the grass, please keep going to the overshoot area next to the parking lot. Yes, landing on the grass is great, but if that means doing S-turns over the grass or flapping your glider without knowing your stall point, even a bush landing is safer than what you’re attempting.
If any of you need help with the approach pattern, there are big posters explaining the approach patterns, as well as flyers you can take with you and study, located inside of a see-through plastic container, mounted to the shade structure wall. You may also ask any local pilot to help you understand it better.
Lastly, if you are flying at AJX, you are absolutely REQUIRED to have a current membership of CSS and USHPA before your flight begins. You may choose a cheaper limited option, or choose the year-long option, but you MUST have it. Not following these simple rules while taking advantage of our facilities is extremely selfish and disrespectful to all members who are contributing and trying to make it a better place for all. If this is something you make a habit of, you are endangering our site and will not be welcomed back.
Yes, Bob was kind enough to help us out. Gracie needs repair and we had to wait for the heavy rains to stop before renting a tractor. Grading the road before that would have washed away any progress.
In the meantime, pilots were using the neighbor’s fixed back road to get into AJX. Unfortunately one or two drivers didn’t respect the speed limit, which can cause damage to the fixed road, and this rightfully upset Bob.
The last thing we want to do is upset our neighbors, so Owen and Luke (? I believe) approached Bob about helping us fix our road in exchange for whatever compensation seemed fair. Bob turned down any payment from us and fixed the road on Friday last week.
We are extremely grateful to Bob for helping us out! I was told he’s a fan of Coors Light, if any of you would like to thank him personally. 😉
I’m glad this was resolved. Hopefully their road won’t be as busy and our pilots can get to AJX using the road they’re used to. We get more time to fix Gracie, or raise funds to buy a new tractor so that we can continue to keep our own roads graded.
Tom, I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you the way you hoped, but I’m glad you’ll still get to fly one way or another. Thanks for volunteering and at least giving it a try. I hope you heal up eventually, sooner than later, to a level where you can enjoy and once again immerse yourself in the things you love.
I too am super excited about Kathy running for Events this year. She’s helped out with SO many past events and has always done a great job. She takes it very seriously. Now we just need Nacho and Noel to come help BBQ at the next fly-in. 😜
Camping at AJX is not allowed at this time. We are still working with the DWR on reinstating it for CSS member pilots only, but unfortunately as of right now there is no news of it re-opening anytime soon. No idea if it will ever be available. It depends on whether or not the DWR will agree to let us bring it back someday.
Everyone is welcome to vote for whoever they think will do the best job. Being on the board is a thankless one, and worse. Anyone willing to take it upon themselves to run and stay on deserves a lot of credit, and I’m not talking about myself, because I feel like I do the least amount of work.
Luke has been doing an AMAZING job with very limited resources, so please have a little bit of respect. He drives out from San Diego to get to San Bernardino early in the morning, even when it’s not flyable, because he’s busy taking care of the grass, the shade structure, the tractor and the roads. He treats it as if it was his part time, almost full-time job, but without the pay. Where’s the thank you? Instead he gets to listen to criticism from some people who haven’t lifted a finger to make the place better.
Every decision we (the board) make TOGETHER is a result of thoroughly discussing the problem, weighing all of the options available, the club budget and the volunteer labor required to get the job done. We ask for volunteers and we can’t get people to show up for us. It’s always the same 5-10 people who take turns coming out and helping with projects. We have 300 members! Many of you should be very happy and grateful that someone stepped up and is taking over where Tim left off. It’s one of the hardest volunteer jobs in the club.
Bille, if you know of a natural way to get rid of gophers, please let us know. We don’t want to use poisons and we do not want to have to pay for professionals to come out and get it done. Unfortunately we just don’t have the manpower to keep up with the problem.
We’ve been talking about it for years and while people want to -sound- helpful, they’re just busy throwing out random ideas without showing up to help implement them. What’s your ex-wife’s number? We’ll get in touch and maybe she can fill us in on a better solution. Or maybe you can find out for us, show up and help us put it into action.
I would too, but this is an Airpark that’s leased from the state of California, it requires us to have site insurance, and site insurance has certain requirements in order to continue to provide coverage to us. Twisted ankles from landing or kiting into gopher holes is an issue.
If we had more people volunteering to help keep the gopher population down in some more eco-friendly way, that would be amazing. Unfortunately, out of 300 members, we have but a handful of people doing everything around the park! We have a lot of idea people, but we need more doers.
If you know of a safer, affordable, more effective method, we’re all ears!
Good question, and one that is on my mind as well (hence the warning). We are told that the pellets work quickly and that most of the gophers will die underground, where they can’t be reached by most animals and raptors.
However, I think it would be wise if we all did our due diligence to look around the LZ for possible dead gophers, so that we can dispose of them quickly and out of reach of animals. Since some of us can’t be at the LZ every day, it’s important that everyone pitch in and help if and when they can.
Our insurance policy is with “Prime”. Before Prime, we had a policy with “Next” insurance. We are currently working on going back to the RRRG and perhaps once again becoming a USHPA chapter. Jamie has spent a lot of her valuable time trying to secure a reasonable policy for the club. It hasn’t been easy or quick, but we are hopeful that eventually it works out for everyone involved.
As for the club not being a USHPA chapter, I can’t remember exactly why or how we fell away from it a few years ago, but there didn’t seem to be any tangible benefit to being a USHPA chapter, other than appearing on their list. Maybe that has changed since then.
As Jai Pal stated, although we are not a USHPA chapter at this time, every pilot flying and landing at AJX is required to have a current USHPA membership & rating, AND a current CSS club membership.
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