Like all events there were a few setbacks but it turned out to be a success and I believe all who attended learned something.

   The local Fire department volunteers from Hat Creek and Cassel were there as well as Burney Medical and a crew from the Cal Fire Burney Station.

   The Cal Fire Chief who was to run the training was called to a fire in Fresno with his crew the day before, and the Cal Fire chopper was on training elsewhere.

  Cal Fire Captain (and HG/PG pilot) Dennis Boic stepped up at the last minute and ran the class and training.

  The CHP chopper was early and was landed, on the spot, in LZ2.  The CHP chopper one of 2 based in Redding that serve the 11 Northern California counties. They conduct search and rescue operations and have an EMT and medical life saving equipment on board. They have a state of the art hoist system which was demonstrated for us by one of the local volunteers.

  In a search and rescue operation, or an extraction from a difficult spot, the CHP chopper and crew could be invaluable.  We are very lucky to have this available to us.

   Please support our local Hat Creek volunteer fire department. Attend the great BBQ July 15th 2017 at the Hereford Ranch RV park. These are the folks that will drop everything and come to our aid if needed.

  The Blue Balls 2017 event was postponed until Feb 4th. This date made for a small turnout as there was an important sports event on Feb 5th that a lot of pilots opted for, but they missed a fantastic fire, cameraderie and entertainment.

  The weather on Saturday was windy and rainy with no chance for launching and a rough ride for RC planes in LZ1.

  Sunday morning the wind had died down with high winds forecast again for later.  Dennis, Typo and myself all headed to launch around  10.30am and watched the wind blow over the back at about 5/6 mph. After a while it puffed up the front a few times, so I started to set up my glider as it was wet anyway and needed drying.  By the time I was set up the wind was coming in a little stronger and tending from the south.

  After launching in to a light south cross, I managed to climb out to around 1000' over where I was parked in my Falcon. I crept slowly out to LZ2 as LZ1 looked very uninviting  with the high South winds and large lake.

   LZ2 was the wettest I have ever seen it. There was a large tree down on the road to LZ2 and when I had mentioned on launch  that LZ1 looked a little treacherous in the conditions, Dennis assured me that if I landed in LZ2 he would cut the tree out to retrieve me.

  I heard the chainsaw going about 10 minutes after landing, and Typo was able to get through right as I was zipping up the bag.

  We spent the next hour cleaning up the debris and pulling the tree trunk off the road.

  Not an epic flight but quite fun. I was reluctant to stay in the air to long as the winds were picking up, but not to bad for my first Hat Creek flight of the year.

  Roger

https://vimeo.com/202855061

  Happy New Year

    The new year is here and with it some pretty cold and harsh conditions, but, some flying will be attempted at Hat Creek on Jan 21/22 at the Cloud Street Gang's 2017 Blue Balls Fly In. A tradition at Hat Creek for over 30 years. Last year some determined pilots got an hour or so of flying one of the days.  There will no doubt be many RC planes flying if no HG or PG can get airborne.

   I got to fly with Dennis on  Dec 27th with Typo assisting and driving (thanks) The wind looked quite hopeful while we were setting up, but it lightened up and we ended up with a quick flight to LZ1 but with some spectacular sunny snowy scenery which made it all worthwhile.

   We will be having a HCPA meeting Sunday Jan 22nd at a local restaurant to Hat Creek. Watch this space and the forum for which Restaurant, that will be (depending on weather).

   We were lucky not to have any serious accidents/incidents in 2016 (that I heard of) Let us all pull together and keep safety in mind for ourselves and our fellow pilots in 2017.

    Best of Lift

      Roger